Kimi Raikkonen has won the 2018 United States Grand Prix after managing to make one stop fewer than the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, whilst Max Verstappen drove an impressive race from 18th place to finish in second. Hamilton himself finished in third, whilst World Championship rival Sebastian Vettel finished in fourth place, meaning that the World Championship battle does go on to the next race in Mexico. Hamilton now needs just six points to seal this year's crown, and that's ONLY if Vettel wins all 3 remaining races from now until the end of the season, as otherwise Hamilton will be confirmed as World Champion.
At the start, Raikkonen got away very well from second place, using the grippier tyres to his advantage and getting into first place at the end of turn 1, and led from Hamilton, Bottas, Daniel Ricciardo and Vettel. Vettel seemingly got past Ricciardo on the straight leading into turn 12, however, he ran slightly wide and this enabled Ricciardo to just about hang in there, and slightly later on in the lap, Vettel made contact with Ricciardo trying to overtake him, and dropped down several positions as a result. Romain Grosjean and Charles Leclerc collided as well, which caused Grosjean to retire and caused front wing damage on Leclerc's car (Leclerc did eventually retire from the race). Fernando Alonso also retired after he had an incident with Lance Stroll, who was duly given a drive through penalty for the incident.
By lap 8, Verstappen was already up into fifth place after charging up the field. On lap 9, Ricciardo stopped with what was a car issue. This caused the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) to be deployed. Mercedes used the VSC to change Hamilton's tyres (and switched onto the hardest tyre, the soft tyre), whilst Raikkonen stayed out - as Hamilton was told to do the opposite to Raikkonen regarding staying out or going into the pits. The order at this point was: Raikkonen, Bottas, Hamilton and Verstappen - and Hamilton was around only 12 seconds behind Raikkonen who was leading the race. As soon as Hamilton caught up to him, Bottas quickly got out of his way. Hamilton was doing some impressive laptimes, and by lap 20 was arguably less than a second behind Raikkonen. Raikkonen did a very good job in managing to keep Hamilton behind him until he changed his own tyres (which had lost a lot of performance, they were the ultra-soft tyres), and it arguably benefitted him later in the race as this meant he almost always remained within Hamilton's pit window, i.e. if Hamilton were to stop again for new tyres, he was going to re-emerge behind Raikkonen, as if Hamilton got past Raikkonen before the Finn pitted, he could have opened up a considerable gap and actually made it easier for himself to make a second stop, though all ifs, buts and maybes. Verstappen pitted on lap 23 for a set of super-soft tyres (he started the race with the softs), and Bottas, who himself pitted a lap later, re-emerged from the pits behind the Dutchman. After the frontrunners all made their stops, the order was: Hamilton, Raikkonen, Verstappen, Bottas and Vettel.
Hamilton began to struggle with his tyres on approximately lap 32, and Raikkonen began to close the gap quite considerably as Hamilton was suffering with blisters on his rear tyres. The problem worsened, and this enabled Verstappen to get within Hamilton's pit window, meaning that now if Hamilton were to change his tyres again he would re-emerge behind both Raikkonen and Verstappen, whilst Bottas later also closed into his pit window. Hamilton's blistering was far too problematic to keep him out till the end, and he eventually pitted on lap 38 for another set of soft tyres. He dropped down to fourth place, behind Raikkonen, Verstappen and Bottas. Within a couple of laps, Hamilton caught right back up to Bottas, and the Finn inevitably let Hamilton through once again, meaning Hamilton was back into third place. Hamilton had to now catch Verstappen, and he did close right up to him towards the end of the race. On lap 54, Verstappen ran slightly wide on the exit of turn 12, which did give Hamilton a chance to overtake, and going into turn 16, Hamilton (unsuccessfully) attempted an overtaking manoeuvre, but ran out of road and ran wide, meaning that Verstappen held second from Hamilton, but up front there was no denying Kimi Raikkonen his first race victory since the 2013 Australian Grand Prix. Vettel did manage to get past Bottas for fourth place. Esteban Ocon, who finished the race in eighth place, is under investigation over a fuel flow issue with his car, as it is being alleged that the team exceeded the limit.
Classification:
Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari
Max Verstappen - Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer
Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes
Sebastian Vettel - Ferrari
Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes
Nico Hulkenberg - Renault
Carlos Sainz - Renault
Esteban Ocon - Racing Point Force India-Mercedes
Kevin Magnussen - Haas-Ferrari
Sergio Perez - Racing Point Force India-Mercedes
Brendon Hartley - Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda
Marcus Ericsson - Sauber-Ferrari
Stoffel Vandoorne - McLaren-Renault
Pierre Gasly - Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda
Sergey Sirotkin - Williams-Mercedes
Lance Stroll - Williams-Mercedes
Did not finish the race and not classified: Charles Leclerc, Daniel Ricciardo, Romain Grosjean and Fernando Alonso
World Championship classification:
Lewis Hamilton - 346 points
Sebastian Vettel - 276 points
Kimi Raikkonen - 221 points
Valtteri Bottas - 217 points
Max Verstappen - 191 points
Daniel Ricciardo - 146 points
Nico Hulkenberg - 61 points
Kevin Magnussen - 55 points
Sergio Perez - 54 points
Esteban Ocon - 53 points
Fernando Alonso - 50 points
Carlos Sainz - 45 points
Romain Grosjean - 31 points
Pierre Gasly - 28 points
Charles Leclerc - 21 points
Stoffel Vandoorne - 8 points
Lance Stroll - 6 points
Marcus Ericsson - 6 points
Brendon Hartley - 2 points
Sergey Sirotkin - 1 point
Constructors' Championship classification:
Mercedes - 563 points
Ferrari - 497 points
Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer - 337 points
Renault - 106 points
Haas-Ferrari - 86 points
McLaren-Renault - 58 points
Racing Point Force India-Mercedes - 48 points
Scuderia Toro Rosso-Honda - 30 points
Sauber-Ferrari - 27 points
Williams-Mercedes - 7 points