LEWIS HAMILTON expects Nico Rosberg to bounce back after his Formula One World Championship challenge all but ended in Russia on Sunday.
Rosberg, who started on pole in Sochi, saw off the challenge from Hamilton on the first lap to lead the opening phase of the race.
But for the second time in the last four grands prix, Rosberg was struck down by a mechanical gremlin and he retired from the race on lap seven.
Hamilton marched on to claim victory meaning he now leads his Mercedes team-mate by an almost unassailable 73 points with just four races on the calendar remaining.
Indeed Rosberg will be eliminated from this season's championship battle if Hamilton outscores him by a mere two points in Texas later this month.
"Nico will come strong next year for sure, as he will at the next race, and as he was already yesterday," said Hamilton, whose closest title challenger is now Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, 66 points adrift.
"I was excited because we were quite close together at the beginning and I was thinking, 'okay, we have got a race here'. It is a shame for the team to have lost one of the cars and to not have a race."
For Hamilton, the 30-year-old is now firmly fixed to become the first British driver to successfully defend his grand prix crown.
He surpassed his idol Ayrton Senna with his 42nd career victory here on Sunday and is poised to join the great Brazilian as a triple world champion, too.
A win at the Circuit of Americas in a fortnight's time - a race he won last year and in 2012 - with Vettel finishing third or lower will be the clincher.
He added: "For me, those last five laps I was just really taking it in. I don't know how many times I will be in that position again, so I was just cherishing the moment and feeling really blessed. I love this car and I am truly grateful."
To cap a remarkable day for Hamilton, his Mercedes team also sealed back-to-back team titles after Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was demoted from fifth to eighth by the stewards after a last-lap collision with Valtteri Bottas.
Hamilton concluded: "I did feel that the guys were going to do a good job, I just did not know it was going to be this good. They have done a better job this year than they did last year.
"There are always opportunities to make silly mistakes so I was proud of how I drove here. I feel like I have solidified my spot in the team in terms of delivering what they had expected and hoped. I am going to try and continue that."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here