October 27, 2022
The United States Grand Prix was actually good?! I know, I was surprised too. The whole weekend as a whole was a rollercoaster of emotions. We had five FP1 debuts, a Pirelli tire test, a sad death in the F1 community, many penalties, and some unexpected performances. Here is everything that happened at the 2022 United States Grand Prix:
FP1: October 22, 2022
The first session of the weekend saw many teams run junior or reserve drivers as a part of the FIA’s requirement for the season.
The Championship’s top three teams covered P1 to P3, with Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari leading the Red Bull of Max Verstappen and the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton.
Lance Stroll went P4 in a shock result.
Robert Shwartzman, taking over Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, took P16. Alex Palou drove Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren to P17 while Theo Pourchaire went P18 with an Alfa Romeo. The highly anticipated FP1 debut of Logan Sargeant did not go as well as he wanted when he only got P19. Antonio Giovinazzi drove Kevin Magnussen’s Haas but spun into the barriers at Turn 6, bringing out a brief red flag. The five junior and reserve drivers covered the final five places on the grid, with Robert Shwartzman in Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari in P17 and Giovinazzi last.
FP2: October 22, 2022
The session was extended from sixty minutes to ninety minutes to accommodate Pirrelli’s 2023 prototype tire test. In the test, drivers had to run unmarked Pirelli tires for a specific number of laps and with predetermined fuel loads. Charles Leclerc, Valtteri Bottas, Daniel Ricciardo, Nicholas Latifi, and Kevin Magnussen were given exemptions to the test because their cars had been taken over by junior and reserve drivers for FP1 and they hadn’t had practice at the track yet.
Leclerc went first, ahead of Bottas and Ricciardo. This strange order was a result of the tire test’s interference.
Mick Schumacher managed to get to P5 as Lando Norris took P6 after narrowly clipping the wall of the pit lane.
FP3: October 23, 2022
FP3 was finally a normal practice session with all twenty drivers of the grid in their cars with the Pirelli tires for this season.
The top four were all covered by half of a second, with Verstappen leading Leclerc, Sainz, and Sergio Perez.
Aston Martin have had decent results this weekend, with Sebastian Vettel in P8 and Lance Stroll in P9 during FP3. However, Stroll was hit with a fine for speeding in the pit lane.
Schumacher was P19 after struggling with a water pump issue. Zhou Guanyu also struggled with technical issues, placing P20.
Qualifying: October 23, 2022
This weekend saw many drivers with penalties. Perez, Zhou, Tsunoda, and Alonso each took five-place grid penalties for taking new parts. Leclerc has a ten-place grid penalty for taking a new engine and turbocharger.
Q1:
Leclerc set the pace early on, but his teammate Carlos Sainz managed to take P1 for himself and pushed Leclerc to P2. Verstappen found himself in P3 after Sainz improved his time.
Pierre Gasly, Vettel, Stroll, and Alex Albon made it to Q2!
Eliminated: Magnussen (P16), Ricciardo (P17), Ocon (P18), Schumacher (P19), Latifi (P20)
Schumacher spun and had to abort his final flying lap.
Alpine and Ocon have been performing quite well all weekend, so it is a shock to see him eliminated in Q1.
Q2:
Leclerc went fastest with Verstappen and Sainz in tow.
Eliminated: Albon (P11), Vettel (P12), Gasly (P13), Zhou (P14), Tsunoda (P15)
Vettel had a lap time deleted for track limits.
Zhou had his final lap time deleted as well, but his penalty sets him back at P19. This worked out in my favor though because it promoted Norris to Q3.
Gasly struggled with his brakes again this weekend.
Q3:
Sainz took pole on his last lap with Leclerc six-hundredths back. This means Ferrari qualified in a 1-2, but Leclerc will not be able to make it a front-row lockout after his ten-place grid penalty.
Perez qualified in P4 but his penalty will drop him back to P9, giving Mercedes the second row.
Stroll got P7, but will be promoted after Perez’s penalty to get Aston Martin their best qualifying result of the season.
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Sunday's starting grid after all of the penalties |
Race: October 23, 2022
In addition to Perez, Tsundoa, Zhou, Alonso, and Leclerc’s penalties, Esteban Ocon started from the pit lane after taking a new power unit element. His poor qualifying performance ultimately led Alpine to take the penalties in this race.
Verstappen had a great start from second on the grid and took the lead before even reaching Turn 1. Sainz, who started on pole, was trying to find a way to retake his position by using the racing line. A late lunge from Russell resulted in a collision that sent Sainz spinning and sadly ended his race. The stewards immediately investigated the incident and gave Russell a five-second stop-and-go penalty for causing a collision.
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Sainz spinning after getting hit by Russell |
Stroll took advantage of the chaos at Turn 1 and put himself in P3, behind Verstappen and Hamilton. Russell and Perez ended up overtaking Stroll by Lap 7, but both Aston Martins managed to stay in P5 and P6.
By Lap 13, the pit-stops started with Hamilton pitting for softs. Verstappen responded a lap later when he also boxed for soft tires and Russell served his penalty. By the time this round of pit-stops ended, Verstappen led the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, who had extended the life of his medium tires to make up for his P12 start. Vettel and Alonso also went long, and this risk was worth it when Bottas spun and got beached on Lap 18, ending his race and causing a Safety Car. This gave Leclerc, Vettel, and Alonso cheap stops.
