Kimi Raikkonen ends his 113 winless drought to claim an edge-of-your-seat victory at the Circuit of the Americas whilst the title-fight between Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel continues on at next weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix.

 

 

Raikkonen flew past pole-sitter Hamilton at the start and kept his cool under pressure at the end from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who started 18^th and the Briton to clinch a breakthrough win in his second stint with the Scuderia and grabbed the top step of the podium for the first time since the 2013 season-opening Australian Grand Prix for Lotus.

 

“It’s been a great weekend, the car has been pretty good all the time.” explained Raikkonen. “Obviously I’m much happier than finishing second. It was a great and good battle, that’s what we all want as drivers and the people here,”

 

Second would have given Hamilton the championship and he went wheel-to-wheel with Verstappen with three laps remaining, but the Mercedes driver could not make it stick, running off the track at the sweeping turn 18.

 

Vettel’s fourth place, after putting on another recovery drive and passing Valtteri Bottas late on means that Hamilton leads the Driver’s Championship by 69 points with 75 still available at the final three Grands Prix.

 

Hamilton came to Austin needing to outscore Vettel by eight points to clinch his fifth World Championship.

 

When the US Grand Prix began, Hamilton got a great start off the line, but Raikkonen’s Ferrari charged past the Mercedes into the first corner, and half a lap later the momentum swung in the Briton’s favour when Vettel spun and fell to 15^th.

 

Vettel flew past Daniel Ricciardo with ease on the back straight but made a mistake under braking at turn 12 and the Australian cut back on the exit of the tight left-hander.

 

This gave Vettel the inside line for turn 13 but the German had a small jiggle, touched the Red Bull and spun.

 

Raikkonen held Hamilton at bay until the deployment of the Virtual Safety Car lead to Ferrari and Mercedes opting for different strategies.

 

With the race equalised as Ricciardo’s RB14 racer was recovered by the marshals at the exit of the turn 11 hairpin, the Silver Arrows told Hamilton to do the opposite of Raikkonen under the VSC and the Briton dived into the pits, adopting a two-stop strategy.

 

Hamilton emerged in third place and nine seconds behind Raikkonen, and within three laps was handed second from Mercedes team-mate Bottas who slowed down on the main straight to let him by.

 

On the 18^th lap, Hamilton was right behind Raikkonen, but the Finn resisted the pressure of the quicker Mercedes before pitting, which proved to be the crucial factor later on.

 

Vettel remained on track before pitting on lap 26, dropping places to team-mate Raikkonen and Verstappen – who made an impressive charge through the pack on his first stint on the more durable soft rubber – as the German struggled with degrading tyres.

 

Raikkonen’s job was keep within 20 seconds of Hamilton while Vettel started to hunt Bottas down for fourth.

 

Hamilton’s 18 second gap was slowly deteriorating by Raikkonen as the Briton’s soft compounds continued to worsen, with third-placed Verstappen and Bottas easily making it within Hamilton’s pit stop window.

 

The Mercedes driver pitted from the lead on lap 39, which gave Raikkonen a 2.5 second gap over Verstappen, with Bottas a further 6.5 seconds and Hamilton in fourth, 12 seconds behind the leading Ferrari and 4.1 seconds clear of title-rival Vettel.

 

With fresh softs to his advantage, Hamilton immediately caught his Mercedes team-mate and was let past within two laps.

 

Hamilton was up into third and 8.8 seconds off the lead, but with Vettel stuck in fifth place and the Briton only needing to pass Verstappen who was 6.5 seconds in-front with 15 laps remaining to clinch the title.

 

He caught the back of the Dutchman with seven laps remaining but could not make the pass as their epic wheel-to-wheel battle lasted four corners.

 

Hamilton ran wide into the run-off area as he attempted to overtake the Red Bull through the sweeping turns 17-19 near the end of the lap.

 

Shortly afterwards, Vettel made his way past Bottas into the hairpin for fourth and lost just two points to Hamilton as the title fight continues into Mexico.

 

Behind the top five, Renault were best of the rest with Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz taking sixth and seventh respectively and received a much-needed boost in their quest to claim fourth in the Constructors Championship.

 

Force India’s Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez finished in eighth and tenth with Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen splitting the pairing in-between with the former being investigated by the stewards for an alleged fuel-flow issue.

 

Toro Rosso’s Brendon Hartley came home in 11^th place and in-front of Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson who was 12^th and McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne who takes 13^th.

