perfect start while Hamilton struggled to stay with him and had to engage his best defensive driving to retain second place.
Behind the two silver arrows, the luckless Alonso suffered a puncture in a collision with Pastor Maldonado’s Lotus, for which he was regarded as the guilty party, and given a drive-through penalty, taken after his necessary pit-stop for repairs. Maldonado was eliminated.
After a frantic opening lap, Rosberg led by 1.4 seconds and extended that steadily before making his first stop after 11 laps. Hamilton led briefly before he followed him in, rejoining third.
This came briefly after Bottas had crashed into the rear of Button in the pit lane, the Williams man taking a five-seconds penalty for an unsafe release from his garage.
Hamilton regained second after Vettel, running on the ‘harder’ tyres after starting 15th, ran wide and off at Turn 17, the champion making short work of his pass under braking at Turn Eight. Rosberg remained more than six seconds ahead.
For a period, the Briton cut into that lead, reducing it to one second before Rosberg was called in for his second stop after 32 laps. Hamilton led and chose to stay out on old tyres. He led by 18.2 seconds after 35 laps, but faced a second stop knowing he really needed an advantage of 22 seconds, if possible.
Ferrari’s erratic weekend continued with another bungle in the pits when Raikkonen’s right front wheel refused to budge easily during a tyre-change, the Finn losing time that dropped him to fourth behind Vettel.
Hamilton finally made his second stop after 42 laps, re-joining on the harder tyres 13 seconds behind Rosberg with 13 laps remaining. His determination was evident. With 10 laps to go, the gap was down to 10.3 and with six remaining it was 7.5.
The chase was on under the desert floodlights, but Rosberg had the cushion of a controllable lead as he sped towards his third successive season-ending win with the aid of pit-wall crew keen to see a team one-two finish.