The sport takes a three week break after a relatively easy going weekend in Russia and everything starts to go to hell, and I imagine, sitting in the centre of the conflagration laughing manically is a certain small overlord. I could sit here and attempt to decipher and digest the financial complexities that have brought us up to this point in time - but I won't. Simply because I'd need a degree in Economics,Business or sinister corporate dealings - and neither of my degrees involve those matters. The story down at Caterham is a the very definition of a mass of confusion, lies and mismanagement. While Tony Fernandes and Kolles (and the mysterious unidentified investors) have been passing the blame back and forth like an unwanted child - it's the team employees that have suffered. The latest chapter in this miserable saga saw Caterham fall into the hands of the administrators and will not be competing in Austin this weekend or Brazil after that. We all knew that Caterham were in a spot of bother, starting with handing over to the mysterious investors and appointing Kolles and making Christjan Albers team principle. After one appearance on TV Albers has become very absent - then we find out that, out of nowhere, some Romanian Ex-Footballer who had a minor position in the Caterham team was suddenly promoted to team principle... I wonder sometimes.
If that debarcle wasn't bad enough, it was doubled by finding out that Marussia had also fallen into administration, they too will miss the US GP. Marussia have had a season of meteoric contrasts - taking their first ever points in Monaco and then the shocking accident in Japan. Like Caterham it is financial struggles at the core of their decline. Which is where Bernie comes into play - this sort of thing is precisely what the chap wants - developing a sense of antipathy towards those teams at the back saying all kinds of terrible things like "it would be better off without them" and "they bring nothing to the sport". This doesn't help matters, and frankly is a scathingly unfair assessment of the smaller teams joining the fray, those smaller teams are magnificent and we do need them. Yes Caterham, Marussia and formerly HRT were a long way off the nearest mid-field car - but that was a feature of the resources they have available to them, and the fact that they joined under the impression that costs would be reigned in. Which never happened - something that comes back to some really complex economical things and some really odd Bernie related things.
To round off the hat-trick of disappointment even before the first laps are completed in Austin - engine penalties have shrunken the grid yet further... at least in Qualifying. The general consensus is that Vettel will not contend Qualifying, instead opting for a new power unit... because A) the Renault engines are a bit pants and B) somebody thought it was a grand idea to make the final race worth double points.... damn it Bernie.
The Venue
As it has been pointed out elsewhere on the internet, there is a certain irony in bringing the smallest grid of cars in many a season to a US state famous for doing things big. At the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas - that design philosophy has been carried forth into the configuration of the layout, in some respects. Unlike several of the other tracks to recently appear on the calendar the people behind COTA seem to have learned from some of the more traditional racing circuits in Europe. There are times when the 'cut and paste' approach to patching together iconic elements of existing tracks doesn't quite knit together seamlessly. On the other hand there are cases when the Texan idea of taking a concept and then making it disproportionately bigger actually pays off. While in effect this is a Frankenstein's monster of cloned track segments from another continent it manages to work well... mostly, while remaining over-the-top and typically American.
Turn one brings this concept to life immediately, here in Europe we like circuits with elevation changes - translate this into Texan and Yee Haw we got 'urselves a mountain. Replacing a few subtle gradients with a gigantic monolith of a climb up to the apex of the first corner, the centre of the corner sits at the summit of this ascent. COTA also borrows a concept seen at the short lived Indian GP - where the corner widens in the braking zone, in an effort to encourage more alternative lines and thus overtaking. Alas the scurge of DRS has more often than not over-ridden the necessity for innovative corner design. To avoid altitude sickness, the track plummets down towards turn two, a simple medium speed right hander sitting in a little compression in the road.
