Hamilton clinches fourth title and Magnussen seals more points

There were celebrations in Mexico and Brackley over night after Lewis Hamilton clinched a fourth FIA F1 World Championship.
Lewis Hamilton clinched his fourth title in MexicoLewis Hamilton clinched his fourth title in Mexico
Lewis Hamilton clinched his fourth title in Mexico

Despite finishing an uncharacteristic ninth, the Mercedes AMG Petronas driver clinched his fourth title after rival Sebastian Vettel could only finish fourth.

Hamilton’s 56-point lead in the drivers standings is unassailable with two races still remaining. He joins Vettel and Alain Prost as four-time champions and trails only Juan Manuel Fangio with five and Michael Schumacher with seven for most all-time.

Brackley team-mate Valtteri Bottas came second behind the winner Red Bull’s Max Verstappen at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

Despite struggling to find speed and grip throughout the race in practice and qualifying sessions, the Haas F1 Team rallied to score a points-paying finish for the 11th time this season thanks to an eighth-place drive by Kevin Magnussen.

He climbed to as high as sixth by lap 20 after Sergio Perez brought his Force India to the pits on lap 19 and Nico Hulkenberg did the same with his Renault on the following lap. But by lap 30, Perez had caught back up to Magnussen and moved up to sixth.

Magnussen had built up a substantial gap on ninth-place Alonso with Hamilton closing in. Hamilton finally got past Alonso and promptly set his sights on Magnussen.

The Banbury team’s driver extracted everything available from his Haas VF-17 to hold off Hamilton and cross the stripe in eighth place to earn his fifth top-ten finish of the season. Grosjean finished 15th.

Like his Enstone team-mate, Carlos Sainz had to retire from the race.