Brazilian Grand Prix 2012 - Report

Sebastian Vettel secured a third successive world title in dramatic style amid changing weather conditions in a thrilling Brazilian Grand Prix. A collision between Nico Hulkenberg and Lewis Hamilton handed Jenson Button a third win of the season, with Fernando Alonso slotting into second. However, with Vettel lying in sixth position despite first lap contact that demoted him to the back of the pack, there was nothing Alonso could do to prevent the German becoming the sport’s youngest ever triple champion.

Qualifying on Saturday was for the most part dry, and McLaren were clearly the most competitive proposition. The net result of that was a front-row lockout for the Woking-built cars, with Hamilton securing pole position in his final race for the team ahead of teammate Button. Mark Webber qualified in third position with teammate Vettel alongside in fourth position, while Felipe Massa would start in fifth and Alonso seventh with the Ferrari not looking as competitive as its rivals in the dry.

Although all 24 drivers lined up with slick tyres at the start, spots of rain were beginning to fall just a few minutes before the start of the race. As the lights went out, both McLarens made good starts as Hamilton led away, whilst the Ferraris swarmed past the slow-starting Red Bulls. Massa took the outside of the track and drew alongside Button as the pack headed into the Senna ‘S’ for the first time, the Brazilian moving into second behind Hamilton. Alonso moved into fourth ahead of Webber, although the Aussie took the place  back later in the lap.

Vettel on the other hand was already down to seventh at the first corner after being passed by the Ferrari pair as well as Hulkenberg, who started sixth. At turn 4, as Kimi Raikkonen locked his brakes and ran wide, Vettel took a wide line and was collected by Bruno Senna, who attempted to dive up the inside. Whilst the points leader pirouetted as a result, dropping to the very rear of the field, Senna was eliminated on the spot along with a hapless Sergio Perez in his final outing for Sauber.

Back at the front, Hamilton continued to lead from Button, who was able to re-pass Massa later in the first lap. Webber was attempting to line-up the home favourite for a pass at the first corner of the second lap, but Alonso took advantage of the double slipstream to execute an audacious move around the outside of both drivers – putting himself, for the time being at least, in a championship winning position.

What Alonso didn’t count on however was a mighty resurgence by Vettel. Despite considerable damage to his rear bodywork and left-hand sidepod, the Red Bull driver was making short work of his rivals and had moved back into the points-paying positions by lap 7. In the meantime, the slippery track surface caught out Alonso, who ran wide at the Senna ‘S’ and dropped to fourth behind Hulkenberg whose impressive pace had already allowed him to dispatch Webber and Massa.

All the while, the two McLaren teammates were busy debating the lead, with Button getting the better of Hamilton at the first corner on lap 8. As the rain began to intensify, Hamilton joined a growing list of drivers to switch to intermediate tyres on lap 10; Alonso and Vettel followed shortly afterwards, the two title contenders erring on the side of caution in the treacherous conditions.

That transpired to be the wrong decision as the rain failed to last, allowing Button and Hulkenberg to stay out on slicks and accumulate a substantial lead over the rest of the field. As the track dried out, the rest of the field were forced to make a second stop to revert to slicks. A fierce battle was meanwhile shaping up for the lead between Button and an on-form Hulkenberg, and on lap 19 the Force India swept past to lead the first lap of his career.

On lap 23, the Safety Car was scrambled as debris from various earlier incidents was cleared, allowing Hulkenberg and Button, who were 50 seconds ahead of Hamilton in third, to change their tyres without relinquishing first and second places. Behind Hamilton were Alonso, Vettel, Kobayashi, Webber (who had been tipped into a spin by the Japanese driver before the rain arrived), whilst Massa had dropped to eleventh as a result of a very late switch to intermediates.

The race got underway again on lap 30, and a slow restart from Vettel allowed Kobayashi to pounce on the Red Bull driver to take fifth. Two laps later, the Japanese driver made his way past Alonso, although the Ferrari driver was able to take back the position a lap later. All the while, Hulkenberg had built up a 2.5 second lead over Hamilton, who moved ahead of teammate Button on lap 31 and set about closing the gap to Hulkenberg.

The gap had been reduced to just over a second in the space of ten laps, but Hulkenberg relinquished the lead to Hamilton with a half-spin on lap 48. Hulkenberg was in no mood to settle for second however, and the Force India driver was able to put pressure on Hamilton once more. On lap 55, as the pair approached lapped traffic, Hulkenberg dived up the inside of his adversary only to make contact which would put Hamilton out of the race.

Hulkenberg was able to continue in second behind Button, but by this stage the rain had returned. Massa was among the first to pit for a fresh set of intermediates on lap 55, putting him ahead of Alonso, who stopped a lap later, after a spirited charge back up the order after his earlier delay. Hulkenberg pitted on lap 57 and would drop to fifth place after returning to the pits on lap 58 to serve a drive-through penalty for causing the Hamilton incident.

Having also stopped for intermediates, Button now led by a considerable margin from Massa, Alonso, a recovering Webber (who gained ground with an earlier switch to intermediates), Hulkenberg and Schumacher, who had been busy clawing his way back up the field after an early puncture. Vettel was now seventh after losing substantial time in the pits due to the Red Bull mechanics failing to be ready for his stop. Seventh would nonetheless be good enough to claim the title if Alonso failed to win.

Although Alonso was able to catch and pass Massa on lap 62, there was nothing he or anybody could do about Button out front, whose lead at this time was twenty seconds. Vettel strengthened his position further by moving ahead of his countryman Schumacher to take sixth on lap 64. A late crash shortly after the final corner by Paul Di Resta from ninth position ensured that the final two laps of the season were run behind the Safety Car, guaranteeing Vettel enough points to clinch his third consecutive world championship.

Button thus ended the season in the same way he had begun it eight months earlier at Melbourne by standing atop the podium, taking the 15^th win of his career. Alonso did everything he could, but ultimately second position wasn’t quite good enough to overturn Vettel’s points advantage. Massa took to the podium for the second time this year before his adoring fans, ensuring Ferrari would stay ahead of McLaren in the battle for second in the constructors’ championship.

