Vote for your 2017 United States Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend

2017 United States Grand Prix

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Which Formula One driver made the most of the United States Grand Prix weekend?

It’s time to give your verdict on which driver did the best with the equipment at their disposal over the last five days.

Review how each driver got on below and vote for who impressed you the most at Circuit of the Americas.

Driver performance summary

DriverStartedGap to team mate (Q)Laps leading team matePittedFinishedGap to team mate (R)
Lewis Hamilton1st-0.46s56/5611st-34.967s
Valtteri Bottas3rd+0.46s0/5625th+34.967s
Daniel Ricciardo4th-0.081s12/141
Max Verstappen16th+0.081s2/1424th
Sebastian Vettel2nd-0.23s39/5622nd-5.636s
Kimi Raikkonen5th+0.23s17/5613rd+5.636s
Sergio Perez9th+0.501s0/5518thNot on same lap
Esteban Ocon6th-0.501s55/5516thNot on same lap
Felipe Massa10th-1.265s55/5519th-27.857s
Lance Stroll15th+1.265s0/55211th+27.857s
Fernando Alonso8th-0.595s18/241
Stoffel Vandoorne20th+0.595s6/24112th
Carlos Sainz Jnr7th-0.223s3/317th
Daniil Kvyat11th-0.816s55/55110th-27.128s
Romain Grosjean12th-0.559s53/55114th-22.674s
Kevin Magnussen17th+0.559s2/55216th+22.674s
Nico Hulkenberg18th+0.223s0/30
Marcus Ericsson13th-0.337s5/5115th
Pascal Wehrlein14th+0.337s0/51
Brendon Hartley19th+0.816s0/55213th+27.128s

    Vote for your driver of the weekend

    Which driver do you think did the best job throughout the race weekend?

    Who got the most out of their car in qualifying and the race? Who put their team mate in the shade?

    Cast your vote below and explain why you chose the driver you picked in the comments.

    This poll is closed

    Max Verstappen was voted the Driver of the Weekend for the United States Grand Prix with 37.5% of the vote. This is his third win this year and the ninth of all time.

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    When this poll is closed the result will be displayed instead of the voting form.

    Author information

    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    62 comments on “Vote for your 2017 United States Grand Prix Driver of the Weekend”

    1. There’s Palmer instead of Sainz? Typo?

      1. It has to be Hamilton this weekend. He was sublime through practice, qualifying and the race. A small wobble at the start of the race, but was equally competitive and thoughtful in his overtake of Vettel, then pretty much managed the race thereafter. Verstappen did well in the race, but even he admitted that his qualifying wasn’t great.

        1. geoffgroom44 (@)
          24th October 2017, 12:14

          absolutely

        2. Honestly, you can look at the start as Hamilton knowing he had nothing to worry about, and his way of staying out of risk of drivers with too much to prove taking him out of the race…

          Stellar race Lewis.

    2. Driver of the race, Max Verstappen, hands down. Driver of the weekend: Lewis.

      Honorable mentions to Carlos Sainz, impressive first drive for Renault, and Brendon Hartley bringing it home a solid 13th in his first race.

      Strugglers? Bottas is underwhelming in that Mercedes, put someone in there who can give Lewis a run for his money.

      1. @azmo – I agree with all that you say except the last bit about Bottas. His race was compromised by rear-gunner duty, which he did reasonably well.
        I see that Verstappen is getting a bit pity vote – it would be better to be able to vote negatively for Mika Salo I think.
        Best drive of the weekend – fastest in every session on Friday and Saturday, controlled the race with grit: Hamilton.
        Most eye-catching, swashbuckling and entertaining on race day: Verstappen.
        Most significant drives: Hartley, Sainz.
        Impressive: Ricciardo, Ocon.
        Solid work: Raikkonen, Vettel, Kvyat.

        1. Edit: “I see that Verstappen is getting a big pity vote”

      2. The Skeptic (@)
        23rd October 2017, 21:40

        +1 Good summary

    3. A Sainz option is required. Obviously Verstappen drove awesomely well on Sunday, but over the whole weekend Carlos did an incredible job given he was driving a new (to him) car.

      1. Currently Sainz is there @harrydymond – i just voted for him!

        Yeah, for me it was between Sainz and Ocon with Kvyat deserving an honourable mention, Verstappen had a great sunday but did not do so great on saturday. Well, and off course Hamilton did the job on Saturday and after getting passed by Vettel, he gained it back on track too, sure enough he is in for dotw as well.

