Formula One in Austin Texas: Vettel breaks yet another record

For only the second time, the Formula One circus arrived in Austin Texas. Judging from number of attendees, the Americans have indeed embraced Formula One. Spectators were crammed onto every available spot in the circuit. Estimates put the crowd at 115,000–it was just that many people.

As Sebastian Vettel took his spot on the front row, Mark Webber and Romain Grosjean slotted behind the now four-time World Champion, with Nico Hulkenberg and Lewis Hamilton closing up the top five. With the exception of Jean Eric Vergne, everyone was starting on options. Pundits also speculated that drivers starting on the dirty side of the track would suffer a lot, as the racing line would have better grip with all the rubber laid down on it during the past two days. As the lights went out, the USGP was a GO!

Vettel had a fantastic start, running up turn 1 unopposed, unlike his team mate who failed to get a good jump off the line. (I can’t remember when Mark did have a great start.) Webber was overtaken by the Lotus of Grosjean and the Mercedes of Hamilton at the top of the hill, leaving Webber to salvage 4^th. But before the cars could go any further, Adrian Sutil in his Force India had a heavy shunt around turn 12.  Video footage showed that he came into contact with the Williams of Maldonado.

The safety car was deployed for three laps while the marshals cleaned up the debris and lifted the stricken Force India out of the way. On lap 5, the safety car went in, and Sebastian bunched up the field for the re-start. Grosjean kept alongside the RB9, but as they rounded turn 20, Vettel put the hammer down and roared down the straight, while the rest of the field tried to keep up. Vettel then held a 2.4 second gap to Grosjean, prompting fears from the attendees that it might be another parade for the German. The rest of the field would be left to fighting each other for the other podium positions, and of course they were right. Vettel was again in a class of his own, and no one had an answer for the German’s speed.

Lap 18 saw the first round of pit stops. First to come in was Heikki Kovalainen, substituting for Kimi Raikkonen, in his Lotus to swap his options for his primes. Button then followed two laps after. Massa then dove into the pits for his requisite stop and was able to come out ahead of Button in his McLaren. Lap 25 saw Lewis Hamilton drive into the pits for his primes, while Fernando Alonso overtook Button at turn 1.

Vettel kept pounding the tarmac until lap 28, when he was called in to replace his worn options. His lead was so huge that he still came out in P1, ahead of Grosjean and Webber. Mark had to pit during lap 29, while Alonso took his chance in getting past Esteban Gutierrez at turn 1 for sixth position, which he did with relative ease. The Sauber didn’t offer any resistance.

Webber, wanting to keep up the fight with Grosjean, registered the fastest time on lap 33, but lost a significant amount in the second and third sector the following lap, thus eventually having him settle for third on the podium. Sensing the cars will not be doing another round of stops, with the result of another Sebastian Vettel win, fans started heading out of the stands at lap 43. Some made their way to the gate near the bottom of the hill, anticipating to rush the podium celebration as soon as Vettel crossed the line.

Sebastian Vettel cruised to victory in Austin using a one pit stop strategy, and giving him his 12th GP win for the year and 8th in a row. The streak started back during the 2013 Belgian GP. Sebastian now holds the record ahead of Alberto Ascari and Michael Schumacher in the consecutive wins department. Vettel is also on course to equal Schumacher’s wins total in a season with another great performance in Brazil in a few days time.

Will he be able to cement his name in the record books? Or will his rivals have something to say about that?