The result means that Rosberg’s championship lead stands at just 12 points with just 25 remaining in the final race in Abu Dhabi. It is Hamilton’s 52nd win in the sport and leaves just one track on the calendar, in Baku, where he has never won at in his career.
With Mercedes claiming a full 43 points for the third consecutive race, the team have moved onto 722 points in the Constructors’ Championship, a new record for most points claimed in one season as they beat their own total of 703 from last season.
The race started in wet conditions, with Romain Grosjean immediately causing drama after crashing out while driving to the grid after securing Haas’ best qualifying position of seventh. The race start was delayed by 10 minutes before starting under the safety car.
Safety Car driver Bernd Maylander led the cars through the track for the initial seven laps before entering the pit lane and allowing Hamilton to drive off into an immediate two second lead over his teammate Rosberg.
As the race restarted, Williams’ Felipe Massa passed Esteban Gutierrez before the Safety Car line, earning a five-second time penalty from the stewards for the indiscretion. Verstappen made an immediate impression on the race by passing Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen up the inside at Turn 1 and moving into third.
Renault’s Kevin Magnussen became the first of many midfield cars to switch from full wets to intermediates, however, these tyres appeared not to be the correct tyre for the conditions as Drivers were going noticeably slower than those on full wets.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel spun after aquaplaning on lap 10, coming back out in ninth after pitting immediately and a problem with the rear right tyre being slow onto his car.
The Safety Car returned to the track on lap 13 as Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson crashed in the kinks going up the hill after aquaplaning. His heavily damaged car falling stationary at the entry of the pit lane forced Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo to swerve around the Sauber as they pitted for tyres.
However, Ricciardo’s stop came just as the pit lane was closed by the stewards, another indiscretion which would earn the Australian a five-second time penalty.
Just as the Safety Car came in for the second time it was called for a third time as Kimi Raikkonen, who was behind both Mercedes, had a dramatic crash coming onto the main straight. The Finn aquaplaned right and into the wall and luckily managing to avoid being collected by other drivers as his car speared across the racing line to the left-hand side of the track.
His front wing came off and pieces were collected by the front of Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India car, while Manor’s Esteban Ocon had to take evasive action to avoid the Ferrari.
Renault’s Jolyon Palmer also had an initially unseen collision with Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat and did not return to the track at the restart, his car spending the rest of the race in the garage.
After eight laps under the Safety Car, the race was surprisingly red-flagged for a second time. “The track is fine,” leader Hamilton said over team radio in response.
Verstappen also agreed with his racing rival. “The conditions are much better than before,” the Dutch driver said. The order was interestingly mixed at this stage, with Sauber’s Felipe Nasr and Manor’s Esteban Ocon and Pascal Wehrlein all in the points.
The race got back underway again under the Safety Car with all cars on full wets until lap 31 Hamilton led another restart on lap 31.
Verstappen superbly pulled off another overtaking manoeuvre to pass Rosberg for second around the outside of Turn 3. For a number of laps after the restart, some of the faster cars outside of the points made moves to get back up to the sharp end of the order, with flashpoints coming around laps 42 to 44.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel moved from 15th up to the points positions, passing McLaren’s Fernando Alonso for seventh with the Spaniard believing that he was pushed off track by the German. A similar belief was held by Ocon as Hulkenberg completed a similar pass to claim ninth place and continue moving up the order himself.
Despite Force India’s Sergio Perez’s race engineer informing him of heavier rain being expected in ‘five minutes’ on lap 41, Ricciardo pitted, served his penalty and moving from full wets onto intermediates. Verstappen followed his teammate into the pits on lap 43 as the Red Bull’s started setting interestingly fast lap times. More rainfall did not seem to be a problem for the drivers.
Hamilton stretched a gap out to over 18 seconds over teammate Rosberg until the Safety Car came out again as Felipe Massa crashed out of his final home race. The Brazilian ran wide out of the final corner with his right front tyre colliding with the wall.
Massa took the time to accept the cheers from the crowd and unveil a Brazilian flag to his fans, while there were many similar flags on show in the Williams garage.
The pit lane quickly opened as both Red Bull cars made pit stops back onto full wet tyres. The move demoted both Ricciardo and Verstappen shockingly out of the points, in 11th and 16th, as Hamilton prepared to restart yet again.
The Brit had another decent restart to keep the lead as Vettel moved up to fifth ahead of Nasr. Ocon also moved up to eighth and Ricciardo inherited 10th place as Alonso spun as the race restarted.
The final 16 laps saw both Red Bull’s fly through the field as Verstappen and Ricciardo recovered some of the positions they had lost.
But out front, Hamilton went on to win by 11 seconds ahead of Rosberg as Verstappen fought back all the way to third with much better grip on his newer tyres than cars around him. He again showed off his superb array of overtaking skills to pass his way to the podium.
Verstappen made a late pass on Force India’s Sergio Perez, as the Mexican took fourth, ahead of Vettel. Carlos Sainz claimed a career-best finish of sixth as Hulkenberg, Ricciardo, Nasr and Alonso completed the points.
It is Nasr’s first points of 2016 as Sauber move ahead of Manor into tenth place in the Constructors’ championship and also means every team has scored points for the first time since 2009.
Bottas finished outside the points in 11th with Ocon falling to 12th late on. Magnussen, Wehrlein and McLaren’s Jenson Button, who was complaining about his car throughout the race, were the final finishers.
Gutierrez retired on lap 62 by pitting, joining Massa, Palmer, Raikkonen and Ericsson as the five retirements from the race. Grosjean failed to start the race, the second time he has not started a race in 2016 after doing so in Singapore.
