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Lewis Hamilton is looking to clinch the Drivers’ World Championship for a fifth time at the USA Grand Prix in Austin this weekend.
The British superstar will move level with Juan Manuel Fangio on five overall titles, only eclipsed by the great Michael Schumacher’s seven.
To seal the title – Hamilton needs to beat his only title rival Sebastian Vettel by eight clear points.
So the Championship will be decided if….
Hamilton wins, and Vettel finished 3rd or lower
Hamilton finishes 2nd and Vettel finished 5th of lower
Hamilton finishes 3rd and Vettel finished 7th or lower
Hamilton finishes 4th and Vettel finished 8th or lower
Hamilton finishes 5th and Vettel finished 9th or lower
Hamilton finishes 6th and Vettel failed to score
With that in mind Hamilton is confident of success, and he should be given he has dominated in America since the Circuit of the Americas staged its first Grand Prix in 2012 – winning five of the six runnings with the only over victor being Vettel in 2013.
“I can’t do anything about the past, I can only affect the future and if I do my job, good things will come,” said Hamilton.
Fire em up, boys! ??? #USGP ?? pic.twitter.com/EiCAxPSDzK
— Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) October 19, 2018
Vettel remains hopeful but admits Ferrari have struggled to keep pace with Mercedes – especially in recent weeks.
“Some of the races have not gone our way, they have been very strong and they have done what they have needed to get points, and fair play to them,” he said.
“We are quite some points behind, we focus on winning and then we see what the others are doing, so it’s quite straightforward to be honest.
“Generally I always try to win so I think you have to be aggressive to win. And of course you need to find the right balance so obviously you never try to do something silly or not to finish because that way you can’t win.
“I know what it takes, I know what to do…but for sure we know we need to take probably here or there a bit more risk because we are not in the position to manage the gap in the championship, because we don’t have a gap.”
USA GRAND PRIX – ROUND 18
Location: Circuit of the Americas, Texas
Track size: 3.42 miles with 20 turns
Number of laps: 56
2017 winner: Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes
Lap record holder: 1:37.766 Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari (2017)
Race winner driver odds from Unibet:
2018 Results
Australian Grand Prix – Winner: Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari)
Bahrain Grand Prix – Winner: Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari)
China Grand Prix – Winner: Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull)
Azerbaijan Grand Prix – Winner: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Spain Grand Prix – Winner: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Monaco Grand Prix – Winner: Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull)
Canada Grand Prix – Winner: Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari)
France Grand Prix – Winner: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Austria Grand Prix – Winner: Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
British Grand Prix – Winner: Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari)
German Grand Prix – Winner: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Hungary Grand Prix – Winner: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Belgium Grand Prix – Winner: Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari)
Italy Grand Prix – Winner: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Singapore Grand Prix – Winner: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Russia Grand Prix – Winner: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Japan Grand Prix – Winner: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Drivers’ Championship:
1 Lewis Hamilton GBR MERCEDES 331
2 Sebastian Vettel GER FERRARI 264
3 Valtteri Bottas FIN MERCEDES 207
4 Kimi Räikkönen FIN FERRARI 196
5 Max Verstappen NED RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER 173
6 Daniel Ricciardo AUS RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER 146
7 Sergio Perez MEX FORCE INDIA MERCEDES 53
8 Kevin Magnussen DEN HAAS FERRARI 53
9 Nico Hulkenberg GER RENAULT 53
10 Fernando Alonso ESP MCLAREN RENAULT 50
11 Esteban Ocon FRA FORCE INDIA MERCEDES 49
12 Carlos Sainz ESP RENAULT 39
13 Romain Grosjean FRA HAAS FERRARI 31
14 Pierre Gasly FRA SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO HONDA 28
15 Charles Leclerc MON SAUBER FERRARI 21
16 Stoffel Vandoorne BEL MCLAREN RENAULT 8
17 Lance Stroll CAN WILLIAMS MERCEDES 6
18 Marcus Ericsson SWE SAUBER FERRARI 6
19 Brendon Hartley NZL SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO HONDA 2
20 Sergey Sirotkin RUS WILLIAMS MERCEDES 1
Constructors’ Championship:
1 MERCEDES 538
2 FERRARI 460
3 RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER 319
4 RENAULT 92
5 HAAS FERRARI 84
6 MCLAREN RENAULT 58
7 FORCE INDIA MERCEDES 43
8 SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO HONDA 30
9 SAUBER FERRARI 27
10 WILLIAMS MERCEDES 7
We also spoke with Alistair Gill of Unibet to get their views on the GP
No real surprise to see Hamilton installed short price favourite yet again for the US GP, although he is particularly short this week at 11/20. A win here and Vettel finishing lower than 2nd would give Hamilton the Championship 3 races early, an outcome priced at 8/5. Looking at Vettel’s recent form and the fact he will likely be pushing even harder this week, this looks like a lot of value in my eyes.
Vettel can be backed at 13/4 to win the race and, barring disaster for Hamilton, he looks to be the only real contender, but the early money suggest punters think Lewis has this sewn up already and the title is almost certainly a ‘when’, not an ‘if’.
