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Practice
Free Practice 1 started with a damp track that required Intermediate tires to manage. There wasn’t much to report, as Hamilton easily took the top spot, followed by Vettel and Bottas. Fernando Alonso didn’t set any time as a hydraulic leak sidelined his Honda unpowered McLaren. None of the above was surprising. It was a bit surprising to see Stoffel Vandoorne and Felipe Massa in 5th and 6th, but with the rain in the morning, a bit of a shakeup was to be expected.
The final order of FP2 once again saw Hamilton on top, this time followed by Verstappen, Vettel, Bottas, Ricciardo, and Raikkonen. Once again, none of this was a surprise. Behind them, McLaren had fixed Alonso’s hydraulic leak (a recurring theme for him) and he was able to put his MCL-32 in 7th.
Once again, Hamilton topped the timesheets in FP3. Vettel managed 2nd, with Bottas 3rd, and Raikkonen 4th. A clean sweep of the practice sessions by Hamilton certainly didn’t give high hopes that Vettel would be able to make much, if any progress on clawing back some championship points…
Qualifying
Unlike the last few races, qualifying for CotA was pretty tame: Hamilton easily swept all three quali sessions to take the pole. Vettel was looking at a second row start for most of qualifying, only able to be quick enough for 4th in Q1 and Q2, but was finally able to bang out a flyer good enough for 2nd towards the end of Q3. Bottas was finally able to get a handle on his W08 and take 3rd on the grid. Ricciardo, Raikkonen, Verstappen, Esteban Ocon, Sainz, Alonso, and Sergio Perez rounded out the top 10.
There were a few post-qualifying grid place penalties to hand out. Verstappen (15 spots), Nico Hulkenberg (20 spots), Stoffel Vandoorne (5 spots), and Brendon Hartley (25 spots) all received penalties for power unit part replacements. Lance Stroll and Kevin Magnussen also received 3 grid spot penalties for impeding drivers on their hot laps. In the case of Stroll, he was not warned by Williams that Romain Grosjean was closing in on his hot lap and cut in front of the Haas driver. Magnussen blocked Pascal Wehrlein as Haas did not think Wehrlein was on a flying lap. Both were down to poor team communication and both teams and their respective drivers apologized for blocking other cars.
Pre-Race Podium Prediction
Alright, I kind of dropped the ball on this one. See, the weekend of the USGP also happened to be the same weekend of Homecoming, one of the few times I actually want to be social. Instead of religiously dissecting Formula 1, I was drinking enough beer, whiskey, and mimosas (because we are classy ass Millennials) to actually enjoy football. So I sort of forgot to post a pre-race prediction. My expectation was Hamilton and Vettel on the top two steps with one of Red Bulls in third. Since I was getting hammered, I didn’t really pay enough attention to practice and qualifying to really have an idea of which Red Bull would be able to grab a podium.
Race
After three straight races of tripping over their own feet, Ferrari finally, FINALLY got their race off to a good start. Vettel was able to get the jump on Hamilton, and with the inside line heading into Turn 1, snapped up the lead. Hamilton fell into second place, settling in behind the Ferrari. Behind them, Ricciardo was nipping at the heels of Bottas, trying to steal away third. The first retirement of the day came on Lap 4 when Nico Hulkenberg’s Renault was pulled into the garage. Hamilton quickly reeled Vettel in and on Lap 6 closed within DRS range on the back straight and used the tow to draft and pass Vettel, pulling off a perfect pass into Turn 12. Hamilton was able to hold off Vettel through the next complexes and almost immediately began to pull a gap on Vettel, quickly opening up a 2 second gap.
Further back, Max Verstappen carved his way through the field, moving up ten positions in as many laps! HOLY CRAP!!! By Lap 11, he had settled into 6th. Pit stops began shortly thereafter. Daniel Ricciardo was the first of the front runners to come in, moving from the ultra soft to the soft tires, giving up 4th position to do so. Unfortunately, just a handful of laps later he pulled off with a dead Renault engine. Magic mode didn’t seem to be so magic after all…
Ricciardo’s Dead Bull brought out a local yellow. Ferrari took advantage of the slower laps to pit Vettel and move him onto the softs. Mercedes decided to keep Hamilton out, pushing longer and harder on his original ultrasofts. He held on for three more laps before pitting. Vettel was pushing like crazy to try and undercut Hamilton, but the Championship leader would have none of it. Hamilton exited the pits with Vettel right up Hamilton’s tailpipe. Vettel got a bit loose in Turn 1, allowing Hamilton to retain his position over Vettel (Raikkonen and Verstappen had yet to pit, so those two held the actual race lead). On Lap 25, Alonso had to park his McLaren Honda, with yet another engine issue. Apparently, Honda, Alonso, and American races just don’t mix.
