We have completed our return to the US rounded of with cowboy hats on the podium which is a nice authentic touch - and we do seem to have avoided a frightening bout of square-dancing as well. As to the race it wasn't too bad, on the surface we were not expecting an enthralling encounter fuelled by a massive quantity of unpredictability, the nature of the track was going to dictate that much in the same way that the Indian GP did. But Austin did out perform the Indian venue today where oddly the crazy 'stadium' section towards the end of the lap became the site of some fairly close racing running wheel to wheel only inches apart. Also this was the first race where the excessively wide apex zones actually played a part in deciding the outcome of some battles throughout the field.
In terms of the championship the result hasn't made too much of a difference as the status quo remains between Fernando and that German Bloke heading to Brazil - an arena build on unpredictability and surrounded by some very unstable weather systems. Looking back on the 56 laps of today's race I can see that the Austin Circuit will be on the calendar for several years to come, mainly due to the sheer size of the investment that has been piled into the track, but also through increased use across the year the dusty lines will be cleaner next time around. What will be interesting to see is how this race will work in conjunction with the potential arrival of the New Jersey street race planned now for an arrival in 2014, fortunately the extreme contrasts between the two events will segregate them from each other. America has a strange preference for street circuits so it was only a matter of time before one of those made it back onto the schedule. But that is a long way down the road, so lets examine the race that has just concluded.
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| image credit to F1Fanatic.co.uk |
Things were starting to be altered before the cars had even left the pit-lane and took to the grid, because a devious plan was forming in the Ferrari garage, as they woke up this morning and realised they were on the wrong side of the grid. Additionally they noticed that Massa was in front - in Ferrari terms that almost amounts to treason and blasphemy so there was only one decision that was going to leave the garage pre-race. Massa had to be moved out of the way, so the team induced a penalty for Felipe by changing the gearbox dropping him to 11th, it moved Alonso up to 7th and onto the cleaner side of the grid. Very devious indeed...
As for the rest of the drivers, they decided that qualifying actually counts and started in the correct position. Off the line the disparity between the two sides of the grid was apparent as Raikkonen and Hamilton immediately lost places as Red Bull assumed a 1-2 lead through the opening corner. Alonso seemed to like his new starting place clearing the row of cars in front of time to make it into 4th place. Despite running close to five wide in places through the wider apex section there was no major contact, slight bumping at the very apex of the corner towards the back involving Kobayashi and one of the Toro Rossos. Further up Hulkenberg and Raikkonen were going through turn two side by side, brushing wheels in the process sending Kimi out wide - not to be outdone a Williams went even further out wide in the same corner.
The function of the fast section of sweeping corners on the opening lap is to convert a string of battling cars into a single file train towards the bottom hairpin at the bottom of the track. But on cold tyres the cars were sliding all their way through the sequence Verge got all kinds of sideways behind One-Stop Perez and just ahead of Jenson who lost places as a result of being on the wrong side of the grid at the start. Also having a bad day was Schumacher demonstrating that the pace of the car in qualifying was well beyond the race pace of the team as a long queue was starting to form behind him. First in that line was the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg followed by both of the Lotus cars - Nico didn't spend too long behind the Mercedes leaving Raikkonen to deal with the slowing German. The problem in this case was as it has been elsewhere - Lotus don't have the same top end speed to make full use of the DRS system. Once the DRS was activated Raikkonen was able to draw alongside with Schumacher but it was on the outside, interestingly Grosjean had gone to the inside and passed both cars in one move.
Up front Vettel was once more vanishing again but Hamilton was attacking the second Red Bull of Webber to take second place, on his first attempt Lewis ran too deep down the inside at the end of the back straight allowing Webber back through. It didn't last long as on the next lap Hamilton repeated the move but was able to hang onto the place without running out wide. Schumacher was having more difficulties with an ever growing train of cars lurking in his mirrors, now headed by Di Resta and Felipe Massa. Further down the queue Jenson was mounting a recovery drive duelling with the two Williams cars outside of the top ten in 13th place. With the Toro Rosso team also in the mix it was getting a little fraught and on a European track might have ended up with several cars in the wall missing wheels. But here there was enough space and enough skill for drivers to run side by side through the stadium curves towards the end of the lap.
