How does Rosberg stop Hamilton now?

Nico Rosberg has faced down a four-race Lewis Hamilton winning streak before, and lived to tell the tale. Back in May, he headed to Monaco having lost the world championship lead to a charging team-mate who was starting to look unbeatable.

Say what you want about what happened in Monte Carlo six months ago - with Rosberg's controversial off during qualifying denying his team-mate the opportunity to challenge for a crucial pole position - but you cannot deny that he found a way to turn it around.

Rosberg headed to Austin's Circuit of the Americas in a similar position. Hamilton had won the previous four races, in doing so turning a 29-point deficit into a 17-point advantage. The German did half the job, taking pole position after Hamilton suffered from a brake problem in qualifying, but he couldn't complete it.

Hamilton has seemed an increasingly unstoppable force ever since he pressured Rosberg into a mistake that cost him the lead in the Italian Grand Prix. Last weekend Rosberg had pole position, he led the first 23 laps and he had a healthy car. But despite the motive and opportunity, he didn't have the means to pull it off.

The difference between the pair was tiny - their respective fastest laps of the race, set at a similar time, were separated by just three thousandths of a second. Appropriately enough, this tiny margin fell in Hamilton's favour. Such tiny margins have invariably done so in recent races.

Even more significantly, the decisive moment in the race was again a minor error from Rosberg. For the third time in four races - following Monza and his massive lock-up at the first corner at Sochi when he as good as had the lead - Rosberg made it too easy for his team-mate.

Another mistake by Rosberg made things easier for Hamilton © XPB

Heading into the season, Rosberg's unflappability on-track and ability to juggle the mental demands of the ever-more-complex control systems of an F1 car were highlighted. Hamilton was expected to be the driver who made crucial operational errors, but it was Rosberg whose blunder offered Hamilton an open door to barge his way through.

As the pair barrelled down the back straight towards one of the heaviest braking zones in F1 - the Turn 12 left-hander - Rosberg felt he had it under control. Yes, Hamilton had the advantage of the DRS, augmented by his front wing being leaned off a little at his first pitstop. But a simple defensive squirt of extra ERS power would keep Rosberg out of reach.

"I made a mistake because I used the wrong thing to get more KERS," explained Rosberg (using the pre-2014 terminology for hybrid power rather than its K-less successor).

"When I saw him coming, I decided to go for extra boost, but I never got it. I thought I was using the right thing, but there was a delay in that one. If I did it with a button, it would be immediate, but with a switch there is a delay so I never got the extra KERS. I had a big drop-off, which is why in the last metres he got a good jump on me."

The expectation of a power boost that never came meant that Rosberg did not defend emphatically. Hamilton sensed his chance and, with remarkable sang froid for someone who knew there was so much at stake, sent his Mercedes up the inside. Rosberg had let slip his hard-won advantage.

He made a half-hearted attempt to close the door, hoping that the mere threat would be enough to make Hamilton back out of it. But it wasn't enough. Hamilton had the inside and gave Rosberg no opportunity to come back at him after the exit, forcing him to run over the exit kerb to avoid the risk of a collision. That was probably the price Rosberg had to pay for the clash at Spa, for he could not afford to be involved in a second such incident.

But the mistake with ERS wasn't the only factor behind the change of lead. Rosberg admitted that he wasn't quite into the swing of things in the first half of the race, and appeared to be taking it a little too cautiously on his early laps having switched to the medium rubber. All of that meant that Hamilton was able to close up on him and mount an attack.

After losing the lead, he shadowed Hamilton but was never able to get close enough to have any chance of doing anything about his nemesis. He had been plenty fast enough, perhaps just as fast as Hamilton. But Rosberg had left himself exposed and his error made him vulnerable.

Having gained track position, Hamilton was never going to let that advantage slip. He even claimed that he expected to win long before he took the lead.

"I went into the race thinking I need another race like 2012 and it was just like that," said Hamilton. "I was catching him through exactly the same points at which I was catching Sebastian [Vettel, two years ago]. There wasn't a moment in the race when I didn't think that I would get him.

Hamilton was very much in control after passing Rosberg © LAT

"Once I was past, I was able to relax for a second and really try to manage the tyres, because I knew that perhaps he would push at some other point. So I was always having to respond."

The only difference with 2012 was that Hamilton didn't have the assistance of a backmarker to make his move on Rosberg. Six years to the day since he clinched his only (or should that be first?) world championship at Interlagos, Hamilton was able to reel in his team-mate on pure pace. It was a consummate win.

