Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, Circuit of the Americas, 2018

2018 United States Grand Prix race result

2018 United States Grand Prix

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Kimi Raikkonen won the 2018 United States Grand Prix for Ferrari ahead of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.

Pos#DriverCarLapsTime/gapDifferenceReason
17Kimi RaikkonenFerrari561hr 34m 18.643s
233Max VerstappenRed Bull-TAG Heuer561.2811.281
344Lewis HamiltonMercedes562.3421.061
45Sebastian VettelFerrari5618.22215.880
577Valtteri BottasMercedes5624.7446.522
627Nico HulkenbergRenault5687.21062.466
755Carlos Sainz JnrRenault5694.9947.784
811Sergio PerezForce India-Mercedes56101.0806.086
928Brendon HartleyToro Rosso-Honda551 lap1 lap
109Marcus EricssonSauber-Ferrari551 lap1.289
112Stoffel VandoorneMcLaren-Renault551 lap1.383
1210Pierre GaslyToro Rosso-Honda551 lap23.154
1335Sergey SirotkinWilliams-Mercedes551 lap12.318
1418Lance StrollWilliams-Mercedes542 laps1 lap
Not classified
16Charles LeclercSauber-Ferrari3125 laps23 lapsAccident
3Daniel RicciardoRed Bull-TAG Heuer848 laps23 lapsPower unit
8Romain GrosjeanHaas-Ferrari254 laps6 lapsAccident
14Fernando AlonsoMcLaren-Renault155 laps1 lapAccident
31Esteban OconForce India-Mercedes56Disqualified
20Kevin MagnussenHaas-Ferrari56Disqualified

2018 United States Grand Prix

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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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30 comments on “2018 United States Grand Prix race result”

  1. Mercedes dropped the ball today.

    1. Despite the blather, they weren’t focusing on the race and played safe. They should have got first or second at least with Raikkonen on non-optimal strategy and Vettel messing up again.

      1. I actually think they could have played it safe even more @david-br, but you are certainly right that they already won a bit by outscoring Vettel, that brought them closer to the driver world championship.

        It does look like they expected to actually be able to get to the finish on those softs, something they got wrong @jerejj. And then I do think they should have stopped Lewis a bit earlier – had they stopped in time to keep ahead of Verstappen (8 laps earlier?), they would have had no chance to claim that championship but would have ended up in a better place. Also I got the feeling that with all the thinking going on to make sure things go right for Hamilton they might have lost attention for Bottas a bit, giving Vettel a better chance at finishing 4th.
        Then again, i would not call it “dropped the ball”. Just that they might have estimated better. But luck and circumstance also got into it. In the end, it gave us a great race for Mercedes focus on nailing the championship here.

      2. Cant believe Danric’s luck does , RB also won’t let him test in the Reno..makes one wonder!

      3. Talking about blather, the same old (and contemporary) Vettel-bashing coming from david-br. He could also lay down (more than just) a bit of the loss at HAMs terrible second stint.

        Every time the combi Merc-Ham wins, he talks about how good Ham is and puts Ham as solely responsible for their succes; every time they don’t, he blames Merc.

        In literally every comment he finds it necessary to either bash VET, idolize either Ham or Ver, blame Merc or combine them into one big FBoy comment. >Yawn<

        1. @krxx Well I guess the solution is either I avoid commenting that Vettel again messed up by being over-aggressive with Ricciardo and spinning himself round, or you just skip my comments and enjoy life more. You know which one it’s going to be, right?

    2. I know, have they been taking pointers from Ferrari? How did they manage to throw that away? First they let Bottas get undercut by Max and then they leave Lewis out so he ends up behind Max as well. All they had to do was hold second behind Kimi and there was always he chance he might be able to take the lead. Instead they tried to be too clever for their own good, when it was clear a 40+ lap stint on the softs was unlikely, especially with limited FP running.

      Oh well, good for Kimi and roll on Mexico!

