Hamilton wins to take third world title

It was always inevitable wasn't it? From the season start all the way back in March when Lewis Hamilton cruised home to victory in Australia, it has never been in doubt. It's true Lewis has been in the best car, one with a very significant advantage, but it's also true he has stepped up a gear this year.

Hamilton's Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg was a worthy contender in 2014, but this time around he has been nowhere. Every step he's taken, Hamilton has taken two. He has been out-performed in almost every area and it showed in his disappointment after the race.

Beaten again, despite actually making an overtake stick against Lewis, but a later mistake less than 10 laps from the end cost him his lead and Hamilton was through and away. Once in front there was no way Hamilton was going to give it back.

Lewis has trounced his team mate and driven better than ever this year. There have been minimal mistakes, his 12 pole positions testify that he got on top of his qualifying issues of last year, he is still utterly committed in wheel to wheel racing and just blindingly fast. He has become a superstar this year, on the race track and away from it. He is a sporting hero and a very deserving world champion for a third time.


His third title equals his hero Ayrton Senna, the emotional obvious after the race as he quietly shed a few tears and composed himself before being jubilant on the podium.

In the actual race, Hamilton's drive was a bit mixed up, there were a few mistakes, a loss of pace at various points as the Mercedes failed to make its tyres work in the slippery conditions of the early laps. Hamilton was straight on it as the two Mercedes raced down to the first corner from the start.

Rosberg had been on pole but Hamilton drew alongside and then aggressively ran Nico out of road, forcing him off the track and also allowing the two Red Bull's ahead. A few virtual safety cars (VSC) and actual safety cars mixed things up but as the final restart came, it was Nico ahead of Lewis with 10 laps left. Hamilton set a fastest lap, Rosberg made a mistake, ran wide and Lewis was through. 

It wasn't his best drive, but it clinched him the world championship, and overall he has been supreme all year. 

Star of the race

Lewis Hamilton took his inevitable third championship with a win, Vettel charged up through the field to get onto the podium, Daniel Ricciardo was superb in the tricky conditions but it was Max Verstappen's drive to fourth that makes him my driver of the race.

Verstappen made barely any mistakes while everyone else slid off or clattered into others in the mixed conditions early in the race. Max kept his head though, raced hard and aggressively and eventually made his tyre strategy work. This guy is going to be a world champion sooner rather than later.

The Battles

There were so many incidents in the American Grand Prix over the whole weekend. Texas was feeling some of the effects from Hurricane Patricia resulting in second practice being washed out, qualifying delayed until Sunday morning and then that abandoned early. Still, a grid did line up for the race in still slippery conditions, but on a drying track when it would be crucial to change to slick tyres at the right moment.

As you would expect there were some fantastic battles in such inclement weather. The Ferrari's made some great charges after having taken 10 place grid penalties. Both Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen were soon battling in the top 10 with the Toro Rosso's and Force India's, of those Carlos Sainz was driving brilliantly as he stormed up the field after starting 20th and last. He ended up in 7th after a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pitlane dropped him a place.

Raikkonen crashed and eventually retired while Vettel looked at one point he might end up winning but finished in third. Sergio Perez took another impressive result with 5th while his team mate Nico Hulkenberg made a clumsy move on Ricciardo which took him out of the race.

There were battles all over the place, as the McLaren's enjoyed a more competitive showing with Jenson Button being able to race and fight, ending up a fine 6th. When the track was still wet the Red Bull's came on strong and Daniel Ricciardo stormed past Hamilton actually leading the race by more than six seconds at one point, so to later slip down the field as the track dried and ending up with a disappointing 10th is little reward for such a hard charging drive. His team mate Daniil Kvyat crashed after he too had been challenging for the lead early in the race.

The Williams cars suffered a terrible race with both Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa retiring. Pastor Maldonado drove a solid race to take 8th after his Lotus team mate Romain Grosjean suffered problems and retired. Felipe Nasr in the Sauber took 9th. 

Things of note

Red Bull are still searching for an engine, with rumours of a Honda deal reportedly being blocked by McLaren. I still expect them to be on the grid next year.