The calm, calculating Hamilton is a figure who has come a long way since that first title win. In the 2008 Japanese GP, Hamilton's impatience led to him attempting to outbrake everyone at the first corner at Fuji. Even a few months ago, he was making some crucial mistakes in qualifying that were allowing Rosberg to rack up a healthy points lead.

But now, his utter conviction that he is the best seems to be tempered by the recognition that he doesn't have to force the issue. By contrast, Rosberg can't fail to recognise that he is running out of time to break through the fortifications of a team-mate who looks as strong as he has ever been.

What Rosberg would have given to have shown a little of the mettle exhibited by the driver who shared the podium with the Mercedes drivers... For, once again, it was Daniel Ricciardo who excelled with a brilliantly executed drive from seventh to third.

We have become so used to the beaming Australian's excellence this season that it scarcely seems worth mentioning. But this race exemplified the qualities that he has brought to Red Bull in 2014. His speed is a given, but it's his ability to nail it at every pressure point that impresses so much. It's hard to imagine Ricciardo ceding victory to Hamilton had he been in a Mercedes.

Ricciardo showed his full range of racing skills, save perhaps for the ability to ace the start. This has been something of a weakness, perhaps the only one he has shown this year, and the Australian admitted that finger trouble compromised the start procedure. But his recovery was breathtaking.

It took all of half a lap to dispose of Kevin Magnussen's McLaren, but the safety car meant he had to wait before attacking Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard is hardly the easiest driver in the field to pass, but Ricciardo mugged him as if ambushing a rookie by sending his Red Bull up the inside into Turn 1 at the restart. In doing so, he came perilously close to hitting the back of Valtteri Bottas's Williams. But he got away with it, collecting a rear-end moment in the process and emerging with fifth place in the bag.

"I saw Fernando cover a bit, but it's so wide at Turn 1 I knew there was a bit more room on the inside," said Ricciardo. "I guess I committed to that, already out of the last corner when I knew I was close enough. But then Valtteri cut in late. I was very shallow on the apex and I nearly collected the Williams. I'm sure Fernando was watching me and saying, 'It's all over here, he braked too late, silly boy.' It was close but that worked well."

Ricciardo was flawless once again as he carved through the field © LAT

Alonso won't have worried too much, for he wasn't really racing Ricciardo. The fact that he ended up in sixth place, cast adrift from the top five by over one minute, proved that. No wonder he has been dreaming of getting into one of the silver machines - and not the ones from Woking.

But what Ricciardo produced was brilliantly efficient racing, wasting no time in making up for that poor start. It meant that he gave away no time to the two Williams machines of Bottas and third-placed Felipe Massa, and he could get on with the job of getting ahead of them. Given the prodigious straightline speed of the Mercedes-powered Martini machines, this was going to require a very different approach.

Two immaculately executed undercuts were all it took for Ricciardo to jump Bottas and then Massa. The Brazilian's slow stop and loss of time late in the in-lap helped him out, but again Ricciardo showed himself to be impervious to pressure and was ideally placed to capitalise on the time lost. The result was his eighth top-three finish of the season.

There were those who were sceptical when the Australian was chosen by Red Bull ahead of more experienced candidates, such as Kimi Raikkonen. But even those who knew he was the right choice and had high expectations of him have been surprised by how quickly Ricciardo has adapted to life at the front.

With Rosberg seemingly tightening up as the stresses and strains of the championship run-in become ever more intense, what would he give for a little of the freedom that characterises Ricciardo's no-fear approach to F1?

The question now is what can Rosberg do in the final two showdowns with Hamilton? His fundamental pace isn't the problem; he has shown that very often he is able to live with a man justifiably rated as one of the quickest, if not the quickest, in F1. But Rosberg has to drive home his advantages more ruthlessly. But how?

"Same approach from me," said Rosberg of how he would handle the deciding two races. "Fully committed, full attack, try and be on pole in qualifying and then win Interlagos and that's it. There are still many points to be had and a lot can still happen."

The trouble is, Rosberg can't simply do the same thing. Even when he has taken pole position, which he has done more often than Hamilton this year, things have often not gone as he'd hoped.

When both have finished, he has only been ahead three times in 17 races. Even if Rosberg wins in both Brazil and Abu Dhabi, Hamilton can make sure of the championship with a couple of second places.

Rosberg has surprised us before, and could do so again. It's just that turning the swell of the Hamilton tide this time is going to be harder than ever before.