@F1 @Emirates #UnitedStatesGP 2019 Preview – #USGP #F1 @COTA
Formula 1 2018 United States Grand Prix Race Start, Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas. Image credit to LAT/Sutton Images.
After Lewis Hamilton edged one step closer to his sixth World Driver’s Championship crown with victory in Mexico after the Silver Arrows out-strategised Ferrari, round 19 of the 2019 FIA Formula 1 World Championship returns to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas for the Formula 1 Emirates United States Grand Prix. This marks the 41st time that the United States Grand Prix has been run as a round of the World Championship since its inception in 1950 and the eighth time being held in Austin, Texas.
A look at the Circuit of the Americas
Circuit of the Americas is a permanent racing circuit located in Elroy, Travis County on the south-eastern periphery of Austin city limits in Central Texas. The circuit and Grand Prix were proposed in 2010 and was the first in the United States to be purposely built for Formula 1. The layout was conceived by Tavo Hellmund and 1993 World Motorcycle Champion Kevin Schwantz with assistance from circuit designer and architect Hermann Tilke. The circuit was opened on October 21, 2012. The Circuit of the Americas is also used for MotoGP, the FIA World Endurance Championship and the Tudor United SportsCar Championship.
The circuit draws inspiration from some of the best circuits in the world, as well as taking advantage of the site’s natural contours which features dramatic elevation changes of up to 40 metres.
There is a steep, uphill run into the first corner hairpin, which quickly became the track’s signature corner. Turns three to six looks nearly similar to Silverstone’s high-speed Maggotts/Becketts/Chapel complex; turns 12 through 15 is similar to Hockenheim’s stadium section; and turns 16 through 18 mirrors the popular turn eight at Turkey’s Istanbul Park Circuit.
Support buildings include a medical facility, 14 executive meeting suites, a conference centre, a banquet hall, as well as an outdoor live music space.
The Circuit of the Americas is 5.513km (3.427 miles) in length with 20 corners and runs in an anti-clockwise direction.
Race distance is 308.405km (191.634 miles) in length with 56 laps in total.
Lewis Hamilton holds the fastest lap record at the circuit with a 1:37.392 set at last year’s event in his Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport F1 W09 EQ Power+.
Lewis Hamilton holds the record for most United States Grand Prix victories with six.
Scuderia Ferrari are the most successful constructor at the United States Grand Prix with ten victories.
Onboard lap of Circuit of the Americas
Here is the onboard pole lap of the Circuit of the Americas set at last year’s United States Grand Prix by Lewis Hamilton in his Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport F1 W09 EQ Power+, with the Briton posting a blistering 1:32.237. You can watch the video right here at the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLXdxyJJrhY
The last five United States Grand Prix winners
2018: Kimi Raikkonen, Scuderia Ferrari. 2017: Lewis Hamilton: Mercedes AMG F1. 2016: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1. 2015: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1. 2014: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1.
Tyres
Pirelli will be bringing with them to Texas the white side-walled C2 Hard rubber, the yellow-branded C3 Medium compounds and the red-marked Soft tyres due to the Circuit of the America’s combination of fast corners and more technical sections along with the green-branded Intermediate and blue-marked Full Wet tyre compounds in case of rain.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc will have one more set extra of the C4 red-marked soft compounds than his team-mate Sebastian Vettel and other four rivals from Mercedes and Red Bull in this weekend’s United States Grand Prix.
Mercedes, Red Bull and Vettel will have all selected eight sets of the softs whilst the young Monegasque driver has nine.
McLaren are the only other outfit that have opted to go with eight sets of the softs, with the rest of the field joining Leclerc with nine, bar Renault who have gone aggressive with ten sets.
Leclerc’s extra set of soft rubber means he will have three sets of C3 mediums, while the Red Bull pairing and Valtteri Bottas has four, and just one set of C2 hard rubber, with his team-mate and Lewis Hamilton both have the option to use two of the hards.
Renault heavy choice on the softs sees Nico Hulkenberg as the only driver on the grid to have just one set of mediums.