Lotus have signed 2014 GP2 champion and their current reserve driver to partner Maldonado at what will hopefully be the Renault works team next season, once that deal is signed, which is taking its time.

The Title chase

Let's face it, I've been saying it all year, there never really has been a title fight. It's been Hamilton all the way, in control, devastatingly fast, no one has been able to live with his Mercedes partnership, least of all his team mate.

Hamilton has dominated Rosberg, so much so it's not even his team mate who lies second in the standings. Lewis gained so much confidence from his second title, what will a third title do to him? The other drivers have a lot to fear.

all photos taken from autosport.com

Hamilton beats Rosberg for win in USA

Lewis Hamilton won an action packed thriller in front of 100,000 people attending the third American Grand Prix in Austin, Texas. A wonderful scrap for the lead and battles all the way down the field made for a brilliant spectacle.

Hamilton had lost pole position to his Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg in qualifying, a glazed brake to blame although he did admit he didn’t think he could have beaten a superb lap from Nico. When the lights went out both Mercedes cars got a good start, and at first it looked like Rosberg had the race under control.

Hamilton got to within a second during the opening stint but by the first round of pit stops the gap had opened to over two seconds. Once both were back on track, the change to medium compound tyres from the softs seemed to suit Hamilton a lot more. He let his tyres settle before hammering home his advantage and taking chunks out of Rosberg’s lead. He got to within a second and wasted no time in making a move.

On lap 24 of 56 the silver cars were close and down the back straight Hamilton closed up in the DRS zone, but he didn’t look quite close enough. As they approached the braking zone to turn 12, Hamilton pulled to the left in what can only be described as a lunge. It was from quite a distance back, but for a lunge it was perfectly controlled.  There was no lock up, but he seemed to catch Rosberg by surprise, the Mercedes just millimetres apart. Rosberg had to give way, he was given no choice.

Lewis immediately pulled a gap but Rosberg wasn’t letting this go without a fight and despite falling back a bit he settled into a rhythm and didn’t let Hamilton get more than a few seconds in front. But there was never an opportunity for Rosberg to have a go despite him keeping Lewis in sight. Hamilton, as he has been almost since the summer break ended was in control and won his fifth straight race, his tenth in total this season, also becoming the most successful British driver ever with his 32^nd win.

He is now 24 points ahead of Rosberg with just two races left. That would normally mean he would have an opportunity to wrap up the title in Brazil next weekend but sadly Formula 1 likes to fix problems that don’t exist rather than ones which patently do and have installed a double points round in Abu Dhabi. It now means the title is assured of going to the last race, but if Nico were to win it because of double points then it would be a travesty.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that because with Hamilton holding a ten wins to four advantage over Rosberg I’m not sure how anyone would be able to claim that justice was served. However if Rosberg wins without the help of double points then whatever the win count it’ll show that consistency can pay out too. Both will be deserving champions even if one on paper at least looks far more deserving.

Of course there is the situation right now where Rosberg, despite saying he’s still in the fight, knows the reality is he has been soundly beaten at every race since his last win all the way back in July at the German Grand Prix. Despite his surprising qualifying advantage over Lewis, Rosberg has not kept it in the races and has been almost too easily dismissed in the wheel to wheel battles. If this were a normal season without double points, it would be quite right that Lewis would have potentially clinched the title one race from home. There’s going to be such huge tension that the right result plays out in this contest when we get to Abu Dhabi.

Behind the Mercedes battle for the win there was a brief safety car period after Sergio Perez torpedoed his Force India into the back of Kimi Raikkonen and then in to Adrian Sutil’s Sauber. Amazingly Kimi survived to race on, although could only finish 13^th while Perez and Sutil were both out. Sutil was particularly disappointed after making a good start from his first top ten grid slot of the year. Perez has been given a seven place grid penalty.

Daniel Ricciardo got another podium for Red Bull and sported some interesting facial hair. He held off the Williams’ of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas. Ricciardo got a terrible start but made some great moves to haul himself back up particularly after the safety car on Fernando Alonso who he hung out to dry in turn two. He undercut both Williams during the pit stops and despite Massa getting close towards the end had a relatively untroubled drive to third.

