Austin stats - Hamilton becomes Britain's record winner

There seems to be no stopping Lewis Hamilton at the moment. In Austin on Sunday the Mercedes driver did something he’d never previously done - he won a fifth successive race. Not even four-time champion Alain Prost nor three-time champion Ayrton Senna managed that.

Hamilton - who has not been beaten since Belgium in August - now has 10 wins for the season, but more significantly he has moved onto 32 career triumphs, overhauling the previous British record holder Nigel Mansell in the process.

Only Michael Schumacher (91), Prost (51), Senna (41) and Sebastian Vettel (39) have more career victories than Hamilton, who now has the same number as great rival Fernando Alonso. Incidentally, Hamilton's US win came six years to the day that he claimed his only world title, at Brazil in 2008.

Hamilton’s lead in the championship now stands at 24 points, the biggest margin it has been all season, although with 75 points still available, Nico Rosberg - who finished second for the 10th time this year, an F1 record for a single season - is still in with a chance of stealing the championship.

With their tenth one-two of the year, Mercedes have now tied McLaren’s 1988 record for the most one-twos in a season - and they still have two races in which to make it their own. The Silver Arrows have taken 14 victories this season and need only one more to tie McLaren (1988) and Ferrari (2002 and 2004) for the most wins in a calendar year.

Behind Hamilton and Rosberg, Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo scored his eighth podium position - and fifth third place - of the year, but despite his valiant efforts he is now mathematically out of contention for the world title.

Ricciardo’s team mate, Sebastian Vettel, had an equally noteworthy race, coming home seventh after starting from the pit lane and making four pit stops. Incidentally, in Saturday’s qualifying session the world champion was knocked out in Q1 for the first time in 94 races. The last time he failed to get into Q2 was at the 2009 Brazilian Grand Prix.

Fourth and fifth places for Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas gave Williams 22 points - their third best score of the year, and the most points they’ve scored since Italy. The Grove-based team now have a 42-point lead over Ferrari in the battle for third place in the constructors’ standings.

Elsewhere, it was a fantastic day for Pastor Maldonado who survived two five-second stop-go penalties to score his first world championship point of the season (and his first for Lotus). The Venezuelan last scored points at the 2013 Hungarian Grand Prix, some 25 races ago.

However, whilst Maldonado snapped his skid, Sauber’s record barren run continued as Adrian Sutil was knocked out of points contention by Sergio Perez early on in Sunday’s race. The Swiss team have now gone 17 races without a top ten finish, but perhaps they’ll have more luck in Brazil – the location of their last points finish…