Sebastian Vettel heads to the United States badly needing a big result in the championship.
But the Circuit of the Americas has dependably been one of the best venues for his title rival Lewis Hamilton.
The form book
Out of the five races F1 has held so far on the Texan track, Hamilton has won four, including all three since the V6 hybrid turbo era began. He clinched the championship at this track two years ago and can do so again on Sunday.
Hamilton’s affinity for America, where he owns a house and spends much of his downtime, extends beyond his success at COTA. He took the second win of his career at Indianoplis, giving him five wins from six starts in the States. One more will give him more wins in this race than any other driver.
However last year’s race was the first time Hamilton had taken pole position at COTA. Vettel has two poles at this track and is the only driver besides Hamilton to have won here, in 2013. The year before the pair staged a race-long fight for victory which was decided when Vettel was delayed while lapping Narain Karthikeyan.
Vettel has usually gone well at this track, just not as well as Hamilton. He’s set fastest lap four times at COTA, while Hamilton has never done.
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Red Bull have raised their game as the season has gone on and could be a threat to Ferrari again this weekend. Daniel Ricciardo finished on the podium last year and might even have split the Mercedes had it not been for an ill-timed Virtual Safety Car which, in a double blow for the team, was caused by his team mate’s retirement.
The Milton Keynes team has outscored the Scuderia 91 to 22 over the last three races. But they will need to keep going at that rate over the remaining rounds to catch them, which isn’t likely.
However this hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for Kimi Raikkonen, whose has never scored a point at COTA as a Ferrari driver. He took sixth for Lotus in the first race in 2012, but didn’t drive the following year due to a long-unpaid salary bill. He was out of the points in 2014, crashed on the wet track the following year and was halted by a pit stop error 12 months ago.
Max Verstappen has never stood on the podium at COTA before and this is his last chance to get on the rostrum at a venue where he isn’t old enough to drink champagne. He turned 20 last month but the minimum legal drinking age in Texas is 21.
Hartley’s debut
That may also be a good omen for Hamilton, who could become the fifth driver to be crowned champion on the 22nd of October. The others were Hulme in 1967, Alain Prost in 1989, Michael Schumacher in 1995 and Fernando Alonso in 2006.
Hartley’s surprise debut comes as Toro Rosso have replaced both their drivers for this weekend’s race. Carlos Sainz Jnr is off to Renault and Gasly is on Japanese Super Formula duty at Suzuka. That means Daniil Kvyat will return alongside Hartley.
The last time a team changed both its drivers between consecutive rounds of the same season was in 1994, when Lotus ran Johnny Herbert and Philippe Adams at Estoril, then showed up at Jerez with Eric Bernard and Alessandro Zanardi.
Jolyon Palmer’s absence from Renault means Hamilton is now the only British driver racing in Formula One. The last time the British contingent dwindled to a single entrant was at the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix, where David Coulthard was the UK’s sole representative as Jenson Button’s BAR team had been excluded from the event.
Lap times
NB. All practice sessions were wet in 2015 and the fastest lap was set during the race.
Overtaking
Source: Mercedes
Race ratings
Here’s how F1 Fanatic readers have rated the United States Grand Prix in recent years.
Join in Rate the Race when the chequered flag falls at the end of this year’s race. You will need a (free) F1 Fanatic account to participate:
2017 United States Grand Prix
- 2017 United States Grand Prix Predictions Championship results
- 2017 United States Grand Prix team radio transcript
- 2017 United States Grand Prix Star Performers
- Hamilton only needs fifth – but we’ve heard that before…
- “Can you tell Esteban to let me by?”: US GP team radio highlights
sumedh
17th October 2017, 13:58
Well, in Bahrain, you are never old enough to drink :)
Jere (@jerejj)
17th October 2017, 15:11
@sumedh Same with the UAE.
GeeMac (@geemac)
17th October 2017, 15:35
@sumedh and @jerejj Both not entirely true. You can consume alcohol in the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain legally in hotels and (at least in the UAE) you can purchase alcohol from licenced stores like MMI to consume at your home if you have a licence (which you can obtain easily enough if you (a) fill in a form (b) submit a letter from your employer which confirms your salary) and (c) are not a Muslim).