Massa and Bottas stayed out of trouble but one of them should have been on the podium but they increased their advantage over Ferrari in the constructors championship with fourth and fifth. Alonso brought home his Ferrari sixth despite suffering huge vibrations in the closing stages, crossing the line just half a second ahead of Sebastian Vettel.

Vettel had a great last part of the race after looking like he had no pace at all in the opening laps. Starting from the pit lane due to taking a sixth power unit, one more than is permitted for the season, he could barely get ahead of anyone, but through strategy he was up into seventh when he made a final pit stop with just eight laps to go.

He dropped to 13^th but charged and passed people with ease on his fresher tyres. It was a great last few laps, helped by Jenson Button fading with dying rubber and other set up issues that meant he held up a lot of cars while he was lying in eighth.

But as Vettel rose up, Button dropped down to an eventual 12^th. His McLaren 

team mate Kevin Magnussen finished eighth while Jean-Eric Vergne came home ninth after a few brilliantly banzai moves. One was pretty close to the edge as he dived on Romain Grosjean into turn one using him as a bit of an extra brake. The stewards are looking into that but I think he should keep his result. It sent Grosjean down the field and out of the points after a nicely competitive race from the Lotus team.

It was nice to see Pastor Maldonado finally score a point this year despite trying to make it as hard as ever by incurring two five second penalties. Luckily for him Hamilton had lapped everyone up to 10^th, so Maldonado’s extra five seconds dropped him below no one. Edit: Vergne got given a five second penalty for his move on Grosjean so he drops to 10th meaning Maldonado has not one but two whole points to call his own.

Of course we were running with only 18 cars, Marussia and Caterham both in administration there was no real missing of them in race terms as there was so much going on but small teams are an essential part of the sport where many future stars gained experience before emerging as stars. Bernie Ecclestone realises that the way money is divided between the teams is unfair but said he doesn’t know how to fix it. Perhaps it should be him who gives up some of his money to help out, after all it was he who made the unfair deals in the first place.

Marussia say they are hopeful they’ll be back in Abu Dhabi as they seek extra finance, as for Caterham it doesn’t look good.  

Brazil is just one week away, it cannot come soon enough in this great duel to be crowned champion of the world. #ForzaJules

all photos taken from autosport.com

The USA Grand Prix Forecast

The USA Grand Prix held at the circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas is now in it's third year as host of a formula 1 race.

It is one of the better modern circuits with the opening section reminiscent of Silverstone and Suzuka. It will have two DRS zones, one on the start finish straight and the other down the back straight where Lewis Hamilton memorably passed Sebastian Vettel for the lead after a race long duel that was one of the best races this century.

Pirelli are bringing the soft and medium compounds which they believe will offer a two stops over the 56 laps. The weather is forecast to be sunny all weekend with a bit of cloud for the race although it has the highest temperature of the weekend at 25C.

Well that's the formalities out of the way, now to the real issue striking the heart of Formula 1; what else could it be but money? Specifically the lack of it at Caterham and Marussia, both of which went into administration.

It wasn't unexpected with Caterham who have been experiencing problems since before the Russian Grand Prix, well since they were sold. But Marussia are a well run team, and on top of the Jules Bianchi accident a horrible blow to the squad.

Both teams will not participate in Austin leaving the grid at just 18 cars. This is the first time since 2005 F1 will have run with under 20 cars, it is to be hoped that both teams can return soon. Caterham at least hope to be back by Abu Dhabi while Marussia may be back in Brazil. You wouldn't bet your house on it though, or significantly less money.

It once again brings up the issue of how Formula 1 is run and exactly how it's £1.8billion income is split. Too much of it goes to Bernie Ecclestone and his paymasters CVC. The rest goes to the teams in a wholly unequal weighted pay scale.

There is no way that when the sport brings in nearly £2billion that teams should be struggling to survive. Bernie has often talked of his desire for three car teams if the grid drops below 20 but if that happens how long until your left two teams supplying ten cars each to customers as each back of the grid team goes bust? 

