Las carreras en Austin, el circuito texano de Las Américas, suelen ser especiales. Y este año hemos tenido una carrera muy movida, con la aparición en dos ocasiones del auto de seguridad. En este video vamos a analizar los incidentes que hemos visto en la carrera de este año en el Circuito de Las Américas.

Races at Austin, the Texan circuit of the Americas, are usually special. And this year we have had a very busy race, with the safety car appearing twice. In this video we will analyze the incidents we have seen in this year's race at the Circuit of The Americas.

Before starting, we must highlight the great performance of the Dutch driver Max Verstappen, who achieved victory after losing the lead of the race in a bad pit stop where he lost many seconds. With this result and with a fourth place of the Mexican driver Sergio "Checo" Perez, the Red Bull team has secured its constructors' championship.

It is also worth mentioning the good performance of the Mercedes team, especially Lewis Hamilton, in a circuit where only the top teams usually dominate. The Briton was not far from winning the race, especially due to the good performance he obtained with the hard tires, unlike his rivals who were better off with the medium yellow tire.

Also, we can highlight the good moment of the Aston Martin team, who could have obtained very solid positions in this race if it were not for the mistakes of both one of their drivers and the team. Podríamos seguir viendo buenas prestaciones del equipo Aston Martin en las próximas carreras, lo cual pinta muy bien de cara al año 2022 en donde contarán con Fernando Alonso en sus filas.

And we begin precisely by analyzing what was the incident between Alonso and Stroll, future teammates after the announced retirement of Sebastian Vettel. Initially I thought it was a mistake by Alonso to react late, but after watching the replays, it became clear that Stroll makes a very sharp move when defending his position.

Normally, drivers move to try to block the advance of the driver behind, but, in this case, Stroll does it very late, when Alonso was already very close. Moreover, his move was very abrupt and not gradual as drivers usually do in defensive maneuvers. It is worth noting that this happened in the middle of the straight and not arriving at the corner, which is a bit unusual, although not so much in race starts or restarts.

In summary, although I think Alonso could have been more cautious, the blame in this incident falls much more heavily on Lance Stroll, who will have a penalty heading into the next Mexican Grand Prix: 3 starting positions and 2 penalty points to his driver's license.

On the other hand, we have the incident at the start of the race that led to the spin and subsequent retirement of Carlos Sainz, who had started in first place, in Pole Position. This incident resulted in a 5-second penalty for George Russell, who impacted with the Madrid driver's car causing him to spin. Sainz had had a regular start, which was overcome by the very good start of Max Verstappen, who started in 2nd place.

My observation here is the following: Sainz makes a slightly strange trajectory in the first corner, perhaps trying to gain traction for the next few corners, but when he is already in acceleration exiting the corner two things happen: the first, which was not noticed by many people, is that Max Verstappen does not get out of the first corner very well, so he loses a little speed and this forces Carlos to brake a little to avoid hitting him.

The second thing that happens is that Russell was coming a little too fast, and on a very different trajectory than Max and Carlos. Russell was very hasty in this maneuver, a bit risky, which might have worked out well if Max and Carlos had not both braked, since, if they had not done so, perhaps the space for George to pass would have been free of cars.

The next thing we see is a momentary run off the track by Latifi in the first sector esses, probably caused by the wind, or his own driving error, or both. Valtteri Bottas did something similar, but with irreparable consequences at turn 19. The wind was a very important factor in this race, it affected the drivers' handling and car stability to a great extent, and probably this took Valtteri by surprise in this corner. It is a corner that usually gives problems to all drivers, and it is worth noting that Bottas had recently changed his tires to harder ones, which have less grip.

The next thing to discuss is the FIA's decision regarding penalties. Fernando Alonso could surprisingly continue the race after the incident, but not only that, he made an impressive comeback to 7th place. However, the FIA decided to add a 30-second penalty for racing on track with a loose rear-view mirror, which eventually came off the car with a few laps to go. This contrasts with what happened to Sergio Perez, to whom the same thing happened, but with another part of his car, the right end-plate of the front wing, which he lost in a race contact with Bottas in the opening laps. One of the Mercedes also had a loose end-plate during part of the race.

What is debatable here is both the weight of the penalty and the fact that it was not applied to other drivers in similar situations. Also, during the race the stewards did not issue any notification about this, which normally comes with a black and orange flag. All cars passed the checks at the end of the race, and this penalty came afterwards, after a protest from the Haas team, but not on the initiative of the FIA. Perhaps these penalties should be clarified and applied more rigorously and consistently with respect to previous decisions. In addition, the 5 seconds Russell seems to be little in comparison to a factor that is out of the driver's hands, such as a loose chalk.

I would like to know your opinion on this matter, do you think the penalty to Fernando Alonso was well justified, should Checo Perez have also been penalized and forced to change his wing? Thanks for watching this video, I'm acontmotor, see you next time.

_{Translated to English language with the help of DeepL.com}

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_{Música: Time for Machine (Gvidon) - Pixabay}

_{Race Highlights | 2022 United States Grand Prix}

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