Lewis Hamilton wins the first USA Grand Prix in Texas to keep the World Championship alive going into the final race in Brazil. The victory for Hamilton means he has technically won two consecutive USA Grand Prix even though they were years apart.
The McLaren was by far the fastest car and it was only a matter of time before Hamilton caught Sebastian Vettel. Ferrari played their hand before the race by conveniently making Felipe Massa have a gearbox change, thus demoting him five place which meant Fernando Alonso was now promoted to the 'clean' side of the track. It worked somewhat and although he never troubled the leaders, his third place means that Vettel can afford to finish third in Brazil to be crowned Champion for the third year in a row.
From the start, Mark Webber had overtaken Hamilton to gain second and buy Vettel some space. Alonso had already gained three places into fourth. Jenson Button had completely missed the start and after his poor performance in qualifying, could have done without dropping to 16th.
The Texan track served as a good tool for overtaken and the second lap saw Nico Hulkenberg overtake Michael Schumacher for fifth. Kimi Raikkonen smelt blood and also overtook Schumacher a corner later before Romain Grosjean took full advantage of that battle and overtook them both to gain fifth.
Hamilton was all over Webber and was a little eager for the overtake. He tried it on the third lap but ended up going off the track before getting the pass a lap later. Grosjean ended up spinning on lap seven which caused him to drop to 11th while Massa was overtaking Schumacher to move up to eighth.
Raikkonen managed to pass Hulkenberg on lap-13 to gain fifth place. Two laps later and we experienced the first retirement of the race, Jean-Eric Vergne had to park his Toro Rosso after sustaining suspected suspension damage. Webber also had to retire on lap-17 after he suffered an alternator failure.
Alonso's chances of overtaking Hamilton in the pits were buoyed when he had a slow stop and ended up falling to sixth on lap-21. Two laps later and Button, who hadn't pitted, managed to gain fifth from Alonso. Raikkonen also hadn't stopped by lap-24 and Hamilton had to use his early tyre energy to overtake him and continue his assault on Vettel.
Raikkonen had gained sixth after overtaking Massa on lap-28. Button then took that same place by overtaking Grosjean on lap-39 before Massa re-overtook Raikkonen to gain fourth a lap later. Hamilton had finally got his prey to take the lead on lap-42 and Button would complete a great recovery to overtake Raikkonen and earn fifth place. Result:
1.Hamilton (McLaren), 2.Vettel (Red Bull), 3.Alonso (Ferrari), 4.Massa (Ferrari), 5.Button (McLaren), 6.Raikkonen (Lotus), 7.Grosjean (Lotus), 8.Hulkenberg (Force India), 9.Maldonado (Williams), 10.Senna (Williams), 11.Perez (Sauber), 12.Ricciardo (Toro Rosso), 13.Rosberg (Sauber), 14.Kobayashi (Sauber) 15.Di Resta (Force India), 16.Schumacher (Mercedes), 17.Petrov (Caterham), 18.Kovalainen (Caterham), 19.Glock (Marussia), 20.Pic (Marussia), 21.De La Rosa (HRT), 22.Karthikeyan (HRT) DNF: Vergne (Toro Rosso), Webber (Red Bull)
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