 

The second Honda-powered Toro Rosso of Pierre Gasly ended the race in 14^th and ahead of the two Williams of Sergey Sirotkin and Lance Stroll who were brought up the rear.

 

There were four retirements during the United States Grand Prix.

 

A while before Ricciardo’s retirement due to a mechanical failure, Fernando Alonso and Romain Grosjean’s races were ended early on the opening lap.

 

Alonso stopped in the pits after tangling with Stroll’s Williams through the entry of the esses, while Grosjean locked up and collided with Charles Leclerc’s Sauber into turn 12 at the end of the back straight.

 

Stroll was given a drive through penalty from his collision with Alonso, while Grosjean’s incident with Leclerc – which sent the Monegasque driver, who eventually retired from the race has been investigated by the stewards with Grosjean being given a three-grid place penalty for next weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix and one licence penalty point.

 

Grosjean is just two penalty points away from a one-race ban.

 

******UPDATE******Force India’s Ocon and Haas F1 Team’s Magnussen have been disqualified due to fuel use irregularities. Ocon’s VJM11 racer was found by the stewards on the telemetry data to have exceeded the mass fuel flow limit of 100kq/hr on the opening lap whilst Magnussen’s Haas VF-18 was found to have used more than the maximum of 105kg of fuel allowed during the Grand Prix.

 

The outcome has dealt a huge blow for both Force India and Haas in their hopes of beating their rivals in the Constructors Championship. Before the disqualifications, Haas lost a big amount to Renault in the battle for fourth place, with the Enstone-based outfit taking 14 points for their sixth and seventh places respectively.

 

Force India however, only lost one point in their fight with McLaren in the fight for sixth place in the standings with Perez – who finished in tenth, promoted to eighth in his team-mate’s original finishing position.

 

This means Haas are 22 points behind Renault and Force India 11 behind McLaren in the standings – with both Toro Rosso and Sauber gaining from Haas and Force India’s pain. Hartley originally finished 11^th but was promoted to ninth and Ericsson to tenth respectively.

 

The Formula 1 2018 Pirelli United States Grand Prix Race Results Classification (56 Laps)

POS	DRIVER	CAR	GAP
1	Kimi Raikkonen	Scuderia Ferrari	1h34m18.643s
2	Max Verstappen	Aston Martin Red Bull Racing	1.281s
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport	2.342s
4	Sebastian Vettel	Scuderia Ferrari	18.222s
5	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport	24.744s
6	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault Sport F1 Team	1m27.210s
7	Carlos Sainz	Renault Sport F1 Team	1m34.994s
8	Sergio Perez	Racing Point Force India F1 Team	1m41.080s
9	Brendon Hartley	Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda	1 Lap
10	Marcus Ericsson	Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team	1 Lap
11	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren-Renault F1 Team	1 Lap
12	Pierre Gasly	Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda	1 Lap
13	Sergey Sirotkin	Williams Martini Racing	1 Lap
14	Lance Stroll	Williams Martini Racing	2 Laps
–	Esteban Ocon	Racing Point Force India F1 Team	Disqualified
–	Kevin Magnussen	Haas F1 Team	Disqualified
–	Charles Leclerc	Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team	Collision
–	Daniel Ricciardo	Aston Martin Red Bull Racing	Electrical
–	Romain Grosjean	Haas F1 Team	Collision
–	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Renault F1 Team	Collision

 

2018 Formula 1 World Driver’s Championship Standings

1. Lewis Hamilton – 346 Points.
2. Sebastian Vettel – 276 Points.
3. Kimi Raikkonen – 221 Points.
4. Valtteri Bottas – 217 Points.
5. Max Verstappen – 191 Points.
6. Daniel Ricciardo – 146 Points.
7. Nico Hulkenberg – 61 Points.
8. Sergio Perez – 57 Points.
9. Kevin Magnussen – 53 Points.
10. Fernando Alonso – 50 Points.

2018 Formula 1 World Constructors Championship Standings

1. Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport – 563 Points.
2. Scuderia Ferrari – 497 Points.
3. Aston Martin Red Bull Racing – 337 Points.
4. Renault Sport F1 Team – 106 Points.
5. Haas F1 Team – 84 Points.
6. McLaren-Renault F1 Team – 58 Points.
7. Racing Point Force India F1 Team – 47 Points.
8. Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda – 32 Points.
9. Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team – 28 Points.
10. Williams Martini Racing – 7 Points.

 

Round 19 of the 2018 FIA Formula One World Championship heads straight to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, Mexico for the Formula 1 2018 Gran Premio De Mexico from October 26-28.