[arun_josie]

Formula 1: The 2018 US Grand Prix









Track Layout



Tyre Selection



Track Information



Driver Standings

Hamilton on the verge of winning his 5th championship. It will be interesting to see how Vettel handles this situation as he has to be aggressive since he is starting at P5 after penalty.

The fight for P7-P11 is very close with just 4 points separating Perez, Magnussen, Hulkenberg, Alonso and Ocon.

Hope it rains to make the race interesting

[nair]

Was looking for this thread for sometime. Thanks for creating this.

Anyone think Kimi can overtake LH at the start and back him onto Vettel? Vettel needs a 2 place cushion for staying alive in the championship. Looking forward to the start.

[motorworks]

And Kimi wins! What an incredible victory! The last 15 laps was fantastic to watch, with just 2-4 seconds separating the top 3! Its fitting that Kimi wins in Ferrari this year. He has driven far better than the last few years and probably deserved to win in Monza too.

Verstappen is surely the next big thing. I think he has great years ahead of him and hope he gets to drive championship winning cars!

I think Vettel has given up, his attitude says it all. He had another incident, went right to the back of the Grid and had to again fight back to finish 4th; very similar to Japan and Italy. He has to stay calm, this year is done. At least winning a couple of races towards the end could do some good to his confidence, moving in to next season.

And finally, Bottas, the perfect wingman! I think right after the summer break he decided this championship is not his, gave up, seems to be much slower than Hamilton most of the time and Merc anyway asks him to move over for Lewis. If he continues this form next year then im sure Ocon will be in that Merc for 2020.

[arunphilip]

Kimi's victory - awesome. And a huge consolation for me, as I'm disappointed with Vettel having repeatedly thrown away his title challenges with desperate attempts.

There are rumours in the paddock that Vettel might retire, due to friction in the Ferrari camp. I'm not sure how likely that is (or if someone's just stirring up trouble), but it does make one wonder when it comes to Vettel's recent performances.

Max, Max, Max. Great stuff.

Although the top 3 exchanged no positions for the last 10+ laps, I loved the slow-burn thriller nature of those laps.

Liberty Media have been hoping for more uptake of F1 in the US - a race like today's is just what the doctor ordered.

[vb-saan]

Winning is one thing, and the response was even brilliant – classic Kimi style! In stark contrast another fellow world champion is whining all the way!

[sgiitk]

It was a good race, quite enjoyable. I went off with the recorder running at about 1:15 or so into the race. A lot of overtaking, and also strategy in play. Saw the closing today morning. A good Race.

It was nice to see the 'good boy' winning. Hamilton trying to exploit the VSC period proved to be his undoing.

[Vid6639]

What a nail biter of a race. Even though the end was a bit of an Anti Climax it was the result I was hoping for.

When Hamilton pitted for the second time and was 17secs behind the lead with 20 laps to go it was going to be close.

Last few laps with the top 3 guys within 1 sec of each other was amazing to watch. What a crowd puller. Even though it wasn't wheel to wheel racing, it was as close as it could get with all 3 drivers driving the wheels off their cars.

Vettel somewhat redeemed himself today but he is surely losing it under pressure. His overtakes are too close and he just shoves himself and expects other drivers to move out.

Hamilton Verstappen was surprisingly clean today. Hamilton should have it in the bag next week in Mexico.

Great to see Kimi on the top step after years and you can see he is the crowd favourite. I don't think there is anyone who does not like him even if you are not a Ferrari fan.

[Makin Rulesz]

Awesome drive by Kimi. For once Ferrari gave the perfect strategy for him to win the race. His sensational start to jump Hamilton in the beginning and the way he defended against fast Mercedes with those worn out tyres before his pit stop were just delight to watch. At the same time it is so disappointing to see Vettel making repeated silly mistakes leaving him to fight through the filed.
Great race for Max to finish second after starting 18th on grid. Also good and clean racing with Hamilton on closing laps. Ricciardo's bad luck continues

Latest news is Magnussen and Ocon have been disqualified from the race results for separate fuel related infringements.

[arun_josie]

Superb drive by Raikkonen and Verstappen. The closing stages was a treat to watch with Hamilton within a sec of Verstappen, Verstappen close to Raikkonen and Vettel chasing and then moving ahead of Bottas.

