Hurricane Patricia was the star at the Circuit of the Americas here on Saturday, when rain storms washed out the afternoon’s qualifying session for Sunday’s United States Grand Prix.
For the second time this weekend the weather hampered the event, with Friday’s second practice session also cancelled. It is the third time this century that qualifying has been moved to race day; it happened at Suzuka in 2004 and Melbourne in 2013. It was the last thing race organisers wanted, with crowd figures already hit because there is another race in nearby Mexico next weekend. Hurricane Patricia also made its way to Mexico, where it was downgraded to a tropical storm.
Fans did not even get to see the rain-hit morning practice session because they were told to stay away until noon for safety reasons. And to make the day even more frustrating for those who did show up, there was a series of announcements delaying qualifying by 30 minutes each time, even though the persistent rain and gloom forecast allowed no realistic hope of any action.
Eventually, more than two hours after the scheduled start of qualifying, it was announced that unless the weather had brightened up by 4pm the event would be moved to 9am this morning. There was no improvement.
So the only action they saw on Saturday came in the form of a few rain-proofed drivers coming out to wave at the stands. A football was kicked around by Nico Rosberg and there was also some impromptu dancing from some team members.
The practice session was topped by Hamilton, which means the British driver will start in pole position in the event of qualifying being cancelled again on Sunday. Rosberg, who realistically needs to beat Hamilton to keep alive his rather far-fetched hopes of taking the title, showed how dangerous the conditions were when a spin at Turn 3 broke his wing when he hit the barrier. And though Hamilton’s drive was most impressive – he finished almost a second ahead of Sebastian Vettel and was the only driver to break two minutes – he also had problems with Turn 13. A number of other drivers lost control of their cars. Vettel had spins at Turns 19 and 9 and complained about aquaplaning. Hamilton’s fastest lap beat Vettel’s by 0.86sec. Nico Hülkenberg was third, ahead of Valtteri Bottas, Carlos Sainz and Daniil Kvyat.
Hamilton goes into the race looking to win his third world championship with his 10th victory of the season. He leads Vettel by 66 points, so if he wins and the Ferrari driver fails to take second place he will become the first British driver to successfully defend his title. That would make him only the 10th driver to win three championships. His chances are good because Vettel has been handed a 10-place grid penalty.
Honda, meanwhile, have been blocked from supplying engines to Red Bull by McLaren boss Ron Dennis. Red Bull have fallen out with current suppliers Renault but moves to do a deal with Mercedes and Ferrari have been unsuccessful.
Stories linking Red Bull with Honda emerged in the build-up to the US Grand Prix but Bernie Ecclestone, F1’s chief executive, revealed here on Saturday that the move had been blocked by Dennis, the McLaren Group’s chairman and CEO.
Ecclestone said: “Ron has said definitely not [to a supply], as far as he’s concerned, but I don’t know if his veto will stand up or not.”
He revealed that when Honda returned to Formula One this year it was agreed they would supply two teams in 2016, and three in 2017. “But Honda somehow made a commitment to Ron, he had a veto, and he doesn’t want Red Bull. He believes they may be competitors. I’m not blaming anybody. I said I would tell you the facts and they are the facts.”
Ecclestone, who will be 85 next week, also revealed that the sport’s governing body, the FIA, is about to unveil plans for a new and cheaper independent engine early next week.
He said: “The engines will probably have more power and probably use more fuel. There’s a couple of [suppliers] on the horizon.” It is understood that former supplier Cosworth is one of those.
Ecclestone added: “It means, I suppose, there will be some regulation changes, which has already been anticipated for 2017 anyway, so there is nothing new.” But he rejected the suggestion that the plan could result in a two-tier championship. “We used to have people running turbo engines and people running normally-aspirated,” he said. “That wasn’t a two-tier system. It was a choice.”
The FIA is expected to make an announcement on Monday or Tuesday. The move is expected to cut the enormous costs of the engine, with teams needing to find up to £20m per season.
