LEWIS ON FAST TRACK TO TITLE
Imperious Hamilton charges to victory, now he will surely seal glory in Mexico
AMERICA’S motor racing family put on their Sunday best, a show of shiny glitz that courted no subtlety or nuance.
And even though Lewis Hamilton did not take the championship in one clean go, it was still an afternoon of high drama and lingering rancour.
Hamilton won the US Grand Prix to take his 62nd career victory — double the amount of race wins held by the next most successful Briton, Nigel Mansell — but he still needs nine more points in Mexico on Sunday to convert a likely outcome into a certainty.
Hamilton, who started on pole, leads Sebastian Vettel by 66 points after the Ferrari man finished a hard-fought second.
More of the top two later, but first the row of the day, concerning a truly bullish move made by Max Verstappen on the last lap when he zoomed past Kimi Raikkonen in a dramatic statement of his rare talent for what seemed a certain third-place finish.
Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, came over the radio to tell him: ‘Max Verstappen you are brilliant.’ Only the stewards did not see it that way, demoting the Dutchman to fourth for gaining an unfair advantage by running off the track limits. Raikkonen moved up to third.
Cue anger. ‘They have been driving off track all weekend,’ said Horner. ‘Max made a fair move. It’s an appalling decision. They have robbed all the fans here. It was a great grand prix and they have screwed it up.’
Poor Max was told the ill-tidings of his fourth place as he waited to go on to the podium, and was led away down the stairs like a naughty schoolboy, clearly fuming at the perceived injustice after coming up from 16th on the grid.
He still contributed to a decent race on a dazzlingly sunny Texan afternoon, during which the buildup was as theatrical as one could imagine. The drivers were called out by Michael Buffer, the boxing announcer. His well- oiled larynx could not quite get itself around Carlos Sainz, who came out as Saints. He also introduced Raikkonen, as ‘always smiling’, which must have been meant ironically, though as one sceptic suggested, this country is one irony forgot.
It was diverting ‘ bread and circuses’, as Juvenal wrote, though not suitable for every grand prix. I cannot see, for example, the old Midlands airfield in Northamptonshire called Silverstone being ripe for this kind of spectacle of national self-proclamation.
On the grid stood the 20 drivers and one former leader of the free world, Bill Clinton, as a naval rating with a neck the size of bull belted out the Star Spangled Banner. Perhaps all this build-up had disturbed Hamilton’s concentration. He had earlier given Usain Bolt a lift around the track in a Mercedes roadcar that he took up the kerbs until the laid back Jamaican’s blood pressure threatened to lift the car roof off.
But watching Hamilton in those final moments going through the utilitarian ritual of putting on his balaclava and helmet, he looked focused.
Yet when the lights went out he was a touch sluggish away. Vettel, sharing the front row, was on a charge. Hamilton came over to try to push the German aside and he ran over the white line under pressure. On the inside line, Vettel cornered the first, left-hand, bend in front.
That was not in the script. However, Hamilton sounded content over the radio. ‘ Pace feels pretty good,’ he said. He closed in on the scarlet car ahead of him, and, whoosh, down the back straight he deployed DRS and went through. He roared into a lead.
It looked to be all over, but Hamilton had a slight scare when Vettel, having pitted before him, banged in three fine laps on kindly tyres and was right on the Briton’s tail when the Mercedes returned after being reshod.
This was a fleeting concern, as Hamilton extended his lead comfortably, giving him a remarkable fifth win in the six stagings of the US Grand Prix here, 20-odd miles out of downtown Austin. His brother Nic watched avidly from the paddock while his mother was also in attendance.
The family were here for a coronation. That eventuality was unlikely, however, given that Vettel was sure to have adequate pace to finish in the top five — the requirement to stay in the title if Hamilton won — if only Ferrari’s brittle form did not crack, as it has in the past three rounds.
There were late worries for the Scuderia, in fact. Vettel, on a twostop strategy to Hamilton’s one, had to pass Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, and was then let through by the compliant Raikkonen to move back, finally, into second place with five laps remaining.
Although Hamilton was made to wait for his title, it was a night of celebration at Mercedes, who won their fourth consecutive constructors’ title.
Some bemoan their level of dominance, and say it has stifled competition, but their record is a massive tribute to a highly professional team.
‘I enjoyed that,’ said Hamilton. Although he would have liked to seized the crown in the country whose red carpets he wears out, he was happy to bide his time for one more week.