Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Circuit of the Americas, 2018

2018 United States Grand Prix grid

2018 United States Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton leads the final grid for the 2018 United States Grand Prix.

Row 11. Lewis Hamilton 1’32.237
Mercedes
2. Kimi Raikkonen 1’32.307
Ferrari
Row 23. Valtteri Bottas 1’32.616
Mercedes
4. Daniel Ricciardo 1’33.494
Red Bull
Row 35. Sebastian Vettel* 1’32.298
Ferrari
6. Esteban Ocon 1’34.145
Force India
Row 47. Nico Hulkenberg 1’34.215
Renault
8. Romain Grosjean 1’34.250
Haas
Row 59. Charles Leclerc 1’34.420
Sauber
10. Sergio Perez 1’34.594
Force India
Row 611. Carlos Sainz Jnr 1’34.566
Renault
12. Kevin Magnussen 1’34.732
Haas
Row 713. Fernando Alonso 1’35.294
McLaren
14. Sergey Sirotkin 1’35.362
Williams
Row 815. Lance Stroll 1’35.480
Williams
16. Marcus Ericsson 1’35.536
Sauber
Row 917. Stoffel Vandoorne 1’35.735
McLaren
18. Max Verstappen** No time
Red Bull
Row 1019. Pierre Gasly** No time
Toro Rosso
20. Brendon Hartley*** No time
Toro Rosso

*Three-place grid penalty for failing to slow sufficiently for red flags in first practice
**Five-place grid penalty for gearbox change
***Sent to back of grid for power unit change

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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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44 comments on “2018 United States Grand Prix grid”

  1. Did the mercs do a bluff/scrub run in Q2 on Ultras? They went out on them, but the lap time did not improve I do not think. C4 mentioned it but then did not confirm that they did not set a time.

    1. Both Ferrari’s and Mercs did do but they gave up their laps.

      1. At least Kimi did not actually. He did just one flying lap in Q2, on US, and that’s it.

    2. @mach1 Yep, they did, just cruised around, as we have seen a few times this season in Q2.

    3. I assume it’s to get a feel for the track on those tyres before Q3 rather than a bluff/scrub run @mach1

  2. I think Lecrec should be P9 as he set his lap at the end of the session, beating Perez

    1. Yes, he was 2 tenths up on the tracker.

  3. Pretty good qualifying session. Virtually nothing between the top two… looking like Ferrari is finally getting on top of their tire issues. Vettel will be on a charge tomorrow, no doubt.

    1. I agree – Lewis needs to watch his mirrors tomorrow – Seb has nothing to lose.

    2. Even if it’s probably too late for the championships this year, it is good to see them back on the pace here, and certainly makes the races more interesting until at least the end of the season too.

  4. I hope so, plus, he doesn’t need to worry about his biggest weakness in P13

    1. Good to know the rain qualified p13

      1. I probably laughed more than I should have, but that was funny.

    2. That’s Alonso ;) He can handle him.
      Try to keep up..

  5. I’m waiting for all those claiming the Mercedes is faster than Ferrari. It is clear that both cars have been more or less evenly matched throughout this season. In fact, we can arguably claim Mercedes was the faster car in only the 3 previous races.

    Here, we can use Bottas as a benchmark experiment, and Raikkonnen as the double blind – and the result is the same. Vettel and Lewis are faster than their teammates. Raikkonnen is faster than Bottas, and Lewis is faster than Vettel by 1/600ths of a second over 5.5km.

    This means the Ferrari is the faster car. And Lewis would still have gotten pole in it.

    1. It seems to me that Merc and Ferrari have been so close this season that it comes down to the drivers.
      Seb has made too many silly mistakes and it has cost him.
      I really believe it could have gone either way this season.

      1. Not being salty, was the second sensor removed by FIA off the Ferrari?

      2. This is what many people want @nullapax close competition between different team with the drivers having the possibility to make a difference. Hamilton has driven better, he deserves the championship more

        1. Lewis has kept his head together better overall – he has earned it no question.
          I just wish Seb had kept his wits together as I consider him to be (have been?) a worthy champion as well.

          1. @nullapax +1, echoes my feeling exactly.

    2. Some will still claim it, but the big picture has said all year that the Ferrari has been marginally better. The last three or so races saw them lose out on getting their tires in the operating window, but this weekend they’re right back in it. The old floor is back on as well so I doubt it’s anything radical (it’s been suggested they’re trying bits related to next year’s formula). More than likely it’s been subtle tweaks & setup changes like Mercedes have had to do to keep their tire temps in check. There’s never really been a huge gap in performance between Ferrari & Mercedes all season. The drivers though, that’s been a different story (and still not nearly as bad as some would make it seem, but nevertheless, Lewis has walloped Seb this year)

      1. It could actually be a good race tomorrow. Raikkonen starting on ultras, Vettel without Verstappen to stop him chasing down Bottas and maybe Hamilton, depending on race pace. Unless there’s a collision, it’s not really going to effect the title outcome, but still, Ferrari could take it to Mexico. How many laps will it take Verstappen to catch Ricciardo?

