Lewis Hamilton Gets A Hat Trick – Wins Third Formula One Title

Lewis Hamilton has won his third Formula One title to become the 2015 Formula One champion. The 30-year-old Englishman took the title and his tenth win of the year in a frantic final 10 laps, vying for the win with his German team mate, Nico Rosberg. Lewis Hamilton has looked to be on track to win the Formula One title all year, but this race at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin Texas didn’t look to be going his way.

The race started wet, with the track being affected by the edge of Hurricane Patricia. The starting positions had Nico Rosberg at pole and Lewis Hamilton in second behind him, but Hamilton took the lead at the first corner, forcing Rosberg into a position which allowed the two Red Bull drivers, Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo, to edge the unfortunate German into fourth. The wet track forced drivers to change to treaded intermediate tires, a configuration which seemed to heavily favor the Red Bull cars. This situation caused Hamilton to come under repeated attack from Kyvat and Ricciardo for the first 19 laps, with the lead swapping between Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardio.

Eventually, however, the sun broke out, and on dry weather treys the Mercedes team had the Red Bull cars outpaced. The race then developed into a duel between the Mercedes team drivers, Lewis Hamilton, and Nico Rosberg. At first, it looked as if the race would go to Rosberg, with Hamilton struggling to gain an advantage against him. The introduction of a safety period where a stalled car needed to be removed from the track afforded Rosberg the opportunity to get fresh tires – an opportunity Lewis Hamilton didn’t take. Though Hamilton was still in the lead, Rosberg proceeded to drive out of his skin, pulling off a performance, which many commentators, including the BBC, judged to be the best of his career. With 15 laps to go, Hamilton looked to be in danger of losing to his team mate, who was pushing hard from his initial position behind Ferrari driver Vettel.

All this time, however, the Red Bull drivers had been pushing hard. In the case of Daniil Kyvat, it was too hard, causing him to suffer a race-ending crash. The subsequent safety car period allowed Hamilton a chance to pit and change to fresh tyres. Lewis Hamilton came out of the pits pushing hard, rapidly catching up with his team mate and apparently forcing him into an error on turn 12, a hairpin at the end of a long straight. Rosberg lost traction on this turn and Hamilton swept past him with eight laps to go. For the rest of the race, Lewis Hamilton held off his team mate with ease.

Hamilton was informed of winning the title while he was still on his slowdown lap. He appeared lost for words and overcome with emotion at first, but was eventually able to respond with thanks to his team, family and friends. Once his slowdown lap was complete, Hamilton drove down to the stadium section to perform some crowd-pleasing doughnuts before heading back to the pits for the awards ceremony.

Speaking to Elton John during the podium interviews, Lewis Hamilton showed that despite his long string of individual wins and his two other titles, he is still deeply affected by winning his third Formula One title.

“Amazing. I can’t find the right words to tell you how amazing this feels.”

Lewis Hamilton becomes only the second British driver to win three Formula One titles. The only other driver from the U.K. to do so was the legendary Sir Jackie Stewart.

[Photo by Getty Images/Lars Baron]