Only McLaren, Racing Point and Red Bull have given their respective drivers the same amount of tyres each for the weekend. Ferrari are the only team to have given their Vettel and Leclerc two different amounts of the softs, with the rest of the field varying the medium and harder compounds.
Drivers will also have the chance to sample 2020 soft tyre compounds during Free Practice 1 and 2 only and are being given two sets each.
DRS Zones
There will be two DRS Zones at the Circuit of the Americas with the first detection point 150 metres after turn 10 with the activation point 320 metres after turn 11. The second detection point is 65 metres after turn 18 with the activation point 80 metres after the final corner on the main-straight.
Pitlane Speed Limits
Pitlane speed limits will be 80km/h during practice, qualifying and the race.
ICYMI: Mexican GP Rewind – Hamilton victorious as Mercedes outfoxes Ferrari
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton recovered from an opening lap off to win the Mexican Grand Prix, but the Briton will have to wait for next weekend’s United States Grand Prix to wrap up his sixth world driver’s title.
Hamilton took an excursion across the grass at the start of the race and dropped to fifth but executed a one-stop strategy to perfection as he overhauled both Ferrari’s to take his 10th victory of the season and the 100th Grand Prix win for Mercedes.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was unable to charge at Hamilton after losing track position through strategy as the German came home in second with the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas completing the top three.
Pole-sitter and early race leader Charles Leclerc fell to fourth as his two-stopped strategy crumbled.
Ferrari were controlling the early stages of the Grand Prix despite Leclerc being slightly touched by Vettel’s front wing after the former ran wide under-braking at the turn four left-hander and slowing right down through the following right-hand corner.
Behind them, Hamilton had suffered an early set-back after tangling with Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen as the Dutchman challenged the former on the inside into turn one.
Hamilton had already been covered by Vettel on the rundown into the first corner, a move he described as ‘dangerous’ but the stewards took no action on the noted investigation.
At turn one, Hamilton ran wide and suffered a snap of oversteer on the outside kerb, which sent his F1 W10 EQ Power+ racer to the right and put him and Verstappen onto the grass between the turns two and three sequence.
The incident relegated Hamilton to fifth behind Red Bull Racing’s Alexander Albon and McLaren’s Carlos Sainz, while Verstappen dropped to eighth, behind Lando Norris and Bottas.
Hamilton passed Albon on the fourth lap into turn one then remained in fourth place for his opening stint, which the championship leader extended to lap 23 – eight more than race leader Leclerc and nine-more than Albon, as both drivers committed to a two-stop strategy.
However, Vettel – who claimed the race lead as team-mate Leclerc pitted, and Bottas extended their initial stints 13 and 14 laps longer than Hamilton respectively.
Hamilton’s early stop allowed the Briton to jump Vettel to take track position, although the major tyre age difference meant the Mercedes driver was concerned that he would be unable to defend once Vettel stopped for fresher rubber.
However, by the time Leclerc and Albon made their final stops, and left Hamilton leading the Grand Prix from Vettel, Hamilton kept his chasing rival more than two seconds behind for the next 20 laps.
In that period, Bottas got right up to the rear of Vettel, while Leclerc used his fresher rubber tyres after his final stop to cut into the gap of the one-stop running trio in-front.
With 12 laps remaining, Leclerc almost got within DRS range of Bottas but suffered a front-left lock up and ran wide into the right-hand turn four, which hurt his deficit to the Finn.
In-front, Vettel got almost within two seconds of Hamilton for the first time with eight laps remaining, but the latter struck back immediately to keep the Ferrari at bay.
Hamilton’s victory, with Bottas third, extended the Briton’s championship lead by ten points but he needed another four more over his Mercedes team-mate to claim his sixth title.
This means Hamilton, who now has a 74 point-lead with 78 still available for the remaining three Grands Prix.
Behind the top four, Albon settled for fifth in his best result for Red Bull, with team-mate Verstappen charging back to sixth after an extremely long 66-lap stint on the hard compounds, which earned the Dutchman ‘Driver of the Day”.