Just as the Safety Car ended, Alonso and Stroll got into a crash down the back straight. Stroll was trying to defend and Alonso ended up driving into the back of Stroll’s Aston Martin. This sent the Alpine flying into a wall, but Alonso somehow managed to recover the car and continue his race (that man is something else). Meanwhile, Stroll went spinning at full speed into a barrier, causing extensive damage to his car and ending his US Grand Prix.
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The car on the right is Alonso and the car to the left of him is Stroll as he spun. |
The Safety Car brought out for this incident only lasted about six laps before the race restarted on Lap 26. Verstappen now led Hamilton, Perez, and Leclerc. Leclerc was slowly gaining on Perez though, and after a few tries, he took P3 on Lap 30.
By Lap 35, Hamilton started another round of pit stops. Verstappen boxed one lap later to avoid the undercut, but a slow stop lost him the advantage. The Dutchman rejoined the track behind Hamilton and Leclerc, who were P1 and P2 respectively.
Verstappen’s hiccup didn’t mean the race was over though. We finally got to see some Verstappen-Leclerc action again! Verstappen had a couple of moments where he almost took the position but Leclerc managed to recover. Verstappen ultimately overtook at Turn 12 of Lap 39.
During the commotion over Leclerc and Verstappen, Vettel somehow took the lead of the race and led the 3,500th lap of his F1 career. Unfortunately, Aston Martin had a messy pit stop after this and his 16.8s stop set him back and out of the points.
Verstappen was now behind Hamilton, and with DRS he managed to overtake the Brit for the lead. This chase gave me deja vu because of how similar it was to last year’s COTA race. Once Verstappen overtook Hamilton, both of them were informed that they faced a five-second penalty if they exceeded track limits again. Hamilton promptly started reporting every turn at which Verstappen seemed to have violated track limits. Lucky for me, no one was penalized and Verstappen went on to win the race with a five second margin. This win also gave Red Bull their first Constructors Championship since 2013. Congratulations to them!
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Leclerc managed to fend off Perez and Russell’s threats on the final podium place and came home to take P3. I’m not mad at the result at all because he started from P12, so this was a really good recovery and it means that Ferrari didn’t make any stupid mistakes!
Lando Norris picked up debris from the Stroll-Alonso collision but managed to overtake the Alpine for P6 on the final lap, moving McLaren closer to Alpine in the championship battle for fourth. After the race however, Haas launched a protest with the FIA about the condition of Alonso’s car after the crash, saying it was too dangerous to be on the track. The FIA gave him a penalty that dropped him down to P15 and out of the points. Alpine has challenged this penalty, arguing that they took measures to make sure Alonso’s car was safe to race and that if the FIA thought it was unsafe, they should have given the team a Black-and-Orange Flag. Black-and-Orange Flags signify that the car is unfit for the race track and the car it is directed toward must be fixed. The penalty is under review, and we should probably learn the verdict soon.
During the first Safety Car, Pierre Gasly was given a five-second time penalty for failing to stay within ten car lengths of the car in front of him. He was then hit with another five-second penalty for not serving the first penalty correctly, setting him back in P13. Gasly probably would have scored points and had a decent race if he had just gotten one penalty. The AlphaTauri had pace this weekend, and his teammate Yuki Tsunoda managed to finish in P8. Hopefully we can see AlphaTauri keep up this pace in the last few races of the season.
Honorable Mentions:
Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bull co-owner and founder, passed away earlier in the weekend. His death was announced just before Qualifying on Saturday and many drivers and teams paid tribute to a man who made great contributions to F1. It was a very emotional weekend for Red Bull, but winning the Championship seems like it was a nice way to boost morale. It’s sad that Mateschitz couldn’t see his team win their first Constructors championship in almost a decade.
In lighter news, Daniel Ricciardo entered the paddock on a horse! I knew that man loves Texas, but I don’t think any of us realized he loved Texas this much.
The team boss at Williams, Jost Capitano, said that if Logan Sargeant can get enough Super License points by the end of the season, they will sign him as Nicholas Latifi’s replacement for the 2023 season. Sargeant is currently in F2 and has one race left of the season, meaning that he will most likely be able to earn the points for that license and complete the 2023 grid.
This weekend was not as bad as I thought it would be. I’m glad it wasn’t too much like Miami and had an actual race atmosphere. The race was also good: we had a couple of crashes, Safety Cars, and great wheel-to-wheel racing. Congratulations once again to Red Bull on their dominant season! Now, let’s get ready for the last three races of the season. This will take a lot of mental preparation on my end because I have just realized that these will be the final three races of Sebastian Vettel’s F1 career and I am not ready to let go.
Sorry for the late posts, I’m still trying to find a balance between the blog and school. I will be back tomorrow to get you ready for the Mexican Grand Prix.
- Divya
Where I got these
from:
Pictures:
https://f1i.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/XPB_1178264_1200px-725x500.jpg
https://www.instagram.com/p/CkCjxWlIaR4/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
https://cdn.crash.net/styles/article/s3/pa/3248676.0064.jpg?itok=_s5ccUU9
https://e3.365dm.com/22/10/768x432/skysports-daniel-ricciardo_5937706.jpg?20221020215205