Some great racing at last
TEXAS: ENOUGH ACTION AND INTRIGUE IN AUSTIN TO KEEP ALL ON THE EDGE OF THEIR SEATS
Penalties upset, but Hamilton set to take championship in Mexico.
No complaints about Sunday’s drama-filled US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas. Ferrari’s Sebastien Vettel suffered a blow to his hopes of a championship salvage when he collected a three grid position penalty during Friday’s practice and moved back to fifth spot.
With his main rival and points leader Lewis Hamilton placing his Mercedes on pole alongside Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari it was bound to be an interesting race.
It got even more so when challenging Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo on lap one sent Vettel into a spin, to recover in 15th place.
Ricciardo’s team-mate Max Verstappen had picked up penalties for a gearbox change on top of an off-track excursion during qualifying when he met with a barrier, to put himself out of contention for a good grid spot.
Those last few laps with Verstappen holding off Hamilton as Raikkonen went on to victory and then watch Vettel grabbing fourth from Valtteri Bottas, kept us all on the seat edge. Some great racing at last. Interesting that Vettel’s penalty was not favoured by either Mercedes chief Toto Wolff, or Christian Horner, team boss of Red Bull.
Wolff is reported as saying he would rather see Vettel “putting on a great show” and that the penalty was detrimental to the current title battle.
Horner described it as “a rubbish rule” and believes that it would be better to fine a driver rather than apply a penalty that could influence the outcome.
Both agree Vettel transgressed the rules.
Failing to slow under a red flag condition is a safety measure that needs to be upheld, but with a different approach to the stewards’ current method of finding the driver guilty, despite possible extenuating circumstances. First they were criticised for a lack of consistency and now they are criticised for too much.
Horner suggests having a steward who is more like a football referee and judges each situation on its own merits.
But let us not forget that soccer refs often call on their linesmen plus a fourth official to review the infringement.
After the race the news broke that Force India’s Esteban Ocon and Kevin Magnussen of Haas had both been disqualified due to fuel infringements.
Frenchman Ocon had finished eighth but was disqualified for apparently exceeding the fuel mass flow on lap one.
Team chief Otmar Szafnauer was not amused and said so, but the steward’s decision was final.
Magnussen lost his ninth place for “consuming more than the allowed 105kg of fuel over the course of the race”.
It was not a great day for the Haas team: apart from the fuel issue, team-mate Romain Grosjean retired after sustaining damage following a collision with Sauber’s Charles LeClerc. He was also handed a three-place grid penalty for the next race due to his causing the accident.
Then he received another penalty point on his super licence making it ten for the season, just two points away from a race ban.
This weekend it is just a short hop for the teams to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez for the Mexican Grand Prix, round 19 of the 2018 F1 season.
It is odds on that Hamilton will wrap up the Drivers’ Championship.
With a 70-point lead over Vettel, the Englishman only needs a seventh place finish to take his fifth title.
Mexico has never been kind to Vettel, so expect the champagne corks to be popping in the Mercedes garage on Sunday night.