Austin, Texas: Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel won the U.S. Grand Prix , setting an F1 season record with his eighth straight victory here on Sunday. Lotus' Romain Grosjean of France was second, his best finish of the year while Vettel team-mate Mark Webber was third.
Vettel goes into next weekend's season finale in Brazil with a chance to tie Michael Schumacher's Formula One record of 13 victories in a single season. Schumacher set the mark in 2004, and also won seven straight races that year. Vettel also is closing on the overall Formula One record for consecutive victories of nine, set by Alberto Ascari over parts of the 1952 and '53 seasons.
Vettel said after the race, “It’s the day after, normally on the Monday, when you feel what you have achieved. It’s a great feeling, you have a grin on your face and it’s nice. On Sunday things happen fast and you don’t always realise what has been achieved until later. It’s down to team effort today. Everyone is willing to push; this morning the guys were working hard as we had some concerns about reliability on the car, so they were flat out trying to fix the problem and the car ran okay all race, so a big thanks to them.”
“I’m not sure what we have done since the summer break in order that we have been winning races, but whatever it was it has worked. When you are a sports man, not every day is supposed to be a good day and you have ups and downs. Certainly you feel the points when you are low, they hurt more than when you are on a high, of course you enjoy those times, but I kept saying that there’s no guarantee for the next race or the one after that or after that! You never know what is coming next, so you have to enjoy today and look forward to tomorrow,” he added.
Meanwhile Webber said, “The initial launch and my getaway was pretty good. Romain had a good start too, I wanted to get on the right for the breaking point at the first corner, but that’s what everyone did too. I got boxed in and didn’t get a good exit off the corner, but after that it was a strong race. Our pace was good, but you have to manage the tyres well here. Qualifying was where a lot of the race was decided. In the end I did what we could, but I think we left some on the table yesterday. I have some family and friends here this weekend, so it’s good to get a strong result. It would have been better to have had a win, but Seb did a good job here this weekend.”
