Mexican GP: Lewis Hamilton Cruises wins title to keep championship hopes alive

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Lewis Hamilton Cruises wins title to keep championship hopes alive | Image: Twitter @ Lewis Hamilton

Internet Desk: It cannot get any closer than this as the race for F1 championship gets heated up with both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Roseberg in race. The Briton on Sunday was crowned the champion of Mexican Grand Prix and has cut down the lead with his Mercedes team-mate to 19 with just two races remaining.

Rosberg can still win the title by finishing second to Hamilton at the last two races of the season.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was handed a ten-second time penalty for driving ‘dangerously’ while defending fourth place from Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo in the closing stages of Sunday’s race in Mexico City.

It means Vettel dropped from third to fifth in the final classification, with Ricciardo moving up to third and Red Bull team mate Max Verstappen – who earlier had five seconds added to his race time for going off track and gaining an advantage whilst battling the four-time champion – to fourth.

Hamilton dominated the race from the start till the end in front of 135000 fans. The Briton’s season has been plagued by engine troubles and slow starts but, for the second race in succession, the triple world champion got the perfect getaway to retain the lead on the near 1,000-metre run down to turn one.

But perhaps preoccupied with keeping Rosberg behind, Hamilton locked his front-right tyre and ran on to the grass. He essentially missed out the opening four turns before rejoining the track but, as Rosberg and Verstappen banged wheels behind him – a coming together which was declared a racing incident following an investigation by the stewards – he remained in the lead. Despite being bumped on to the grass, Rosberg retained second ahead of Verstappen. Verstappen was stripped of his podium place following a timed penalty which promoted Vettel to third and Daniel Ricciardo to fourth.

Hamilton took the chequered flag a distant eight seconds ahead of Rosberg to move alongside four-time world champion Alain Prost, into second on the all-time winners’ list.