Well, I'm with cmlean as regards the podium, but I'm not writing Ferrari out of the points just yet.
It's been five years since Sebastian Vettel won at Austin --and that was in a Red Bull/Renault in 2013. The best he has done since then was second, last year. All other American Grand Prixs at Austin have been won by Lewis Hamilton and this year he will probably not only win, but claim the World Driver's Championship for the fifth time.
So it's pretty easy pickings for this year's race-- here are mine:
1. Lewis Hamilton after an easy start from the pole and a gentlemanly drive for the rest of the day as corporate F1 settles the season to the money's satisfaction.
2. Valteri Bottas will adhere to his contract and act to assist Lewis to victory; there will be no 'team orders' of course, that will have been decided a long time ago. Nor will the World Champion politely return the victory he managed by Valteri letting him past in Russia; such things just aren't done in corporate formula one as was evident last week in Japan. Or maybe Lewis is waiting for Mexico to gift him?
3. Max Verstappen will finish out on the podium --unless he can bash past Valteri early and keep him at bay
4. Sebastian Vettel will finish in the points again ...and his grin wf)ill get increasingly fainter. Will folks in Maranello be wearing black armbands?
5. Kimi Raikkonen, whose best finish at Austin was Third last year, will be in the points somewhere again this week, barring a wheel falling off.
6. Daniel Ricciardo may well be fourth or fifth, IF (and it's a big IF) Red Bull gives him a decent car
7. Kevin Magnussen will make American fans happy by making it into the points
8. I'm picking Charles Leclerc's Sauber Ferrari to sneak in ahead of Hulkenberg's Renault
9. Nico Hulkenberg will drag the ("Mark 3, is it called?") Renault into the points again
10. Fernando Alonso, one of the best of the best, will bow out with his final point in America.
I don't know who Fernando got crosswise with in formula one but I do know he's no corporate shill. If F1 were indeed a racing series instead of an entertainment venue, he'd be more than a two time World Drivers' champion. If there were an F1 race of champions in which the drivers would race in identical cars; my bet is that not only would there be more overtaking than in the regular races, there would be a bigger audience for that event than even for Monaco or Silverstone. Will it ever happen? Not good for the money men, I'm afraid.
I'll be watching the race on tape so I can speed through (
) the boring parts. Will anyone be watching the rest of the season? Really??