Grand Prix 2014 United States Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

With Russian stamps all over their passports the members of the F1 Community now have to work their way past the Officers of Homeland Security at Austin-Bergstrom International airport. I hope they all remember to tick the "I have never been a member of a terrorist organisation" box on their visa waivers and smile sweetly for their security photo.

Enough of the nonsense, there's a Grand Prix to watch and enjoy. Remember 2012? We had a titanic battle for the lead between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton until a cucumber intervened and Lewis sneaked past for the win. Wow, we all thought, what a great race track. 2013 brought us down to earth with a bump as Vettel took pole and an easy win, although in fairness to the circuit he did that most weekends in 2013.

So what for 2014? The Mercedes drivers will, almost certainly, take the first two grid slots and, on current form, it would be hard to see past another Hamilton victory. But anything can happen in F1 and it often does. Nico Rosberg desperately needs a win in Austin not just for the points boost but also in the psychological battle with his team mate. Williams will probably be the best of the rest with Austin likely to suit their car. Could Bottas sneak a win? Unlikely, although I suspect a Massa win is even more unlikely.

Behind these McLaren seem to be on the way back up and are putting the upstarts at Force India in their place. Fourth and fifth in Russia was pretty good result compared to some of the events they have contested this year. Red Bull and Ferrari will be snapping away at one another, well Ricciardo and Alonso will be snapping away at one another whilst Vettel dreams of a bright red race suit and who knows what Kimi dreams of, vodka, ice cream, being beaten with a birch twig, his 2015 contract?

Toro Rosso had a really good show in Sochi but as soon as the race started they appeared to jump out of the way of the senior RB team. Perhaps their race set up just wasn't as good as their qualifying form suggested.

Down at the back we could have an American driver at Marussia with Alexander Rossi lined up to take the place of Jules Bianchi. I think it unlikely Marussia will choose to only run a single car again and it will be interesting to see how this young man does in a not so competitive F1 car. He's not having a great season in GP2 but I don't follow the series well enough to tell you if that is down to him or the car. I do suspect he will beat Max Chilton but then I suspect I could beat Max Chilton (is that could or want to?).

There's three teams left to discuss, all of them have been pretty crap in 2014. It's a shame to see Lotus, from the highs of 2013, so far down the field. Anyone else remember that Romain Grosjean finished second last year? Hard to believe isn't it. Sauber need a point or three to avoid dropping out of Bernie's free flight fund but given how Sutil and Gutierrez have driven so far it's going to have to be a highly attritional race for them to even get close to the points.

Kamui Kobayashi said in Sochi "he hopes" to be driving in Austin which must be quite demotivating given that he's beating his team mate race after race but he looks to be first on the subs bench when someone turns up with a wad of cash. I nearly forgot Pastor Maldonado. Not sure if anyone noticed but he brought the car home in Sochi. Admittedly he was second last and behind his team mate but kudos to you Pastor, there were some nasty walls around that circuit and you managed to avoid all of them.

One final thought, the Russian President turned up at the Grand Prix in Sochi. I know it was the first ever race in Russia and Mr Putin probably wanted to know where all those Roubles had gone but will we see his American counterpart gracing the Austin race? I'm guessing no, but as Barack sees out the end of his second term what else does he have to do? Not like there are any problems in the World at the moment are there?
 
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Call me mister misery guts but I didn't see a battle for the lead. I saw Rosberg take the lead initially, Hamilton overtake after the first round of pit stops and the lead never change for the remainder of the race. I thought Hamilton had all the answers and can't remember the gap getting any lower than 2.4 secs. Granted, if Hamilton had made any mistakes, Rosberg would have been all over him like a tramp on chips, but to say there was a battle for the lead is stretching it somewhat. Bahrain, now that was a battle for the lead.
 
My son and 3 of his mates arrived 10 laps in and buggered of 10 laps from the end so I didn't get to see too much of it. What I took out of it was that Nico seemed to able to be able to nail it on new tyres but as soon as he had taken the initial life out of the tyres he couldn't get near Hamilton's pace. The post race stuff was very interesting as after a hand shake Nico didn't even make eye contact with Lewis.

Ricciardo drove well, beating the Williams in a car with such a "low power" engine is quite an achievement. The battles down the field were quite exciting and Vettel's blast with 6 laps left was amazing for a driver who can't overtake. Everyone else, meh, you got what you deserved.
 
I thought that the McLaren strategy was woeful, but Jenson drove very well with a problem he obviously had with the rear of the car he made some great overtakes and defended magnificently and fairly in a car that just didn't have the pace, so what I think Ron should do is sack the **** out of him...
 
Now I'm wondering which part you agree with Brogan..:(

Edit.

Actually it doesn't matter, as I wouldn't be much of a man if I could dish it out but I couldn't take it would I?

Either way I would still have "Liked" your post..
 
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Watched the whole race and had only two moderately interesting thoughts to take from it. :yawn:

One - the Abu Dhabi Double nonsense is the most hair-brained idea ever, and the only way to get rid of it is if it screws up the only fair conclusion to, probably, the most boring F1 season since the last one.
Hammy deserves the title of 2014 Mercedes World Drivers Champion, but if Rosberg nicks it the ABD will be dumped forever - possibly even back-dated dumping to correct the error. :whistle:

Two - all those parallel red and blue curves around the circuit must hold the key as to the rest-of-the-year usage - it is obviously some sort of jogging track with the extra lanes here and there for overtaking.
The big question, though, is; are those lanes really wide enough for the average sized American jogger? :facepalm:
 
Watching the shift of balance between the left and right as the cars ran through the curves was awesome. The driver must be eyeballs out all the way through there with the huge shift in G-Force.
 
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