F1 is heading awkwardly into the US grand prix weekend, following the collapse of the two backmarkers Caterham and Marussia.<\/p>\n
The sport has always had a dubious relationship with America, although Austin’s inaugural races in 2012 and last year were proclaimed definite successes, featuring big crowds and the exciting Circuit of the Americas layout.<\/p>\n
But in 2005, F1 famously failed the US with the six-grid grid at Indianapolis, and now another notably low count will line up for Sunday’s Austin race.<\/p>\n
Not only Caterham and Marussia will be missing on the grid, but also the reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel.<\/p>\n
The Red Bull driver is facing a start from the pitlane, as he has run through his maximum allocation of five turbo V6 engines for the 2014 season.<\/p>\n
Vettel has already been scathing of the rule, and in Austin on Wednesday he turned to sarcasm.<\/p>\n
“Obviously it was our fault to be very greedy at the beginning of the season in terms of having reliability issues,” said the German.<\/p>\n
“It is the regulations,” Vettel explained.\u00a0 “I didn’t make them but everyone has to respect them.”<\/p>\n
The 17 car grid also puts F1 in uncharted territory with regards to the written regulations for Saturday’s qualifying session.<\/p>\n
In the FIA rules, procedures for grids featuring 26, 24, 22 and 20-car grids are laid out, but the eventuality of having just 9 teams in the garages is notably missing, according to Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.<\/p>\n
If the rules are left as they are for Saturday, the ‘Q1’ session will set the grid for positions 17 through 22 — even though Sunday’s grid will in fact feature only 17 cars.<\/p>\n
F1 race director Charlie Whiting is therefore tipped to make an “appropriate amendment” to the qualifying procedure for Austin, as allowed by the regulations.<\/p>\n
But this decision can only be ratified by the stewards, meaning that the actual procedure for the race weekend – likely to see the bottom 4 cars eliminated in Q1 and Q2 respectively – will probably not be known officially until Thursday at the earliest.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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