Kimi Raikkonen wins USGP at COTA

FORMULA 1 UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX 2018- Photo: Splash Magazines

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Kimi Raikkonen (7) Scuderia Ferrari Driver wins USGP at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. He took his Ferrari to victory in the Formula 1 Pirelli 2018, United States Grand Prix on Sunday, October the 21, 2018. Raikkonen‘s previous victory occurred at the 2013 Australian Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen (33) from Aston Martin Red Bull racing driver and Lewis Hamilton (44) from Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport joined him on the podium for a second and third position. It was an incredible and thrilling race in the USA. The F1 fans were very excited with Scuderia Ferrari winning. Raikkonen enjoyed his first F1 win in 113 races and his first since returning to Ferrari from Lotus four years ago.

The weather conditions improved notably on Sunday with a gorgeous sun breaking through, and the fans were rewarded for their commitment with a race of the very highest quality.

Raikkonen enjoyed his first F1 win in 113 races and his first since returning to Ferrari from Lotus four years ago which gives him the record for most races between wins. The previous benchmark belonged to Riccardo Patrese who went 99 races between his 1983 South African GP win and his 1990 San Marino GP win. It was an epic race on Sunday with the crowd on the edge of their seats from start to finish where Raikkonen produced an impeccable drive by performing a clever job on managing his tires on his Ferrari. He was the only front-runner to start on the Ultrasoft tires and he overtook pole sitter Hamilton at the first corner, settling down to a fast pace. Kimi produced a perfect drive, making no mistakes after a brilliant start. He managed the tires intelligently and kept his cool in the closing stages when he had Verstappen and Hamilton breathing down his neck. His victory owed much to his choice of running Ultrasofts to make the cut from Q2 in Saturday’s qualifying, while his teammate and the Mercedes duo opted for the Supersofts.

Raikkonen said “Obviously it’s a great feeling to win this race. It’s nice to prove to all the people that we can still win; that’s the reason we are here for, try to win races and Championships. It was an exciting race, not only for us but also for all those who were watching. We had a very solid weekend, I felt confident and I’m glad about that especially because lately we’ve had rough weekends for the team. I’m glad we had a fight and it’s nice to see that we still have the speed to go for it and the fight has hard as we can. This weekend we found the car that we expected to have. The start was a key moment; In the first part of the race we had the speed, I tried to take care of tires and save fuel. Then the Mercedes stopped and came back on fresher tires: at that time, my target was to keep them behind before we, too, stopped for tires. If Hamilton had passed us before our stop, it would have been a different story. We are still in the fight for both Championships and this is a good thing. We’re off to Mexico now, where we’ll try to do the best we can and hopefully we can get a great result for both teams. We’ll keep fighting until the end.”

Raikkonen(7), Verstappen(33), and Hamilton (44 ) crossed the line within the same three seconds. They ran different tire strategies.

The disqualification of Force India’s Esteban Ocon and Haas’ Kevin Magnussen for fuelling irregularities boosted Brendon from P11 at the flag to P9 in the final classification. That handed the New Zealander his first points since the German Grand Prix.

**Esteban Ocon- FORMULA 1 UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX 2018- Photo: Splash Magazines**

**Kevin Magnussen- FORMULA 1 UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX 2018- Photo: Splash Magazines**

There was plenty more to take away from a fascinating 40th United States Grand Prix, as Formula 1’s Managing Director, Motorsport, Ross Brawn, reveals as he highlights a magnificent drive from Max, the apparent golden opportunity that may have hamstrung Hamilton, and the Friday data vacuum that helped set up a great race and that could point the way forward for future race weekends.

The 2018 F1 experience in Austin brought hundreds of thousands of fans to be entertained not only with the action of the tracks but also brought the biggest party of the year over the course of the weekend. On Saturday night of USGP weekend brought international superstar Bruno Mars Grammy winner to the Circuit. After the race on Sunday, Britney Spears brought her Piece of Me to live show to the Super Stage, capping off a thrilling weekend of speed and sound with one of the biggest selling performing artists of all time.