Webber finished in fourth position ahead of Hulkenberg and Vettel, with seventh place going to Schumacher in his final race appearance after repelling the advances of Kobayashi; a late spin by the Japanese driver dropped him down to ninth behind Jean-Eric Vergne's Toro Rosso. Raikkonen claimed the final point in an eventful afternoon for the Finn during which he attempted to return to the track via a hidden access road after running wide at the final corner, only to have to turn around due to a gate blocking his path.

Di Resta’s late crash and the ensuing Safety Car allowed Vitaly Petrov to cross the finish line in eleventh place, just beating Charles Pic's Marussia, and thus securing tenth in the standings (and the all-important extra prize money that comes with it) for Caterham. Behind Pic was Daniel Ricciardo, who was set for points until losing time by stopping for slicks shortly before the second rain shower. The Toro Rosso driver was on course to pass both Pic and Petrov, which would have denied Caterham that pivotal result.

Heikki Kovalainen was next in the second Caterham ahead of Nico Rosberg, who failed to recover from a puncture at mid-distance, Timo Glock in the second Marussia (who lost time when he was tagged by Vergne after the restart) and the HRT pair of Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan in what could well be the team’s final race outing. Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado were the only other drivers to retire, both doing so in separate incidents early on. Grosjean had already brushed with the barriers in qualifying as he tried to pass a slower de la Rosa, limiting himself to 18th on the grid, while Maldonado had been due to start sixth but was demoted ten places for missing his weigh-in after his final timed lap.

The Interlagos circuit can always be relied upon to provide thrilling action, and this year was no exception. The Red Bull team must have thought it was all over when Vettel’s car was turned around right at the start, but a tremendous drive by the 25-year-old narrowly kept the championship out of the reach of Alonso. It was a mighty shame to see the Ferrari driver defeated after such an immaculate season, but Vettel was an equally worthy recipient of the crown. Perhaps 2012 will come to pass as the opening chapter in an era-defining rivalry between two men at the very top of their game.  

Brazilian Grand Prix 2012 - Preview

Juan Manuel Fangio, Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher. By Sunday evening, we’ll be able to add one more name to the illustrious list of Formula One drivers to have secured three or more championships – either that of Sebastian Vettel or Fernando Alonso.

The Interlagos circuit in Sao Paulo, which plays host to this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix, has been responsible for resolving numerous title showdowns in recent times. Alonso clinched both of his two titles for Renault here in 2005 and 2006, Kimi Raikkonen defied the odds to snatch his sole crown for Ferrari in 2007, Lewis Hamilton turned the tide against Felipe Massa at the very final corner of the race to steal honours at a soggy 2008 race, and Jenson Button muscled his way through the pack in 2009 to put the icing on the cake for Brawn GP’s fairytale season.

The circuit itself can be undoubtedly classed among the sport’s remaining ‘old school’ circuits, having hosted its first world championship event way back in 1973. Although the track was shortened from 8km to its current 4.3km layout was back in 1990, Interlagos can still boast numerous challenging turns as well as some great overtaking opportunities – the Senna ‘S’ at the start of the track being chief among them.

High temperatures and an anti-clockwise layout (contrary to the majority of other F1 venues) make it one of the most physically demanding events of the season for the drivers, whilst the sweeping medium-speed corners and open hairpins will punish cars lacking front downforce. The DRS zone will, as per 2011, be located along the back straight on the approach to turn 4, whilst hard and medium will be the compounds on offer this weekend. Rain however is an all-too-common occurence at Interlagos, and the forecast suggests this year could be no exception.

As you’re probably aware, Vettel heads into this finale with 13 points in hand over Alonso. That means, quite simply, if the reigning champion finishes fourth or better, he gets to keep the #1 plate for a third successive season. Failing that, he can afford to finish as low as seventh if Alonso fails to win or ninth if the Spaniard can’t manage second. If Alonso finishes off the podium, Ferrari’s title hopes are up in smoke.

On the basis that Vettel hasn’t failed to make the top four since his alternator-related retirement at the Italian Grand Prix, and that the Red Bull is comfortably superior to the Ferrari in dry weather, only unreliability or an uncharacteristic and costly mistake is going to deny the German if it doesn’t rain. Mark Webber’s alternator failure last time out was a timely reminder that Red Bull’s reliability this year has been far from bullet-proof, but the Milton Keynes outfit is known to be switching to Renault’s latest-spec alternator to ensure the gremlins that have haunted the team at Valencia, Monza and Austin don’t strike again.

With rain a distinct possibility on both Saturday and Sunday however, it is the Brazilian weather that is likely to give Vettel and Red Bull their biggest headache. Alonso has been superb in the wet this year, and on the basis of his win at Malaysia you’d be brave to bet against the Ferrari number one standing atop the podium if the heavens do open. Not only does the rain mask the deficiencies of the Ferrari F2012, but it makes the danger of a costly error or strategic gaffe that much more likely for the reigning champions.

Also worth considering is the fact that Interlagos does have the habit of throwing up some unusual results. Juan Pablo Montoya wasn’t far off victory in 2001 in just his third ever F1 start when Jos Verstappen piled into the back of the Colombian’s Williams shortly after being lapped. Giancarlo Fisichella took an extremely unlikely maiden victory for a hopelessly uncompetitive Jordan team in 2003 with the help of the weather, though Verstappen could potentially have taken an even less likely win for Minardi before spinning out of contention. And who would have bet on Nico Hulkenberg putting his Williams on pole position in the wet two years ago?

This year’s showdown can essentially be considered a role-reversal of 2010, when Ferrari arguably threw away what ought to have been Alonso’s third title with a strategic faux pas at Abu Dhabi. The team brought their man early for his pit-stop in a bid to cover Webber, only for the Ferrari to get stuck behind the slower of Renault of Vitaly Petrov, rendering Alonso powerless to stop Vettel cruising to the win and thus the title. That was Maranello’s title to lose, and they did. It’s a powerful reminder to Red Bull that too conservative a strategy could prove costly.

