The USA Grand Prix Forecast

The USA Grand Prix held at the circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas is now in it's third year as host of a formula 1 race.

It is one of the better modern circuits with the opening section reminiscent of Silverstone and Suzuka. It will have two DRS zones, one on the start finish straight and the other down the back straight where Lewis Hamilton memorably passed Sebastian Vettel for the lead after a race long duel that was one of the best races this century.

Pirelli are bringing the soft and medium compounds which they believe will offer a two stops over the 56 laps. The weather is forecast to be sunny all weekend with a bit of cloud for the race although it has the highest temperature of the weekend at 25C.

Well that's the formalities out of the way, now to the real issue striking the heart of Formula 1; what else could it be but money? Specifically the lack of it at Caterham and Marussia, both of which went into administration.

It wasn't unexpected with Caterham who have been experiencing problems since before the Russian Grand Prix, well since they were sold. But Marussia are a well run team, and on top of the Jules Bianchi accident a horrible blow to the squad.

Both teams will not participate in Austin leaving the grid at just 18 cars. This is the first time since 2005 F1 will have run with under 20 cars, it is to be hoped that both teams can return soon. Caterham at least hope to be back by Abu Dhabi while Marussia may be back in Brazil. You wouldn't bet your house on it though, or significantly less money.

It once again brings up the issue of how Formula 1 is run and exactly how it's £1.8billion income is split. Too much of it goes to Bernie Ecclestone and his paymasters CVC. The rest goes to the teams in a wholly unequal weighted pay scale.

There is no way that when the sport brings in nearly £2billion that teams should be struggling to survive. Bernie has often talked of his desire for three car teams if the grid drops below 20 but if that happens how long until your left two teams supplying ten cars each to customers as each back of the grid team goes bust? 

You lose the very essence of Formula 1 if you don't have teams building their own cars and competing against the best. Driver to driver, designer to designer, engineer to engineer, mechanic to mechanic investing in their package to make it the best. 

Formula 1 is currently working on an unsustainable platform, for many reasons, but chiefly the division of money and how much doesn't go to it's participants. This will be the major talking point of the US Grand Prix. Hopefully both teams will be back soon because you need those at the back to keep trying, it's part of F1 and gives opportunities to new talent. 

There is still a title battle as well. After three weeks break Nico Rosberg has to halt Hamilton's run of four wins. If Lewis succeeds this weekend then surely the battle for Rosberg is lost. He'll have to go some though, Lewis is awesome around here.

Williams and Red Bull will be the closest challengers. Vettel looks likely to have to take a sixth engine so may well miss qualifying as he'll have a grid penalty.

I expect Valttari Bottas to be very strong after his brilliant result last year. While I think Fernando Alonso has one more surprise left in him for Ferrari before he supposedly leaves. 

Alonso's 'where will he drive in 2015' saga carries on with even rumours of Audi joining in the fun. McLaren is still most likely so watch out for Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen to put in star drives as they battle to stay on the grid. 

Nico Hulkenberg has signed up for Force India in 2015, let's see if he can rediscover his early season form now he's secure.

I think Mercedes pairing are going to be close and certainly one of them will win. Rosberg will be desperate to make sure he stays in range of Lewis, while the rest still have lots to drive for with a surprise most likely to come from Bottas. It's going to be quite the race in the US of A.

Talking points from Russia: Driver market, safety and awkwardness

The inaugural Russian Grand Prix was won by Lewis Hamilton who did as he pleased on his way to the chequered flag. It was a fairly uneventful race, but the weekend in Russia had several notable talking points. A full race report and title discussion can be found here.

Interestingly talk about if Formula 1 should even be in Russia had long since quietened down, but then the conflict in Ukraine hasn't been amongst the headlines recently so I guess out of sight out of mind. The FIA has never dealt with political situations anyway, only if safety was threatened would they intervene. 

There was a lot of chatter about potential safety cars being used for the race for any incident where it wasn’t an easy retrieval but in the end the race didn’t need one. Or rather it did need one to clear some debris or something because Pirelli went conservative which meant the race was in need of a random element.

Perhaps if they’d brought the super-soft tyre rather than the medium the degradation might have been more and we’d have had the two stopper race most were predicting, but it probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference as  I’m not sure the track offered much in the way of passing opportunities, not even the DRS seemed effective although turn three looked awesomely long and super fast with cars able to go side by side in the opening laps.