The image of control and precision sort of fell apart as the camera cut to Grosjean sitting pointing the wrong direction on the exit of turn 19, loosing the car on entry to the corner and sliding out across the run-off. Romain was able to get back into the race, but lost several positions falling away from his battle with Hulkenberg. Jenson passed the struggling Lotus before heading after Schumacher in a moment of convergence where a car going forward met one going the other way. Michael was able to fend off the challenge through the DRS zone but coming onto the front straight Button was able to go to the inside. Schumacher defended the position pushing Jenson further across the track... and then some more...if Michael had pushed Jenson any further not only would he end up in the pit wall but would be on the verge of being forced across the border into Mexico. Jenson survived the squeeze to take away the position from the Mercedes and drove away into the distance. Within a few laps Schumacher had his team-mate and Vergne for company which got rather close through the stadium phase, where Vergne ended up venturing off the track. Somewhere along the line there must have been some contact as Vergne retired with damaged suspension at the start of the next lap.
Back somewhere near the front Raikkonen was back on the case of the car that nudged him off on the opening lap, Kimi cut back on the inside of the Force India on the exit of the first corner placing him once more on the outside of turn two. In a carbon copy of the opening lap the two cars raced inches apart through the corner but Raikkonen had the advantage and made the pass before the following sequence. Then all too familiar radio call went out to Webber's Red Bull informing him that his KERs had failed...again, it always seems to be that side of the garage with KERs issues. But this was a precursor to a much bigger problem as the cursed Red Bull alternator failed once more putting an end to Webber's race, and causing a fair quantity of concern on the pit wall.
It was time for the one and only pit-stop phase of the race lead by Hamilton with an impressive 2.4s stop, Ferrari couldn't respond with a slower stop surpassing 6s after a delay on a rear wheel. Raikkonen stayed out and injected himself into the centre of the battle for the lead between Lewis and Vettel, but on older tyres had no defence against the McLaren behind. Jenson was also staying out and found himself behind Alonso's Ferrari a position which didn't remain there for long as Fernando effectively let the McLaren through rather than losing speed fighting a car on an alternate strategy. When Raikkonen made his stop there was also a delay in the Lotus garage removing the change of getting the car ahead of Alonso and onto the podium. Instead he was in the firing ling of Massa and Ricciardo - who hadn't stopped by this point.
Once the stops had cycled through there was the generic lull where not too much goes on, Vettel had sufficient lead while being closed down gradually by Hamilton's McLaren - trimming tenths off to make it into the DRS window. The gap was brought down significantly as the pair negotiated their way through some traffic - a moment in the race that proved pivotal as Lewis was able to break into the key 1s deficit window. The only other track action came from the other of the two McLarens as Jenson worked his way back after his stop making it through past the Lotus of Grosjean. Massa was able to get around the other Lotus of Raikkonen through turn two - Kimi had spend a lot of laps duelling someone there, but this time lost out to the Ferrari. This meant Massa was now one place behind Alonso - which probably wasn't good for his career options, Felipe was binned down the grid for out-qualifying Fernando, so being anywhere near him one the track would get him kicked off the flight to Brazil entirely.
Right at the front of the field Hamliton was now very close to Vettel close enough to use the DRS to power past on the back straight, which was followed by a scrambled whine from Vettel over the radio. It is claimed the vent was about Karthikeyan not getting out of the way quick enough and allowed Lewis to be too close. But it might have had something to do with the speed advantage the McLaren had making the pass a little easy on the slower Red Bull car. This sealed the podium, with Hamilton secure out front from Vettel and Alonso in a world of his own, and behind him Felipe is under constant instruction not to be in the same region as his team-mate. Therefore we have to look a little further back for some competition where we find Raikkonen and Button engrossed in battle, it was clear the McLaren had the advantage and was a matter of time before Kimi was defeated. The pass finally came on the exit of turn 12, while Kimi defended the inside Jenson stayed alongside before taking the inside of the next corner.
With the race winding down there were few battles remaining on the track, none of them inside the top 8, as we had to look back to the bottom end of the points where the two Williams drivers were running in close attendance behind Nico Hulkenberg's Force India. Bruno Senna demonstrated the significant straight line speed of the Williams and drafted to the outside of Nico from a long way behind on the back straight. But he was unable to clear the Force India before turning into the corner allowing Hulkenberg to maintain position - the battle brought Maldonado into the equation through the remainder of the sequence. The trio got very close in the final part of the stadium section as Senna brushed the rear of Nico's car narrowly missing on causing a puncture. Pastor asked the team if it was alright to have a go at his team-mate - the team said it was and the next thing we seen is Maldonado sending one up the inside of turn one banging wheels in the process. Not entirely sure that's what the team had in mind. Hulkenberg now had a different Williams getting very close to his gearbox for the remaining laps.