Considering how competitive McLaren have been of late, it's likely that the silver-and-red cars will have quite an influence on the way things pan out. While Hamilton is no stranger to success at Interlagos, he’s never finished higher than third at the Brazilian track. The 2008 champion will be desperate to end his McLaren career on a high, and he has the momentum of his Austin victory firmly behind him. Both Hamilton and teammate Button are known for their wet-weather prowess, and won’t be doing any favours for the title contenders in the race.

Massa on the other hand will very much be duty bound to help out Alonso, who will be comforted by his teammate’s dominance at Interlagos from 2006 to 2008 – the home favourite would have won three home Grand Prix in a row if not for having to defer to Raikkonen’s title aspirations in 2007. Having a competitive teammate can only be good news for Alonso, and as Austin proved Ferrari won’t be afraid to use Massa strategically if necessary. For the record, I wholeheartedly back the team’s decision to break the seal of Massa’s gearbox – firstly, the championship is still on, which it may not have been if Alonso had to start on the dirty side of the track, and secondly, Massa had a great result regardless.

Webber should also be in a good position to assist Vettel considering his recent form, whilst Raikkonen could also prove a factor if he can get his Lotus cat among the McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull pigeons. Also worth keeping an eye on if it rains will be Sergio Perez, who wasn’t far from a shock win in the wet at Malaysia and will be eager to silence his critics in his final race before he jumps ship to McLaren.

Speaking of final races, Brazil will be Michael Schumacher’s 307^th and final F1 start before he calls time on what has been an ultimately disappointing comeback to the sport after he previously waved goodbye at Brazil six years ago. The pending announcement that Esteban Gutierrez will be driving for Sauber means this weekend could potentially be the last race for Kamui Kobayashi, whilst Bruno Senna, Heikki Kovalainen and Vitaly Petrov are all facing uncertain futures.

Qualifying Prediction

1. Alonso, 2. Hamilton, 3. Vettel, 4. Massa, 5. Button, 6. Webber, 7. Schumacher, 8. Raikkonen, 9. Maldonado, 10. Perez

Race Prediction

1. Alonso, 2. Hamilton, 3. Massa, 4. Button, 5. Vettel, 6. Raikkonen, 7. Perez, 8. Schumacher, 9. Hulkenberg, 10. Senna

My prediction of course rests on the assumption that the expected rain does indeed materialise, and I will freely admit I would prefer to see Alonso come out on top for having, for my money, done the better job over the year considering the machinery at his disposal. Hamilton will push Alonso all the way, leaving the outcome in doubt right until the dying stages, with Massa taking a second podium of the season in front of his home supporters. Button will the final man to come between the title contenders, with Raikkonen completing a full house of race finishes in 2012 with sixth behind a defeated Vettel. Perez will finally stem his poor run of results with seventh ahead of Schumacher, who will make use of the wet to rise above the limitations of his Mercedes. Hulkenberg will be dependable as ever with ninth, whilst Senna will take the final point of the season (and possibly even his career) on home soil.

United States Grand Prix 2012 - Report

Lewis Hamilton came out on top in a race-long battle with Sebastian Vettel during Formula One’s inaugural visit to the all-new Circuit of the Americas to take an overdue fourth win of the season. Vettel led the way initially from pole position, but was unable to shake off an indefatigable Hamilton who, after trailing the points leader closely for many laps, used DRS to full effect to make the winning pass. Fernando Alonso recovered from a fraught qualifying session to take third position, thus keeping his title hopes alive.

Vettel dominated the timesheets in every practice session en route to another pole position for his Red Bull team, with Hamilton’s McLaren lining up on the dreaded dirty side of the grid in second place. Mark Webber in the second Red Bull qualified in third place ahead of Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen after teammate Romain Grosjean, who had qualified fourth, dropped five places due to a gearbox change penalty.

Another rather more contentious penalty was to come however – such were the fears of Ferrari over the disadvantage associated with starting on the dirty side of the grid that the Italian team opted to deliberately induce a five-place gearbox penalty for Felipe Massa, who was due to start sixth after Grosjean’s penalty, to allow Alonso to move up a slot from eighth and thus start from the clean side of the grid in seventh behind Michael Schumacher and Nico Hulkenberg.

At the start of the race, Vettel made the perfect getaway from pole position to lead, with Webber slotting into second place as expected with the benefit of the clean side of the grid ahead of Hamilton and Alonso, whose getaway from seventh was blistering. Raikkonen on the other hand made a poor start, dropping behind Schumacher and then Hulkenberg after nearly coming to blows with the Force India around the second corner.

As Vettel began to stretch his legs at the head of the field, Hamilton wasted no time in attacking Webber for second. After an abortive attempt at passing the Australian on lap 3, Hamilton made the move stick a lap later with the help of DRS. By this stage Hamilton was around 2.5 seconds adrift of Vettel, but the McLaren driver gradually whittled away the cushion during the first stint.

By lap 15, Hamilton was just one second behind the championship leader, but he then began to fall back as tyre wear became an issue. That prompted Hamilton to switch from medium to hard compound tyres on lap 20, with Vettel doing likewise a lap later. Tension was mounting in the Red Bull garage however as the sister car of Webber succumbed to alternator failure on lap 17 – the same problem that denied Vettel a win at Valencia.

That promoted Alonso to third place, but the Ferrari was no match for the McLaren or Red Bull on medium tyres. Raikkonen was by now back up to fourth place having dispatched Schumacher on the second lap, who plummeted down the order during the first stint, and then Hulkenberg in a bold move around the outside of turn 2 on lap 13. Massa had also made impressive gains from his grid slot of eleventh, and after making his way past Hulkenberg on lap 15 was running fifth.