        1. Thanks for the heads-up @bascb; Keith must have fixed it.

    4. i would vote for sainz if i could! i’ll vote for palmer

    5. Palmer best driver without racing

    6. @keithcollantine We need a Sainz option instead of Palmer

    7. Tough weekend to choose. Verstappen had a superb race, easily driver of the day. But even with the new power unit lost out to Riccardo in qualifying and while I don’t think the demotion was fair, you can’t say it was a perfect pass. He could have done better.

      The only mark against Hamilton was Vettel getting a better start. I don’t think Hamilton’s start was poor, Vettel just nailed it. Hamilton then never looked in doubt of taking the place back though. An almost perfect weekend and with another crushing margin over his team mate.

      It’s a marginal choice, but mine is Hamilton.

    8. ILuvSoundtracks (@)
      23rd October 2017, 14:44

      I’ll take Max Verstappen despite that penalty.

    9. I think driver of the weekend is Hamilton, perfect from practice to the race, and won on merit, the pass on vettel on lap six and crucially on verstappen after the stop was very good to denied the opportunity to vettel to catch him and have a go at turn 1 the next lap, and from then won comfortably. My top 3 drivers of the weekend would be: Hamilton, Verstappen and Sainz.

    10. Hamilton, no question about it.

    11. Max Verstappen. Special mention to Hamilton for shutting the door on Vettel in the WDC (although we all know the championship was lost in Singapore).

      1. Even with a win in Singapore, and hypothetically Hamilton finishing fourth would only be a 38 point difference so Hamilton would still be 28 ahead.

        Without the failure in Malaysia as well if we assume Vettel won and Hamilton demoted to 4th then that’s a further 38 point swing so Vettel would now lead by ten points.

        After the next 3 races we’ll have a finished picture to play what if with, but I think the win in Singapore would have been essential. Conceding 1st to Verstappen would only have him 3 points ahead now even work a Malaysian win. I doubt that would be enough to hold Hamilton off over the last 3 races.

        In my book Vettel took the right gamble in Singapore. Just outscoring Hamilton wouldn’t have been enough.

        1. And keep in mind it rained at singapore, I’m fairly certain hamilton and verstappen would’ve got past both ferraris later on, none of their drivers are particularly good, at least atm, so I think hamilton would’ve got 2nd in singapore.

        2. Without the failure in Malaysia as well if we assume Vettel won and Hamilton demoted to 4th then that’s a further 38 point swing so Vettel would now lead by ten points.

          38 point swing for Malaysia? You’ll have to show your working on that one mate :)

          1. It’s quite simple, isn’t it? Hamilton won and got 25 points, vettel retired, 0; had vettel won he’d have got 25 more than he did and with hamilton 4th as he assumed hamilton would’ve lost 13 points compared to the 25 he got, so 38 swing.

          2. Nevermind, lol, I somehow assumed singapore instead of malaysia; yes, it’s impossible to get a 38 points swing in malaysia since vettel still got 4th.

    12. Voted for Hamilton because he looked to have maximised absolutely everything, and also achieved that rare feat of overtaking his title rival to win the race.

      But I don’t remember being this spoilt for choice. Verstappen, Ocon, Sainz, Ricciardo and Alonso all had great weekends, and any of them would have been worthy of a vote.

    13. I liked BOT at Williams. I thought he was a bad choice for Mercedes this year as he wouldn’t (and hasn’t, really) challenge HAM. Given how locked down everyone else was though, it was about all they could do. They shouldn’t have re-signed him for 2018. They should have pushed for another top driver. Senna-Prost McLaren days. BOT needs to go, sadly.

      For all those who say RAI is washed up and VET just wants him there because RAI is not a threat, BOT is not far off of that description. Recall, RAI would have finished ahead of VET in more than a few races without some bad luck and some team orders. BOT has finished ahead of HAM a few times.

      1. At the time of resigning Bottas, he was within a few points of Hamilton in the championship. Bottas, excluding China, had a fantastic first half of the season. Since then, he has plummeted and who knows what is causing that.

    14. I voted for Alonso for beating his much vaunted young gun team mate and dragging that sorry ass delivery truck into the points..👍 Other than that, I thought Jolyon Palmer did a decent job on the bar stool..😬

    15. Lewis Hamilton with no hesitation, monster drive even when he lost the lead, Bottas nowhere near his teammate and Vettel struggling to keep up with Lewis, It really shows how talented is Lewis when we know how hard he spanked Vettel this season.