You lose the very essence of Formula 1 if you don't have teams building their own cars and competing against the best. Driver to driver, designer to designer, engineer to engineer, mechanic to mechanic investing in their package to make it the best. 

Formula 1 is currently working on an unsustainable platform, for many reasons, but chiefly the division of money and how much doesn't go to it's participants. This will be the major talking point of the US Grand Prix. Hopefully both teams will be back soon because you need those at the back to keep trying, it's part of F1 and gives opportunities to new talent. 

There is still a title battle as well. After three weeks break Nico Rosberg has to halt Hamilton's run of four wins. If Lewis succeeds this weekend then surely the battle for Rosberg is lost. He'll have to go some though, Lewis is awesome around here.

Williams and Red Bull will be the closest challengers. Vettel looks likely to have to take a sixth engine so may well miss qualifying as he'll have a grid penalty.

I expect Valttari Bottas to be very strong after his brilliant result last year. While I think Fernando Alonso has one more surprise left in him for Ferrari before he supposedly leaves. 

Alonso's 'where will he drive in 2015' saga carries on with even rumours of Audi joining in the fun. McLaren is still most likely so watch out for Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen to put in star drives as they battle to stay on the grid. 

Nico Hulkenberg has signed up for Force India in 2015, let's see if he can rediscover his early season form now he's secure.

I think Mercedes pairing are going to be close and certainly one of them will win. Rosberg will be desperate to make sure he stays in range of Lewis, while the rest still have lots to drive for with a surprise most likely to come from Bottas. It's going to be quite the race in the US of A.

Bottas stars in America while Vettel makes it look easy

It was a tough choice to pick who had the biggest starring role of the second American Grand Prix to take place in Austin, Texas at the Circuit of the America’s. There’s an obvious choice, but in a season in which one of the oldest and most successful teams in Formula 1’s history have struggled to even scrape a point I think you have to go with Williams’ Valtteri Bottas.

The young Finn has been overlooked during the season but has displayed a calm composure throughout his first season at the highest level. His team mate Pastor Maldonado may to some be seen as a budget driver but we shouldn’t forget his fantastic race winning performance amongst a number of other fine drivers from 2012.

The fact that Bottas has generally proven to have an edge, certainly in qualifying which he leads 11-7, marks him out as a driver who will become one of the stars of the sport. We’ve seen flashes of his talent come through, his remarkable third in qualifying for Canada in mixed conditions which also displayed his defensive skills on race day showed that he was one to watch.

However a complete weekend that would make people sit up and take notice has failed to materialise until now. Bottas was on it the moment practice started in Texas. His qualifying was remarkable, heading the field in Q2, before admitting that he underperformed in Q3 to line up ninth. This time though, there was to be no falling down the pack as in Canada.

His car allowed him to fight. He had a good start, and was up to eighth by the end of the first lap, while Maldonado had clashed with Adrian Sutil who spun into the barriers to cause a first lap safety car. Bottas kept his calm and fended off anyone who came near and even attacked Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari.

It was a truly impressive performance, he trounced his team mate, kept his pace up and made one of the overtaking moves of the race as he flew around the outside of Esteban Gutierrez into turn two to claim the line. It was breath taking, and as he fought for Williams’ only second points finish of the year utterly nerve wracking.

But he kept it together and brought the car home in eighth place to claim his first four points in Formula 1. It was a showing that he needed, but one which was always coming.

Alonso spell-binding again as Hulkenberg shines once more

As Ferrari get slow Alonso still grinds out the results. He’s not been on the podium for five races now, but he’s still fighting for everything he can get. He’s a true warrior of the sport who will just never give up.

After his Abu Dhabi exploits where he jumped over a kerb to avoid Jean-Eric Vergne’s Toro Rosso registering over a 25g impact, he had to go to hospital for a check-up. Since then he has suffered from headaches and back pain, yet still today he fought until the end.

He lost a place at the start to Sergio Perez to run in seventh for the opening half of the race, but managed to jump the McLaren driver at his first and only stop as most went for a single stop strategy. He passed Nico Hulkenberg to move up to fifth, but then as the race came down to its last few laps the Sauber driver began to creep back up to the back of Alonso.