The remainder of sector one is a very copy and paste affair - this time they wanted something reminiscent of the Maggotts/Becketts sequence here in little old England. This sequence starts off in a very similar manner to the source material - four high speed corners, each slightly tighter than the last - just like it is at home. But doing things in moderation doesn't play too well with the Texans and three more corners are now appended to the end of the sequence - so we now have a seven/eight corner (depending on how it is counted) decreasing radius slalom. There is room here to complain about originality and things of that nature - but I can't really - because it is a brilliant section of road. Yes it isn't the real Silverstone nor is it the esses of Suzuka but it is pretty good. Just to finish the whole thing off and make it just that little bit more "'murican" the run-off's are decorated with stars and stripes, how very patrotic. You wouldn't get that sort of thing at Silverstone - you'd get a chip butty, some tea and a tent... obviously the better option.
At the end of the seemingly endless slalom we come to the second hairpin at the furthest end of the track - a hairpin put in place so that the track doesn't just keep going until it reaches Canada. This hairpin exits onto one of the default features of any emerging racetrack - a really long straight bit. This straight is 1km long, which is oddly metric for a country that deals mainly in imperial measurements. 0.62 miles later we reach turn 12, a reasonably generic corner that provides a decent overtaking spot. It also serves as an entry to the next phase of cutting and pasting other circuit designs - and this time what they've inadvertently done is created something deeply confusing. Firstly we have a flattened out clone of Hockenheim' stadium section - thus by flattening it removes the interesting camber of the original. It shouldn't work - and on the simulated version I have available to me it is clunky and horrible. But amidst all of that the racing here had been surprisingly good - in it's debut race most of the action happened in this final phase of the lap. Bewildering.
The next track up for the cloning treatment is Istanbul and it's infamous turn 8 (because it wasn't given a real name). But unlike most of the other features around the track it isn't bigger or more grandiose than the original. While it may seem like all four apexes had been copied over, in effect only two or three of them count and it is less of a challenge than the original. It is still a respectable corner in isolation, but in direct comparison to it's inspiration is does fall a comfortable distance short. Towards the very end of the lap the penultimate corner looks on paper to be a simple medium speed bend - but it does catch many people out - it also generates plenty of imagery of sideways racecars. The lap is completed with quite a generic corner put in place to tie the two ends of the track together. The sort of corner you use when you are running out of space in the living room and track pieces to finish of your scalextric circuit.
The Form Guide
Well, it seems everyone has given up frankly because it is all starting to fall apart - Mercedes have already locked out the constructors championship and the drivers title is to be decided internally. No-one else can get a look in unless the silver arrows go off course. Financial struggles have truncated the back of the grid with Caterham and Marussia in trouble, and Vettel has already effectively demoted himself to the back of the grid. At this race - I could turn up in a hire car and get on the podium.
In all reality this should be another Mercedes parade at the front, one hopefully where we actually get to see Hamilton and Rosberg fight it out for the entire distance - not just the first corner. Williams, moreso Bottas should be their closest contenders - Valtteri was quick in the terrible incarnation of the Williams car he was burdened with in 2013 so this time things should be better. Massa shouldn't be too far behind - last year he out-qualified Alonso but was moved back on the grid by the team on the grounds of a 'required' gearbox change. I suspect Red Bull, Ferrari and McLaren will be all lumped together in the fight for the title of "3rd quickest car".
On the fringes of the mid-field I imagine Toro Rosso and Force India will be in their own isolated battle just behind the group ahead. Margins could be tight but I think it is only the minor points these two will be fighting over. Sauber and Lotus probably won't be able to do anything to challenge their pace given their form all season. But Lotus have considered trialling a new nosecone design in the first practice session - one without the asymmetric twin-tusk configuration. Of course this weekend both themselves and Sauber can be a little experimental if they wished because there won't be any challengers behind them waiting to capitalise on any mistakes.
Due to the decrease in grid population this weekend, the relegation zone cut off points for qualifying will need to be be adjusted. Because if there is one more car opting for a new power unit and starting from the back - there will be no cars to eliminate in Q1. The current best guess is that four cars will be demoted from Q1 and from Q2 - to leave a top ten shootout at the end of the day. Of course with Vettel already sitting it out on Saturday - only three other cars will be relegated. This means one Sauber or Lotus is virtually guaranteed to be promoted into Q2...Q3 is still a bit of long shot for those guys really.
Even with a depleted field and continuous domination, it's time to giddy up in the good ol' wild west.
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