Back at the front, a two-second gap between Vettel and Hamilton just after the pit-stops had shrunk to just one second by lap 34. It seemed almost inconceivable that Vettel would be able to keep Hamilton at bay for the remainder of the race as the McLaren driver closed on Vettel each lap with the help of DRS on the approach to the turn 12 hairpin.

Hamilton’s chance came on lap 42 as Vettel stumbled across Narain Karthikeyan’s lapped HRT through the first sector of the lap. That allowed Hamilton to close right on to Vettel’s tail, and sure enough the McLaren driver made full use of the DRS to pass a defenceless Vettel at turn 12. At first, it seemed possible that Vettel may have been able to mount a counter-attack, but ultimately the pace of the McLaren on hard tyres was just sufficient to keep the Red Bull at bay.

Hamilton therefore crossed the finish line to take a long-awaited fourth win of the season and his 21^st in total, whilst Vettel’s second place finish extends his lead in the championship to 13 with just 25 left on offer at Brazil; the German’s podium finish also gave Red Bull enough points to wrap up the constructors’ championship for a third consecutive year.

Despite showing much better pace on the hard tyre, Alonso finished the race the better part of 40 seconds away from Hamilton, but his third place finish ensure the title fight goes down to the wire in Brazil. Massa’s late pace saw him pass Raikkonen for fourth place in much the same way as the Finn had passed Hulkenberg earlier on lap 39, the Brazilian holding that position to the end of the race in another impressive performance.

Having started on hard tyres from twelfth on the grid due to a throttle problem during Q2 on Saturday, Jenson Button dropped back initially before making rapid progress up the field. After the medium-shod runners had all made their pit-stops, Button was up to third place, which became seventh after his stop for medium tyres on lap 35.

Button made his way past Grosjean’s Lotus on lap 38 before catching and passing the sister car of Raikkonen on lap 46. The Brit then set about closing the gap on Massa ahead, but a late KERS problem meant he would have to be content with fifth. A slightly slow pit-stop earlier in the race denied Raikkonen the chance to overhaul Alonso, although the Lotus lacked pace relative to its rivals on the hard tyre, making sixth the maximum for the Finn.

Grosjean had spun early on whilst in battle with Hulkenberg, dropping him well down the order, but a subsequently very early pit-stop allowed him to make up for the lost ground and finish in seventh behind teammate Raikkonen. Hulkenberg meanwhile coaxed his Force India to a solid eighth place, even if the German’s mirrors were full of Williams in the dying stages – Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna were both snapping at his heels for the final laps, but would have to settle for ninth and tenth places.

It was a disappointing day for Sauber, as Sergio Perez took eleventh position on a day where the Swiss-built cars seemed unable to get their tyres working properly. Twelfth fell to Daniel Ricciardo, who had been battling with Massa and Raikkonen prior to making a late pit-stop, whilst the other Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne was an early casualty as he damaged his suspension whilst battling Schumacher for position.

The very fact Schumacher was dicing with Vergne – just 14 laps into the race – after qualifying fifth tells you all you need to know about the dire struggles of Mercedes. Schumacher lost position after position during the first stint, and after making a second pit-stop crossed the finish line in sixteenth place. Nico Rosberg, another driver to start on hard tyres, didn’t fare much better and could finish no higher than thirteenth.

Kamui Kobayashi‘s fourteenth place meant neither Sauber nor Mercedes scored points as the two teams tussle over fifth in the constructors’ standings. Paul di Resta meanwhile dropped down the order after running as high as sixth before his first pit-stop, and was outside of the points when he spun his Force India. A subsequent second pit-stop left him to finish in a disappointing fifteenth place.

Completing the finishers were the Caterhams of Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovalainen, who made light contact with rival Timo Glock as he passed the Marussia in the battle for eighteenth place. Charles Pic in the second Marussia and the HRT duo of Pedro de la Rosa and Karthikeyan completed the finishers, with Vergne and Webber the only retirees in a race of little attrition.

With 250,000 spectators attending the Circuit of the Americas over the course of the weekend, F1’s return to the States after a five-year absence was without doubt a triumph. Vettel’s failure to secure the title with a round to spare however means F1 fans will be treated to what promises to be a thrilling finale around one of the sport’s best-loved venues – Interlagos. Though Alonso will surely have his work cut out to deny Vettel, the Brazilian circuit has a reputation for throwing up a surprise result.

United States Grand Prix 2012 - Preview

If Sebastian Vettel were to secure his third world title this weekend, it would be, in a way, poetic. Formula One’s return to the United States at the all-new Austin-based Circuit of the Americas will mark the German’s 100^th start; his first start, as a replacement for the injured Robert Kubica at BMW Sauber, co-incided with F1’s last trip to America in 2007 at Indianapolis.

My previous post went into great detail about F1’s previous attempts at establishing itself in America, so I won’t go over that again. What I shall re-iterate however is that, despite the fact that COTA will be the tenth US venue that the sport will have visited, it is the first that has been built specifically for the purpose. But, as McLaren team principal recently reminded us, F1 needs America more than America needs F1. Motorsport, or ‘auto racing’ as the Yanks like to refer it to as, generally equates to NASCAR, or less commonly IndyCar, in this part of the world.

F1 faces the initial challenge of competing for TV viewers with the NASCAR Sprint Cup finale at Homestead this weekend – perhaps not the most astute piece of scheduling the sport has seen. Beyond that, it will be an uphill struggle to convince the US public of the merits of F1 with no American driver on the grid to speak of (Caterham tester Alexander Rossi will unfortunately not be participating in practice) and the perception of being ‘European’. Still, football (the association kind, that is) has made significant inroads as of late into the American sporting consciousness despite having a similar reputation, so perhaps there is hope yet.

The track itself, another Hermann Tilke design, of course, has seemingly already recieved rave reviews from the F1 fraternity. Just one cursory glance at the layout suggests some obvious overtaking spots; most notably the first corner, with its steeply inclined approach and blind apex, and turns 11 and 12, which bookend the long back straight where the DRS zone is to be found. COTA appears to have something of a split personality, with the fast sweepers largely located in the first half and the slow-speed technical corners later in the lap.

