Month: October 2018

Ferrari breathes a little longer on the Driver´s Championship fight, and that´s thanks to Kimi and not Sebastien Vettel who, again, had difficulties in the first lap where he went from 5th to 14th after under steering into the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo in between turns 12 and 13 of the track.  Track was really dirty when he made the move on the Red Bull in the straight from turn 11 towards 12 and then he just lost the front while being pressured by Ricciardo on the outside. Ricciardo went on to retire after lap 9 with yet another mechanical failure.

But the race didn´t really end there, Max Verstappen was to play an important part, with an outstanding start, going from 15th to 5th in 7 laps, by lap 9, the Virtual Safety Car was announced due to Ricciardo´s Red Bull stopped on track and Mercedes reacted by pitting Hamilton and changing to the harder Soft Tire compound. That proved to be to early, he looked on course to a win by mid-race but his tires started to give up by lap 35 of 56 and he was being caught up by Raikkönen and Verstappen so he had to pit again and even though he did catch up with Verstappen and made a try coming out of turn 17, he ran wide and briefly off and had to settle for third.. Vettel eventually managed to overtake Valteri Bottas for 4th position who was struggling with the Soft compound as his team mate had before.

With this result, the Driver´s Championship is still open with 75 points in play and Hamilton only needing to outscore Vettel by 5 points in order to win the tittle. Mexico comes next in one week´s time.

Nico Hulkenberg finished 6th place followed by Carlos Sainz who received a 5 second penalty but proved a good result for Renault.  This result was helped by HASS driver Romain Grosjean hitting the Sauber of Charles Leclerc in the first lap of the race at turn 12, which dropped the Sauber of Leclerc who eventually retired as so did the HASS driver. 8th place went to the Force India of Esteban Ocon who kept clear of problems, 9th for the second HASS of Kevin Magnussen and 10th to the 2nd Force India of Sergio Perez for the last point.

People really enjoyed the Iceman´s win, specially Ferrari, who ends the domination of Mercedes at the American racetrack.

		DRIVER	TEAM	TIME	POINTS
1	7	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1.40.338	25
2	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1.39.494	18
3	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1.39.033	15
4	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1.38.708	12
5	77	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1.42.673	10
6	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1.41.837	8
7	55	Carlos Sainz	Renault	1.41.922	6
8	31	Esteban Ocon	Force India Mercedes	1.43.142	4
9	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas Ferrari	1.43.413	2
10	11	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes	1.42.670	1
11	39	Brendon Hartley	Toro Rosso	1.40.380	–
12	94	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1.40.352	–
13	2	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren Honda	1.40.439	–
14	10	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso	1.42.132	–
15	35	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams Mercedes	1.43.902	–
16	18	Lance Stroll	Williams Mercedes	1.43.967	–
17	16	Charles Leclerc	Sauber Ferrari	RETIRED	–
18	3	Daniel Riccardo	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	RETIRED	–
19	8	Romain Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	RETIRED	–
20	14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	RETIRED	–

 

 

 

 

What an intense qualifying, Alonso, Sirotkin, Stroll, Ericsson and Vandorne were out in the first session. In the second qualifying session,  Verstappen ran out of the track and his car suffered a damage in the back tire so he will have to start 15th. Gasly, Hartley and Verstappen didn’t set a time in the second session and from the rest, Sainz and Magnussen were eliminated.

All out in the third session, it was Hamilton who managed to beat Vettel to the line with a difference of 0.068 seconds! Ferrari surely showed good pace once again but there’s uncertainty with the tires for tomorrow’s race since the practice sessions were disputed in rainy conditions and the race is expected to be in dry conditions… This time it was Esteban Ocon who beat the rest of the drivers not from the top teams…

 

		DRIVER	TEAM	1st.	2nd.	3rd.
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes			1.32.237
2	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari			1.32.298
3	7	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari			1.32.307
4	77	Valtteri Botas	Mercedes			1.32.616
5	3	Daniel Riccardo	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer			1.33.494
6	31	Esteban Ocon	Force India Mercedes			1.34.145
7	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault			1.34.215
8	8	Romain Grosjean	Haas Ferrari			1.34.250
9	16	Charles Leclerc	Sauber Ferrari			1.34.420
10	11	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes			1.34.594
11	55	Carlos Sainz	Renault		1.34.566
12	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas Ferrari		1.34.732
13	10	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso
14	39	Brendon Hartley	Toro Rosso
15	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer
16	14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	1.35.294
17	35	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams Mercedes	1.35.362
18	18	Lance Stroll	Williams Mercedes	1.35.480
19	94	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1.35.536
20	2	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren Honda	1.35.735

 

Ferrari dominates the 3rd Practice session and first in dry conditions. With this times set by the Ferraris, still followed close by the Mercedes, they set the frame for what could be an interesting race, remember the best position Vettel may have is third, after his penalty so this could easily be a pole for Kimi Raikkönen who has played a real teammate part for Ferrari this year. Vettel’s mistakes have cost him dearly, let’s see if he makes up from here on.

Charles Leclerc was fastest of the rest, considering the three top Teams are faster, from his time to Fernando Alonso’s time there was only 1 second separating the 14 cars.

Third Practice Session
		DRIVER	TEAM
1	5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1.33.797
2	7	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1.33.843
3	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1.33.870
4	77	Valtteri Botas	Mercedes	1.34.556
5	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1.34.703
6	3	Daniel Riccardo	Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer	1.34.910
7	16	Charles Leclerc	Sauber Ferrari	1.35.365
8	11	Sergio Perez	Force India Mercedes	1.35.411
9	55	Carlos Sainz	Renault	1.35.450
10	8	Romain Grosjean	Haas Ferrari	1.35.468
11	31	Esteban Ocon	Force India Mercedes	1.35.562
12	10	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso	1.35.713
13	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas Ferrari	1.35.770
14	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	1.35.882
15	94	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber Ferrari	1.36.00
16	18	Lance Stroll	Williams Mercedes	1.36.188
17	35	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams Mercedes	1.36.193
18	2	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren Honda	1.36.302
19	39	Brendon Hartley	Toro Rosso	1.36.330
20	14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren Honda	1.36.332

Sebastien Vettel received a 3 position grid penalty due to not respecting a red flag during the 2nd Free Practice at the US Grand Prix. This will not help him stay in the Championship fight with Mercedes Benz driver Lewis Hamilton who is now 67 points clear in title fight with 4 races to go and 100 points in play. After this race, there will be only 75 points remaining which means that if the gap after this race is over 75 points Hamilton will be the winner. So Hamilton needs to add 8 points more than Vettel to be declared the winner, if he wins the race he receives 25 points with second place receiving 18 and third 15… Vettel would need to finish 2nd… In other words, it’s really difficult for Vettel to continue his hopes for the title if he doesn’t win this race and 3 grid spots as penalty are only going to make it harder but who can guarantee Hamilton won’t hit issues, to win first he has to finish…

Weather has improved significantly, a dry track is expected for the Third Practice session as well as Qualifying as well as the race. It’s going to be all or nothing in Qualifying for Ferrari for sure.