Kuwait and Saudi are completely dry though…but you can drink legally in the embassies (though it is illegal to be drunk in public so you have to be careful leaving embassy functions and parties) and, from experience, you can find alcohol (of widely varying quality) easily enough. The consequences of being found in possession of it are harsh so you are fairly silly to even try get hold of it when you could just get a cheap flight to any of Bahrain, Qatar the UAE and drink away legally to your heart’s content.
Jamrock
17th October 2017, 20:03
@geemac Reminds me of the homemade wine and ‘sid’ moonshine in Riyadh back in the day, when the weekend was Thursday and Friday and we had to find excuses to run home on Sunday so we could watch the races on Al Jazeera 😂
GeeMac (@geemac)
18th October 2017, 13:44
Haha, I always tried to avoid the moonshine at all costs, particularly if I (or someone I trusted) didn’t know who the brewer was!
In Kuwait you get this clear stuff that I’m convinced is just white spirit, but folks lap it up. Desperate times I suppose…
harold wilson (@bonbonjai)
18th October 2017, 7:07
I blame the ease of travel and cheap fares for this. Does make you wonder thou, you need to fill in a form to down a couple of cans of larger, or what ever hooch takes your fancy, or your employer has to confirm your salary, and that you are not a Muslim. Seems silly to me but, when in those countries you have to respect their laws. Just seems like a chose to me just to get an alcoholic drink.
Zsolt Hegedus (@tresz)
17th October 2017, 15:31
But in Bahrain (and Abu Dhabi) they don’t get champagne on the podium.
David BR (@david-br)
17th October 2017, 15:31
I think this is a bit of a mixed track for Hamilton, more a Rosberg track overall – he looked good for the win last year until he fell foul of ‘gusty track syndrome’ – but there are some good heavy braking points that favour Hamilton’s style and allow overtaking. I also think Red Bull will be a real factor in the race, they could end up separating Vettel and Hamilton, though which way round, who knows.
F Truth (@)
17th October 2017, 15:49
Disagree, Hamilton always looks like he has a ball here before and after the race and the sweeping Silverstone esque section suits his style well.
I think he will win this race but I don’t think he’ll wrap up the championship.
Kofi James (@neko06)
17th October 2017, 16:13
A mixed track for Hamilton? The man has literally won 4 out of the 5 races EVER held at the track, but it’s mixed? Hahahahahahaha do a better job of hiding your obvious anti Hamilton bias, the narrative in the comments on this site are beyond corny.
Ninjenius (@ninjenius)
17th October 2017, 17:11
@neko06
I’m assuming you either don’t visit the comments section much or just don’t pay attention. I’ve followed this site long enough to know @david-br ‘s post are well balanced and open minded. We all know about the anti-Hamilton bias in the F1 community (as a Hamilton fan myself), but comments like this are just daft.
David BR (@david-br)
17th October 2017, 20:31
Thanks @ninjenius ! Actually @neko06 I count myself as a fairly obvious Hamilton fan. I try to be objective despite that! What I meant was a lot of the track favoured Rosberg’s style slightly, I think, hence the poles he won at Austin. He also looked strong in the race last year. At the same time, it’s a decent track for aggressive overtaking and heavy braking, which favours Hamilton. So that’s why I said I think it’s mixed.
BigJoe
17th October 2017, 20:34
I’m going to miss Rosberg in this race.
Rick (@)
17th October 2017, 16:00
While technically true and it really being a weird period for Toro Rosso now regarding their driver line-up, this statistic falls a bit into the “far-fetched” category in my opinion.
I mean, what does it really mean anyway? There have been numerous times when teams started out with drivers A and B and ended the season with drivers E and F. That they hardly replace two drivers at the same time is true, but it now also concerns Kvyat who’s back (for now at last) in his original seat.
IJW (@)
17th October 2017, 17:00
Isn’t there now a limit of 4 driver changes per team nowadays? I vaguely remember reading that some where.
anon
17th October 2017, 18:58
@ijw1, yes, I believe that the limit on driver changes came in after the 2001 season due to the number of changes that Prost made during the season (they had five different drivers that season).
minnis (@minnis)
17th October 2017, 22:55
It is a limit on the number of drivers, not the driver changes.