The Ferrari’s tyres were done, and the Sauber began to grow larger in the scarlet cars mirrors and was into the DRS zone ready to make a move. On the final lap he made his move diving down the inside into turn 1, but Alonso is wily, he knew it was coming and had prepared for it. He let his car go wide to get a better exit and swung straight back past Hulkenberg to keep his fifth place with Hulk settling for sixth.

It’s not the result Alonso wanted but it was the best he could do on the day as his team mate Felipe Massa languished in 12^th. Nico Hulkenberg again demonstrated why he should be in a top team, qualifying fourth, losing out to Lewis Hamilton at the start but generally keep pace with the everyone behind the top three. Another impressive showing, but one I fear will not lead him to the Lotus seat which now appears to be heading to a driver with money.

Grosjean secures another podium

Romain Grosjean secured his fourth podium in five races with second place. Behind Vettel he has scored the most points in the last five races, a fantastic run of form which adds more credence to why he’ll be a top line driver in 2014. I just hope Lotus secure enough funds to keep up their current top team status and bring out a good car which continues to allow Grosjean to shine.

It was said in the Sky commentary that a Lotus insider has said that since Grosjean became a father over the summer he has matured and taken a step back and reassessed his priorities in life. This has made him relax more and calm down. He’s pushing but letting things come to him rather than make things happen and risk a mistake. He’s also using a psychologist to put him in the best frame of mind for his racing.

It certainly seems to be working; he made a great start to move from third to second on the opening lap despite being crowded at the start. Mark Webber also put in a good showing behind in third and was closing down Grosjean towards the end of the race. It’s a mark of how increasingly mature the Lotus driver is as he didn’t even feign to block Webber in the DRS zone. He was confident enough to know the Red Bull driver wasn’t closing fast enough and he could maintain his line throughout. If the Lotus is good next year, Grosjean is going to be on it, that I think there is no doubt.

The Battles for points

Lewis Hamilton put in a lot better showing than he has done recently, running relatively strongly in fourth throughout the race. He said he noticed a difference in the new chassis that Mercedes brought him after his previous one was discovered to have developed cracks.

He couldn’t keep pace with the leaders though and had a number of fairly grumpy exchanges with his engineer on the radio which Ross Brawn said the team were getting used to in a rather annoyed fashion it seemed. Lewis wants to win and when he can’t even compete it doesn’t go down so well, still it was a better weekend.

Nico Rosberg seemed altogether calmer in the other Mercedes but after a poor qualifying session had left him in 12^th he did manage to get his race on towards the end to fight his way into the points and claim a decent ninth spot.  

Sergio Perez has out-qualified and out-raced his McLaren team mate Jenson Button for the last three races and for that he has been sacked. Admittedly his replacement Kevin Magnussen just looks to be awesome but still I think that Perez has been treated slightly harshly. He put in another good showing to finish seventh while Button grabbed tenth after a spirited drive from 16^th on the grid. He had suffered a three place penalty due to overtaking under red flags in practice.

Esteban Gutierrez deserves a mention for battling his way up the field. He looked quick again and had made it into Q3 but took a ten place grid drop for blocking Maldonado in Q1. He finished up 13th after Jean-Eric Vergne got a 20 second penalty added to his race time for colliding with the Mexican. 

Heikki Kovalainen also starred as Kimi Raikkonen’s replacement lining up seventh. He fell to 12^th at the start but had fought his way back into the points before front wing damage and failing KERS caused him to make an extra stop and lose pace.

Shall we save the best until last?

What more superlatives can we come up to describe Sebastian Vettel. Yet again he was awesome, yet again he took pole position, led most of the race and romped home to the win, setting another fastest lap which will have annoyed his engineer and once more celebrated in style with some fantastic donuts.

He’s a phenomenon is Vettel. He was in utter control throughout and his fastest lap two laps from home was six tenths quicker than anyone else, you know, just to rub it in a little. He was very emotional on the podium and he seems genuinely over whelmed with everything he’s achieved, as if he can’t quite believe this is happening to him. It’s a wonderful sight to see someone truly appreciate that they are in the midst of making history and it obviously means just so much to him. And it’s not just himself, I think he feels it for everyone in the Red Bull team.

