Lewis Hamilton achieved his 50th victory in Formula 1, leading his championship rival Nico Rosberg at the Circuit of the Americans.
The reigning world champion, who has won four times at Austin to add to his 2007 US Grand Prix success at Indianapolis, finished 4.5 seconds ahead of Mercedes team-mate Rosberg, with Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo third.
Rosberg’s championship lead has been cut to 26 points over Hamilton, but it could have been more as Ricciardo and team-mate Max Verstappen had an opportunity in upsetting the Mercedes one-two.
Hamilton and Rosberg made clean starts, although Ricciardo took advantage of the wide first corner to get alongside Rosberg, ultimately completing the pass around the outside through Turn 2.
Verstappen, who passed Kimi Raikkonen on lap 12 to claim fourth, then began to push Rosberg who found himself sandwiched between the Red Bull pair.
But Verstappen’s race unravelled from lap 26 when he mistakenly thought he had been called into the pits, with his crew not ready when he arrived.
Three laps later Verstappen suffered a gearbox failure, and he tried to get his car back to the pits rather than stopping trackside.
When Verstappen eventually parked up, the virtual safety car was deployed, which gave Mercedes pair Hamilton and Rosberg what Ricciardo described as “a free stop”.
Having stopped for a second time on lap 25, before the virtual safety car, Ricciardo therefore found himself third, losing what Red Bull estimated to be ten seconds to Rosberg thanks to the virtual safety car.
From that point on the top three positions were sealed, with Ricciardo safe in third as Raikkonen was on a three-stop strategy and had another stop to make.
Raikkonen’s third stop led to the end of his race though, as he pulled away too quickly, with the right-rear tyre gun yanked off in the process.
As Raikkonen began to climb up the hill out of the pitlane he was forced to pull over after being told to stop, from where he rolled his car back down the slope and out of harm’s way.
Raikkonen was the fourth retirement of the race, with Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg first out after a Turn 1 collision with Valtteri Bottas in his Williams, sustaining trackrod damage with his car unable to turn left.
Bottas suffered a right-rear puncture that dropped him to the back of the field, and after an early pitstop he could only manage P16.
Along with Verstappen, Esteban Gutierrez was the other driver to retire after 18 laps with what appeared to be a brake problem that led to him going off at Turn 11.
Behind the leading trio, Vettel salvaged fourth for Ferrari, with Fernando Alonso fifth for McLaren after passing Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz on the penultimate lap of the 56.
Alonso, though, is under investigation for an incident with Felipe Massa on lap 54 that led to a front-left puncture for the Williams driver, who managed to hang on to seventh ahead of Sergio Perez.
The Force India driver suffered a lap one spin after an incident with Daniil Kvyat that led to a ten-second time penalty for the Russian who finished P12.
Jenson Button and Romain Grosjean were ninth and tenth, the latter claiming a point for Haas at the team’s maiden home race.
United States Grand Prix, race result after 56 laps:
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 56 1h38m12.618s
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 56 4.520s
3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 56 19.692s
4 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 56 43.134s
5 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 56 1m33.953s
6 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso-Ferrari 56 1m36.124s
7 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 55 1 Lap
8 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 55 1 Lap
9 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda 55 1 Lap
10 Romain Grosjean Haas-Ferrari 55 1 Lap
11 Kevin Magnussen Renault 55 1 Lap
12 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Ferrari 55 1 Lap
13 Jolyon Palmer Renault 55 1 Lap
14 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 55 1 Lap
15 Felipe Nasr Sauber-Ferrari 55 1 Lap
16 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 55 1 Lap
17 Pascal Wehrlein Manor-Mercedes 55 1 Lap
18 Esteban Ocon Manor-Mercedes 54 2 Laps
– Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 38 Retirement
– Max Verstappen Red Bull-Renault 28 Gearbox
– Esteban Gutierrez Haas/Ferrari 16 Retirement
– Nico Hulkenberg Force India/Mercedes 1 Collision
Drivers’ standings:
1 Nico Rosberg 331
2 Lewis Hamilton 305
3 Daniel Ricciardo 227
4 Sebastian Vettel 177
5 Kimi Raikkonen 170
6 Max Verstappen 165
7 Sergio Perez 84
8 Valtteri Bottas 81
9 Nico Hulkenberg 54
10 Fernando Alonso 52
11 Felipe Massa 49
12 Carlos Sainz 38
13 Romain Grosjean 29
14 Daniil Kvyat 25
15 Jenson Button 21
16 Kevin Magnussen 7
17 Jolyon Palmer 1
18 Pascal Wehrlein 1
19 Stoffel Vandoorne 1
20 Esteban Gutierrez 0
21 Marcus Ericsson 0
22 Felipe Nasr 0
23 Rio Haryanto 0
24 Esteban Ocon 0
Constructors’ standings:
1 Mercedes 636
2 Red Bull-Renault 400
3 Ferrari 347
4 Force India-Mercedes 138
5 Williams-Mercedes 130
6 McLaren-Honda 74
7 Toro Rosso-Ferrari 55
8 Haas-Ferrari 29
9 Renault 8
10 Manor-Mercedes 1
11 Sauber-Ferrari 0
Next race: Mexican Grand Prix, October 26-30.