As the laps wound down, rumors of a second pitstop began to surface. Sure enough at Lap 38, Red Bull pulled Verstappen in for a stop onto super soft tires. Vettel and Ferrari responded a lap later, putting Vettel onto the ultrasofts. This set up a rather interesting scenario: Red Bull had hoped to bluff Vettel and Hamilton into another stop. This would eliminate the gap between Verstappen and the leading pair, effectively forcing them to deal with a very Mad Max. Now Red Bull was hoping that Ferrari and Mercedes would either pit Bottas and Raikkonen, or force them to move over for the lead drivers. Alternatively, Mercedes and Ferrari could leave their resective drivers on track and hope the time gap would be too much to overcome before the end of the race.
This move set up a rare strategy mixup. See, in recent years, Pirelli has been ultra conservative with tire offerings. While there is a pace and life distance between each compound, it’s not very large. The teams quickly formulate a single strategy (usually based on one pit stop) and pit stops simply become a matter of who blinks to pit first. Occasionally, a faster car towards the back will reverse the tire choices to gain more speed at the end of the race in hopes of moving further through the field (this is what Vettel did in Malaysia). Tire strategy is pretty well set in stone with no variation. There is not enough of a speed benefit to cover the 20-odd seconds and accompanying positions lost in a pitstop to make it worthwhile to turn up the wick and push 100% through the race. Alternatively, the soft tires are so hard, there is no benefit in running the hardest compound to nearly the full race distance, then pitting at the last minute for softer tires. It’s all a bit borked and has hurt one of the few variables that's left that makes Formula exciting.
This is why RBR’s call on Lap 38 was so interesting. Pitting Verstappen and putting him on the softer tires would do one of two things: It would either force Mercedes and Ferrari to pit their own lead cars in response, OR force them to push their tires harder than they were planning to to hold off the charging Max. If Vettel and Hamilton stopped, it would drop them right in front of a very Mad Max, putting them within striking distance of the 33. A brilliant call on Red Bull’s part…if Ferrari and Mercedes took the bait. Ferrari did, pitting Vettel a lap later. The blindside nearly worked, with Verstappen all over the back of the Ferrari when Vettel left the pits. Vettel was able to hold onto his position, but now both cars had to reel in Bottas, Raikkonen, and Hamilton who now had a substantial lead. Hamilton and Mercedes decided to leave both cars out and hope their lead would be too much to make up in 16 laps.
It is important to remember too that Vettel and Ferrari had been tossing up the idea of coming in for a final stop anyway. Vettel was not happy with the balance on the soft tires, and Verstappen’s stop gave Ferrari and excuse to replace the softs with super softs, which better suited Vettel’s taste. Hamilton, on the other hand, had much more to lose, with a bigger gap to the leaders, and good pace on his own soft tires. The stops left him with a 30ish second gap to Vettel and Verstappen, and managing that for 20 laps would not be too difficult. With trickery failed, Vettel was forced to turn to raw speed. Using Stoffel Vandoorne as a pick, he was able to sweep around the outside of Bottas heading into Turn 1, shooting the gap between the Mercedes and the McLaren. Vettel was able to hold the position and pull away, quickly closing in on, and passing, his Ferrari stablemate. Verstappen was also able to dispatch Bottas, who pitted after locking up trying to hold of Verstappen. Max closed in on Raikkonen, tailing the Finn for the last two laps, finally making his move in the difficult Turn 16-17-18 complex. Max slipped inside Kimi and took third on the final lap! What a move! The crowd cheered as within moments of each other, Hamilton took his 5th USGP win and Max pulled off his amazing inside pass on Raikkonen. However as the three podium winners cooled off before the podium celebrations, Kimi Raikkonen was brought up and Verstappen was told he was being handed a 5 second penalty for cutting Turn 17! Max was led out and Kimi got to chug champagne. Behind the Top 4, Bottas finished a distant 5th, with Esteban Ocon finishing an impressive 6th, and Carlos Sainz Jr finishing an even more impressive 7th in his debut for Renault.
