Hamilton gate crashes Vettel and Alonso's party to win at Austin, Texas

The last time USA heard the screams of Formula One cars was back in 2007, where a young and amateur talent called Lewis Hamilton won the race on his inaugural year in F1. Five years on, Hamilton repeated his magic on the new United States Grand Prix at the inaugural Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

It wasn't a good start for Hamilton who started second on the dirty side of the grid and initially lost out to the Red Bulls. For the most part of the race he was chasing Sebastian Vettel and finally had a go at the current champion after a brisk pit stop that saw him switching to Pirelli's harder tyre.

That and a little help from the DRS system saw him overtake Vettel whose defence was weakened, thanks to backmarker traffic and lack of pace to the stronger McLaren all the way to the dance of the chequered flags.

A tactical pre-race move by Scuderia Ferrari saw Felippe Massa dropping down the grid after a gearbox related penalty that gave Alonso a grid advantage on the cleaner side of the track. The tactic paid off with Alonso pouncing to fourth on the first corner from seventh and finishing third overall - partially thanks to an alternator failure on Webber's car after 16 laps.

Despite the purposeful penalty bestowed upon him, Massa had a perfect and defiant race to finish a strong fourth behind his team mate. Jenson Button on the other McLaren managed a best of fifth place ahead of the Lotus twins. His future team mate, Sergio Perez had a poor race and managed only a best of eleventh place, a disappointment in front of a large Mexican audience who attended the race.

The maiden race in a bright and sunny Texas ended without any major incidents and only had two retirees - Webber and Vergne, with the latter damaging his Toro Rosso's suspension.

Post Texas, Vettel retains his championship lead ahead of Alonso over 13 points at 273 points, with a maximum of 25 points waiting for the better driver in Brazil.

Red Bull clinched the constructors' championship for a third successive year with 440 points over Ferrari at 367 points and McLaren at 353 points. This places Red Bull in an elite club of constructors in Formula One history to have achieved the feat after Ferrari, McLaren and Williams.

"The constructors' is what we use to measure ourselves against our competitors and, for every member of the team, it's how we gauge our performance. The drivers' obviously has the prestige and public following but within the team they carry equal importance," said Christian Horner, team principal of Red Bull Racing.

"So to have achieved a consecutive third world championship, which only three other teams in the history of the sport have achieved, puts us into a very elite group and having done it in such a short space of time is testimony to all the members of the team. That's all the hard work, the long hours and dedication from every department. It's a very proud moment for every single member of the team and Red Bull", added a delighted Horner.

But calls for celebrations were rather 'put on hold' as the team is waiting till Vettel wins in Brazil this weekend - for a more meaningful double celebration. If he does that is.