Vettel wins unchallenged in United States

F1 Grand Prix, GP United States, Circuit of The Americas

Sebastian Vettel has taken his 8th consecutive race win this season while also setting the fastest lap of the race. Romain Grosjean took second place at the start never to give it up while Mark Webber finished right behind in third.

Track temperature at Austin is 40°C, a lot higher than it has been so far in the weekend, creating concerns about the tyres during the preparation of the race.

As the lights went out, Vettel and Webber made similar starts. Grosjean made a better one, just like Hamilton. With Vettel taking the ideal line through turn 1, Webber was forced to back off slightly and stay on the inside, seeing Grosjean and Hamilton pass him. Hulkenberg dropped down to 5th while Perez gained a place on Alonso in a similar fashion as Hamilton did on Webber.

Halfway into lap 1, Sutil and Maldonado go side by side and touch wheels, forcing Sutil into a spin, followed by a crash into the armco barriers. It's obviously the end of the race for Sutil. The wreckage on track also required a safety car while the medical car came out on track as well, even though Sutil was unharmed.

At the end of lap 4 the safety car is off the track again with Vettel not backing off for long and going into race mode before the multi-apex turn around the track's tower. Pisitions didn't change though at the restart.

One lap later Chilton is in for a drive through following a penalty he incurred after qualifying.

On lap 8 Maldonado complains of vibrations and asks again if his team is sure of the tyre pressures on his car. His front wing however is hanging off due to the accident with Sutil on lap 1. The problem is followed by a black/orange flag for Maldonado, forcing the Williams driver to pit for a new front wing and a change to hard tyres.

Only on lap 14 there is the first overtaking move as Webber gets past Hamilton at the end of the back straight. Webber thereby moves up into third and is 5.3 seconds behind Grosjean.

After lap 15 the positions are Vettel, Grosjean second at 5 seconds, then Webber at another 5 seconds. Hamilton is 2 seconds further down in 4th and clearly a lot slower than the unleashed Webber. Hulkenberg is 5th, 3 seconds behind. Next up are Perez, Alonso, Bottas, Di Resta, Ricciardo, Rosberg, Kovalainen, Massa, Button, Vergne, Gutierrez, Bianchi, Van der Garde, Pic, Maldonado and Chilton.

In lap 17 Kovalainen is the first to make a regular stop and change from medium to hard tyres. The Finn pitted from 12th and rejoined the track in 16th position.

Button pits on lap 21, followed by Massa one lap later. The two were closely together ahead of their stops and are again closely matched and in the same order after the stop.

Perez pits another lap later, diving into the pitlane while fending off Alonso. The Spaniard continues on the mediums and sets a personal best. Webber at the same time sets the fastest lap of the race so far. He's still approximately 5 seconds behind Grosjean.

On lap 26 Alonso pits and rejoins the track just ahead of Perez, surely thanks to Gutierrez and Vergne who were hampering Perez' progress on his new tyres.

2 laps later, Vettel and Hulkenberg pit, followed by Webber one lap later. Grosjean waits until lap 30 do switch to the harder tyres.

At the same time, Alonso manages to pass Gutierrez on the exit of turn 1, moving up to 6th. Perez, who was still close behind is the next one to try to get past the Sauber. 2 laps later Perez manages to do so on the exit of the final corner after Gutierrez approached turn 19 in a defensive line, making him vulnerable for an attack in the subsequent turn.

On lap 33, Webber posts another fastest lap and reduces his gap on Grosjean to little more than a second. Fernando Alonso at the same time is slowly closing in on Hamilton and Hulkenberg, the two cars who are 3.5 seconds ahead of him.

On lap 36 Bottas also gets past Gutierrez and moves up into 8th place thanks to a brilliant move through the outside of the high speed right hander that is turn 2. One lap later Gutierrez pits and switches to the mediums for the final 18 laps.

The next few laps are strange ones for Webber as it signifies an increase of his gap to Grosjean back to 3.5 seconds, followed by another fastest lap by the Australian to reduce the gap again to 2 seconds.

On lap 45 Alonso passes Hulkenberg and progresses on to Hamilton who is 2 seconds further up the road. Ricciardo also makes a pass on Di Resta, also in turn 1 and gets into the points.

On lap 49, positions are VET GRO WEB HAM ALO HUL PER BOT ROS RIC DIR BUT VER GUT MAS MAL KOV BIA VDG PIC CHI SUT.

On lap 51 Pic completes a drive through penalty for ignoring blue flags, rejoining in 20th without losing a place. He's still well ahead of Chilton however.

In the dying laps, some cars clearly started to struggle with the tyres while others seemed to have managed them better. Button got past Ricciardo on the penultimate lap while Hulkenberg tried to catch Alonso as well, but the Spaniard outsmarted him and re-passed on the exit of turn 1, keeping 5th place for himse.F

Vettel meanwhile won the race and set the fastest lap. Grosjean finished second, ahead of Webber and Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas takes 8th and adds two points to Williams' tally, outscoring his teammate as well during this season.