Lewis Inflicts A Painful Defeat

SEBASTIAN VETTEL MADE A GREAT START TO GET AHEAD OF LEWIS HAMILTON in the United States Grand Prix but, as he struggled to build a substantial gap, it soon became clear that the Mercedes had a clear performance advantage. Hamilton used this to claim another win, widening his drivers’ championship lead and sealing another constructors’ crown for Mercedes.

- Edd Straw

But Vettel’s loss at Austin to Hamilton was superficially the mildest of Ferrari’s recent disasters. His Ferrari finished second and there was no start catastrophe or mechanical malady to be distraught about, but this will nonetheless have been the hardest of hard knocks.

For this was a long, slow death at the hands of the dominant combined force of Hamilton and Mercedes. Unlike Singapore, Malaysia and Japan, all races Ferrari could argue it might have won, this was defeat – pure, simple and emphatic.

Hamilton under delivered in qualifying and left a few tenths on the table, thanks to failing to improve with his final Q3 run, but he was still on pole position by 0.239 seconds. After losing track position at the start, he still reclaimed the lead from Vettel with surprising ease. Even when Mercedes left Hamilton vulnerable to a Vettel attack by delaying his pitstop, the tables still did not turn in favour of Ferrari. As Vettel put it, “there was no real secret other than that they were quicker than us”.

The only possible case for the defence of Ferrari is Vettel’s iffy Friday, which resulted in a precautionary monocoque change triggered by the alleged jelly-like feeling of the front axle. But even Vettel mentioned that only in passing. He knew exactly what this result said about the relative performance of Ferrari and Mercedes at the Circuit of the Americas.

While his mood after the race was subdued, in the early seconds of the race Vettel must have been delighted. He hooked up the start superbly, quickly pulling alongside Hamilton’s Mercedes on the inside line on the run up the hill to the Turn 1 left-hander.