Everything is Bigger in Texas

Personal commentary. (US GP 2014 - Race)

Let's be honest here. Being an extreme F1 fan in this 21st century is rather tough. There are so many social media platforms out there a typical F1 fan will own. I myself own most of the popular ones: Facebook (to interact with my fellow F1 friends I have made in Twitter/Instagram), Twitter (to tweet real-time race weekend updates and check up updates from the teams/drivers/significant people in the F1 field), Instagram (to post pictures with the occasional addition of breaking news captions on the race weekend), Tumblr (reblog/favourite/post pictures/quotes) and of course Google+ (that is the reason why I am here right now, hehe). With that in mind, it is undeniably tough to be active in all places at once during race weekends with such odd timings. Truth is, I just want to apologise on this super late post and I hope you guys understand now that I am a rather committed F1 fan in all aspects. HAHA. :) 

I was still in a fuddled state when I tuned into Martin Brundle's grid walk, an hour before the race began. I had only managed to fit an hour's sleep as I was simply too stubborn to leave those Instagram photos I have found and edited for another day, seeing that I would be posting behind schedule if I were to procrastinate. So yes, I was not 100% into the race up to the point I saw the crash between a Force India and a Sauber. Yes, I was that disoriented. I had zero clue on who exactly crashed into who until a few minutes after the names were announced. My eyes just popped wide open when the accident was replayed. I thought that was what Pastor Maldonado only does (no hate on him, just a rather straightforward reference) because Perez had done it so dangerously. Furthermore, this is not his very first mistake. This is no stranger to him. He did it to Felipe Massa earlier this year at the Canadian GP, the EXACT SAME mistake. I did praise him before but at times like this, any driver deserve the criticism and Perez truly deserved the seven-place grid penalty this time round. I did feel a bit of heartache for the Mexican though because he had to retire at the track so close to home. BUT he bumped Kimi Raikkonen and then crashed into Adrian Sutil who could possibly have won the first points for the Swiss team if not for that accident. In conclusion, I would say these two did not deserve the retirement but who am I to stop the crash? It was so abrupt and I am not god... At least both of them are safe.  

Joining alongside Perez was his teammate Nico Hulkenberg who simply lost drive on lap 17. This is the second race since the Hungarian GP which had both of them retiring from the race.  

It must be his beard that has been doing wonders 

to Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian was initially struggling as he lost grip in the starting lap. He easily picked up pace after a while, overtaking a frustrated Fernando Alonso and the Williams to put the Renault powered car right behind the Mercedes for the eighth time. As for the other Red Bull driver, Sebastian Vettel was seen struggling throughout the race, having to start all the way from the pit lane with an uncooperative car. He had to go for four pitstops and his last one had changed his chances around. His option for the softs had given him a mad chase in the final lap, moving him from the no-point to the point finish in the final seconds. It seems like Vettel does work extremely well under pressure. 

This race had brought rise to a number of smashing overtakes by the best drivers as compared to the previous race at Sochi. We had the usual Vettel and Alonso, Alonso and Button (a battle to see who keeps or takes over the 2015 seat of McLaren?), Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg (basically, it was just the two of them for the first place but it was a dramatic fight because the gap in their lap times were so close to each other). Not forgetting Romain Grosjean's and Jean Eric Vergne's French kiss in lap 51 which had our speakers filled with Grosjean's French accent and other stuff that the FIA would not approve of if I were to type the word. :p The two friends did banter about the accident on Twitter, teasing each other on exchanging the car part for time loss. Friends forgive and forget no matter what eh? Fair play! 

The Lotus were definitely back in running form yesterday. Pastor Maldonado was so fast in his E22 that he was penalised twice in a day, that second 5 second stop/go penalty affecting his final finish position. As for Grosjean, he was not as fortunate as Maldonado. He was just one position short of the points, where he originally started from 17th. If he was given a few more laps to tend to his injured front wing and recover from the crash, I believe he could easily send the E22 to a top ten finish. 

Here we have another 1-2 Mercedes. This puts the final two races a battle for the world drivers' championship just between Hamilton and Rosberg. Hamilton's win has made him the most successful British F1 driver with 32 wins. He has become the fifth driver with the most wins, on par with Alonso's 32 wins (I believe that won't last that long). 

I would say the race was WAY BETTER than the Russian GP but it was not the best race of the 2014 season. One more (South) American race will take place this week and I will be done with midnight races for the year! Hoping to see some serious title fight between the Brit and the German to the end! 

US Grand Prix Race: 

1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 56 Winner 2 25
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 56 +4.3 secs 1 18
3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 56 +25.5 secs 5 15
4 Felipe Massa Williams 56 +26.9 secs 4 12
5 Valtteri Bottas Williams 56 +30.9 secs 3 10
6 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 56 +95.2 secs 6 8
7 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 56 +95.7 secs 18 6
8 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 56 + secs 7 4
9 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 56 + secs 14 2
10 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 56 + secs 10 1
11 Romain Grosjean Lotus +1 Lap 16
12 Jenson Button McLaren +1 Lap 12
13 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari +1 Lap 8
14 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber +1 Lap 15
15 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso +1 Lap 17
Ret Nico Hulkenberg Force India +40 Laps 13
Ret Sergio Perez Force India +55 Laps 11
Ret Adrian Sutil Sauber + secs 9