F1: Lewis Hamilton qualifies No. 1 for U.S. Grand Prix, on verge of winning 5th title

Lewis Hamilton took a big step toward earning his fifth Formula One championship on Saturday, qualifying No. 1 for Sunday’s U.S. Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

Hamilton and his Mercedes have won five of the previous six U.S. Grand Prix’s held at COTA, including the last four races there.

The Great Britain native comes into Sunday’s race leading the F1 point standings and is seeking to tie Juan Manuel Fangio for second-most F1 career championships. Michael Schumacher has the most with seven crowns.

Sebastian Vettel is Hamilton’s sole remaining challenger for the title, trailing Hamilton by 67 points with four races to go, including Sunday’s race.

Vettel must win Sunday’s race or finish within seven points of Hamilton to prevent the latter from winning the title and pushing a possible clinching scenario to next week in Mexico.

Vettel qualified second Saturday, but due to a red-flag three-position grid penalty sustained during Friday’s morning practice, will start fifth on Sunday’s grid.

As a result of Vettel’s penalty, Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen will start alongside Hamilton on the front row for Sunday’s race.

Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate, Vallteri Bottas, will start third, while Daniel Ricciardo will start fourth.

Rounding out the top 10 were Esteban Ocon, Nico Hulkenberg, Romain Grosjean, Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez.

Here’s how qualifying played out:

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	Q1	Q2	Q3	LAPS
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	1:34.130	1:33.480	1:32.237	20
2	5	Sebastian Vettel	FERRARI	1:34.569	1:33.079	1:32.298	18
3	7	Kimi Räikkönen	FERRARI	1:34.703	1:32.884	1:32.307	15
4	77	Valtteri Bottas	MERCEDES	1:34.518	1:33.702	1:32.616	17
5	3	Daniel Ricciardo	RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER	1:34.755	1:34.185	1:33.494	14
6	31	Esteban Ocon	FORCE INDIA MERCEDES	1:34.876	1:34.522	1:34.145	18
7	27	Nico Hulkenberg	RENAULT	1:34.932	1:34.564	1:34.215	18
8	8	RomainGrosjean	HAAS FERRARI	1:34.892	1:34.419	1:34.250	17
9	16	Charles Leclerc	SAUBER FERRARI	1:35.069	1:34.255	1:34.420	17
10	11	Sergio Perez	FORCE INDIA MERCEDES	1:35.193	1:34.525	1:34.594	17
11	55	Carlos Sainz	RENAULT	1:34.891	1:34.566		12
12	20	KevinMagnussen	HAAS FERRARI	1:34.972	1:34.732		12
13	10	Pierre Gasly	SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO HONDA	1:34.850	DNS		13
14	28	Brendon Hartley	SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO HONDA	1:35.206	DNS		13
15	33	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER	1:34.766			4
16	14	FernandoAlonso	MCLAREN RENAULT	1:35.294			6
17	35	Sergey Sirotkin	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:35.362			6
18	18	Lance Stroll	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	1:35.480			8
19	9	Marcus Ericsson	SAUBER FERRARI	1:35.536			8
20	2	StoffelVandoorne	MCLAREN RENAULT	1:35.735			6

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Overshadowed by a horrific crash involving Sophia Floersch was the fact that 19-year-old Dan Ticktum dominated and won the Macau Grand Prix – a victory that puts him closer to earning the superlicence required to allow him to race with Formula 1, according to Yahoo! Sports.

Ticktum won Macau’s qualification race as well as the Grand Prix, starting first in both events. For his victories, he earned 10 points, which combined with 25 for his runner-up finish in the European F3 Championship leaves him just five below the 40 needed for the license.

This was Ticktum’s second Macau Grand Prix victory.

“It was a dominant performance that I was preparing for,” Ticktum said on his web site. “I don’t think I’ve ever prepared as hard as I did for this race and it all worked out. In the final race a lot of variables were thrown at me but I handled them.”

On his way to victory lane, Ticktum had to survive several restarts including the lengthy red flag period following Floersch’s accident to repair the barrier.

“I can’t count how many safety car restarts we had to do,” Ticktum said. “It puts a lot of pressure on a driver here with such a long run down to the first corner. I can’t remember a weekend when I’ve put it all together so well.

“The car was absolutely perfect all weekend, it was so good and I can’t thank Motopark enough for that. I’ve never been so involved in the set-up, felt so at one with the car as I did this weekend.”