The race ended as Hamilton crossed the line to win the first race on the new Austin track followed home by championship leader Sebastien Vettel still unable to break too far away from Alonso's Ferrari who rounded out the podium. Massa came across the line in fourth, which is convenient as if they'd both been on the podium Felipe would need to receive his trophy in a separate room. Following the Ferrari pair was the recovering McLaren of Jenson Button having a strong race after running 16th on the opening lap. The two Lotus cars followed, lead by Kimi Raikkonen, Hulkenberg managed to hold of the challenges from both of the Williams to finish 8th, ahead of Maldonado and Senna rounding out the points. This means the championship battle goes down to the final race of the season in Brazil where Vettel has a 13 point lead from Fernando - and entertaining weather is predicted. Nice. Almost as nice as the Stetsons used as the podium caps, well played Texas, well played.
The Bonus points championship winners
There will be a lot of talk surrounding the world championship title in the next seven days before the crucial final race, and considering the constructors championship has already gone to Red Bull this season making it their 3rd title. However the bonus points championship is far more competitive with 12 contenders remaining before the start of this weekend - so the results of this race define who is still in with a chance when that grand finale rolls round.
- 25pts - Jenson Button - Recovering from 16th early on to finish 5th at the end of the race is a strong result with several passes along the way
- 18pts - Felipe Massa - After getting demoted down the grid by his own team to finish behind the other red car, a safe distance behind of course
- 15pts - Lewis Hamilton - The only car able to stay with Vettel today
- 12pts - Romain Grosjean - After spinning off recovering to be close to his team-mate and for passing two cars in the same corner
- 10pts - Vitaly Petrov - For winning the lower division of the grid for Caterham
- 8pts - Nico Hulkenberg - Survived some significant pressure from both of the Williams drivers at the end of the race
- 6pts - Kimi Raikkonen - Some great precision moves two wide through turn 2 several times
- 4pts - Texas - Well played indeed, race could have been better, but jolly good job overall
- 2pts - Fernando Alonso - Still on the podium - but was helped there through some dodgy tactics
- 1pt - Pastor Maldondo - The only driver to ask for permission before hitting his team-mate
The penalty points championship
As there were no official penalties this weekend - although there is an incident between Kovalainen and Glock on the final lap being investigated which happened off camera - it is time to move onto the penalty points series and we have some additions to the table from this race.
- Ferrari - an obvious penalty point here for binning one of your cars to move another from one side of the grid to the other, sad really.
- Michael Schumacher - For virtually pushing Jenson Button through the wall and into the next state.
- Martin Brundle - For being a little more arrogant than usual on the grid and being well out of sync
Looking to the grand finale
Well, well, well. Here we are after 19 races, some of which have been utterly spectacular with flying cars and madness, while others have been a little dull...cough India cough, we have come to this. 13 points separates the only two challengers in the main championship, not of course that it matters when the ultimate title of the second bonus points champion is revealed in little over a week from now. The stage for this grand finale is the frantic lap in Sau Paulo Brazil - something that doesn't look promising for Felipe. If he even as much as try to win on his home track and the Ferrari Mafia will lock him away with his own luggage, permanently. It is a track where anything can happen, where championships have been won and lost within metres of the line, the famous pass on Glock by Hamilton in 2008 is a perfect example.
It is also often complicated by the presence of some rain, because when it rains in Interlagos it can be very significant - the 2003 race was one of the most destructive in recent seasons when turn three washed up more cars than Hurricane Sandy. The race finished when Alonso hit the wheel of a destroyed Jaguar before plowing into the wall, despite being classified 3rd, missed the podium by virtue of a hospital visit. Kimi Raikkonen thought he won the race but on countback to the time the red flag came out it turned out Fisichella in a Jordan won the race. So if we could have another one like that it would be awesome - minus taking people away in an ambulance, had enough of that sort of thing with double tragedies in the support race action for the Macau GP coming into this weekend. So until the grand finale of Brazil this is farewell from the blog.
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