Category: Lotus

The post-race reflection from the 2013 United States Grand Prix gave Sebastian Vettel a chance to answer even more questions about his eighth win in a row. Romain Grosjean reckons being a dad is ace and Mark Webber rued his lost opportunity to grab pole position during qualifying.

Further down the field Daniel Ricciardo was bitterly disappointed to miss out on a world championship point.

“It was a tough end to the day, really tough,” Daniel said. “It looked as though we were going to hang on to the flag to get the point for tenth place, but then in the last five laps, I lost pretty much all the grip I had and I saw the guys closing in on me. I tried to hold them off but I didn’t have enough left in the tyres to do it.”

The full transcript of the post-race press conference featuring the first three drivers can be read after the break.

[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]

Sebastian Vettel has just won the 2013 United States Grand Prix to wrap up his eighth grand prix victory in a row. Nobody else has ever done that in a single season before. It’s Vettel’s twelfth win of the year and if he can win next weekend’s race in Brazil he will equal Michael Schumacher’s record for the most wins in a season.

Off the line Vettel was okay, but Mark Webber and Romain Grosjean, especially, got away faster. Starting from P2 Webber was squeezed tight on the climb into Turn 1 and Gorsjean and Lewis Hamilton were able to pass him around the outside, leaving Vettel to scamper off into the distance.

Soon after Mark overtook Lewis and that’s pretty much your race, at least for the top three. In the closing stages Mark was fighting with Romain for P2, but he couldn’t quite get close enough to effect a move and had to settle for third place.

Hamilton finished fourth ahead of Fernando Alonso. Nico Hulkenberg performed well for Sauber coming home in P6 around four seconds ahead of Sergio Perez, who will be very happy to finish in the points and ahead of Jenson Button after being sacked by McLaren.

Valtteri Bottas collected his first world championship points by finishing in eighth place comfortably ahead of Nico Rosberg. Button claimed the last point on offer with a late move on Daniel Ricciardo, who finished in P11.

The only real excitement during the grand prix happened early on when Adrian Sutil and Pastor Maldonado squabbled on the first lap. Sutil lost the battle and crashed out of the race, bringing the Safety Car out until his car was safely out of harm’s way.

Hosting it’s second Formula 1 Grand Prix, Austin seems to be winning plenty of fans and all the drivers seem to like racing on the Circuit of the Americas. Maybe F1 has finally cracked the US market?

[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]

Sebastian Vettel snatched P1 from Mark Webber’s hands early this morning at the United States Grand Prix in Austin, to collect his 44th career pole position.

In their final laps in Q3 Webber (1:36.441) already held provisional pole and he looked to have done enough improving by several tenths. After the first two sectors of his final lap Vettel (1:36.338) was behind Webber but the four-time world champion nailed the final sector to edge his Red Bull teammate by 0.13 seconds.

Romain Grosjean (1:37.155) was the best of the rest, putting his Lotus on P3. One of the favourites to be his teammate in 2014, Nico Hulkenberg (1:37.296) will start alongside in his Sauber. A nod to the future of Formula 1 as well, perhaps.

The third row is the best Mercedes AMG and Ferrari could muster, with Lewis Hamilton (1:37.345) to line up from fifth place and Fernando Alonso (1:37.376) from sixth. Still, they’d be much happier than their teammates who will start well down the grid. Nico Rosberg (1:38.364) didn’t make Q3 and will start from P13 and he’ll have Felipe Massa (1:38.592) alongside him, way back on the seventh row of the grid.

Sergio Perez (1:37.452) will have a wry smile after putting his McLaren well inside the top 10, with Jenson Button (1:38.217) qualifying thirteenth, but sent back three place for passing under a red flag in FP1; he’ll now start from P16.

Heikki Kovalainen (1:37.715) did pretty much what was asked by Lotus and he will line up from P8, with Valtteri Bottas (1:37.836) and Esteban Gutierrez (1:38.034) rounding out the top 10.

Daniel Ricciardo (1:38.131) just missed Q3 and will start from P11, four places ahead of his Toro Rosso teammate, Jean-Eric Vergne (1:38.696), who moved up one place to P15 following Button’s penalty.

“Overall, I am pretty happy with eleventh, which is clearly very close to making the cut to Q3,” said Ricciardo. “Now I’m looking forward to the race: I’m just outside the top 10, I’m on the clean side of the track and I get a free tyre choice.”

Due to the time difference back to the United States the FIA hasn’t got the press conference transcript available just yet, but it can’t be far away. In the meantime you can see the full starting positions for tomorrow’s race after the break.

UPDATE: Word just through from race stewards that Esteban Gutierrez has been given a 10-spot grid penalty for impeding traffic in Q1. That puts him back to P20 for the race. Max Chilton has also been penalised with a drive-through penalty which must be served in the first five laps of the race.

UPDATE #2: The post-qualifying press conference transcript has now been added.

[Pic: Red Bull/Getty Images]