Year	Finish	Grid	Tyre Strategy
2013	5th	3	Super-soft Laps 13 Medium Laps 31 Medium Laps 42 Medium Laps 58
2012	3rd	1	Soft Laps 17 Medium Laps 36 Medium Laps 58

	Driver	Country
1	Jules Bianchi	France
2	Sebastian Vettel	Germany
3	Fernando Alonso	Spain
4	Lewis Hamilton	Great Britain
5	Kimi Raikkonen	Finland
6	Nico Rosberg	Germany
7	Romain Grosjean	France
8	Felipe Massa	Brazil
9	Jenson Button	Great Britain
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Germany
11	Sergio Perez	Mexico
12	Adrian Sutil	Germany
13	Daniel Ricciardo	Australia
14	Jean-Eric Vergne	France
15	Esteban Gutierrez	Mexico
16	Valtteri Bottas	Finland
17	Pastor Maldonado	Venezuela
18	Kevin Magnusson	Danish
19	Daniil Kvyat	Russian
20	Kamui Kobayashi	Japan
21	Marcus Ericsson	Sweden
22	Max Chilton	Great Britain

	Team	Points
1	Marussia	0
2	Caterham	0
3	Red Bull	0
4	Mercedes	0
5	Ferrari	0
6	Lotus	0
7	McLaren	0
8	Force India	0
9	Sauber	0
10	Toro Rosso	0
11	Williams	0

The Circuit of the Americas, Austin, USA

Finally I got the tickets #austingp #usa #circuitoftheamericas #F1 - via @gilvarggas on Instagram

Aerial shot of The Circuit of the Americas, Austin, USA. Courtesy of The Circuit of the Americas

The Circuit of the Americas, Austin, USA

My Take on the Circuit of the Americas

Austin

The Circuit of the Americas is a really cool track, it was a real surprise to go there last year and find out how nice Austin was! The city is really vibrant, a lot like places like Montreal, the fans made a huge effort and the Americans made a real big effort for that race. Restaurants were great, it is definitely one I would recommend going to, my family and friends come every year.

I went there last year and was not expecting to be as competitive as we were and it was really cool to be able to hunt down Sebastian and take the first win.

The Track

Accelerating up through turn 1, you don’t really get much KERS on the exit of the last corner as it is quite a short run before the start line but you boost by 30%, flat out all the way up the hill and breaking very late. The thing is it is very difficult to see the Apex after turn 1, and it kind of disappears beyond the wheel so you are not sure where you are on the track so it is not the easiest to judge the speed you are carrying in and what your position is. It is really about breaking as late as you can and just making the corner, stopping then turning the car and getting back on the power as quick as you can through the next right hand.

You need to go flat out through, and into 3 then flat out through the windy sector, then lift for turn 4. This will require half throttle all the way through the long right hander. The reason for it is trying to maintain minimum speed but also because we have the blown diffuser, the more throttle you can carry the more downforce you have so you try and take the car at least half throttle so you can get the downforce effect.

It's important to get as far back to the righthand side for turn 6 so you can carry a lot of speed through there.

Positioning for turn 7, the right hander, is not a big issue but if you don’t carry too much speed in you sacrifice the entry a little bit so you can get a good exit up the hill down to the hairpin. From there you are breaking as late as you can but it is very important that you get good traction out there for the long straight which you are DRSing and KERSing all the way down. Break nice and late for the hairpin, you can run a lot of speed into the left hander, turn 10, which is very simple.You can carry a lot of speed into this turn as it’s wide on the entry but narrow up on the exit.

Go flat out all the way down to turn 11 which is kind of a long sweeping corner through 11 and 12, it’s just about trying to hit the right apexes through the 1st and 2nd part. Again for turn 13 and 14, you are flat out, as well as lifting and breaking, through 13 but you need to keep the car mid track. Then you go right to the outside and cut across to turn 14 to get a good exit.

Then it’s flat out through 15 and 16 which is pretty simple. Move back to the righthand side before turn 17, again a corner where you can apply a little bit of throttle to keep the downforce on and speed up.

Not too late on the breaks into 18 as the exit is most important part. It must be known that this is a very difficult track to follow another car but it's really cool and very smooth so you can have a really stiff set up. If you are lucky enough and you got a good exit out of turn 19 it’s a long straight down that back straight so it is possible to overtake there.

-Lewis Hamilton