Lewis Hamilton takes his first win after summer break at Austin ahead of Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo.
Lewis Hamilton started from pole position ahead of Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo, the Australian being the only driver in the top 4 to start with super-soft tyres.
Good getaway from Hamilton who benefited from Ricciardo overtaking Rosberg at turn one when Bottas and Hulkenberg collided, forcing both of them to go through the pits and the German driver to retire. Kvyat and Perez also collided while Verstappen was getting passed by Raikkonen for fourth place.
Ricciardo and Raikkonen were the first to stop at the end of the eighth lap to get new soft tyres. Verstappen pitted one lap later for soft tyres. Rosberg then pitted for medium tyres while Hamilton pitted for soft tyres, the German decided to change of strategy compared to his teammate.
On lap 13, Verstappen overtook Raikkonen for provisional fifth place. A ten-second penalty was awarded to Kvyat for a collision. Vettel was the last lead driver to pit on lap 14 for soft tyres. Gutierrez faced brakes problems while Verstappen less that one second away from Rosberg but could not overtake him.
Raikkonen opened the second pitstop window on lap 24 with super-softs. Ricciardo stopped one lap later for Ricciardo. Verstappen caught his team unaware of his stop and lost more than ten seconds into the pits.
The same Verstappen found himself slowing down on track on lap 30, complaining about an engine failure. He stopped his car alongside the tyre wall and the VSC got on track. Hamilton and Rosberg benefited from that incident to pit for mediums. Vettel complained of a huge problem on his rear wing which gave him a lot of oversteer.
After his third pitstop, Raikkonen stopped in the exit because of a lose tyre and had to retire. In the last ten laps, the battle for fifth place was tough between heroic Sainz with used soft tyres, Massa and Alonso on medium tyres. With four laps to go, former Ferrari teammates touched and Alonso passed Massa.
With three laps to go, Vettel pitted to go out with super-soft as he had a comfortable margin to Sainz, the Spaniard getting overtaken by his fellow countryman in the last lap. Massa had to pit following a puncture.
Lewis Hamilton won the American Grand Prix ahead of Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo. Vettel, Alonso (under investigation), Sainz, Massa, Perez, Button and Grosjean completed the top 10. In the championship, Rosberg had 26 points more than Hamilton and could claim the championship as soon as the next GP at Mexico.
