Lewis Hamilton Fights for a Win in Texas

The first United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas turned out to be a fantastic race. Lewis Hamilton hounded Sebastian Vettel for nearly the entire race. In a poetic way it is perfect though, Hamilton was the last driver to win a Formula 1 race in the US. Vettel had the opportunity today to clinch the 2012 Formula 1 World Drivers' Championship today, but he was not able to do it. Fernando Alonso staged another fantastic performance to take third, and Felipe Massa finished fourth. 

Red Bull Racings' one consolation is that they are now they won the 2012 World Constructors' Championship today. 

Just before the race began, Ferrari attempted an audacious strategic move. It removed the FIA seal on Massa's transmission, which sent him back five grid spaces. That meant two things. First, Alonso would start in seventh another place higher on the grid. Second, It would shift Alonso from the dirty line of the track to the clean line. The team is trying to give their driver the best opportunity of taking the world championship. Massa now starts in eleventh. 

Alonso made an incredible start and was in fourth after the first complex of corners. Vettel held the lead; Mark Webber was second and Hamilton was in third. There was no contact on the first lap. Nico Hulkenberg also had a strong start; he was in fifth by lap two. 

There was an early batter among Romain Grosjean, Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen. After Hulkenberg got past Schumacher the Lotuses tried to as well, but Schumacher made himself as hard to pass as possible. Grosjean made the pass first for sixth, and Raikkonen was doing whatever he could to pass Schumacher for seventh. 

Up front Lewis Hamilton was doing whatever he could to pass Webber. He went wide several times but did not stop pushing. Hamilton made the pass during lap five to take second place. 

Hamilton had cut the gap down to Vettel by about a second and sometimes less depending on where they were on the track on lap 14. 

Webber's engineers came on the radio on lap 17 to tell him that the KERS system stopped working. Moments later the car stopped working, and he pulled off the track. He was in third place at the time, and that brought Alonso up to third. 

Vettel pitted from first on lap 22 and re-entered in first. Raikkonen was second but had not yet pitted, and Hamilton was in third but had pitted. Alonso was the next driver on track who had pitted in fifth place. 

After the pitstops, Hamilton continued to close on Vettel. By lap 33, Hamilton had cut the gap to 1.6 seconds and set the fastest lap of the race. A lap later, Vettel was in DRS range and cut the gap to 0.6 seconds. Hamilton kept up the pressure in the following laps. He stayed within a second of Vettel but could not find a place to pass.

The two of them drove away from the pack. While a second or less separated them, Alonso was 30.6 seconds back on lap 40. 

Hamilton finally made the pass happen on lap 42 at the end of the straight and made it stick. Hamilton was able to put a large enough gap on Vettel within a lap to take him out of DRS range.

Vettel pulled back into DRS range on lap 52, four laps to go, the race was not over yet. Hamilton answered back by extending his lead and taking Vettel out of range. Alonso was still a distant third with a roughly 37-second gap.