Questions for the 2014 United States GP

Can the big guns put on a big show?
If anyone doubts the vital importance of the United States GP to the business-sport that is F1, look closely at the pre-event press release from Mercedes and specifically the commentary of team boss Toto Wolff. “The U.S. is the biggest consumer market in the world and the largest global market for Mercedes-Benz,” Wolff acknowledged. This is a market in which the sport literally cannot afford to fail – otherwise it won’t be just Caterham and Marussia failing and falling.

Despite the overwhelming success of F1’s annual road trip to Austin – genuinely already one of the most popular venues on the calendar – over the last three years, F1’s foothold in the cherished American market remains shaky. It will take more than a couple of decent races for the fiasco of 2005 Indianapolis to fade from memory. So while there was never going to be a good week for the sport to lose two of its teams, or the World Champion to likely miss qualifying, the build-up to the United States GP was a particularly bad time for F1’s schizophrenic finances to result in public ruin.

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Yet while Caterham and Marussia’s demise will be mourned, the other brutal reality of their existence is that, when push comes to shove, they are unlikely to be missed. Once the death throes of Qualifying One have been completed, both teams invariably only flicker on the periphery of a race weekend. The show, like the sport, will go on without them. Yet the sport, and its remaining participants, may also find Caterham and Marussia rather more awkward protagonists during their high-exposure afterlife than they were in the flesh. Glitz, glamour and money is part of F1’s allure. So for two teams – nearly a fifth of the grid – to fall mid-season is, regardless of their actual status, an acute embarrassment to F1 and its remaining cast. For the chasm between the haves and have nots to have been laid bare in such circumstances is a PR calamity that will take a lot of mending.

For the bleeding to stop this weekend, F1 needs its big guns to deliver a big show. PG

Will Alonso finally break his radio silence on 2015?
A month can be a very long time in F1. Almost thirty days have now passed since Sebastian Vettel's departure from Red Bull was suddenly announced ahead of qualifying for the Japanese GP, but still we await concrete confirmation about where the German will be driving in 2015 and, by extension, what the future actually holds for Fernando Alonso. Even the gossipers are beginning to sound tired with the sound of their own speculation as the F1 world continues to guess what the Spaniard has up his sleeve.

Is Fernando still holding out for a one-year deal that would enable him to join Mercedes in 2016? Is he refusing to put pen to paper on any deal just in case F1 becomes a three-car series as early as next season? Or could something else entirely – Audi? Haas? A sabbatical – be in the dramatic offing? One feasible suggestion is that Fernando didn’t believe it would be appropriate to make an announcement on his future – littered with the perfunctory gleaming smiles and enthusiastic commentary – while Jules Bianchi remains so critically ill. But as time passes, that feasibility is rapidly declining; two weeks ago, he voluntered the assurance that his “future is set” and it was just a matter of “finalising” matters. Two weeks on, apparently not. PG

Who’ll replace Marussia and Caterham at the back?
Such have been the sustained struggles experienced by the ‘new teams’ of 2010 that the composition of the foot of Formula 1’s grid has rarely provided much in the way of surprise from race to race over the last five seasons. Prior to their low-key demise at the end of 2012, HRT could inevitably be found propping up the field, an unenviable position that Marussia and latterly Caterham have since occupied. But with neither of the remaining two 2010 debutants making their way to Austin, the unwanted tag of ‘backmarker’ is now inevitably going to be transferred to some of F1’s most established teams this weekend.

In keeping with their own respective financial troubles, and their miserable form thus far in 2014, the battle over the wooden spoon in Austin appears set to be played out between Sauber and Lotus. While their falls to the back of the field have, of course, been accelerated by the only two teams further off the pace than them this season having fallen into administration, the two teams’ respective relegation from podium finishers to the foot of the grid has been remarkably swift. After all it was just two years ago that Sauber, thanks to four podiums in 2012, were giving now dominant Constructors’ Champions Mercedes a late-season fright for fifth in the standings while it was a mere 12 months ago that Lotus were the only team capable of challenging runaway Red Bull at the Circuit of the Americas.

The new turbo era that 2014 ushered in has created a new reality that both Sauber and Lotus have already had long enough to come to terms with and in terms of answering the question of ‘Who’s next?’ to bite the financial bullet, it’s not particularly unfair – or misleading – to now simply ‘read up’ from the new-look foot of the grid to see which outfits are most in danger. The fact that the two teams in question are rather more established and with far more impressive track records than either Marussia or Caterham, particularly in the case of Lotus, makes their chances of avoiding a similar depressing fate rather more positive, but the experience of propping up the grid this weekend is certain to nonetheless prove a sobering one. JG

Will visionary Vettel start from the pitlane?
Nigh on 12 months ago, Sebastian Vettel was enjoying his coronation as World Champion. The title had been won in India but there was no stopping him. An eighth straight win came in Austin and he was soon to be found revving up the locals with a few doughnuts trackside.

Yet in between his declarations of love for Red Bull colleagues over the team radio, there was an acknowledgment of how fickle life can be. "We have to remember these days," said Vettel. "We have to enjoy them while they last."

It was an interesting sentiment, given that Vettel had appeared to enjoy the midas touch his entire adult life. But now his visionary ability to foresee the future has also been confirmed, one only hopes he was canny enough to make a quick trip to the bookies before the season started.

Let’s face it: the Russian GP wasn’t much fun for anyone except Lewis Hamilton. Vettel laboured home in eighth, yet again behind Daniel Ricciardo, with questions asked of Red Bull and whether they should favour the Australian and his title aspirations, for what they are.

Vettel, of course, is leaving at the end of the season; what’s more, he’s struggling even before this weekend starts thanks to the need for a sixth engine. Whether to start from the pitlane or accept a grid penalty is the question: apparently he’s willing to accept the latter (preferring a whole new power unit) and skip qualifying, but the FIA may force Red Bull to get more mileage from components they’ve already used.

If so, then Vettel will appear on Saturday but take a ten-place grid penalty. Either way, he faces a tough weekend – and a far cry from the corresponding one last year. MW