It was his eighth consecutive victory, which makes him the first driver ever to achieve eight wins in a single season. Some people describe it as boring, and there is inevitability to a race when you see the number 1 Red Bull streak into the lead at the start. But this shouldn’t matter to fans of the sport, yes we want to see exciting racing but what you are witnessing is perfection.

Once again Vettel was magnificent, and moving onto the final race in Brazil I’m sure he’ll be a strong bet for the triple hat trick. Of course Brazil often throws up some rain, but you know what, Vettel’s pretty good with a car on H2O too.

Final Result after 56 laps:

1. Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull

2. Romain Grosjean - Lotus

3. Mark Webber - Red Bull

4. Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes

5. Fernando Alonso - Ferrari

6. Nico Hulkenberg - Sauber

7. Sergio Perez - McLaren

8. Valtteri Bottas - Williams

9. Nico Rosberg - Mercedes

10. Jenson Button - McLaren

11. Daniel Ricciardo - Toro Rosso

12. Felipe Massa - Ferrari

13. Esteban Gutierrez - Sauber

14. Heikki Kovalainen - Lotus

15. Paul di Resta - Force India

16. Jean-Eric Vergne - Toro Rosso

17. Pastor Maldonado - Williams

18. Jules Bianchi - Marussia

19. Giedo van der Garde - Caterham

20. Charles Pic - Caterham

21. Max Chilton - Marussia

R. Adrian Sutil - Force India - Accident

all photo's taken from autosport.com

The American Forecast

It’s the final week of Formula 1 for the 2013 season. What seemed to start out as a pretty competitive year has turned into a demonstration of just what an incredible force Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull have turned into since they first started their onslaught of the silverware in 2010.

The final double header of the year starts in Texas at the circuit of the Americas, the second visit to what is a fantastic venue. Last year produced in my opinion, the best race of the year, the purest in terms of out and out racing.

Lewis Hamilton tracked Vettel for the majority of it, and only an intervention by an errant backmarker allowed him to close up enough to execute an admittedly trick DRS pass. It didn’t end there though, Vettel didn’t let Lewis go until the chequered flag, it was intense stuff and we can only hope this weekend produces similar inspiring racing.

At the moment Texas is looking sunny and cloudy on all three days of the event, with not much chance of rain. There are two DRS zones this year, the first is on the start finish straight while the second is after turn 11, where Lewis made his pass for victory last year. The tyre compounds for the race are medium and hard, so I’d say it’s likely to be a one stopper, much like last season.

So will 2013 champion Vettel make it eight wins in a row? Well surely we all know the answer? Well no, you can never be certain with many things in life. However, it sure is likely. He took pole last year, and was close to a win, the form book this season has hints that he could certainly claim victory.

However, I’m not sure he’s going to have it all his own way. Mark Webber’s form over the last few races has certainly been better, and he knows that with just two races of his career left it’s now or never, or next week if he wants to make it ten Formula 1 victories. Just beat Vettel one more time Mark, you’ve done it before, why not do it again?

It’s possibly because Vettel is driving so above everyone else right now he’s making it look just too easy. But it’s never easy to trounce someone quite as highly regarded as Webber. I think the other hope for victory has to come from Mercedes. Either Hamilton or Nico Rosberg can take the fight to Red Bull.

It’s been Rosberg recently, but I’ve a feeling if Lewis feels comfortable then on this track he can produce something special especially now the team have brought him a new chassis after finding two big cracks in his previous one which would have affected performance. Mercedes do still have the pace, at least in qualifying to try and cause an upset. In Abu Dhabi if it wasn’t for a spin, Lewis could have taken pole position, he was up on Vettel before that incident. He is definitely one to look out for.

Lotus too could spring a surprise. Probably only from one car though, that being the car of Romain Grosjean. It was getting to a point where that might have been the case anyway even with Kimi Raikkonen in the other car, but now he has been side-lined with his back injury it seems unlikely that Heikki Kovalainen, the chosen replacement will manage to do better than Kimi.

