Hamilton Wins In Austin As Driver's Title Battle Set For Brazil

The last time Formula One raced in the United States,  McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton scored a victory. He repeated that on the series’ return in a spectacular shootout with Sebastian Vettel in the first United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday.

Before the start there was a lot of talk about the state of the track on the left-hand side of the grid, particularly by Hamilton who qualified second. Ferrari were so concerned, with Alonso due to start eighth, that they deliberately broke a seal on Felipe Massa’s gearbox so that he would get a five-place grid penalty that would move Alonso to seventh, on the clean side.

Hamilton lost out (as anticipated) by starting on the dirty side of the grid as he exited the first corner third behind the Red Bulls of Vettel and Mark Webber. But after disposing of Webber on the fourth lap after a previous try (which hadn’t quite worked out) he then got the throttle down and reined in the other Red Bull.

Throughout the race, Vettel and Hamilton were in a class of their own. It took Hamilton four laps to regain second place using DRS having had a 'dress rehearsal' attempt in to turn 12 on the previous lap. From that point he looked slightly quicker than the Red Bull ahead and set off after Vettel, getting within a second before dropping off ahead of the pit stops.

Fernando Alonso appeared to be struggling to make any impression on Mark Webber ahead of him, but at the start of lap 17 a radio message gave him ambition as Webber was told that his KERS had failed (again). And by turn 12 Webber coasted to a halt as his alternator gave up, allowing Alonso to inherited a comfortable third position.

At the back of the grid, Vitaly Petrov led the new teams home in his Caterham, as his teammate,  Heikki Kovalainen very narrowly defended against Timo Glock’s Marussia for 18th. Charles Pic brought his MR01 home next as both HRTs also finished. Pedro de la Rosa leading Narain Karthikeyan home as (well as throughout the entire race).

Besides Webber, the only non-finisher was Vergne after damaging his Toro Rosso’s front suspension again during a fight with the Mercedes.

Heading into the final race of the 2012 season, Sebastian Vettel leads Fernando Alonso with 273 to 260 points, and 25 is up for grabs in Brazil. Though Red Bull lost the race, Vettel’s second place was sufficient to clinch them the constructors’ championship for a third successive year. 

Congratulations Red Bull!

Lewis Hamilton	Winner    Fan's Choice
Sebastian Vettel	Second
Fernando Alonso	Third
Felipe Massa	P4
Jenson Button	P5
Kimi Räikkönen	P6
Romain Grosjean	P7
Nico Hülkenberg	P8
Pastor Maldonado	P9
Bruno Senna	P10
Sergio Pérez	P11
Daniel Ricciardo	P12
Nico Rosberg	P13
Kamui Kobayashi	P14
Paul di Resta	P15
Michael Schumacher	P16
Vital Petrov	P17
Heikki Kovalainen	P18
Timo Glock	P19
Charles Pic	P20
Pedro de la Rosa	P21
Narain Karthikeyan	P22
Mark Webber	Retired (alternator)
Jean-Éric Vergne	Retired (suspension)