        1. Typical VER-FBoy comment. People on these kind of threads usually post expectations/suggestive questions based on solid empirical data. Now could this FBoy give any of this in which his idol actually did the proposed catching?

          The hate these FBoys develop for their idols’ teammates is unbelieveable. Robbie gloating and getting some kind of sick satisfaction bc Max pulled away from DR after the latter justly (after all, RIC made the correct observation VER was holding back unnecessary, costing RB time and ruining RICs tyres in the process) made a remark about Max’ speed at the moment, for example. And now for the so manyth time coming from this one.

          Why don’t you want to discuss the driver error of VER that led him to be so far behind in the first place instead? And thanks to the TR-sister team he won 2 places for free already.
          Nice diversion, but not really.

          1. People on these kind of threads usually post expectations/suggestive questions based on solid empirical data.

            Well at least that rules you out then ;)
            If it was a driver error, you can reach for pole then.. HAM was one of the many who did exact the same. So it’s the car that makes the difference. Try to keep up. F1 is to fast for you it seems.

          2. erikje.. hahahahahhahahahahha.. Keep those lies coming, hahahahahhahaah.
            The second part of your comment: Hahhahahahahahahhahah.. Keep those excuses coming.. Can you say Ziggoooooooooooooooooo??

    3. Looks more like 1/16th of a second to me.

    4. @kbdavies

      In fact, we can arguably claim Mercedes was the faster car in only the 3 previous races.

      Mercedes was faster than Ferrari in Australia, Spain, France and Austria too.

      1. Indeed, and I think this is just like silverstone qualifying: ferrari pretty much even with mercedes, raikkonen performing better than usual, matching vettel, bottas doing his number 2 job, always decent, never great, except in austria and russia and abu dhabi, tracks where he’s always strong, and hamilton, a 1-lap specialist, getting the last half tenth out in silverstone and austin, he’s also normally strong on both tracks.

  6. Track limit nonsense once again in F1. Lewis has all four wheels off the track in sector one of his fastest lap. Gasly lap disallowed in Q1…..Selective stewarding.

    1. Track limits are only enforced in turn 19i

    2. Quote: “Drivers will lose lap times for running wide at turn 19”.

    3. Selective comprehension of a rather straight forward rule sounds more like it……

    4. Lewis , along with just about very driver, had all 4 wheels off in turn 9. As they all did last year, and the year before, etc. Probably as they are allowed to run wide at that corner. This year all were informed that running wide at T19 would result in a penalty. Same thing happens at most tracks and in most motorsport disciplines. No idea why you single out Lewis? Being a bit selective?

      1. because he is a finger boy fan

    5. Stewards had an issue with turn 19. Everywhere else was fair game. And Hamilton wasn’t the only one taking those lines. Selective criticism.

  7. Gasly lost his time for going wide at turn 19. Everyone went wide at that same corner in the first half of the lap

  8. Leclerc vs Ericsson= Alonso vs Vandaoorne kind of. He really deserves his seat at Ferrari and it’ll be really interesting to see how he compares to Vettel.

  9. This might be the last chance to go for a race win for raikkonen, it’s unlikely and most of the times there will be something preventing it, a bad start, a mechanical problem, a team order (hopefully he doesn’t obey that if he can win), a strategy blunder, but there’s at least the possibility: starting on ultra he HAS to overtake hamilton at start; since ferrari seems to have the pace this time he might hold on.

    Red bull should be better in the race but probably unable to get past any competitors considering ricciardo usually doesn’t start as well as verstappen, who starts quite far back.

    1. Ah, and raikkonen occasionally has great starts, singapore 2017, austria 2018, but in the latter case threw away the good start with an attempt to pass hamilton around the outside, which with hindsight cost him the win since verstappen passed him there and won the race.

      1. @esploratore More precisely the little incident with Verstappen further into the lap is what cost him the win rather what happened at T2.

        1. You first have to pass someone to be able to block him ;)

          1. Yes, basically he had a very good start at austria but risking too much with hamilton eventually allowed verstappen to get past him, however no way to foresee bottas would’ve had that problem AND mercedes would’ve reacted wrongly to the VSC.

            Very happy that raikkonen actually won btw, great race overall with 10 last laps with 3 cars closer and closer, up to 2 sec between first and 3rd.

  10. Looks like Ferrari are back after a 3 race slump. Still not good enough to take pole off Hamilton even with the quicker car.

    Ferrari looked mighty on those supersofts, and I’m surprised they didn’t try to get Kimi to get in to Q3 with them. He would have had a better chance of jumping Lewis Hamilton given the pace advantage on the SS. Now, even if he does jump Lewis, they’ll lose the position due to an early pitstop and switch to the softs.

  11. Max takes another 5 place penalty for changing his gearbox

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