In the end the cameras seemed more interested in picking out Russian President Vladimir Putin’s arrival half way through the race and watching him sit in the grandstands looking impassive and then getting cosy with Bernie Ecclestone. Then off he went to the drivers cool down room before the podium which was unorthodox and proceeded to ask them how much weight they lost during a race. Nico Rosberg stood up for the drivers and answered as Hamilton and Bottas hid in the corner.  It was a desperately awkward moment to watch.

As was just before the start when drivers gathered at the front of the grid for a respectful one minute silence for Bianchi and for the national anthem. I hope this doesn’t become a common theme in regard to the national anthem, the drivers want to be getting in the zone at this point not parading themselves for an anthem they likely don't know. 

As for the minute silence it seemed a rather gloomy thing to do, much better were the stickers on cars and helmets which the drivers have chosen to show their respect and support to Bianchi, certainly it's better than these orchestrated moments which were just uncomfortable.

The driver market

Another talking point continues to be Vettel and Alonso’s destinations for 2015. Vettel is 99.9% certain to be at Ferrari but the termination of Alonso’s contract is still to be officially confirmed and if he isn’t at Ferrari his most likely destination is to McLaren-Honda surely? Perhaps this race when McLaren comfortably out performed Ferrari will make him hurry up and sign. But another rumour is he might go back to team Enstone, or Lotus, where he won his titles when they were called Renault.

Apparently he’d bring a lot of backing to the team and with them having the Mercedes engine package next year they are bound to jump right back up the grid. They really seemed to be about to engage in a title fight before this year, but they have now lost a lot of talented designers and engineers to other teams because of money worries.

I think as Alonso seeks his third title, he’s got a fair few options but none too enticing. The worst option would be if he were to take a sabbatical, I truly hope he doesn’t, it would somehow mean less to see a driver win a title without him on the grid even if he isn’t in a competitive car.

Whatever he does, and he keeps saying he knows what he’s doing, I’m sure it’s taking longer to announce because he’s trying to put clauses in a contract so he’ll be available for Mercedes in 2016 should a seat become free. Perhaps the real shocker this year will be he is announced as a Silver Arrows driver for 2015, he is smiling rather wide through his increasingly straggly beard after all. Whatever the situation is I’m sure the likes of Button, Grosjean, Raikkonen and Magnussen would just wish it would happen soon so they can get their futures sorted out.

Potential Safety Changes

So three weeks off before three races in four weekends starting in the USA. After the initial investigation into Bianchi’s crash led by the FIA's race director Charlie Whiting they held a press conference on Friday detailing Bianchi's accident and responding to issues people had with how the incident was dealt with (here) and potential changes for the future as a result of this. 

I've already mentioned the safety car but America may see the testing of new yellow flag speed limits to combat drivers not responding to slowing down. Other new things likely to come in are skirts surrounding tractors to prevent cars going underneath but that’ll have to wait until 2015. The sport hasn’t overreacted and is taking the time to analyse and absorb what happened before rushing decisions. 

They are again going to look into canopies but their implementation would likely be along way off and some drivers, notably Jenson Button and Sebastian Vettel have voiced concerns about losing what Formula 1 is, open wheel and open cockpit racing. There are also still issues as to whether they improve safety overall. However, the FIA are doing something and that’s good to see. #ForzaJules

all photos taken from autosport.com

Hamilton coasts to victory in Russia

The first Russian Grand Prix weekend had some edgy moments, some strange moments, a large portion of dull moments in the main event, but it did result in a sublimely perfect performance from Lewis Hamilton whom took his ninth win of the year, his 31^st in total to draw level with Nigel Mansell with the most wins by a British driver.

Lewis was perfect all weekend apart from a minor spin in practice three. He took pole position and despite briefly losing the lead at turn 2 to Nico Rosberg who overshot the corner and had to give the place back he was in control and coasted to victory.

Rosberg brought some entertainment to the race after locking up his front tyres on the opening lap. He had to pit at the end of the first lap, the flat spots from the rubber causing severe vibrations. It dropped him to the back of the pack. It looked like he’d just offered Lewis one hand on the championship, but he remained calm, picked himself up and when told he’d have to make those set of tyres last the rest of the race drove superbly back through the field. It was a mark of how unintentionally conservative Pirelli were. The predicted two stopper was an easy one stop race, perhaps the super-soft instead of the medium might have added the spice of variety.

