2018 United States Grand Prix

Championship standings

Lewis Hamilton leads Sebastian Vettel by sixty-seven points in the Drivers’ Championship, having won the previous four races. Bottas sits third, fifty-seven points behind Vettel. Mercedes hold a seventy-eight point lead over Ferrari in the Constructors’, with Red Bull a further one hundred and forty-one points back in third.

Previous race

Hamilton won in Japan from pole, leading every lap. Bottas finished second, Verstappen third. It was Hamilton’s 80th Formula One pole position.

Championship permutations

Hamilton can clinch the Drivers’ Championship at this race if he outscores Vettel by a minimum of eight points.

Entrants

Lando Norris replaces Stoffel Vandoorne at McLaren for FP1. Sean Gelael replaces Brendon Hartley at Toro Rosso for FP1. Nicholas Latifi had been scheduled to drive for Force India but the plan was cancelled before the session.

Track changes

New kerbs have been installed at turns 16 and 17, and new bumps have appeared at turn 1.

Penalties

Vettel has been given a three-place grid penalty for failing to slow sufficiently for a red flag during FP1.

Tyre choices

Pirelli brings the soft, supersoft, and ultrasoft compounds.

Practice

FP1 ran in rainy conditions: Hamilton was fastest, setting a lap over a second quicker than second-placed Bottas. Ferrari struggled in the wet, with Vettel and Räikkönen fifth and sixth. Norris placed twelfth on his FP1 debut. The session was briefly red-flagged when Leclerc ran into the gravel. FP2 was delayed forty-five minutes by heavy rain; most drivers completed only a handful of laps and five drivers — Sainz, Ricciardo, Grosjean, Magnussen, and Bottas — did not set a lap time. Hamilton led again. FP3 ran dry: Ferrari went 1–2, Vettel ahead of Räikkönen, with Hamilton a close third; the top three were separated by seventy-three thousandths of a second.