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.