2015 United States Grand Prix review

The weekend was very stormy but at least we got better weather for the race.

What a race! It was very exciting from the beginning till the end. The only boring fact was that the top3 was very familiar. This is just because these three drivers do a very good job every grand prix weekend and they deserve what's coming to them. A big hand and congratulations to Lewis Hamilton for his third world title in Formula One!

Let's talk about the race starting from the beginning..

Hamilton had a great start because he managed to get in front of his teammate (Nico Rosberg) who started from pole. It was a bit "rude" though how he overtook him. He pushed him off track and made him drop to 5th place. The Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat got in front of Rosberg. Sergio Perez was the fourth driver who managed to pass him.

The Ferraris also had great starts. Sebastian Vettel started from 13th and Kimi Räikkönen started from 18th. After the first few corners they were 9th and 10th. Vettel did even better and was 7th before the second lap!

Valtteri Bottas, Fernando Alonso, Romain Grosjean, Felipe Massa, Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson managed to break their cars at the start by crashing into each other but guess who was the only one to have problem with the pit crew? Same guy as always... Valtteri Bottas of course! Massa can thank god that he didn't have to pit because they would have ruined his race as well. I am so tired of talking about Williams' pit crew and their amateur mistakes so I wont do it this time. Well I must say this at least; after Bottas finally got a new nose on the car they changed regular soft tires on and he had to pit once more. I mean what the.... Later on Bottas had to pit for the third time and retired.

After the crashes and the safety car Rosberg overtook Ricciardo right away. It looked like Ricciardo didn't know what was going on. Did he even realize that the race had restarted? It didn't take long and Rosberg overtook Kvyat as well and was now 2nd. A few laps later Kvyat tried to take the position back but got overtaken by Ricciardo instead. Rosberg was defending against Kvyat and Ricciardo overtook Rosberg too and easily.

Lap 13 we could hear Kimi on the radio complaining that his DRS wasn't working. A couple of laps later Ricciardo overtook Hamilton for the lead! 

Meanwhile Kimi continued to share more problems; Max Verstappen. He said that Verstappen pushed him to the side every time Kimi tried to overtake and if that's legal then Kimi will do the same. Ferrari said that they will look what they can do about it. Nothing changed and now Verstappen tried his moves on Vettel in front and overtook him. This 18 year old is really something! Unfortunately it lasted just a few corners and Vettel took the position back when Verstappen went a little wide.

I was sure that when Ricciardo overtook Hamilton we would see Rosberg do the same in a few laps. This happened just as I had thought and Kvyat almost overtook him too. Hamilton pitted just before that could have happened though. He got the regular soft tires and was sure that now was the time for "dry tires".

Ricciardo, Rosberg, Kvyat, Vettel and Räikkönen got the soft tires as well and when they were back on track Hamilton was 4th. Kvyat had now also got in front of him.

Räikkönen went off track with the new tires and crashed. It seemed that the tires weren't good for him just yet. Maybe he should have stayed on the intermediates for a little while longer? He managed to get the car to the pits but had to retire from the race after a few laps.

On lap 22 you could see how the regular soft tires started to work for the Mercs; Rosberg overtook Ricciardo for the lead and Hamilton overtook Kvyat for third almost at the same time. Then Hamilton overtook Ricciardo for 2nd place. It was beautiful work from the Mercedes drivers! Vettel also got more speed on the dry track and overtook Kvyat for 4th. 

On lap 27 the safety car was deployed again because Marcus Ericsson had left his Sauber on track after he retired from the race. He could have gotten a penalty for leaving the car like that.

Rosberg had a 10 second lead already over Hamilton but lost it due to the safety car. It was now getting much easier for Hamilton. He could already taste the world championship title.

When the race continued on lap 33 Vettel overtook both Red Bulls and was now 3rd.

A lap later Verstappen overtook Kvyat for 5th and a few laps later Nico Hulkenberg crashed with Ricciardo. It didn't look so good for Red Bull. They were leading at one point and now it looked like that. Then it got even worse when Kvyat crashed his car on lap 43 and the safety car was deployed again.

When the race continued Hamilton started chasing Rosberg and overtook him after two laps. The top3 was now Hamilton, Rosberg, Vettel and it stayed like that till the end.

All in all it was an interesting race and I am really starting to enjoy Verstappen's driving. Sometimes he makes amateur mistakes but then in some races he drives better than anyone! He has a great career ahead of him.

Now let's see my predictions and the results:

Pole position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. His teammate Nico Rosberg got pole when the qualifying session was stopped after Q2.

Race:

1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - CORRECT
2. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari - WRONG. He was 3rd and Nico Rosberg was 2nd.
3. Kimi Räikkönen, Ferrari - WRONG. He retired from the race.

Fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. Nico Rosberg got this one.

Surprise: Keep an eye on Nico Hulkenberg. He has been pretty good in Austin with Sauber and Force India - He retired from the race but drove pretty well till that point.

Post your own predictions to our F1-4-LIFE PREDICTORS LEAGUE!

The rules:

POINTS:  1st - 3  2nd - 5  3rd - 10 

HOW IT WORKS: the aim of the game is simply predict who comes where in the race (top3). A total of 18 points can be won on a race day. If you get winner and and 3rd place right but 2nd wrong you get 13 points same if you get 1 correct. eg. 2nd you get 5 points. If a driver wins the race and you said he would come 2nd or 3rd no points would be awarded. Same if he came in another position, and you predicted that wrong. A table will be posted up every race weekend. The point scoring system will change once the cars become more competitive. Everyone will say a merc 1,2 so it won't be close or fun. 

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PREDICTIONS: send an email to f14lifeblog@gmail.com or message the Facebook page to submit your predictions. You have until lights out to make them. If you submit them when the race has started they won't count. So be quick! like the Mercedes. 

THE PRIZE: the winner of the league will win themselves a admin place on the F1 4 LIFE page along side AE, JT, MW, MH and JI. If you don't want to be an admin you are welcome to participate anyway. We may also come up with some other prize if it helps. 

That's it for today and if you want to send me feedback then email me: f14lifeblog@gmail.com