Raikkonen extends Hamilton title wait at Circuit of the Americas

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel had grit, determination and plenty of luck to thank for preventing him from losing the 2018 championship to Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton at the US Grand Prix.

Vettel had pushed the Ferrari to the limit in qualifying, only to have Hamilton beat him to pole by 0.061 seconds.

Blink and you would have taken longer than the gap between the two. As if that gap is not razor thin enough, Vettel’s teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, was just 0.009 seconds behind the German. If Vettel had any hopes of winning the race by starting from second and keeping his fading title hopes alive, they were dashed when he received a three-grid penalty for failing to slow down sufficiently during a red-flag period in Friday practice.

It meant that he was to start fifth on a track where Hamilton had won the previous four races. Vettel’s demotion worked to Raikkonen’s benefit. The Finn would start on the front row and had a softer tyre compound than Hamilton. Would that play to his advantage? It certainly did as Hamilton tried his best to block Raikkonen by going to the left but the Ferrari had already gathered sufficient speed to muscle its way ahead in the dash to Turn One.

Vettel fought to take fourth position away from Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo on that first lap, and ended up colliding with the Australian. To Vettel’s dismay, he spun and dropped to fifteenth. The incident was yet again deemed by many to be a fault by Vettel seeing that Ricciardo was way on the outside when the two cars collided.

There is little doubt that if Vettel is to get a fifth championship, which Hamilton already has one hand on, it will take far more discipline than what he has shown this season. To be crowned the 2018 champion at the Circuit of the Americas, Hamilton needed to outscore Vettel by eight points.

By the second lap of the race, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who started in 18th position, had already climbed up nine positions. Five laps later, the flying Dutchman was already fifth. On the ninth lap, Ricciardo suffered a catastrophic engine malfunction. It was the seventh time in eighteen races this year that the Australian has retired. Bad news for Red Bull, good news for Ferrari.

To take his car off the track, the Virtual Safety Car was deployed. During this time, Mercedes fancied a pit stop and told Hamilton to do the opposite of what Raikkonen would do at the pit entry. Raikkonen dummied but stayed out so Hamilton went in for softs. The Brit came out behind his teammate, Valtteri Bottas, but ahead of Verstappen. Within a short time, he had caught up with Bottas who was told in no uncertain terms not to hold up his teammate.

Hamilton passed Bottas on the 14th lap, the same one that Vettel recovered to fifth position. With every lap, Hamilton was closing in on the race leader and in the next five laps, he got within DRS range. Raikkonen, however, defended brilliantly and on the 21st lap, dived into the pits for what would be his one and only stop. On the subsequent lap, Verstappen pitted, then Bottas did likewise in the next lap.

By going in a lap earlier, Verstappen perfectly executed the undercut on Bottas and was now in podium contention. The 25th lap saw a rarity as Raikkonen, on fresher tyres, passed his teammate and set his sights on the race leader. The Finn had a 17-second deficit to claw back, but that would greatly be assisted by the fact that Hamilton needed to pit again. Vettel pitted just before the halfway mark and put on softs.

Twenty laps from the end of the race, Raikkonen was just ten seconds behind Hamilton. The Brit went in for fresh tyres on the 37th lap putting on a second pair of softs when the ultrasofts would likely have served him better.
He emerged in fourth position, again behind his teammate, Bottas. He had 11 seconds to cut down from the race leader within 16 laps. The four-time champion easily gained third position and did the best he could to catch up with the lead pair. He got within DRS range of Verstappen with five laps to go.

The Dutchman is however a tough nut to crack and proved so as Hamilton’s one attempt at overtaking him left the Brit worse off. Unlike Vettel, however, Hamilton was careful not to ruin his race with a collision. On the penultimate lap, Vettel overtook Bottas and with Hamilton right ahead of him, it meant that Hamilton would only gain three points more than the German.

Raikkonen held on for a famous victory that saw him set a new record of the number of races between victories and become the most successful Finnish Formula One driver. The consolation for Hamilton was that he beat Vettel and set a new lap record of 1 minute, 37.392 seconds at the 5.5-kilometre circuit. It will come as a surprise if Hamilton is not crowned champion in Mexico.