It was business as usual at the Brazilian Grand Prix at Sao Paulo with Mercedes dominating the two practice sessions on Friday. But the intense rivalry between their two drivers is increasingly being overshadowed by the effects of F1's escalating cost and skewed revenue system on the smaller teams.
ROSBERG TOPS HAMILTON IN PRACTICE
As far as the track action on the resurfaced Interlagos circuit was concerned, Nico Rosberg topped both sessions from Mercedes AMG F1 teammate Lewis Hamilton as he sets to break latter’s run of five consecutive victories.
Rosberg’s lap time of 1:12.123 was two tenths quicker than Hamilton’s time on the soft tyre in the same session.
Kimi Raikkonen hinted at a greater level of comfort with Ferrari's F14T than he has throughout the season. He finished the session third fastest, half a second down on Rosberg’s benchmark.
Fernando Alonso’s engine blew spectacularly in FP2, bringing his session to an abrupt halt. The Spaniard is yet to reveal his F1 future despite being heavily linked with a return to McLaren.
Fourth place in FP2 went to the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo, with the Williams pairing of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa fifth and sixth fastest.
Daniil Kvyat was eighth quickest in an encouraging day for Toro Rosso while his teammate Jean Eric Vergne was slowest of the 17 runners after he lost drive early in the session. Having handed his car to Max Verstappen in FP1, the Frenchman only completed five lap all day long and faces an uphill task to learn the resurfaced track.
Sergio Perez had even tougher luck at Sao Paulo after tester Daniel Juncadella crashed his car so heavily in FP1, that the Force India F1 team's mechanics couldn’t repair it in time for FP2.
MARUSSIA/MANOR OUT OF BUSINESS
Earlier today, it was announced that Marussia F1 team went out of business with all staff made redundant, after administrators failed to find a buyer willing to pay its debts. Caterham, another tail ender currently under administration, launched a crowd funding programme to return to racing at the season finale in Abu Dhabi.
F1 generates close to US$ 1.8 billion per season, around 50 percent of which is distributed to the teams with the remaining being chucked out by CVC and other shareholders. Such unfair revenue distribution has been a sticking point in F1 for a while but came to the forefront at the United States Grand Prix.
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, who spearheaded such agreements with the teams, accepted the mistake on his part last weekend in USA and was open to changes provided top teams were willing to give up on these bonus payments. Unsurprisingly, top teams weren’t in favour of such a change with Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner insisting the teams aren’t present to sponsor one another.
With no support from F1 chiefs, four outfits threatened to boycott last week’s US Grand Prix and it is believed that they raced only after CVC Capital, F1’s majority stakeholders, assured Lotus team principal Gerhard Lopez about a possible solution to the growing menace. It is reported that these teams will receive a one-off payment of £100 million.
SAUBER CONFIRMS 2015 LINE-UP
In other news, Sauber announced that this season’s GP2 runner up Felipe Nasr will partner Marcus Ericsson in 2015 season. It is believed that both Adrian Sutil and Giedo van der Garde have valid contracts with the Swiss team for the following season and the duo might have to resort ‘to some talking’ behind close doors.
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