Race for world championship hots up as Hamilton hunts Rosberg in Abu Dhabi

Lewis Hamilton says he will continue to hunt Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg as the Formula One world championship goes down to the final race of the season.

Reigning champion Hamilton won a rain-soaked Brazilian Grand Prix ahead of second-placed Rosberg, who still leads the drivers’ standings after Sunday’s dramatic events at Interlagos.

After seeing his lead shrink to 12 points, Rosberg knows third place or better at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina circuit this month will be enough to see him depose Hamilton regardless of the Englishman’s performance.

The 31-year-old’s victory saw him move second on the all-time list of race wins with 52, ahead of Alain Prost and behind only Michael Schumacher.

Speaking on the podium in Sao Paulo, Hamilton stated his intention to continue pressuring the German over the final weekend of 2016.

“I’m hunting,” he said. “I’m hunting and all I can do is do what I’m doing right now. The team have given me a really great car and finding the reliability has been really good. The results have shown that.

“Abu Dhabi has generally been a really good track for me. Right now I’m just going to live in the moment.

“We’re creating history in this team. This year, the stuff that we’ve done, the results that we’ve got, it’s just incredible. I’m proud to be a part of it.”

Hamilton said winning at Interlagos for the first time fulfilled a long-held ambition to match one of the achievements of his idol, late Brazilian great Ayrton Senna.

“It’s been my dream since the first time I watched Ayrton race, when I was like five or six years old. It’s a lucky weekend,” he explained.

The likes of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and Brazilian Felipe Massa of Williams, making his final appearance on home soil, were forced to retire after collisions caused by bad weather, but Hamilton managed to avoid the carnage after starting on pole and staying well clear of the incident-prone field.

Asked how the victory compared to some of his other hard-fought successes, he replied: “Probably one of the easier ones. It was a very easy race, generally. Usually in the rain here, it’s the hardest. It was pretty straightforward. Silverstone, 2008, was probably harder than this.

“I was generally just chilling up front. When it rains, that’s usually a good day for me. It was tricky for everyone. There was definitely opportunities for aquaplaning, which [is something] everyone did.

“No mistakes, no issues, no spins. It was kind of interesting to hear on the radio how many people behind were spinning, but I didn’t have that problem.”