It was midnight in Finland, as the qualifying got underway at the Circuit of the Americas. After the Japanese GP my family has been hit with a serious health issue regarding my youngest son, so it has been extremely hard to concentrate on anything else, including Formula 1. I have stayed awake at nights, so I felt extremely tired, as the qualifying started. But of course I wanted to see, how my favourites Sebastian and Kimi were going to perform on the Texan soil.
In Q1 both Mercedes and Ferrari came out on the supersoft Pirellis, whereas the rest opted for the softest compound. For the US GP weekend the ultra soft compound has been exceptionally pink-marked to spread the breast cancer awareness. In spite of the tyre choice, Hamilton went fastest in the first session. Red Bull´s Verstappen was second on the ultra soft Pirellis. Bottas was third and the Ferrari duo of Sebastian and Kimi fourth and sixth, both on the harder tyre compound. Carlos Sainz, who had switched from Toro Rosso to Renault after the Japanese GP, had an excellent debut for the new team. The Spaniard had beaten his teammate in two free practice sessions, and on his last run in Q1 he jumped fifth. Pierre Gasly (who had other duties in Japan) had been replaced by Brendon Hartley at Toro Rosso, and for a moment it seemed, as if the New Zealander was going to make it through to Q2. However, in the dying moments of Q1 he dropped from 15th to 18th. Hartley has also been given a 15-place grid penalty for using additional power unit elements. In addition to the Toro Rosso rookie, out of Q2 were the Sauber duo of Ericsson and Wehrlein and Haas´ Magnussen. Stewards penalised Magnussen with a 3-place grid drop for impeding Perez after Haas mistakenly told him that the Force India behind was not on a fast lap. Williams´ Stroll was given the same penalty for impeding Haas´ Grosjean.
In Q2 responsible for the only exception in terms of the tyre choice was Red Bull´s Verstappen, who opted for the red-marked supersoft tyres. The Dutchman had been handed a 15-place grid penalty for the use of additional power unit elements, which explained the Red Bull ace´s tyre decision. Once again it was Hamilton, who set the pace. Teammate Bottas made Mercedes´ performance look extremely strong, as the Finn was second, only two tenths down on his teammate. Sebastian was struggling with getting into the rhythm; in spite of being fourth fastest, he was already massive eight tenths down on pace-setter Hamilton. Kimi showed strong performance, edging his teammate in the second session. In the closing stages of Q2 drivers went up and down the order, but when the music stopped it was Williams´ Massa who had the 11th chair and was the first faller in Q2. Eliminated from the last session were also Toro Rosso´s Kvyat, McLaren´s Vandoorne, Haas´ Grosjean and Renault´s Hulkenberg, who didn´t record a lap time, saving his engine for the race. The German had also been given a 20-place grid penalty for using additional power unit elements. Also Vandoorne has a 5-place grid penalty for the same reason.
Hammer time continued in the last segment. The Briton took provisional pole by over four tenths to his teammate Bottas, who had set the fastest time on sector one but dropped back on the other two. After the first runs Kimi was third and Sebastian fourth. Red Bull seemed unable to match Mercedes´ and Ferrari´s pace, as Verstappen and Ricciardo were almost a second down on pace-setting Hamilton. Sebastian was the big improver on the second runs, as the German jumped second, being only 0.239s down on Hamilton, who was unable to improve his lap time on his last flyer. Bottas, too was unable to improve, which meant losing his front row grid slot to Sebastian. Ricciardo and Kimi set identical lap times for Red Bull and Ferrari respectively, the Australian claiming P4 and the Iceman P5. Verstappen qualified 6th but will drop down to the back of the pack due to his grid penalty. Force India´s Ocon yet again showed his class by qualifying 7th ahead of Sainz, who was delighted to place 8th on his Renault debut. McLaren´s Alonso qualified 9th ahead of Perez in the second pink car.
So it was the 72nd career pole for Hamilton, his 11th this season and 3rd in a row. It´s quite an impressive statistics, but I was extremely happy to see Sebastian putting his Ferrari second on the grid. As there isn´t a realistic chance for Sebastian to win the world championship this year, I just hope to see a magnificent race from him. No expectations this time. Hopefully he has a lot of fun on track, which converts into a strong result. That I hope for the Iceman, too.
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