Verstappen’s race was hampered early on, when after being forced off track by race-winner Hamilton, he suffered a right-rear puncture moments later after lunging at the other Silver Arrows of Bottas into the stadium section.
The Dutchman squirmed his way to the pits with the tyre ripped from the rim of his Honda-powered RB15 racer, before gradually climbing through the pack with no more pit-stops and extreme tyre management.
Home Grand Prix favourite and Racing Point’s Sergio Perez withstood intense pressure from Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo to take best-of-the-rest honours in seventh place.
The other Renault R.S.19 of Nico Hulkenberg was on course to finish ninth but was hit from behind and sent into a spin by Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat on the last lap and the German’s rear-end smacked the barriers.
Kvyat was handed a 10-second post-race time penalty for his last lap tangle with Hulkenberg and relegates the Russian from ninth to 11th with Toro Rosso team-mate Pierre Gasly and Hulkenberg promoted to the final points-places.
Racing Point’s Lance Stroll crossed the line in 12th place and ahead of McLaren’s Carlos Sainz – who was on course for another early best-of-the-rest finish, but the latter’s race faded badly after putting on harder rubber, which left the Spaniard no choice but to pit again for mediums and ended up 13th.
Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi finished 14th and in-front of Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen who took 15th and ROKiT Williams Racing’s George Russell who was 16th.
The other Haas and Williams of Romain Grosjean and Robert Kubica brought up the rear respectively.
The two retirements of the Grand Prix were Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen who was forced to retire on lap 58 and McLaren’s Lando Norris who’s race was ruined by the Woking-based outfit releasing him with wheel improperly attached and parked it in the garage on lap 48.
@LewisHamilton wins #MexicanGP as @MercedesAMGF1 outfoxes @ScuderiaFerrari. #F1 #F1ESTA
The Situation
Lewis Hamilton returns to Texas sitting on top of the World Driver’s Championship with 363 points and a 74-point advantage over team-mate Valtteri Bottas who is second on 289 points while Charles Leclerc is third and a further 127 behind the Briton on 236 points.
Mercedes returns to Circuit of the Americas with the Constructors Championship secured and are on 652 points with a 186-point gap over nearest rivals Ferrari who are second on 466 points while Red Bull Racing are a further 311 behind the Silver Arrows in third on 341 points.
How Hamilton will become champion in Texas
The Briton leads Bottas by 74 points with a maximum of 52 still on offer after next weekend.
Bottas needs to win in Texas to have any chance of taking the title fight to F1’s penultimate round in Brazil.
Even if Bottas were to take the maximum 26 points for victory and bonus fastest lap point in Austin, Hamilton would only need to finish eighth-place to secure the championship in his favour.
Hamilton is guaranteed the title if Bottas finishes second or lower.
Formula 1 2019 World Driver’s Championship Standings – Top 10
- Lewis Hamilton – 363 Points.
- Valtteri Bottas – 289 Points.
- Charles Leclerc – 236 Points.
- Sebastian Vettel – 230 Points.
- Max Verstappen – 220 Points.
- Pierre Gasly – 77 Points.
- Carlos Sainz – 76 Points.
- Alexander Albon – 74 Points.
- Sergio Perez – 43 Points.
- Daniel Ricciardo – 38 Points.
You can see the full World Driver’s Championship standings at the following link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2019/drivers.html
Formula 1 2019 World Constructors Championship Standings
- Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport – 652 Points.
- Scuderia Ferrari – 466 Points.
- Aston Martin Red Bull Racing-Honda – 341 Points.
- McLaren-Renault F1 Team – 111 Points.
- Renault F1 Team – 72 Points.
- Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda – 65 Points.
- SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team – 64 Points.
- Alfa Romeo Racing – 35 Points.
- Rich Energy Haas F1 Team – 28 Points.
- ROKiT Williams Racing – 1 Point.
The Formula 1 Emirates United States Grand Prix weekend begins Friday November 1 with Free Practice 1 and 2, followed by Free Practice 3 and Qualifying Saturday November 2 along with the 56 lap Race Sunday November 3.
