US F1 Grand Prix 2015: Lewis Hamilton able to weather storm to set blistering time

(Getty Images)

The United States Grand Prix finally got back on track here, figuratively and literally, even if it was more slippery than a cottonmouth on the attack.

The event had been disrupted massively on Friday afternoon by the fall-out from the havoc Hurricane Patricia has been wreaking on Mexico some way to the south, and the resultant monsoon conditions spoiled the first practice session and obliterated the second altogether. It could not be run because of the proximity of lightning and the resultant risk to marshals and spectators, and because helicopter operations had to be suspended and the medical chopper could not fly.

All around the region there were tales of woe: the Elton John rock concert that is part of the show tonight may be cancelled, and there were reports of a freight train being washed away. Everything may be bigger in Texas, but this has all been something that both the race organisers and F1 in general needed like a hole in the head. Nobody can control the weather, but the thousands of bedraggled fans whose weekend plans faced ruin did not want to hear that.

Thankfully, the faithful finally got something to talk about yesterday morning when the final practice session went ahead as planned – though the conditions obliged the organisers to keep the entrance gates closed until noon so that they did not actually get to see any of it. Yes, it was still raining hard and there was plenty of standing water all around the challenging Circuit of The Americas. But the cars came out. And their drivers put on a great show.

Things started badly for Mercedes when Nico Rosberg aquaplaned off in turn 17 shortly after he had ventured out. Then they got worse when the German spun in turn 3.

There was laughter as his crew radioed him the message, “We believe you’ve got front wing damage,” as the television cameras revealed the moment in which he removed it against an unyielding wall. World championship-leading team-mate Lewis Hamilton then went fastest but initially it was one of those sessions when the times improved with every lap as the cars splashed around, and as Hamilton headed to the pits for set-up changes he fell down to 10th. Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen then set the pace on their Ferraris, but both face difficult races as engine changes will see them each get 10 grid-place penalties.

When Hamilton came back out with 20 minutes left, he displayed a masterclass in wet weather control even though conditions had deteriorated, and supplanted Vettel by 0.863s. If there had been one, the crowd would have loved it.

Vettel, meanwhile, aquaplaned off in turn 19, then spun in turn 9 and let his SF15-T roll backwards down the hill until he could rejoin safely. “Conditions if you ask me are quite bad, I keep spinning,” he informed his team. “Cars are going off left, right and centre,” Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo said.

That left the top 10 order as Hamilton, Vettel, [Nico] Hulkenberg, [Valtteri] Bottas, [Carlos] Sainz, [Daniil] Kvyat, Raikkonen, Ricciardo, Rosberg and [Felipe] Massa.

For a while there was the possibility that, should conditions be so bad that cars could not run in the afternoon qualifying session or even this morning, this final practice session might settle the grid, but the latest forecasts predicted a slight improvement with less intense rainfall, and though it will be wet for tonight’s race, it should not be as bad. Many fingers here are firmly crossed.

So there have been plenty of glum faces in the paddock so far, but the man with the broadest smile has been Jolyon Palmer, who was confirmed late on Friday as Pastor Maldonado’s partner in the Lotus team for next season as it begins a new transition back to Renault ownership.

The 24 year-old Englishman will thus follow in the second-generation footsteps of Michael Andretti, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve, and more recently Max Verstappen, by emulating the F1 careers of their fathers. A champion in F2 and F3, racing entrepreneur Jonathan Palmer raced in the Eighties with RAM, Zakspeed and Tyrrell. But the wait for confirmation hasn’t been easy for the 2014 GP2 champion.

“Since the summer break it’s been very tough for the whole team, but I had faith with the Renault talks ongoing,” Palmer jnr said as he explained how he dealt with uncertainty about his future after conducting test runs for the team at several races this year.

“I don’t really know inside the minds of the Renault bosses or the shareholders here, whether even if Renault doesn’t happen they’ve something else in their mind. I just had to have faith that something was going to happen. The team’s too good not to be doing anything next year.”