Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel claimed his eighth consecutive race win since the summer break to set another F1 record, not to mention demoralize the rest of the F1 grid with another dominant display. No-one can claim that Vettel isn’t something special but from a fan point of view it makes for dull racing; which set the tone for the race, very little action to write home about at the 2013 USGP!
The start was the most exciting part, after that it really died a death apart from the the occasional lunge down the inside from Nico Rosberg. So back to the start, Vettel got his usually clean start and started to streak off into the distance while Mark Webber fell from second to forth after another poor start allowing Romain Grosjean and Lewis Hamilton to pass by the first corner. Nico Hulkenberg also dropped back one place succumbing to the fast starting Hamilton, Sergio Perez moved up one place ahead of Fernando Alonso, Valteri Bottas, Paul di Resta and Daniel Ricciardo all made good starts to jump Lotus’ temporary driver Heikki Kovalainen dropping the finn out of the top 10, meanwhile Maldonado and Sutil came together down the back straight which pitched the German into the armco, ending his race while Jenson Button sustained damage to his front wing!
The Sutil crash brought out the safety car which put the race on hold until lap five. And on the restart, there was no change of position in the top 10. Webber did claim back third from Hamilton on lap 13 down the back straight into the hairpin, the Australian breezing past the Briton like a motorway overtake using DRS. Hamilton expressing his dislike for having to conserve tyres over the team radio; we all feel your pain Lewis, as fans we’d all rather see flat out racing all race long.
Williams’ Valteri Bottas had a great race scoring four points for the team, maintaining his eighth place for the majority of the race, reclaiming that position on lap 37 after falling behind the three stopping Esteban Gutierrez. Jenson Button who started from fifteenth after a grid penalty managed to haul his McLaren upto 10th place, stealing a point from Red Bull bound Ricciardo on the penultimate lap, Button’s team mate Perez claimed seventh place putting the Briton in the shade somewhat this weekend; Button himself admitted he needed to get his head back in the game.
That’s about it except to list the finishing positions for the US Grand Prix 2013:
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1. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) 1:39.17.148 2. Romain Grosjean (Lotus) +6.200 3. Mark Webber (Red Bull) +8.300 4. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) +27.300 5. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) +29.500 |
6. Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) +30.400 7. Sergio Perez (McLaren) +46.600 8. Valteri Bottas (Williams) +54.500 9. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) +59.100 10. Jenson Button (McLaren) +77.200 |