Vettel in fog training 18. – alonso fastest at the start
Sebastian vettel doesn’t let the thick fog get to him. Despite the inclement weather, the four-time formula 1 world champion routinely reeled off his program at the start of the USA grand prix, settling for 18th place in the first practice session.
The red-bull driver was 2.319 seconds behind ferrari rival fernando alonso in austin on friday. An unusually large gap for vettel, but one that has no consequences whatsoever.
Best german in the first power race on the circuit of the americas was nico rosberg. The mercedes driver from mercedesbaden finished fifth, 0.314 seconds behind alonso. Nico hulkenberg (emmerich) finished ninth in the clean race. Adrian sutil (grafelfing) reached 14th place in force india. Place.
Alonso was given the go-ahead by track doctors to compete in the penultimate race of the season only on thursday after suffering back problems in abu dhabi. For safety’s sake, the two-time champion stabilized the problem zone with special black tape. Obviously with success: alonso set the fastest time on the 5.513-kilometer circuit in 1:38.343 minutes.
Briton jenson button finished second in the mclaren, beaten only by 28 thousandths of a second. Surprising third place for finnish driver valtteri bottas at williams. Because yellow flags were waved towards the end of the first run due to a broken-down marussia car and the drivers were no longer allowed to accelerate at the scene, vettel was unable to launch an attack on alonso’s best time in his final attempts.
Training had to be postponed for 40 minutes due to heavy fog. Then the race commissioners interrupted the race after a few moments because the rescue helicopter could not fly due to insufficient visibility conditions. Because of the weather in the sunny austin, the stewarts shortened the training to one hour. Normally each session lasts 90 minutes.
The world championship has long been decided before the US grand prix on sunday. Vettel has been confirmed as champion again since india. With 347 points, the 26-year-old from hesse has a commanding lead over alonso (217). Kimi raikkonen (183), currently third overall, will miss the last two world championship races in texas and a week later in brazil due to back surgery. His team lotus announced that the finnish athlete was operated "completely successfully" in the university hospital of strabburg. "Kimi will now rest a few days and begin rehabilitation at the beginning of next week. Everyone at the track and in enstone wishes him a speedy recovery."
