Lewis Hamilton on pole for US Grand Prix but Sebastian Vettel provides reminder that title battle is far from over

If a Hollywood screenwriter had happened upon the F1 paddock this weekend, he could hardly have bettered the script for the US Grand Prix at the Circuit of The Americas.

The two title contenders – points leader Lewis Hamilton and lately beleaguered challenger Sebastian Vettel – will start Sunday’s race from the front row of the grid, after they were separated by a couple of tenths of a second in a gripping qualifying session this afternoon.

That was delayed two hours by the race organisers, from 14.00 hours to 16.00, in the hope that fans intending to go to the evening’s Justin Timberlake concert might arrive early to take in a bit of F1 too. Last year, few did that with Taylor Swift, and they try to learn fast here.

It was worth the wait.

Hamilton, as in-form as he has ever been and exuding joie de vivre after a visit to Nasa on Wednesday, dominated both practice sessions on Friday, and again this morning. But a few things had changed. His team-mate Valtteri Bottas had the same chassis set-up as he’d had the previous day. And Sebastian Vettel was being strapped into a Ferrari built up around a new chassis overnight after he had complained that the front end of his previous car felt like “jelly” after a mighty spin into a gravel bed.

That final practice session ended with Hamilton, Vettel, and their respective partners Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen all separated by just 0.277s. So going into qualifying the auguries looked promising.

Hamilton dominated again, setting the fastest times in the first and second knockout sessions, then setting the ante at 1m 33.108s on the first runs on the final one.

Vettel’s answer was weak, 1m 33.867s, and was beaten by Bottas on 1m 33.568s and Raikkonen on 1m 33.852s.

Hamilton was fastest on the second runs too, albeit with 1m 33.229s. But now Vettel had found his rhythm and not only closed the gap but crucially jumped ahead of Bottas, with 1m 33.347s. Game on.

These are both hard guys beneath their press conference smiles, and they both know that, regardless of the 59-point advantage that Hamilton has after his recent run of success, the battle isn’t over until the fat lady has burst into song. She might be warming up her vocal chords, but the melody and lyrics are still being refined.

Neither is under any illusion.

On the one hand, Hamilton had suffered sufficient misfortune in his career not to take anything for granted. Remember the engine failure in Malaysia that cost him a fourth title last year?

Equally, Vettel knows that it’s a big, big ask for him and Ferrari to win all four of the remaining races, especially against such a case-hardened rival.

But the beauty of this game lies in the refusal of either to give up. Hamilton isn’t going to coast to the end of the road in Abu Dhabi by picking up seconds or thirds, any more than Vettel isn’t going to give up. They are both going flat-out to win right up until the last moment. Until the mathematics say they won, or the other guy did.

“We are very happy with the result,” Vettel said, and he meant it. This was not keep-smiling public relations guff. “It was crucial to get that final run. We’ve had a slow start here with a couple of problems, and I wasn’t comfortable yesterday with the car and hardly did any laps after I ‘lost’ it and spun early in FP2. Something wasn’t right and obviously it was a big job overnight. But the team were fantastic. The mechanics have now had a couple of race weekends in row with last-minute engine changes and chassis changes, and they did it all without breaking the curfew.

“Obviously today I was much happier with the car. I couldn’t find my rhythm straight away and struggled with the wind in a couple corners, Turns 8 and 9 were tricky all day. But it was more a question of getting it right. I knew what I had to get right and I got it right, which was important. My first lap was very poor in Q3 so I knew I had to deliver, otherwise I might not even have been in the top six. But I knew that if I got them right we should be able to get closer, and it worked out. If the car behaves tomorrow like it did today, it should be good.

“It’s pretty straightforward: we have to win and then we’ll see what happens. We’ve had the car for the last three races and it didn’t happen, but I don’t see why over the next four races we won’t have the package to race, so it starts tomorrow.”

Of course, the odds favour Hamilton, who set a new record for 117 front-row starts. If he wins this one and Vettel has more misfortune, the title could even be settled here. But he has rebuffed all such suggestions this weekend, dismissing them as fancy nonsense. He doesn’t want to do it that way, because he’s a racer. He wants to race Vettel for it.

After running from his Mercedes to embrace brother Nic, he said how happy he had been with the car all through qualifying, even if a gust of wind had spoiled his final lap. How Pirelli’s tyres beneath him “felt like living tissue.” And he added, “People don’t realise how fast we are going through these tight corners, and how you can actually feel the temperatures of the tyres moving across the tread. This is such a fantastic circuit; the layout, the way that the wind comes, it all makes it really challenging. You’re constantly dancing with the wind. That last lap I got caught out by a bit of a gust, but that’s how it goes.

“We are often good in practice and qualifying and the races can be tricky for us in terms of balance. It’s not terrible, but generally we are stronger in quallie than in races. But we have improved the car and we have a good set of tyres and good balance for tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to a good race with with Seb and Valtteri. This is a track where you can follow closer and overtake, so I think we’ll be okay for tomorrow.

“The championship? It’s like a game of chess. Right now we are in check, but there are still 100 points to go, and I think it’s going to the wire. So I’ll be doing my utmost to defend my points advantage and maximise my performance to win these races. In winning, the points come and that’s how championships are won.”

No, it isn’t over yet.