  2. Brilliant.
    Long overdue for Kimi.
    Great to see Max putting that car where it shouldn’t be.

    and the golden boys are behind – :) – I love it!

  3. Too much criticism on Ferrari for not pitting during the VSC, but on hindsight it was too early, Ferrari were right. And the second pitstop by Lewis seems wrong, it should have been earlier OR the tyres should have been softer.

    1. Softer would have made it worse surely? The problem was that Lewis ran out of steam by the time he got there. Fully agree earlier would probably have secured second for him.

      1. Rubens Cheriballo
        21st October 2018, 21:44

        Lewis didn’t have any new softs left

  4. For all the talk about Ferrari handing wins to Mercedes, it needs to be remembered that Mercedes have handed wins to Ferrari in Australia, Bahrain, Britain and today in USA.

    Seemed like Hammy was on the radio trying to talk himself out of a duel with Verstappen. He made it sound like the Mercedes doesn’t have a massive horsepower advantage over the Red Bull.

    Great race craft by Verstappen. Had Hammy all tangled up.

    1. I should add it was great race craft from Hammy too. Fantastic to see the top 3 keep things clean.

      I also forgot to mention that the Ferrari also has a massive horsepower advantage on the Redbull but was unable to pull clear of Verstappen. I guess the massive advantage I mentioned before was complete nonesense. Sorry, I hope to learn more about the sport as I’m a very new fan.

      1. This is very sad

      2. @anon

        Sorry, I hope to learn more about the sport as I’m a very new fan.

        You could at least learn Hamilton’s name.

  5. Is is too much to ask Keith to caption the headline as “Iceman keeps his cool and nudges ahead of Max and Hamilton” ? What an uninspiring caption . Really . Tch tch

  6. Vettel should go on an extended holiday before next season. He should properly clear his head.

  7. This was a thrilling race.

  8. Just called the boss, won’t make it on time for job tomorrow. He completely understood.

  9. Great race today. I think Hammy did the right thing to play it safe against the dangerous Verstap stap . It was fantastic to see Hammys race craft against both verstap stap and Kim Kim . In fact Vet vet could learn a lot from all three of those on how to keep things clean. Another very poor performance from Vet Vet today.

  10. Possibly one of the greatest races I’ve seen (and I’m not biased at all…). In all seriousness though, it had everything you could possibly want – drama at the start, intriguing strategy battles, on track racing (even amongst the top 3), tension up until the checkered flag, comeback drives, a championship decider underlying the whole race, and a fan-favorite/out of the norm winner.

    1. Kimi just earned it today… so cheers!

  11. János Henkelmann
    21st October 2018, 21:30

    I have been waiting for this so badly! Finally, the Iceman did it again, at 39 years, absolute masterclass today, Congratulations, Kimi is a legend!

  12. Mercedes strategy didn’t suit the track. Bottom line is this track isn’t an easy one to over take on, even with DNS.

    In retrospect the best strategy was the red bull strategy eg to gain position with the pit stops.

    If I were the FIA I would be looking into extending the DNS window to 1.5 seconds to allow for the effect which the car ahead has on the car behind.

    Hamilton at the end had the faster car but on this track couldn’t do anything with that pace once he’d caught up to the front runners.

    The real surprise is the FIA allowing Farrari to revert back to a design which must have been bending the rules before…

  13. Mercedes pitting under the safety car was not a wrong strategy. They were already behind the Ferrari and they came out behind. What cost Mercedes at least second place was that they choose to gamble with the tyres when they could have just shadowed the lead Ferrari, with the potential to win or remain in second.

  14. interesting too see ferrari beating lewis on his favorite tracks

  15. Nice retirement at Ferrari for kimi.
    Great fight and brilliant drive by max
    Lousy strategy and to much teamorders at merc.

    1. agree with all of this. Its horrible to watch Bottas constantly pulling aside to let Hamilton past with no fight at all. Merceds just keep on neautering the poor bloke at every opportunity.

  16. Cant believe Danric’s luck does , RB also won’t let him test in the Reno..makes one wonder!

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