The US Grand Prix held at the Circuit of the Americas, in Austin, with only an 18 car grid, got off to an eventful start with, for the second year in a row, a first lap safety car.
Force India’s Sergio Perez attempted a bold move move on Sauber’s Adrian Sutil resulting in a crash taking both drivers out of the race. During this safety car period three drivers, Pastor Maldonado, Esteban Gutierrez and Jean Eric Vergne all received penalties for speeding under the safety car.
The first round of stops came around lap 15 with Daniel Ricciardo using the undercut to his advantage passing Valtteri Bottas for fourth place in the process. The two Mercedes pitted a lap apart with Rosberg, the leader pitting first giving him a three second advantage after the first stints.
Hamilton caught up to the Rosberg within a few laps regaining the advantage of DRS. Eventually Hamilton passed Rosberg on lap 24, pushing Nico wide in the process and pulling out a gap over a second within a lap of passing Rosberg.
At the same time as the Hamilton/Rosberg battle there was a battle of two former world champions, the current Ferrari driver and potential new McLaren driver Fernando Alonso and current McLaren driver Jenson Button with Alonso eventually coming out on top after a few laps of battling with a manoeuvre into turn one.
Throughout the first half of the race Sebastian Vettel was significantly off the pace of his team mate with a new low of being passed by Romain Grosjean. Although ten laps later Vettel repaid the favour to Grosjean with a similar move on the Frenchman.
After the second round of stops, initially Rosberg began taking time out of Hamilton but the Brit eventually neutralised the threat of the German by matching Rosberg’s times and maintaining the gap.
Ricciardo also found his way into third place during the pit stops undercutting Massa to make his way past.
With ten laps to go the gap between Hamilton and Rosberg was around two seconds leaving a possible opportunity for a change in the lead. At the same time in the race for third Felipe Massa was beginning to catch up to Ricciardo with the gap at two and half seconds.
On lap 51 Jean Eric Vergne made a spectacular kamikaze move past Grosjean and Maldonado hitting the Frenchman in the process of making the move. However both drivers got away with little or no damage.
Jean Eric then passed Jenson Button, who had a long train of traffic behind him at the time, with three laps to go. After Vergne passed the wheels seemed to fall off Button’s car with Maldonado and Vettel making their way past the lap after.
The race finished with Lewis Hamilton taking yet another win in America and surpassing Nigel Mansell’s record of British F1 race wins.
Pos. Driver Team. Race time. Pits
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:43.492 2
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:45.746 4.300 2
3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:45.086 25.5 2
4 Felipe Massa Williams 1:44.478 26.8 2
5 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:44.202 30.8 2
6 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:43.882 95.0 2
7 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1:42.564 95.5 3
8 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1:46.077 100.4 2
9 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:47.316 103.5 2
10 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:50.726 107.5 2
11 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:47.244 1 lap 2
12 Jenson Button McLaren 1:48.842 1 lap 2
13 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:44.013 1 lap 2
14 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:45.671 1 lap 3
15 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:44.313 1 lap 1
R Sergio Perez Force India RETIRED 1
R Nico Hulkenberg Force India RETIRED 1
R Adrian Sutil Sauber
