The 2012 United States Grand Prix marked Formula 1’s long-awaited return to American soil, with 117,000 fans packing the brand-new Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. The 56-lap race, held on 18 November, was the penultimate round of the season and the first US Grand Prix since 2007.
Lewis Hamilton, who won the race when it last ran at Indianapolis, five years later delivered a sensational drive to win in his penultimate race for McLaren before joining Mercedes, overtaking Sebastian Vettel mid-race to take make the victory happen.
Vettel’s second place was enough to seal Red Bull’s third consecutive F1 Constructors’ Championship, while Fernando Alonso completed the podium for Ferrari. The German had dominated qualifying, taking pole ahead of Hamilton and team-mate Mark Webber.
When the lights went out, both Red Bulls led early, but Hamilton’s McLaren soon emerged as the only real threat. After reclaiming second from Webber on lap four, Hamilton began closing on Vettel, who held the lead until encountering Narain Karthikeyan’s HRT in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The backmarker delayed Vettel just enough for Hamilton to pounce in the DRS zone on lap 42. The McLaren swept past into Turn 12 and controlled the race from there. Vettel’s frustration was clear: “I wasn’t too happy sending a nice big invitation to Lewis when I had to go through Karthikeyan. My frustration was not at Lewis but at the backmarker who gave a nice big envelope with an invitation to him."
Hamilton praised his team after one of his finest wins: “It’s been a great weekend. To be able to beat Red Bull and Sebastian is definitely a challenge but we managed to do it today.”
Alonso could not match the pace of Hamilton or Vettel
Ferrari had made headlines before the start by deliberately breaking the seal on Felipe Massa’s gearbox to earn a five-place grid penalty, moving Alonso to the clean side of the grid. The tactic paid off as the Spaniard climbed from seventh to fourth after Turn 1, setting up a solid podium finish.
Team principal Stefano Domenicali defended the controversial move, saying any team in the same position would have done the same. Red Bull’s Christian Horner dismissed talk of retaliation with Webber: “Somebody else would then have done it, and before you knew it Fernando would have started on the front row.”
While Alonso could not match the pace of Hamilton or Vettel, his third place meant he lost only three points to his title rival. Heading to the season finale in Brazil, Alonso trailed Vettel by 13 points and admitted: “Maybe the chance on paper is not that big, maybe 25%, but deep down I feel that it’s much more than that. Anything can happen at Interlagos.”
Massa shines, Button charges, and Red Bull sweat reliability
Massa produced one of his best drives of the season, rising from 11th to finish just behind Alonso, setting a fastest lap narrowly slower than Vettel’s. Jenson Button, hampered by qualifying issues, stormed from 12th to fifth after an extended first stint, keeping McLaren in contention for second in the Constructors’ Championship.
Romain Grosjean recovered from an early spin to finish seventh behind Kimi Räikkönen, while Force India’s Nico Hülkenberg and the two Williams cars of Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna completed the points.
Mark Webber’s retirement after a KERS and alternator failure cast a shadow over Red Bull’s day, their third alternator issue in 2012. Technical chief Adrian Newey admitted concern: “Those alternators have been on Renault engines since 2005 — and they’ve been failing since 2005.”
The victory sealed Red Bull’s dominance in the Constructors’ standings, but the Drivers’ Title remained undecided. With one race to go, Vettel’s lead looked strong — yet, as Alonso noted, reliability could still decide everything at Interlagos.
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