There is a maximum of 4 race drivers across the season, however there is no limit to the number of times drivers are swapped between these 4.
On an interesting note, the rules also state that in each of the two Friday practise sessions, teams may use two additional drivers. Whilst unclear, I interpret that to mean two drivers for FP1, two more for FP2, and this doesnt count towards the team’s four race drivers for the year – can anyone clarify?
If my understanding is correct, in 2018 we could theoretically see 4 different “free practice” drivers per weekend, plus the four race drivers, making a grand total of 88 potential drivers (per team) over the year.
Martin
20th October 2017, 10:53
Which means TR were forced* by the rules to run Kyvat this weekend? As running anyone else would constitute using a 5th driver. That is interesting I hadn’t seen in mentioned before.
*When I say forced I don’t mean they wouldn’t have run him if they could, just that regardless of what they’d prefer they have to run Kyvat
Gio Muratore
17th October 2017, 16:54
Gutted Jolyon Palmer is no longer going to be starting on the grid. I had such high hopes for the boy! Now only Hamilton is left flying the flag for GB. Maybe I should embrace the diversification of the drivers championship..
George (@george)
17th October 2017, 18:07
I’d still like to see Rowland make it next year, although it looks vanishingly unlikely now.
C
17th October 2017, 17:20
In MotoGP only person to rule this track has been Marc Marquez, no one seems to dominate this track like him in F1.
Philip (@philipgb)
17th October 2017, 20:57
In fairness to Hamilton’s record, the 2013 Mercedes was nowhere near fast enough for him to stand a chance of contesting the win that year but he still outperformed Rosberg by a considerably bigger margin than Vettel outperformed Webber.
BigJoe
17th October 2017, 20:53
Wouldn’t it be great to have a rule where each new driver gets his first two races in a 3rd car produced by the leading team of the day (no WCC points allowed)
Martin
20th October 2017, 11:25
What so Red Bull can just keep surfacing young drivers in order to make Merc or Ferrari fork out to run a 3rd car all season, all the while getting technical info back? In answer to your question no it wouldn’t be great.
Unicron (@unicron2002)
17th October 2017, 21:47
Absolutely love that stat about the 2 new drivers for a team – can’t believe it’s not happened since 1994, wow.
I remember it all got a bit messy with Lotus at the end of the year as they slowly withered away and had to grab pay drivers whenever they could. Phillipe Adams. Oh dear. Herbert had a strange end to the year: Lotus for most of the season, then Ligier (swapped with Barnard) then drafted in at Benetton.
Unicron (@unicron2002)
17th October 2017, 21:52
In reply to my own comment (great comment by the way Unicron2002), surely Herbert driving for Lotus, Ligier then Benetton one race after the other was the last time a driver raced for 3 different teams over 3 consecutive races?
Joao (@johnmilk)
17th October 2017, 22:13
@unicron2002
Joao (@johnmilk)
17th October 2017, 22:15
Well i tried to post a link for a self-five, for some reason doesn’t work
Matt Buck (@thenewno2)
17th October 2017, 22:40
Prior to 2005, were there ever any seasons where there was only one British full-time driver?
Nunu
18th October 2017, 12:03
Just really Hope to see MAG in yet another great ball breaking overtake – being called a idiot by some hot shot ego with fainted illusions… Should be possible in land of the BIG MAG…..
When the race has settled after the first laps with Mercedes or Ferrari in front then this is the great part!
No need to hope for exciting last laps with overtakes in front – Alonso will block the lapping cars together with Massa sleeping behind the wheel as my grandad used to ZZZzzzz……
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
18th October 2017, 14:34
@keithcollantine
With both Toro Rosso drivers being swapped, does this mean Kvyat gets ‘his’ car back (ie: engine and tyres allocation)?
It would make sense, but F1 rarely makes sense these days!
Thanks :)
Jere (@jerejj)
18th October 2017, 19:35
@eurobrun I think Kvyat will get Sainz’s quota of PU element, and tyre set allocation, etc., while Hartley will get Gasly’s equivalents (formerly Kvyat’s).
Dave
22nd October 2017, 7:09
Last year’s race had the most overtake but it was a failure in terms of ratings.