That should mean that all aspects of the car are likely to be challenged, from front-end grip through the fast corners, solid traction out of the slow corners and plenty of top-end for the back straight. Tyre wear perhaps won’t feature too prominently in this penultimate encounter of the season, as Pirelli have opted to bring the medium and hard tyres to the event. With rain showers provisionally forecast for Sunday however, they may not be needed.

Such a prediction would come as music to the ears of Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard trails Vettel by ten points in the standings, and thus needs to finish at least fourth – assuming the Red Bull driver takes the win – to ensure the title fight goes to Interlagos. Despite recent modifications to the Ferrari, largely centered upon subtle alterations to the front and rear wings, there is little to suggest that the Scuderia is going to be able to get their F2012 on a par with the Red Bull before the year is out.

Rain at Austin or Sao Paulo (or indeed both) is thus likely to be Alonso’s best hope of wresting the title away from Vettel, especially when you consider his superiority in wet conditions during the Malaysian GP and during qualifying at Silverstone and Nurburgring. Realistically, Alonso has to reduce Vettel’s advantage by four points in order to be able to head for Brazil knowing that the win will be enough to take home the silverware come what may.

Red Bull has openly stated their intention to try and snatch the drivers’ title this weekend in light of the reputation of the Interlagos track to throw a curveball – Vettel need only ask Alonso’s teammate Felipe Massa when it comes to the business of losing the title at the last possible second. Assuming it remains dry, Vettel has to be favourite to win this weekend off the back of four successive wins followed by a miraculous recovery drive from a pit-lane start to the final step of the podium last time at Abu Dhabi. If Alonso fails to score, Vettel has to ensure he finishes at least third to put away that third title.

Should Vettel take the chequered flag, the F1 officials would be well advised to begin etching ‘Sebastian’ into the drivers’ trophy. As for the constructors’, Red Bull’s healthy lead of 82 points means that just one of Vettel and Mark Webber needs to breach the top eight this weekend in order to score the necessary four points that would put the Milton Keynes outfit out of reach of Ferrari. Even if they can’t manage this, Maranello would still need one-two finishes at Austin and Interlagos to have any chance of securing an extremely unlikely seventeenth constructors’ crown.

McLaren have already been ruled out of that particular fight, but that’s not to say that they won’t be pushing for victory this weekend: lest we forget, a certain Lewis Hamilton was on course for a comfortable fourth win of the season before mechanical gremlins robbed the Briton. Austin appears to be not dissimilar to Abu Dhabi nature – slightly more flowing at the start and slightly less technical at the end – so expect Hamilton to be right in the mix. Jenson Button meanwhile appears to have had some difficulty getting on terms with his soon-to-depart teammate, but his race pace at the last two rounds has been solid.

It will be fascinating to see whether Kimi Raikkonen can build on his breakthrough victory at Abu Dhabi meanwhile, as the Koanda-effect exhaust upgrades finally seemed to bear fruit for the Lotus team. Also worth keeping an eye on are Sergio Perez and Pastor Maldonado, both of whom can expect support from visiting home fans from Mexico and Venezuela respectively. The hard tyre often sees the Sauber go well, whilst the final section of COTA looks well suited to the Williams.

Qualifying Prediction

1. Hamilton, 2. Vettel, 3. Webber, 4. Alonso, 5. Button, 6. Raikkonen, 7. Massa, 8. Maldonado, 9. Grosjean, 10. Rosberg

Race Prediction

1. Hamilton, 2. Vettel, 3. Alonso, 4. Raikkonen, 5. Button, 6. Massa, 7. Perez, 8. Maldonado, 9. Hulkenberg, 10. Senna

After his Abu Dhabi performance, it doesn’t require too much imagination to picture Hamilton on pole position and thus on course for that elusive fourth win barring more mechnical pitfalls. Vettel will push the McLaren driver all the way but ultimately just falling short, whilst third will be sufficient for Alonso to see the title head to Brazil. Raikkonen will beat Button home to fourth position, with the dependable (as of late) Massa taking sixth. Perez will rise from a mediocre grid slot to score healthy points with the help of the hard tyre, just ahead of his fellow Latino Maldonado. Hulkenberg and Senna will round out the points-scorers, whilst it’s high time Webber experienced a share of Red Bull’s reliability problems.

Formula One's American Dream

Formula One and the United States of America. The two have not made comfortable bedfellows in the recent past, although the onset of next weekend’s United States Grand Prix at the brand new Circuit of the Americas promises to begin to change this state of affairs.

The inaugural race at the all-new, Hermann Tilke-designed Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas has a lot riding on it. Since Watkins Glen left the F1 calendar at the start of the eighties, the sport has struggled to establish a permanent home across the Atlantic in a market that the sport is understandably desperate to break into. After a litany of unsuccessful street events and an ill-fated stint at Indianapolis, a purpose-built circuit has been constructed in the States for the first time with the express purpose of hosting a Grand Prix.

After exploratory events at Sebring, Florida and Riverside, California in 1959-1960, the upstate New York-based circuit known affectionately as 'The Glen' played host to the US Grand Prix from 1961 to 1980 and initially proved popular amongst fans and teams alike. However, by the mid-seventies, it had fallen out of the teams’ favour in the wake of fatal accidents for Francois Cevert and Helmut Koinigg at the 1973 and 1974 events respectively.

The race continued for several more years before eventually being struck from the calendar amid unpaid debts to FOCA (Formula One Constructors Association). By that time, a second race – the ‘United States Grand Prix West’ – had been established on the streets of Long Beach, California. The initially running of the event in 1976 proved an instant hit with the locals, and although the event was dropped after the 1983 event due to the expense of holding the race, it continues to be a popular fixture on the IndyCar calendar to this day.

After Watkins Glen vanished from the F1 calendar, another US race at Las Vegas was added to the calendar in 1981. The event proved to be a disaster however, as the intense desert heat combined with a dreary track layout situated in the car park of the Caesars Palace hotel and near-total disinterest from the locals made it a total flop. It was unsurprisingly axed after just two races, and a similar fate befell the Dallas Grand Prix after a single running in 1984 when the track surface disintegrated in the extreme temperatures.

