Nico Rosberg refused to buckle under pressure as he ended Lewis Hamilton’s five race winning streak with an impressive victory in the Brazilian Grand Prix.

The Mercedes driver led almost every lap of the season’s penultimate round, but was forced to hold firm for the final laps after coming under severe pressure from team-mate and title rival Hamilton.

Victory for Rosberg has closed the gap in the title race to 17 points ahead of the Abu Dhabi season finale, which will see double points awarded for the first time.

Williams driver Felipe Massa gave the Brazilian crowd plenty to cheer with a solid drive to complete the podium in third.

However, there was disappointment for Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo as a suspension failure saw him suffer his second retirement of the year.

Despite the retirement, the Australian secured third spot in the championship.

Rosberg made no mistakes from pole as he led Hamilton into Turn 1 with the Williams duo of Massa and Valtteri Bottas third and fourth respectively.

Jenson Button held fifth while McLaren team-mate Kevin Magnussen leapfrogged a slow starting Sebastian Vettel for sixth. Ricciardo made a clean start to remain in ninth spot.

Rosberg quickly opened a relatively healthy lead over Hamilton but it wasn’t long before the front runners made their first stops.

Massa was the first to duck into the pits on lap five before being followed in by the rest of the top 10 on the next two laps.

At the end of the first round of stops, Rosberg found himself in the lead from Hamilton and Massa, but the latter was given a five second stop/go penalty for speeding in the pit-lane.

Hamilton began to make inroads on Rosberg’s lead during the next stint but a spin at Turn 2 on the lap his team-mate made his second stop saw him drop seven seconds behind his rival.

Massa remained in third after his second stop where he took his penalty, but a slow stop for Bottas saw him fall behind Button, Vettel and Magnussen.

At the front Rosberg remained in control of the race, although Hamilton managed to close the gap down to 2.5 seconds.

However, further back there was drama for Ricciardo as a front left suspension failure forced him into his first retirement since the second round of the season at Malaysia.

Hamilton’s pace continued to take chunks out of Rosberg’s lead with just two seconds separating the pair as the race entered the final quarter.

Massa maintained his third position despite stopping in the wrong pit box for his third and last stop.

The battle for the race win went up a notch after Hamilton’s final stop as he emerged just half a second behind Rosberg. The gap quickly decreased with the championship leader all over the rear wing of his team-mate.

Despite coming under severe pressure in the final 10 laps, Rosberg hung on to take victory. Hamilton was forced to settle for second with Massa scoring a popular podium in third.

Button produced one of his best drives of the season to finish fourth ahead of Vettel and the Ferrari duo of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen.

Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg picked up valuable points in eighth in front Magnussen and a recovering Bottas, who completed the top 10.

Brazilian Grand Prix Result