Lewis Hamilton hands over title as a victor

In one last role of the dice, race leader Hamilton slowed his pace so that Rosberg would come under pressure from Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen in the final laps of the race.

After missing out on a third straight F1 title and fourth overall, Hamilton will be hugely motivated next year.

Rosberg needed to overtake Verstappen, the youngest driver to win an F1 race who has earned a reputation for his risky, borderline unsafe overtaking and has upset other drivers this season.

“I am actually in the lead right now”, said Hamilton. He added, “I did everything I could”.

Max Verstappen had a scare at the first turn, which dropped him to the bottom of the order.

“It wasn’t the knowledge that we have let them race over the last three years, we could have had a much smoother run and decided “you are going to win or you or going to win”.

“I didn’t understand it”.

As he and Rosberg jostled for second place, they twice nearly came into contact, but Rosberg showed great courage to then overtake him.

After finally getting the better of longtime rival Lewis Hamilton to become Formula One champion, the weight is off Nico Rosberg’s shoulders and he has the chance to really show what he can do. During his 17 consecutive seasons, he won the World Driver’s Championship in 2009, and has notched up 15 wins in total, with 50 podium finishes. I did everything with the opportunities I had.

“Obviously we had a lot of problems this year, and that’s inevitably why I’m in this position”, Hamilton said as Rosberg sat next to him in Sunday’s post-race news conference.

“We are out there fighting, we’re drivers and you can understand he wants to try something”.

“It was tricky at the end there with Lewis playing some dirty tricks”, commented four-times champion Vettel over the radio. But Hamilton only employed the tactic after the second and final round of pit-stops, leaving Mercedes powerless once the Englishman then refused to obey their instructions, escalating in gravity, when told to speed up.

MERCEDES BOSS TOTO Wolff is considering how best to respond after Lewis Hamilton rejected team orders during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

“We can just leave it at that”.

With just 1.6secs covering the top four of Hamilton – who reeled off his 10th win of the season – Rosberg, Vettel and the impressive one-stopping Verstappen, Ricciardo and Raikkonen came home a lonely fifth and sixth as different strategies came into play.

“Winning the race wasn’t going to be enough for him”.

For most, Nico Rosberg is an unlikely champion. Maybe you would have launched yourself for an overtake.

“You can not invent a rule for every single situation”.

The highest authority is Paddy Lowe, the technical director.

“Those principles and values have won us races and championships and so this is one side”.

“This is what makes F1 exciting in the way that we are constructed to have a conflict between what a team wants and what two individual drivers want”.

“So you can not really compare the eggs – the eggs looked the same but they were quite different in those days”.

Were his tyres giving way (as he claimed), or was he happy to “help” compatriot Rosberg win the 2016 championship, and not let Hamilton equal his record of being a quadruple world champion?