2015 United States Grand Prix

Lore & Background

Alexander Rossi became the first American to drive in the United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas, returning to Manor Marussia after Roberto Merhi had raced for them in Russia. The Sauber team celebrated their 400th Grand Prix in Formula One. The weather was forecast to be wet all weekend, with especially treacherous conditions on Friday afternoon and Saturday, while the race day itself was expected to be slightly less wet. Fernando Alonso ran a new power unit in his McLaren over the weekend, one that he had already used once during practice for the previous race in Russia, having taken the grid penalty for it there.

Teammate Jenson Button hoped for Alonso to 'annihilate' him, adding: 'It's unusual to say that, but in our situation it's about getting it on the car.' McLaren also introduced new aerodynamic parts to their cars for the Grand Prix. Both Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen of Ferrari needed to exchange their power units. Having already used the allowed four units for the season, both drivers received ten-place grid penalties.

Manor Marussia's Will Stevens was placed back 20 grid spots for a change of his engine, turbocharger and MGU-H unit. Renault used eleven of their twelve remaining tokens for changes to their power unit. Both customer teams, Red Bull and Toro Rosso, chose not to run with the update, saying its performance advantage was not worth taking the grid penalties. Red Bull and McLaren used new front wings, emulating a concept introduced by Mercedes supposed to create more downforce by directing the airflow towards the outside of the front tyres.

Similar changes were made by Ferrari to their SF15-T. In preparation for the effects of the high altitude in Mexico, Mercedes added two 'ears' at the top of the airbox in order to improve cooling to the energy recovery system of their power unit. The race used the same two DRS zones as previous races at the track. The first was between turns eleven and twelve, and the second on the start/finish straight between turns twenty and one. Pirelli supplied teams with the white-banded medium tyre as the prime compound and the yellow-banded soft tyre as the option selection, with the manufacturer citing the characteristics of the circuit with 'a wide range of corners and elevations' as the reason the two middle compounds were chosen.

Reader's Guide

Coming into the weekend, Mercedes had already secured the Constructors' Championship, having done so at the previous race in Russia. Ferrari was in second place on 359 points, 139 points ahead of Williams. In the Drivers' Championship, Lewis Hamilton led with 302 points, 66 ahead of Sebastian Vettel and 73 ahead of his teammate, Nico Rosberg. This meant that Hamilton would be able to win the title.

Per the regulations for the 2015 season, three practice sessions were scheduled, two 1.5-hour sessions on Friday and another one-hour session before qualifying on Saturday; however, with treacherous weather conditions including flood warnings, the second practice session was cancelled due to heavy rain and a thunderstorm. The other two practice sessions were run in wet conditions. Nico Rosberg topped the timesheets on Friday, ahead of the two Red Bull cars of Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo.

The session started on a very wet track, but with no more rain falling, it dried out as the practice progressed, with drivers soon switching to intermediate tyres. Lewis Hamilton was fifth fastest, behind Carlos Sainz Jr. Despite going off the track late in the session, Fernando Alonso was ninth fastest in the McLaren with the new power unit. A gearbox problem meant that Pastor Maldonado was unable to take to the track, while at Sauber, Raffaele Marciello replaced Felipe Nasr, ending the session three-tenths of a second quicker than teammate Marcus Ericsson.

The practice session on Saturday was run without spectators to ensure their safety. On track, Lewis Hamilton was fastest, ahead of his closest championship rival Sebastian Vettel. With conditions worsening over the course of the session, Vettel spun out twice. Max Verstappen ended the session last, while Force India's Nico Hülkenberg was third, ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Sainz.

Inclement weather continued to disrupt the Saturday's proceedings as qualifying was delayed multiple times before being ultimately rescheduled for Sunday morning. Many drivers backed the decision, with Jenson Button saying: 'It was the right thing to do ... . In one respect, maybe if we decided three hours earlier it would have been better for the fans. But we wanted to get out there and drive and put on a show.