The United States F1 Grand Prix was not a classic. Hamilton drove faultlessly to keep his championship hopes alive and to extend an amazing run in the USA actually. I think he's won five or six there now from memory.
Nico Rosberg did enough with second to maintain a healthy lead if cut a little. He left the door open to Ricciardo trying to take the fight to Lewis in the first corner and dropped to third. Ricciardo might have finished second if it weren't that Rosberg benefitted from a virtual safety car late in the race, and ironically the virtual safety car was brought about by Ricciardo's Red Bull team mate retiring, probably with transmission failure.
With one Red Bull retired Ferrari should have scored a healthy clutch of points, but shot themselves in the foot again. It wasn't so much strategy as a pitstop which went horribly wrong and actually put Raikkonen out. Sad for him and for the team as he was quicker than Vettel in qualifying and at that time had fastest lap. In the dying minutes Vettel took fastest lap with low fuel and new tyres but by then Kimi wasn't running. A reminder that pitstops can go wrong even for well drilled pros. I feel for them.
It sounds like Ferrari should have been competitive but really only Red Bull are taking the fight to Mercedes. It's good the title isn't decided, for the fans anyway, but F1 still isn't as exciting on track as it should be and we don't want more tyre degradation to make it falsely exciting, we need more mechanical grip and less dependence on aero.
Still Button from 19th to 9th was something special, lap one amazing!
Christmas gifts for car enthusiasts, well, why not?
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