World Championship glory for Hamilton

But he seized his chance to charge through when Rosberg briefly lost the rear of his auto at Turn 14 and Hamilton raced through and on to glory.

“I want to say a huge thank you to all the crowd for standing out here in the rain…” “It was lots of fun out there I think for all of us”. We need to look into it but that was really, really tough at the time to lose the lead like that and to lose the win.

The disappointed German finished second behind his Mercedes team-mate after starting from pole position and blamed himself for losing the race with an unforced error late in the race.

Suggested to Wolff that the situation had the potential to repeat what followed their Belgian clash 14 months ago, in which Rosberg collided with Hamilton, he replied: “Yes, if we don’t take any action”.

The German was leading when he ran wide with seven laps to go, a mistake that allowed Hamilton to blast past and take the victory.

Hamilton, who became the first British driver to retain the championship, then turned to his Mercedes team and race fans and said: “I love you guys and everything you do for me”. Head down, he crouched beside his auto for several seconds. All the way I was thinking the championship is there somewhere-how can I get it?

He was congratulated on the podium by singer Sir Elton John who said: “What a race!”

“[I will] celebrate the world champion, let a couple of days pass, let the emotion cool down and have a chat”.

Rain disrupted practices and canceled qualifying.

The grid places were decided by the positions in the second of the three qualifying sessions after the final phase was delayed and then canceled.

The race was marred with misfortunes, first with qualifying and race day being rolled into a single day due to torrential downpour caused by Hurricane Partricia. Because of the slick conditions, the qualifier was trimmed from three sessions to two.

Hamilton took the checkered flag ahead of Rosberg.

The afternoon race featured three different leaders.

In a scene which summed up his faltering season, Rosberg was left trailing on the run-off area and both Red Bulls of Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo as well as the Force India of Sergio Perez went by. Once the circuit dried, the powerful Mercedes engines were dominant.

“It was an extraordinary race”, Hamilton said.