Austin: Lewis Hamilton clinched his sixth world title, but not in the style he hoped for on Sunday when he finished second behind his triumphant Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas in an eventful United States Grand Prix.
The 34-year-old Briton fought with ferocious determination to win from fifth on the grid, but was unable to resist the Finn, who started from pole and, with a two-stop strategy, had fresher tyres in the critical final laps.
After leading twice, Hamilton was passed by Bottas with three laps remaining and then resisted Red Bull's Max Verstappen to take his 150th podium finish and his 31st successive finish in the points.
It sealed his sixth title, leaving him one adrift of Michael Schumacher on seven. Hamilton added the 2019 title to previous triumphs in 2008, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018.
"I can't believe it, thanks a lot," Hamilton said over the team radio as he moved out of a tie for five titles he held with Argentina's Juan-Manuel Fangio.
He added: "It's just overwhelming if I'm really honest. It was such a tough race today, Valtteri did a great job. As an athlete I feel as fresh as can be. We'll keep pushing for the rest of the season."
"I didn't know if it would be possible but I worked as hard as I could here with my team back at the factory. My mum, dad, step-mum and step-dad and my family are here and it's an honour to be here with six titles with those greats.
"My dad told me when I was like six or seven never to give up and that's kind of the family motto." It was Bottas's fourth win of the season and the seventh of his career.
"It's a good win," said the Finn. "Personally, I failed on my target this year, but Lewis deserves it. He's had a good season."
Hamilton parked his Mercedes in a space "reserved for the champion" before leaping into the arms of his family and friends.
Verstappen finished third ahead of Charles Leclerc of Ferrari - some compensation to team boss Mattia Binotto on his 50th birthday following the early retirement, with broken suspension, of Sebastian Vettel, with Alex Albon fifth in the second Red Bull.
Daniel Ricciardo was sixth for Renault ahead of the two McLarens of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz, Nico Hulkenberg in the second Renault and Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat.
On a perfect blue-skied day, the race began with an explosive rush uphill towards Turn One, Bottas taking full advantage of his pole position with a flawless start.
Behind him, Verstappen pulled alongside Vettel to take second while Hamilton followed and took advantage of both Ferraris."I must have damage," reported Vettel. "I didn't hit anything, but I have under-steer like crazy."
By lap five, he had tumbled to seventh, but worse followed when his car's suspension failed, the right-rear collapsing as he went through Turn Nine.
Vettel's exit left Hamilton chasing Verstappen who pitted early, on lap 14, for a set of hard tyres.
'Mercurial, tempestuous'
Bold, determined and individual, he almost won the title in his first record-breaking season as he reeled off nine successive podiums from his debut in Melbourne, rocking the establishment along the way with his speed and his style.
On and off the track, he was fast, somewhat mercurial and occasionally tempestuous and this combination led to a fierce rivalry with team-mate and two-time champion Fernando Alonso, who left McLaren at the end of the year.
That was a signal of how tough it was to be for all his future team-mates as Hamilton, who narrowly missed out on the 2007 title, returned to triumph in 2008 with a dramatic last-gasp fifth-place finish in Brazil.
His former McLaren team-mate Jenson Button summed up Hamilton's pure speed when he said: "For me, over one lap, I don't think there is anyone as quick as Lewis and I don't think there ever has been."
'Never satisfied'
That speed, which has always been a natural talent, has in recent seasons been allied to a more mature attitude to his job as team leader. Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff summed up:
"He is never satisfied. He never settles. He is never happy with where he is as a racing driver and a human being. He wants to optimise, to develop and he is very much part of the leadership of the team."
Having achieved so much as his sport's best-known ambassador, Hamilton's interest in social issues has emerged more frequently, inviting him scores of controversy — as latest as earlier this month when he posted his concerns for the enviroment and declared that the planet was “a messed-up place” he felt he wanted to “give up”.
But nevertheless, father Anthony sums up his son's achievement, just perfect: "It's absolutely amazing and not bad for a boy from a Stevenage council house."
‘THE GREATEST?’
Hamilton endorsed his claim to be the outright best of all time on Sunday when he secured his sixth drivers' world championship and third in successive years.
The trio sit in an exceptional place in the pantheon of racing drivers, but are not the only men backed by claims of all-time supremacy –- Briton Jim Clark, Spain's Fernando Alonso and Brazilian Ayrton Senna enjoying wide support for their dazzling skills in the cockpit.
Hamilton, however, warrants his fans' claims as a candidate to be the 'Greatest Of All Time' for not only his natural talent, pure speed, race-craft and statistical success, but the way in which his personality and background has attracted a new global demographic to the sport.
Above all, the 34-year-old Briton has delivered with results as he has piled up an astonishing pile of statistical records –- 83 wins from 248 races.