As usual Vettel spins on the opening lap and then had to fight through the grid. Ricciardo was unlucky again.

Not much action in the midfield. The gap between top 3 teams and rest is too huge as though two different races are going simultaneously.

It was a nice to see the cameraderie between Raikkonen, Verstappen and Hamilton after the race.

[fiat_tarun]

Yayy ! Finally Kimi wins. Thoroughly enjoyed the race with some good racing all through. I loved the way Kimi held Lewis back, perfectly placing his car and keeping cool.

On the Vettel - Ricciardo crash, you can see Vettel turns into Ricciardo mid corner - wonder if this was a 'shove' or was it a counter steer to prevent a slide ?

[tharian]

'Finally'- Kimi said on the radio.

2013 January to 2018 October is a long time. He totally deserved it and the added tag of the most successful Finnish driver in F1.

And typical Kimi; to Hamiltion,

' Did you win the championship or not?'

[mrbaddy]

It just made my day, rather my night.

I was getting ready to sleep early for an early morning rise (after four days of idle holidays) and getting work backlogs cleared in the morning. I suddenly remembered the race at 11:20 pm IST and I could not miss it. I didn't even follow the qualifying so don't know who is on pole and I didn't want to know before the race.

Race started at 11:35 and within 5 seconds, I'm engaged. Being a Kimi fan, total race was engaging for me. At some point in the race I could feel Italy repeating. I even thought Ferrari made a mistake by not calling Kimi into the pits during VSC period. One of the key point for Kimi's win is his defense of Hamilton for over two laps on old tyres just before his pit stop.

I think I can now peacefully retire from F1 watching. . It started with Kimi in 2002 and will end with him.

But Max is keeping the excitement going for F1. What a great drive from him. And in a way he helped Kimi's win. In other situations, would have rooted for him to win.

[jpcoolguy]

Finally, Kimi had a race win before leaving Ferrari in his second stint. It was ominous, when he was told by the pit wall that Hamilton may catch him in the last 3 laps, however what went in his favour is that Hamilton had to deal with Verstappen first. Kimi also played his part when he made sure Hamilton lost time and in the process his tyres, in the last 2 laps before his pit stop. Reminded me of Monza, only this time it was the other way around.

What a great drive by Max and I am still unable to comprehend how he had managed that SuperSoft tyres to last for 33 laps when Hamilton's first set of Softs gave up within 25 laps. Seems the late move by Pirelli to increase the tyre pressures to 21.5 psi from 20 psi coupled with wet FPs on Friday, made sure none of the teams had any concrete data on the life of the tyres. Seems Mercedes had set up the car for a wet race which might also be the reason.

The series of mistakes done by Vettel in this season would make up for a great viewing of how to squander the title to the rival and his first lap mistakes would be a great lesson for future drivers how not to overtake. Anyways, he had a great 'comeback' drive and Bottas with his wingman tactics was always vulnerable to Vettel and Vettel made sure Mercedes paid for their mistakes.

For once Ferrari's strategy seemed to have worked or should I say Mercedes strategy backfired. However, RBR's strategy team is on a different planet and how I wish Daniel hadn't retired from the race, would have been nice to see him in the mix of the things in the final laps.

Ferrari's upgrades (or should I say 'degrades') to the aero package which was different from the last 3 races seemed to have clicked finally albeit pretty late in the season. If only Ocon could get that seat in Mercedes, the future races would be very exciting with Verstappen, Leclerc and Ocon vying for the championship titles, assuming that Honda has improved their engine.

[SilentEngine]

Well deserved win for Kimi!
It was exactly on this day (October 21) 11 years back that he had won the epic 2007 championship.

He made sure we fans had to stay awake for the entire race. His defense against Hamilton was simply outstanding and towards the end having Max as a cushion also helped.

As for Vettel, it's a case of another race - another first lap incident.

[Dr GB]

It is always delight to read Kimi’s post-race comments

Kimi could have fought for championship this year IF and ONLY Ferrari Crew worked for him. Simply he did not get adequate support from his crew. But still he is so close to Vettel. I am just a Kimi's fan