    16. Max for what? Why him? Loses out to Ricciardo in qualifying even with a new upgrades renault engine. Even though he has a grid penalty.
      Ricciardo was on course for a podium before his engine blew up. 16th to 4th is superb but DOTW and you got outqualified by your teammate who was using an upgraded engine? Seriously.. Hamilton, Sainz, Alonso, Ocon and even Hartley deserve it.

      1. “your teammate while you were using an upgraded engine”

      2. Ricciardo was slow… sound harsh maybe, but in all fairness he was a softer compount and out of traffic, yet when he pitted the gap to Verstappen had only marginal grown…. 0.3 sec in 11 laps.

        Considering Verstappen’s done 10 (!!) overtakes in those 11 laps, without losing any time to his team mate you gotta consider Ricciardo as slow… wasted his tyres as well after just 12 laps which would have ruined his chances in the race completely.

        Beating Bottas and Kime on the finish line and making Vettel’s live difficult comming from P16 has to be considered as a good driver… Verstappen btw was overall often faster than the race winner as well.

        1. Except than the race winner was just cruising around for half of the race, managing a 10 second gap.
          Let’s say you don’t like Hamilton.

      3. @krichelle I assume most people apply more weighting to the race than to qualifying (rightly so). Verstappen probably also had a slightly different car setup given that he had a penalty so I assume he would compromise his qualifying lap slightly in order to have a better chance to overtake in the race. He did have a pretty spectacular race so think his votes are justified. I voted Sainz btw.

    17. Kimi. Who else could it be?

    18. Consider the utterly crappy car Ericsson is driving, he manage to have the same pace ( and even better!) than Stroll(Williams), Hartley(STR) and “Mr Manglesson” (Haas). Even with the 5 sec penalty ( How come Mr Mangle didnt get one for the exact same contact with Wehrlein!?) he deserves atleast some credit before some of the drivers you present here in my opinion.

    19. Wanted to vote for Sainz. Since apparently Palmer=Sainz in this poll, voted Palmer.

      First time in history a driver receives more votes for DoTW when he’s out of F1 than at any time he really was an F1 driver!

    20. P1, P2, P3, Q1, Q2, Q3, R1

      Hamilton, anything else is just contrary.

      1. Hamilton had the superior car and lost the start. That’s the only minor kink I can see against him. Then again he did overtake his title rival on track which is a definite plus. Obviously an incredibly strong weekend for Lewis.

        1. the race order on lap2 means absolutely nothing. Lewis’ start was fine… and it kept him out of trouble on the first couple laps.

    21. I unironically voted for Kvyat. Great weekend from him.

    22. Kinda reminds me of when Haryanto was voted driver of the day. Gotta love these blindly patriotic voters…

      1. @pastaman
        HAR did raced yesterday :)
        On serious note, it is concerning if this trend really about national pride vote not because VER had a great race. I confessed that I was voted for HAR at his first F1 appearance just because that day mark a major accomplishment for his country.
        What do you think @keithcollantine should do? Geoblocking Netherland IP?

      2. Yeah, a lot of people here just vote against Hamilton.
        You know what they say about h@ters?

    23. Hamilton for a flawless weekend performance although Vettel, Verstappen, Sainz, Ocon all deserve a mention. Alonso and Ricciardo also did a great job, shame reliability came into play. Props to Kvyat for his point in returning.

      The Honda PU continues to sound terrible under acceleration.

    24. Led all practice sessions, all parts of quali, won the race.
      Hamilton.

    25. Seems sainz has only 1 percent of vote as his name wasnt there before. He is there now so voted Sainz.

    26. I’m surprised almost nobody went with Sainz. I didn’t as well, but still.

    27. Verstappen was the driver of the race, penalty or no penalty.

      Hamilton was amazing in qualifying and in the race.

      But, I voted for Sainz. New car, new team and he never put a foot wrong all weekend. Looked strong in practice and qualifying against his more experienced team mate. Very mature start with Renault. Hope it continues.

    28. Sainz did a fantastic job in a foreign car. Max drove a great race although qualifying wasn’t his best (according to his own words), Hamilton his usual outstanding performance, Danny Ric also shined brightly only to be let down by his car again.

      So I give driver of the weekend to Sainz.