The Detroit Grand Prix of 1982-1988 fared somewhat better, but a disagreement with the race organisers over facilities saw the race defect to IndyCar in 1989. F1 then decamped to Phoenix, Arizona for another street fixture in 1989, but this failed to engage the local population to the extent that the Grand Prix was beaten for spectator figures by the local ostrich festival; the event was discontinued after 1991. The sport wasn't to return to the US for another nine years, when an agreement was struck to hold a US Grand Prix at the world-famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

F1’s stint at Indy started auspiciously enough – over 200,000 spectators flocked to IMS on race day during the inaugural event in 2000 to see Michael Schumacher take the spoils. The Grand Prix continued to attract a very respectable 125,000 fans over the following years before the sport’s reputation in the eyes of the US public took a near-fatal blow in 2005 as just six cars took the start of the race while the remaining fourteen Michelin-shod entries withdrew due to safety concerns over their tyres.

Needless to say that the paying crowds were suitably infuriated, and after the original contract between  circuit owner Tony George and Bernie Ecclestone expired after the 2007 event, both parties unsurprisingly agreed not to renew it. That left F1 without a home in America once more, much to the chagrin of the manufacturers, who, for commercial reasons, were keen to ensure the sport had a presence at what was at the time the world’s largest car market (that honour now belongs to China).

All that means that the United States has, up until now, hosted a grand total of 51 Grand Prix (excluding the 11 Indy 500 races that counted for F1 championship points between 1950 and 1960), putting the country only behind Belgium (57), France (59), Monaco (59), Great Britain (66), Germany (73) and Italy (89). What’s more, in all those races, there’s been just a single American winner to quicken the pulses of the home crowds – Mario Andretti at Long Beach in 1977.

Of course, that’s not to say there haven’t been any other successful American drivers: Phil Hill won the drivers’ title for Ferrari in 1961, technically making him the only American-born driver to do so (Andretti, who won the title in 1978, was born in Italy), while Richie Ginther, Peter Revson and Dan Gurney were all race winners in the mid-sixties and early seventies.

Nonetheless, there hasn’t been an American race winner since Andretti took his final victory at the 1978 Dutch Grand Prix, although Eddie Cheever did score nine podiums over the course of the eighties. Since Cheever switched to CART in 1990, only two other Americans have been seen on the grid: 1991 CART champion and Mario's son Michael Andretti, whose struggles with McLaren in 1993 are well documented, and Red Bull junior driver Scott Speed, who vanished into obscurity after a season and a half at Toro Rosso in 2006-2007.

So, why the relative dearth of American talent in recent times? The best explanation is probably that the burgeoning popularity of IndyCar and later NASCAR meant that young American drivers felt little need to move to Europe to advance their careers. After all, why take the huge risk of moving thousands of miles away from home in pursuit of an F1 drive when you would have a better chance of becoming a household name in the States by simply rising through the ranks of domestic motorsport?

F1 is unlikely to re-establish itself in America without a successful home driver on the grid, but luckily there are several promising up-and-comers who could come to fill that role within the next few seasons. World Series by Renault race winner Alexander Rossi is the most obvious candidate, as he is already a test driver at Caterham. The 21-year-old seems set to graduate to GP2 next season, and the commercial possibilities associated with an American driver could see him land a drive with Caterham or another team in 2014.

In addition, Conor Daly, son of former Williams driver Derek, has performed well in GP3 this year, winning a race at Catalunya en route to sixth in the standings with the Lotus-backed ART team, and has completed a small amount of testing with Force India. Michael Lewis won a F3 Euroseries race this season, finishing eighth in the championship; both he and Daly are a few seasons away from an F1 seat at the moment, but the potential is definitely there.

Austin really is F1's big chance to finally regain a foothold in the States. NASCAR, which has dominated the US motorsport scene since the turn of the century in the wake of IndyCar's infamous split, is starting to decline - America's economic woes have meant that NASCAR's core fan-base, the middle-age, southern white male, are having difficulty attending races. The younger, urban population of America meanwhile seem somewhat disinterested in stock cars, making the 'Austinites' a potentially valuable demographic for F1 to tap into.

The race is sold out for its initial running, but the real acid test will be whether the US Grand Prix drives enough interest to continue to fill the grandstands for years to come. That will likely depend on the presence of an American driver, and a competitive one at that. It will only take a Rossi or Daly to be given a drive in a midfield team to set the media coverage ball rolling, and that point F1 could begin displacing NASCAR as the country's most popular discipline of motorsport.

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2012 - Report

Kimi Raikkonen finally took his first post-comeback victory in an unpredictable and thrilling Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The Finn had been running behind pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton initially, but seized the advantage when the McLaren driver suffered from yet another mechanical failure. A late Safety Car period brought Fernando Alonso within range of the Finn, but Raikkonen was able to hang on to take his first victory in three years. Sebastian Vettel was meanwhile able to carve his way through the pack to claim an exceptional third position having started from the pit-lane after being excluded from qualifying.

Hamilton asserted his superiority on Saturday, securing pole position by a margin of three tenths of a second from Mark Webber. Vettel began qualifying on the back foot to begin with (having missed final practice because of a brake problem) and could do no better than third place in the final part of qualifying; this position was immediately thrown into doubt as Vettel was ordered by the Red Bull team to park his car on his in-lap after setting his final lap time.

After hours of suspense, it was finally revealed that – in nearly identical fashion to Hamilton at Catalunya earlier in the year – Vettel’s car did not have sufficient fuel left in the tank to complete the lap and provide the minimum one-litre fuel sample to the FIA stewards. That meant the German would be sent to the back of the grid, although the team opted to break parc fermé conditions to modify the car’s setup to make Vettel’s job of re-gaining the lost ground somewhat easier despite the added penalty of a pit-lane start.

