The battle for the 2012 World Drivers’ Championship will go down to the final round in Brazil after Lewis Hamillton led home title contenders Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso in Texas.

Having dominated the pre-race sessions, Vettel led for much of the race but was powerless to defend the advances of Hamilton’s McLaren with just 15 of the 57 laps remaining.

Just 0.6s separated the duo at the chequered flag after Vettel set the fastest lap of the race on the final circuit.

Alonso managed to fight his way through from seventh on the grid to take third place, albeit almost 40s adrift of the winner. The Spaniard now faces a 13 point deficit to Vettel heading to Brazil.

The United States Grand Prix results ensure that Red Bull Racing has won the Constructors’ Championship for the third consecutive year.

Ferrari boosted Alonso’s chances of recovering from his poor qualifying performance by breaking the gearbox seal on team-mate Felipe Massa’s car prior to the race.

The manoeuvre saw Massa handed a five-place grid penalty, moving Alonso into seventh position – allowing the two-time champion to start on the ‘clean’ side of the grid and leap from seventh to fourth by the first corner.

The Ferrari driver then inherited third on Lap 17 when Mark Webber retired his Red Bull with an alternator failure.

Massa fought through from 11th to finish a fine fourth ahead of Jenson Button in the second McLaren.

Button dropped to 16th on the opening lap following a shocking start, but recovered the lost ground by completing a long first stint on an alternate tyre strategy.

Kimi Raikkonen, Romain Grosjean, Nico Hulkenberg, Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna rounded out the points finishers.

It was another dismal performance from Mercedes, with Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher sliding to 13th and 16th respectively.

Result: Formula 1, United States Grand Prix

Drivers’ Championship standings after Race 19 of 20