With the end of the season just around the corner, it was time for the F1 circus to make their way to the Circuit of the Americas for popular 2017 FORMULA 1 UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX. Pressures were high, Ferrari desperately trying to prevent Lewis Hamilton from securing his World Drivers’ Championship title victory. It was anyone’s race.
The first free practice session on Friday began under damp conditions, forcing drivers to start the session on the intermediate tyres. Sean Gelael of Toro Rosso, Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull and Esteban Ocon of Force India all pun during the slippery track conditions. The conditions improved about a third of the way through the session, prompting the switch to the dry compounds. Brendon Hartley experienced some difficulties with his helmet, while Gelael spun again in the session. Fernando Alonso suffered another dose of McLaren-Honda reliability, failing to set a time in the session. By the end of the session, Lewis Hamilton had a firm lead in the session, with Sebastian Vettel and Valtteri Bottas the only two cars within a second of the current World Drivers’ Championship leader.
Times were a little closer in the second free practice session later on in the day, with Hamilton still setting the pace ahead of Max Verstappen and Vettel. It was not a good session for the Ferrari driver, as he was forced to park up in the garage after 11 laps of running with a mechanical issue. He was among the drivers who spun massively in the session, also including both Haas drivers. The Haas drivers had a little argument in their cars during the session. The top three teams continued to stay in a league of their own, with the gap between Kimi Räikkönen and Alonso having been the same size as Kimi Räikkönen to the leading Mercedes.
The opening free practice session on Saturday set the stage for qualifying, with Hamilton and Vettel setting a lap time just 0.092 seconds apart from each other. Hamilton topped the session again on his quest to secure the World Drivers’ Championship title in front of the American crowd. Daniil Kvyat suffered with some mechanical issues. Max Verstappen also had some issues, receiving some new power unit components after the session in exchange for a 15 place grid penalty. Meanwhile, Romain Grosjean had managed to beach his Haas in the gravel trap.
The first qualifying session was full of incidents. Lance Stroll received a grid penalty for unintentionally impeding Grosjean. The Williams driver was running slow and attempted to move out of the way of the upcoming Haas, but instead forced the Frenchman onto the grass. Meanwhile, Kevin Magnussen also received a penalty for a similar incident after having been told that Sergio Pérez behind was not completing a hot lap. Both penalized drivers weren’t able to make Q2 anyway. The remaining sessions were fairly routine. By the end of the day Hamilton had gained pole position after dominating all of the sessions in the weekend thus far. Vettel earned a position on the front row of the grid. Bottas, Ricciardo, Räikkönen, Verstappen, Ocon, Sainz, Alonso and Pérez concluded the top ten in qualifying, but would not remain that way due to grid penalties.
The fans at the Circuit of the Americas were presented with a really exciting race on Sunday. From the start, Vettel took the lead into the first corner, as Hamilton and Vettel made minor contact when Hamilton moved ton the inside to try and cover off Vettel. Vettel’s lead was short lived, as Hamilton took the lead with the assist of the DRS a few laps later. The fans were also shown a great multi-lap battle between Ricciardo and Bottas. Bottas maintained his position and Ricciardo suffered an engine failure following his pitstop for tyres.
There were also some entertaining battles further down the field, but the main attention was on the front of the field. Near the end of the race, Verstappen made a pit stop for fresh tyres and Vettel shockingly did the same on the following lap. Vettel pushed his way to P3 past Bottas and Ferrari team orders swapped him into P2. Verstappen pushed hard also, overtaking Raikkonen on the final lap. It was all for nothing though, as the stewards handed him a penalty for cutting the corner during his overtake on the Red Bull. Verstappen was kicked out of the podium room, like he had been in Mexico.
With the United States Grand Prix now out of the way, the teams and rivers will travel 1000km south to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez for the 2017 Mexican Grand Prix, the third from last race in the 2017 season. This will be the last back-to-back race weekend in the season and is still a race in which Hamilton can secure the World Drivers’ Championship title, having failed to do so in the US.
