Hamilton started the Austin race on pole with the chance of clinching the 2018 drivers' title early, but lost out to Kimi Raikkonen at the start – and also dropped behind Max Verstappen, who like Raikkonen made a single stop to Hamilton's two.

The championship leader caught the pair at the end of the race on fresher tyres, but could not make any further progress as Verstappen held his ground.

Hamilton admitted after the race that his initial pitstop on lap 11 came as “a little bit of a surprise” as Mercedes tried to take advantage of a virtual safety car period.

“Once we've done the stop on 11, I knew I would be doing a two-stop,” Hamilton said.

"It just made it so hard for ourselves - we came out, I had to catch Kimi, caught him and tyres were dead, and then he did his stop and was ca

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