It almost seemed too easy such was the advantage of the Mercedes in Russia. Both drivers reported no issues with tyre degradation, and Rosberg conserved and pushed at the right times making a number of excellent moves into turn two to come home in second securing the constructors championship for Mercedes.

That championship hasn’t looked in doubt all year, but it’s well deserved, the silver team came into 2014 the best prepared with a superb chassis and the best power unit by far. Former team principal Ross Brawn deserves a lot of the credit for setting them underway to this domination but the team have gone with the direction they were given and maximised it.

The driver’s title is still tough to call despite Hamilton now outscoring Rosberg by nine wins to four and holding a 17 point lead in the championship. In a way I’m glad it was so easy for Rosberg to come back to second as it keeps the title fight more interesting and a slender points gap makes it more likely that double points won’t affect the title before that novelty idea is hopefully dropped for 2015.

But Hamilton is really on a roll now, his second run of four wins this year with just three races to go makes it seem like the momentum he’s created on his side of the garage is unstoppable. It appears Rosberg was too eager to make his point again at the start for which he apologised to the team for, but his comeback drive is to be admired.

The non-Mercedes race

Valtteri Bottas brought Williams back to the closest challenger position with another podium, but could he have had second? He didn’t manage to put up too much of a fight against Rosberg despite being on fresher rubber after making his one and only stop. Rosberg dived through and made an instant gap to Bottas who just couldn’t respond.

I think ideally Williams would have liked to have run Bottas longer but they couldn’t manage the tyres quite as well because despite holding the gap to Hamilton for the first quarter of the race he then fell back dramatically. Still, it was a better race than his team mate Felipe Massa had who suffered a fuel pick up problem in qualifying leaving him starting only 18^th. He was one of the few to employ a two stopper and it left him only 11^th.

Jenson Button was my star of the race. He finished fourth after starting there and despite running third in the opening phase of the race wouldn’t have been able to hold off Rosberg for long. Button was pretty lonely throughout once he’d managed to pull a gap on Fernando Alonso and ran strongly throughout to remind McLaren just what they’d be giving up.

He out-qualified and out-drove team mate Kevin Magnussen who still did a tremendous job to come up from 11^th on the grid to finish fifth. Alonso was well off the pace for Ferrari in sixth, suffering a botched pit stop that cost him several seconds and dropped him behind Magnussen. He still finished ahead of the struggling Red Bull’s, both Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel off the pace all weekend.

Ricciardo started sixth and Vettel tenth, but the current world champion got the jump on the Australian during the first lap and headed the pair. Ricciardo asked the team to get Vettel out of the way before actually dropping away from him. He stopped earlier and got the undercut after Vettel stayed out a lot later. But seventh and eighth is not what the team expect.

Ninth was Kimi Raikkonen who’ll be glad when this season is over and tenth was Sergio Perez, one point for Force India against McLaren’s 22 means they’ve dramatically fallen back in the chase to be a top five constructor.

Esteban Gutierrez had a long first stint and seems the most likely Sauber driver to challenge for points while the most note worthy moment for Lotus’ Romain Grosjean was when he was given a five second stop/go penalty for tapping Adrian Sutil into a spin. He still finished ahead of the other Lotus of Pastor Maldonado.

Toro Rosso were the big disappointments of Russia. Daniil Kvyat was an outstanding fifth in qualifying for his home race. Jean-Eric Vergne was ninth but both dropped dramatically out of the top ten. They had no pace to answer any questions the rest of the field through at them to finish 13^th and 14^th, Vergne ahead of Kvyat.

Caterham retired Kamui Kobayashi for no reason so the Japanese claims which seems a bit odd. The team does have money worries so maybe they’re trying to save parts while Marcus Ericsson continued his revival with another good qualifying before the team let him finish last.

Marussia elected not to run Jules Bianchi’s car but it seems Alexander Rossi will be in the car for his home race in the USA in three weeks. It’s obviously been a tough week for the team and the sport as a whole, Bianchi remains in a critical but stable condition.

So we now head to the USA in three weeks, it’s the home stretch for the title race. Can Lewis be stopped in his march towards glory? It’s looking increasingly unlikely for Rosberg, I think he’s now holding onto the hope that the double points round in Abu Dhabi is going to be a wacky race but he can start closing the gap with a perfect weekend in the USA. Above all I hope in three weeks the Formula 1 grid reforms to good news about Bianchi. #ForzaJules.

all photos taken from autosport.com