    29. I believe Verstappen was absolutely amazing, but I am sure he will win the vote so my vote goes to a driver who probably is often overlooked:

      Marcus Ericsson

      Not only did he qualify 0.007 seconds from Q2 on actual genuine pace, he then raced well and battled it out with cars he should not. His overtake on Magnussen was pure genius, the kind of move a real skilled and experienced driver would attempt. It was good too, I blame Magnussen despite the stewards pinning the blame on Ericsson.

      Honorable mentions:
      Max Verstappen (as mentioned), Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton, Esteban Ocon

    30. William B Davis
      24th October 2017, 11:21

      Can’t help feeling that Kimi is the Gerhard Berger of modern-day F1…

      Sainz for me

      1. Nope, Gerhard Berger had (and still has come to think about it) personality.

    31. I voted for Sainz. Outqualified his teammate and drove a solid race, finishing ahead of a probably faster Force India after making one of the overtakes of the race. I mean, it was probably illegal if Mika Salo had seen it, but fortunately it wasn’t for a podium place so track limits don’t apply.

    32. All season Lewis, that is why he is going to be world champion again. For the race Max without a doubt.
      By the way the F1 championship is finished. Mercedes got the constructor-titel and thats whats F1 about.

    33. I was tempted to say Ocon because he was just on it all weekend despite feeling ill but for turning in a great performance in a car he wasn’t familiar with, I had to go for Sainz.

    34. Hamilton is a must, this time. Flawless during all the weekend.

      Mentions to Verstappen (it would have been him if Ricciardo didn’t outqualified him and stayed on his place in the last lap) and obviously Sainz.

    35. So Verstappen had a bad qualifying (‘worst of my career’), and a penalty that kept him from third because he needed a bit more asphalt to get by Kimi, and he’s way ahead of the guy that was unchallenged all weekend? I agree that he had a good race, but, he also had the 2nd or 3rd fastest car so one could argue he should have been at least just behind Bottas w/o the penalty. Had I realised that, I’d probably would have given Hamilton another vote, but, well, he won the race, WCC, and close to the WDC so he won’t car :)

      Anyway, I gave it to Ocon for a great qualifying, and a very consistent and cool race. Of course Sainz would have been a very valid candidate too, but as I looked the first time, he was still listed as Palmer, and that held me back.

    36. After the race it was Max all the way but its been a day and overall for the weekend its Ham, lost the lead and took it back, kept cool when the others stopped for fresh tyres near the end, well done champ!

      disturbing how badly Bottas is looking at times.
      Get yer head on straight Hulk, you got a quick team mate now.

    37. Hamilton was on top all weekend, heading the timing charts every session, the only slight fault would be that he didn’t keep the lead when starting from pole, although that seemed more due to Vettel making a great start rather than Hamilton making a poor start, and that in turn meant he had to overtake Vettel on track for the lead, which even if it was a DRS overtake, was better than if he had just cruised off into the distance from pole unhindered.

      Verstappen was great in the race starting way down in 16th due to engine penalties and almost getting a podium, but by his own admission he underachieved in qualifying, and as this is for driver of the weekend and not driver of the race I can’t vote for him.

      Ocon had a good weekend with getting best of the rest honours in both qualifying and the race, even more impressive when we learnt he was ill during qualifying.

      Sainz put in a great performance on his debut for Renault after his mid-season switch from Toro Rosso. He managed to get past the Force India of Perez in the race but couldn’t manage to get past the other Force India of Ocon, which would have meant finishing best of the rest.

      Hulkenberg has been having a good season so far, although we don’t know how much of that was Palmer making him look good, with everything changing teams at this point in the season entails I thought Sainz would be doing well to get close to Hulkenberg, but he made it look like he had been there all season and had the better weekend of the two..

      Although it must be said that Hulkenberg began the weekend knowing he would be starting from the back of the grid due to engine penalties, and so the focus of his build-up would have been different to normal, with the emphasis on race pace rather than one lap qualifying speed, and then after all that his car failed him early on in the race.

      If Hulkenberg had had a normal race weekend and Sainz had still got the same results in comparison to his teammate in practice, qualifying and the race it would have been a straightforward choice to vote for Sainz.

      Hartley deserves a mention for putting in a solid performance on his F1 debut, called up at short notice, he only had some work in the simulator leading up to race, apart from that he hasn’t raced in a single seater for a few years and didn’t any experience of the Pirelli tyres which is vital in F1 at the moment.

      It was a tough call but I voted for Hamilton with Sainz a close second then Ocon third.

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