Source: Ferrari Media

Breaking News

Raikkonen wins in the USA and Hamilton is no champion yet!

Raikkonen wins in the USA and Hamilton is no champion yet!

21-10-2018 20:48
Author profile picture

Nicolás Quarles van Ufford

Kimi Raikkonen has won the Amercian Grand Prix in spectacular fashion as Lewis Hamilton will have to wait another race to claim his fifth drivers' championship, as he only finished third with Sebastian Vettel behind him in fourth.

The Ice Man hadn't won a race since Australia 2013, a whopping 113 entries ago, as he took home an important win for Ferrari in the constructors' championship.

In second place was the surging Max Verstappen, who somehow ended within a second behind the race leader after starting from P18, after he was already fifth after just seven laps.

Hamilton did finish in third but Vettel was in fourth, meaning that the Brit will have to go again in Mexico to secure his seemingly inevitable fifth championship.

Summary

The race started quite spectacularly from front to back. At the front, Raikkonen had a lightning start as he made quick work of overtaking the Mercedes cars as he climbed to P1 in T1. He forced Hamilton to yield, and the Brit wasn't going to risk anything there looking at the bigger picture.

At the back, there was carnage, as Lance Stroll tagged Fernando Alonso's McLaren quite hard, ending his race as the Canadian pierced his side pod. Romain Grosjean was a casualty too as he got tangled up in a crash, and Charles Leclerc spun out and had to pit too. Four cars pitting, two made it back out. Grosjean and Alonso were out.

Quickly after, Vettel made yet another mistake. The German seemingly overtook Daniel Ricciardo but the Aussie didn't give up easily, taking back P4 from his former teammate, and they went side by side. Vettel had the inside line but hit Ricciardo, causing the Ferrari to spin and lose almost ten places. That was it, in terms of the championship fight, really.

That same Ricciardo then had a power unit failure yet again, forcing him to retire from a race for the seventh time this season - more retirements than anybody else.

His teammate Verstappen had another amazing overtaking performance. He got his strategy spot on, as he started from P18 on softs but was in fifth only seven laps into the race. Ricciardo's retirement moved him into fourth, and he wasn't done quite yet.

Raikkonen's degrading ultra's eventually cost him as Hamilton overtook him, but the Finn dove into the pit lane straight after to bolt on soft tyres to see out the race. Hamilton took over first place again after all the pit stops on his soft tyres to see out the rest of the race, but in a turn of events, he stopped for a second time as his tyres were degrading too quickly. 

He came out in P4, in front of Vettel but only just as the German was in P5. He needed P2 to wrap up the championship in Austin, a place that was occupied by Verstappen. Bottas in third let his teammate past after some team orders, and the charge for the Dutchman began.

The four-and-a-half second advantage evaporated after just over ten laps between Verstappen and Hamilton, but at the same time, Vettel was going at Bottas as well for fourth place. Bottas seemingly managed to fight off the Ferrari behind him, but Verstappen struggled on his older tyres. However, the Dutchman was hunting down Raikkonen in first place as well at the same time, making it a three-way battle in the last five laps.

Verstappen made a small mistake with two laps to go and Hamilton went into attack-mode, but some absolutely world-class defending from the Dutchman kept Hamilton at bay, with the Brit eventually going wide and blowing his chance to go second. Raikkonen pulled away while that happened and won his first race in 114 entries, and Vettel did very well too to eventually overtake Bottas in the final lap for fourth place. 

This all means that Hamilton will still win the drivers' championship, but not just yet. He'll have to go again in Mexico next week. 

But what a race it was at the Circuit of the Americas! Well done to Kimi Raikkonen, who wins his first-ever American Grand Prix!