I do hope Heikki shows what he can do though. He’s a talented driver who has been wasted at Caterham these past few years, he at least deserves another crack at it, so good on him.

I’m also tipping Sergio Perez to give a decent performance for McLaren. He’s been unceremoniously dropped after just a year, and he’ll be out to prove and advertise himself to those teams with seats available and who are willing to except some Mexican money to pay the bills.

I think along with McLaren the battles between Force India, Sauber and Toro Rosso will be interesting as they scrap to be the best of the rest. I expect after Abu Dhabi that Force India have finally found out how to work these current tyres, so I’m looking to Paul di Resta to show himself off and secure his seat for next year.

Let’s not forget Ferrari either. Felipe Massa out-qualified Fernando Alonso here in 2012, and given recent showings there’s no reason to expect that not to happen again. With Massa now safely ensconced in a Williams seat for 2014, I hope he’ll race without fear and finally show not just glimpses but really perform like he did in 2008/9.

Despite the championship being sewn up this race has plenty of potential to be a thriller. I’m looking forward to it.

all photo's taken from autosport.com

Hamilton's greatest win keeps title race wide open

Lewis Hamilton won a hugely tense and thrilling first race at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, to set up a last round title showdown between Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso in Brazil.

Scoring his first win in six races, Lewis Hamilton perhaps has never driven such a great race as he hunted down Vettel and moved in for the kill. The entire weekend had been Vettel’s fastest by far in the opening three practice sessions, the Red Bull driver then followed that up with pole position.

But Saturday showed us this wasn’t going to just be a Red Bull victory party as Hamilton was only just over a tenth of second behind. It was going to be close and so it proved.

This new specially built track had been fairly grip-less all weekend, especially as Pirelli brought too conservative tyre options which took an age to heat up, but nowhere was as slippery as the even numbered side of the grid. Many race engineers predicted cars starting from there could lose up to two positions from the start.

Fortunately for Lewis, he lost just one to Mark Webber as Vettel shot away in the lead, but in recent times when the Red Bull’s have got out in front no one has seen them again for the rest of the day, not this time though.

Hamilton was soon back ahead of Webber on lap 4 and immediately cut the gap to Vettel, then steadily tracked him down. Webber duly retired 13 laps later with Red Bull’s nemesis, Renault alternator failures.

Lewis looked threatening and closed him down even getting into DRS zone; it was great to see Vettel being challenged, and it was only Lewis who could, no one else who get even close to these two. However, Vettel resisted and after a brief lock up from the McLaren he began to pull away again.

Lewis made his pit stop on lap 20, Vettel following a lap later, and suddenly Lewis heated up the attacks again. He quickly surged passed the yet to stop Kimi Raikkonen and tore after Vettel.

The DRS zone was the main attack point, but each and every time he got close through the first sectors high speed sweeps, the Red Bull traction out of the slow hairpin into the DRS straight was able to keep Vettel just out of reach, the McLaren bouncing off the rev limiter.

Lewis dropped back for a while, let everything calm down and then he launched again. He brought the gap down over a few laps then lap 41 he gets close, not quite enough though. Lap 42, he must be able to see his opportunity ahead of him.

Vettel comes into the series of fast sweeping bends, quickly approaching the HRT of Narain Karthikeyan who can’t quite get out of the way in time momentarily blocking him, the McLaren of Hamilton looms into Vettel’s mirrors, he hasn’t been this close yet, it’s the break he needed.

Into the DRS zone, Hamilton activates, Vettel immediately knows Lewis is closer than ever and pulls to the left hand side of the track to defend the inside line. Hamilton follows him across being pulled by the slip stream ever close.

Finally he darts out from behind the Red Bull rear wing and shoots past, slicing ahead of the Red Bull to hold the inside line into turn 12. He was through and he wasn’t going to lose this now.

To demonstrate just how close it was between the pair of them, Vettel didn’t just fall away, in fact he was never more than 1.5 seconds away for the remaining 14 laps. But he didn’t get an opportunity, and Lewis managed to hold a gap of more than a second to keep Vettel away from the DRS zone and win his fourth race of the year.

