McKane Retirement Gives Vettel Win

Qualifying:

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Report:

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Another race in the United States, another interesting race: we saw retirements and mistakes and a heartbreaking ending, which gave Caterham their third 1-2 finish of this season. After Sebastian Vettel won his eighth race of this Formula One season, Caterham look in a good position to score over 1000 points this year, whilst Vettel can tie the record for most consecutive points finishes in the next race.

However, at first it did not look like Caterham had a shot at beating polesitter Nathan McKane. The Brit had denied Sebastian Vettel his 54th pole position in qualifying on Saturday morning and did have a good getaway. It was a great Ferrari strategy that secured P1 for Nathan. Regrettably, with only four laps to go, his engine failed. Disappointment for Ferrari, after Bourdais had to retire with a broken gearbox earlier in the race.

Generally, chaos was on the menu today, we saw a number of avoidable mistakes by drivers from the better teams. Simon Pagenaud opened the show with a spin in turn 2, dropping him out of the points. Just like Jules Bianchi, who would spin at the same spot later in the race, he would not recover to score points. However, Sauber and Precision still had varying fates, as Ocon was taken out by Pagenaud earlier and Maldonado finished on the podium.

Where there’s chaos, there is opportunity, and three drivers must be recommended for making the most of today’s race: Romain Grosjean gives Peugeot another argument for not aborting their F1 operations; Kevin Magnussen and Max Verstappen gave DISA DGNgineering and Team Calinetic Petronas some highly needed points. However, Mahindra does not lose ground in the battle against Chris Dagnall’s squad: he finished seventh.

Race:

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Fastest Lap:

Nathan McKane – 1:08.842

Infinite Improbability Drive Of The Race:

Romain Grosjean – Tries his very best to keep his career and his team alive.

Reject Of The Race:

Simon Pagenaud – Slow and stupid is no way to succeed in F1.