This weekend of racing was rather messy, with most of the free practice sessions being a wash. Teams went into qualifying having only completed part of the third free practice session in the dry conditions. At the end of the weekend Lewis Hamilton was able to wrap up the victory with Sebastian Vettel and Sergio Pérez completing the podium.
Friday got off to a rather shaky start, as the first free practice session was delayed by roughly half an hour following a diesel spill from a cleaning vehicle. This meant that the first free practice session would be half an hour shorter than planned. The track was wet and it took roughly 20 minutes before any driver managed to post a lap time. In the end, Nico Hülkenberg topped the time charts. Free practice two was rendered a waste of a session, as rain prevented all but eight drivers from setting a lap time. In addition, six drivers decided to stay in the garage and not venture out onto the wet track. Felipe Massa concluded the session on top, with a time of about two minutes.
Things were much better on Saturday with a dry track for drivers. Midway through the final free practice session, Carlos Sainz, Jr. lost control of his Toro Rosso and made heavy impact with the wall. The session was red flagged while safety officials extracted Sainz from the car and loaded him onto the medical helicopter. He was unable to participate in qualifying because he was forced to spend the night in the hospital, despite suffering no injuries. The session did not resume after the accident, meaning that Nico Rosberg would keep his fastest time of the session. With very little useful track time at the circuit, teams took part in qualifying. Nico Rosberg took the pole, but Lewis Hamilton was looking good on his final run until and error that led him to abandon his lap. He would start alongside his teammate in the race on Sunday.
Sunday was a bit warmer than the rest of the weekend. The race start was rather short because of a safety car when Nico Hülkenberg spun and collected Marcus Ericsson. Nico Rosberg complained of a sticky throttle that eventually caused him to lose the lead to his teammate on lap seven. With Hamilton now in the lead, Rosberg crawled into his pit box and parked it. The safety car made another appearance on lap 13 when Romain Grosjean lost control of the car and smashed into the wall in turn three. After the safety car, Hamilton began to increase the gap between Valtteri Bottas, who had been able to keep the pace in the earlier stages of the race. From that point forward, it was Hamilton’s race. Sebastian Vettel put his Ferrari on the second step of the podium and Sergio Pérez inherits the final step of the podium after Kimi Räikkönen took out Valtteri Bottas while battling for third position, concluding what was a very entertaining battle.
Formula One will return to action in the United States of America for the 2015 United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas on the weekend of October 25.