That promoted Pastor Maldonado, whose Williams seemed very much at home around the Yas Marina circuit, into third position, with Raikkonen joining the Venezuelan driver on the second row. Jenson Button started fifth ahead of Alonso, whose Ferrari was not looking competitive in a single lap, Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes and Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari.

As proceedings got underway with the sun beginning to descend in the background, Hamilton made a clean start to lead the way into the first corner. Raikkonen made an excellent start from fourth on the grid to sweep ahead of Maldonado and Webber, who bogged down particularly badly, to take second place as Alonso made his way past Button into fifth. That became fourth place when the Ferrari driver steamed his way past Webber along the second of the two long back straights on the first lap.

Behind, drama was already beginning to unfold as disaster struck almost immediately for the Force India team – Nico Hulkenberg became the first casualty of the evening as teammate Paul di Resta inadvertently squeezed him into the side of Bruno Senna’s Williams. Di Resta had to pit due to a puncture, whilst Senna continued at the rear of the pack before coming to blows with a recovering Vettel as the championship leader lost a front wing endplate in minor contact with the Williams.

Vettel would be assisted in his efforts to make up for lost time by an appearance by the Safety Car on lap 9, caused by a frightening clash between Rosberg and Narain Karthikeyan. Rosberg had already been into the pits after a collision between him and Romain Grosjean necessitated a front wing change (the Franco-Swiss would lose even more ground to replace a punctured front-right tyre). Rosberg was bearing down on an ailing Karthikeyan at the flat-out turn 15, whose HRT was slowing due to hydraulic issues, and simply launched over the back of the Indian’s car and into the retaining barrier at tremendous speed.

Both men would thankfully walk away unharmed, but the shower of debris meant the Safety Car had to be deployed for the marshals to clear the track. Hamilton led the way at this stage from Raikkonen, Maldonado, Alonso, Webber, Button, Massa and the Sauber pair of Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez who had succeeded in avoiding the first corner carnage. Vettel was already up to twelfth place by this stage, but he would pit to replace his front wing before the restart as he picked up more damage hitting a DRS marker sign in avoidance of the slowing Daniel Ricciardo, the next car ahead in the procession following the Safety Car.

When the race got back underway on lap 15, Hamilton immediately began to put some distance between himself and Raikkonen. With a three second lead over the Finn after just three green flag laps, it seemed as if a fourth win of the season was certainly within reach. However, disaster was about to strike for the Brit, as on lap 20, his McLaren ground to a halt, much as it did from a commanding position at Singapore, due to a fuel pressure problem.

That gave Raikkonen a lead of around five seconds from Maldonado, who was holding up Alonso, Webber and Button behind due to a KERS problem. Alonso made his move on Maldonado on lap 21 with the help of the second DRS zone to move into second place at turn 11, and two laps later Webber lined up the Williams driver at the same place. Attempting a move around the outside, the Australian turned in on Maldonado, who held his line, and pirouetted his way down the order as contact was made.

While Button executed a clean overtake on Maldonado at turn 11 to take third place on lap 24, this time taking the slightly less risky inside line, Webber now found himself in seventh place behind Perez, who had already gone by teammate Kobayashi before making short work of Massa immediately after Webber's spin. The Red Bull driver was in a position to make a move on the Brazilian driver on lap 26, but as Webber tried to go around the outside at turn 11 once again he cut the following chicane, leading Massa to spin as he tried to avoid the re-joining Red Bull.

Having dropped further places as a result, Massa pitted at the end of the lap to switch from soft to medium compound tyres, with teammate Alonso the first of the leaders to do so on lap 28. Button and Maldonado pitted one lap later, Perez and Webber did likewise after another lap, and Raikkonen was the last of the leaders to change his tyres on lap 31. The Finn re-joined the circuit with his lead narrowly intact from Vettel, who had made his way up to second position after all the other drivers ahead of him made their pit-stops.

Since switching from medium to soft compound tyres during the first Safety Car period, Vettel had been among the fastest cars on circuit. In theory, the Red Bull team could have attempted to get their man to the finish on that set of tyres, which would have been 42 laps old by the chequered flag, but instead chose the more prudent option of bringing in the reigning champion for a fresh set of soft tyres on lap 37.

That left Vettel in fourth position behind race leader Raikkonen, Alonso and Button. The pack would be closed up once again on lap 39 as the Safety Car made another appearance, this time due to an incident concerning the battle for fifth place. Grosjean and Di Resta had risen up the order despite their first lap travails, having stopped again under the first Safety Car period. Di Resta was able to pass Grosjean in the second DRS zone, but chaos unfolded as Perez tried to follow the Scot through.

Moving to the outside of the Lotus on the approach to turn 11, Perez succeeded in overhauling Grosjean before attempting to outmanoeuvre Di Resta at the following chicane. Di Resta was forced to cut the corner to avoid a collision, whilst Perez ran wide before being hit by the hapless Grosjean as the Sauber returned to the racing line. Webber was also caught out as the stricken Lotus collected the embattled Red Bull driver, bringing an abrupt end to both Webber and Grosjean’s races.

Once the Safety Car peeled in at the end of lap 42, Raikkonen wasted no time in getting away from Alonso, even setting the fastest lap of the race so far on the first green flag lap. After several laps however, the Ferrari driver was able to peg the gap before steadily reducing the 2007 champion’s advantage during the dying stages: a 2.2 second deficit on lap 50 had shrunk to just one second as the penultimate lap began and it seemed as if Alonso could deny the Enstone outfit an overdue first victory of the season.

Raikkonen was nonetheless able to respond on the final lap, crucially keeping Alonso just out of the reach of the DRS zone, and crossed the finish line to take the first win since his comeback and his 19^th in total. For all of Vettel’s dramas, Alonso could only claw back three points from the German in the title race as Vettel found his way past Button at turn 11 on lap 52 to take the final podium position – an incredible feat considering his pit-lane start.