Hamilton drove brilliantly and he truly deserved another win for McLaren before his move to Mercedes; they failed to score a point again despite Michael Schumacher qualifying fifth, but they had no race pace and dropped back. Hamilton must hope they’ve been working on the 2013 car for a long time now.

Anyway more than that McLaren owed him a car that could challenge after the catalogue of dropped points from issues that have left Hamilton out of contention for this years title.

Vettel will rue that incident with the HRT, a win today would have put one hand on the championship trophy, he’d have been 20 points ahead heading into the final round, as it is he’s still 13 ahead, but yet again Alonso saved a result by getting on the podium.

However, Red Bull did win the constructors championship today, their third in a row which is a fantastic achievement.

Ferrari

Ferrari worked the rules today. Felipe Massa and Alonso could only qualify 6^th and 8^th respectively after Romain Grosjean took a grid penalty to drop him from 4^th to 9^th. This meant they lined up on the dirty side of the grid with supposedly less grip. There was almost a sense of paranoia about that side of the track.

They felt it was so bad, that they broke the seal on Massa’s healthy gearbox to drop him to 11^th and promote Alonso to 7^th and thereby giving him the preferred side of the grid as well as moving him up a position.

Whether it’s in the spirit of the rules or not is neither here nor there, as it was a great bit of team tactics and there is nothing that says you can’t do it. And it worked too. Alonso made another great start and was fourth out of the first corner, once Webber dropped out he was third and from then on, there he stayed.

Without that switch he might well have lost a place and found himself in the pack, but having said that Ferrari had a good enough pace to see them through as demonstrated by Massa’s superb charge through the field to fourth place.

He made a number of good overtakes and often was setting fastest laps. If anything Massa had the pace to beat Alonso today, in fact he was quicker all weekend, but he played the team game and if Alonso ends up world champion, Massa will have played a small, but vital part in the game. Ferrari played the game today and played it well.

Overtake of the race

Kimi Raikkonen didn’t have the speed to participate at the front this weekend like he did a fortnight ago but he still pulled off a fantastic move on Nico Hulkenberg. As he exited turn 1 he switched back to pull alongside the Force India, and then hung on round the outside of the fast turn 2 to claim the inside of the next corner. It was breath taking.

Kimi ended up 6^th after a great move by Jenson Button at the end of the DRS zone to go round the outside of turn 12 and hold off the Lotus.

Rest of the top 10

Jenson Button was 5^th after qualifying only 12^th due to technical problems. He actually dropped down to 16^th on the opening lap but fought his way through the pack with some decent scrapping and decisive as well as opportunistic overtakes. He had good speed, so it was disappointing he wasn’t able to show it most of the time.

Still he wasn’t in Lewis’ class this weekend, and surely that is a slightly concern for McLaren’s 2013 title push.

Romain Grosjean suffered a spin on lap 7 which dropped him down the order from well inside the top 10. However he still ended up right on the back of Kimi to end up 7^th. If only he could stop making mistakes as he’s actually a really good race driver.

Nico Hulkenberg for Force India, Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna for Williams seemed to be constantly involved in some fantastic action as they finished 8^th, 9^th and 10^th. The Williams’ were often in fairly close proximity.

But the entire field put on a show for their new American audience (albeit with a large quantity of Mexican’s in the audience). It won’t have helped that the NASCAR decider was on this weekend too, so the impact will have been lessened, but what they needed was a good race to demonstrate the product.

And that they got, there were battles all the way down the field, all the teams participating as mostly they fought to get past Schumacher, but after that the action continued. It was just the start Formula 1 needed in their new American home.

The title decider

So to Brazil next weekend, where apparently there’s a 40% chance of rain, Alonso does quite well when theirs a bit of precipitation. Against all the odds he’s kept himself in this title battle, is there one final card to play in the decider?

Vettel may have the advantage and the best car, but Alonso has a bullet proof car and knows Red Bull have fears about their reliability. This is still very much open; it’s all to play for in Sao Paulo. 

all photo's from autosport.com