Behind Button finished Maldonado, who after the contact with Webber drove cleanly to bag another decent haul of points for Williams with fifth position. Kobayashi likewise took advantage of the incidents ahead of him to take a creditable sixth ahead of Massa and Senna, who rounded out an excellent day for Williams. Di Resta would finish the day in ninth place after making a second pit-stop during the latter Safety Car period, while the final point went the way of Toro Rosso’s Ricciardo who was another driver to benefit from others’ misfortunes.

Michael Schumacher had been on course for eighth position before a late puncture dropped him to eleventh, making it the fourth consecutive race that Mercedes has failed to score; the Brackley-based team will have to work hard to ensure Sauber doesn’t take fifth place in the constructors’ standings with two races to go. The second Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne came home twelfth after being passed late in the race by the recovering Schumacher.

Behind, Heikki Kovalainen came within one place of re-taking the all-important tenth place in the constructors’ with a thirteenth place finish ahead of Timo Glock’s Marussia, Perez – who pitted for repairs after the contact with Grosjean before returning to serve a ten-second stop/go penalty for causing the incident – Vitaly Petrov in the second Caterham and Pedro de la Rosa in the sole surviving HRT. Charles Pic was the final name on a long list of retirees, his Marussia suffering another engine failure.

For all its reputation as a circuit where processions are the norm, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix had it all: wheel-to-wheel action, suspense, drama, controversy, numerous retirements, an eighth different winning driver of the season and a sixth different winning team. Perhaps the most sensational of all however was the way in which Vettel fought back after such disastrous fortune on Saturday – it was the drive of a champion, and if the man from Heppenheim does indeed secure a third world title, his drive at Abu Dhabi will surely go down as the clincher.

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2012 - Preview

Three races left, and two men in (realistic) contention for the ultimate prize. Excuse the cliché, but this weekend's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix truly is make-or-break for Fernando Alonso. He's 13 points down on championship leader Sebastian Vettel, and if the German is able to extend that further on Sunday there will be a realistic chance of him heading to the season finale in Brazil with a 25 point lead - and thus a third world title - in his pocket.

There's no denying the glamour of Abu Dhabi, and the unique day-night timeslot does make for an intriguing spectacle. While the track layout is far from classic, being as it is characterised by a pair of lengthy straights and numerous right-angled corners, it is more reminiscent of Singapore than Korea or India. Hopefully that will translate into a tighter battle for honours than what we've become accustomed to recently.

Strong traction will come in handy for the more technical section in the latter half of the lap, whilst solid top speed will also be a must to avoid becoming a sitting duck in the DRS zones, located as ever along the two aforementioned straights on the approach to turns 8 and 11 respectively. The teams will be utilising the medium and soft tyre compound choices this time, meaning that there should be more degradation than we saw during the relatively sedate affair that was India.

Though the Abu Dhabi circuit is theoretically less suited to the dominant Red Bull RB8 than the last two venues have been, it would take a brave man to bet against Vettel making it five in a row. He has tasted victory twice here in only three attempts, and if not for that bizarre first-corner puncture last year he could easily have had a perfect record. The events of last year however is a timely reminder to F1 fans that the law of averages will probably strike sooner or later.

It's worth reflecting at this stage that without Vettel's alternator failure at Valencia, he would in all likelihood have a 45 point lead (taking into account Alonso slipping from first to second) by this stage and every chance of sealing the deal this weekend. Looking at the Ferrari camp, while there have been two non-finishes for Alonso, neither were caused by car failure. Alonso will no doubt he hoping that the Red Bull gremlins that have served to keep in touch with the championship leader strike again before the year is out.

Abu Dhabi is of course a track that doesn't bring back fond memories for Alonso. He arrived at the track in 2010 with the odds in his favour to bag a third word title, yet it was rank outsider Vettel who walked away with the silverware. The Spaniard is going to have to rely on the new upgrades being brought along by Ferrari this weekend being enough for him to at least qualify on the first two rows, and then let his sizzling race pace do the rest. Having teammate Felipe Massa in the mix, as he was in Korea, would also be a bonus.

McLaren have finally admitted that their chances of securing either title are over, but that's not to say that they won't be trying. In the hands of Hamilton, the McLaren was by a small margin the fastest car at Singapore, so there's no reason why the Brit can't be in contention for a second consecutive Abu Dhabi victory on Sunday.

Button wasn't quite on his teammate's pace at India, but the fact he kept Vettel honest after Hamilton's demise at Singapore should give him optimism that he can get himself in the hunt. A competitive McLaren team can only help Alonso, as simply finishing second behind Vettel again won't be good enough - at least if he can't get on terms with Red Bull, having a McLaren or two ahead of Vettel will soften the blow in terms of lost points.

Another man who could prove useful in that respect is Kimi Raikkonen, who looked to have strong race pace at India despite being bottled up Massa for nearly the entire distance. The Mercedes cars should be competitive in a straight line, as should the Toro Rossos, whilst the second part of the lap should favour the Williams car. With its street-circuit like layout, Pastor Maldonado is another man you ought to look out for this weekend.

Qualifying Prediction
1. Vettel, 2. Hamilton, 3. Webber, 4. Alonso, 5. Massa, 6. Raikkonen, 7. Button, 8. Maldonado, 9. Rosberg, 10. Grosjean

Race Prediction
1. Hamilton, 2. Vettel, 3. Alonso, 4. Button, 5. Raikkonen, 6. Massa, 7. Maldonado, 8. Grosjean, 9. Hulkenberg, 10. Senna

I'm going to put my optimistic hat on once more and predict a Hamilton victory, which will allow Alonso to drop just three points as opposed to seven. Webber will drop behind Alonso at the start before bearing the brunt of Red Bull unreliability again. That will allow Button into fourth place, who will just get the better of Raikkonen's Lotus and the second Ferrari of Massa. Maldonado will have a strong drive to seventh ahead of Grosjean, who will in turn just about fend off the advances of Hulkenberg. Senna will have to fight his way past numerous cars to take tenth place, but he proved last weekend he's no slouch at doing so.