Questions for the 2014 Japanese GP

Will Hamilton break his Suzuka victory duck?
Lewis Hamilton has never won at Suzuka? Can that really be true? Without time for much reflection, the statistic appears rather odd given you’d instinctively think that the famously fast, sweeping figure-of-eight layout should perfectly suit F1’s most acrobatic driver.

Yet, the use of statistics without context can often be rather misleading in this sport – especially where driver records are concerned. Take that stat that was bandied about at the time of the summer break that Nico Rosberg hadn’t won at any of the remaining tracks on the calendar. Yes, it’s true – and remains so after winless races for the German at Spa, Monza and Singapore – but it’s a rather unfair basis from which to try and forecast Rosberg’s likely performance in this year’s title run-in given the all-conquering W05 is the first championship-contending car he’s ever driven.

As far as Suzuka goes for Hamilton, the Briton can’t exactly entirely cite sub-standard machinery for not finishing higher than third (once) in six previous attempts – after all in 2011 his then McLaren team-mate Jenson Button outqualified him and then won while he was mired in that curious run of tripping over Felipe Massa and finished fifth. Yet, that single year aside, the Japanese GP has proved the personal fiefdom of Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull since the race returned to the aero-dominant Suzuka from Fuji Speedway in 2009.

Of course, it was Hamilton who won brilliantly in the rain as a rookie in the first year of F1’s two-year sojourn at Fuji, so it’s not like he’s exactly got an aversion to racing – and winning – in Japan. It’s not unusual in the past for the sport’s greatest names to have ‘bogey circuits’ for one reason or another, but such underwhelming records can often be turned upside down by the arrival of a truly special car. As a case in point, Hamilton had never won at Sepang, Bahrain or Barcelona before 2014 – he now has his name on all three circuits’ roll of honours. That’s not to say it will definitely happen again at Suzuka but, as the man remarked himself this week, “This year we have an exceptional car and I'm really hoping I'll finally have my shot at the top step”. One thing is for sure: Hamilton has never had a better chance. JG

Could Alonso’s future be decided this weekend?
If there’s one thing we’ve learnt this year in F1 it’s that nobody is indispensable at Ferrari. Not Stefano Domenicali, the long-time team boss, who was ousted in April; not Luca de Montezemolo, the two-decades team president who was given the push last month; and perhaps not even Fernando Alonso, the team’s number one driver who no longer seems quite as important to the Scuderia as he ought to be. As new team boss Marco Mattiacci implements his three-year plan to lift the Scuderia out of the doldrums, the allure of a 33-year-old is seemingly on the wane.

Rumours have abounded for weeks that an announcement on Alonso’s future will be made at Suzuka, the circuit owned by Honda and the power behind McLaren in 2015 and their ongoing hunt for a marquee name to herald their return. At first glance, it seems unlikely; Alonso’s next contract will be the last he will sign in F1, which makes the prospect of the Spaniard committing the remainder of his F1 future to the untested Honda-McLaren package difficult to rationalise. Yet to the pertinent question of why Alonso would jump ship now has come an intriguing answer from Sky F1’s Mark Hughes: under the terms of his current Ferrari contract, and the reputed details of its opt-out clauses before its 2016 expiry, ‘his only window of opportunity to leave early could end up being right now’.

‘Unlikely’ therefore should perhaps be replaced as ‘possible’. Alonso, it is true, has repeatedly denied he has any intention of leaving Ferrari. Then again, Di Montezemolo said much the same thing less than a week before he stood down. Nobody is denying that Alonso and McLaren have talked – and nobody should doubt it’s decision time for the Alonso-Ferrari marriage.

Alonso himself revealed last month talks on a new contract were underway. But paradoxically, it’s these negotiations for a renewal of vows which could now trigger a swift divorce. If those ubiquitous ‘paddock sources’ are to be believed, Ferrari have been dismayed at Alonso’s wage demands and unimpressed he has considered a future elsewhere – hence his irritation in Singapore and insistence he was a fully-committed team player. But the rumour mongers will not be silenced; some even claim that Alonso has told the team he wants to leave. If they cannot agree the terms for a new deal, it’s certainly conceivable that both parties will agree to part ways now rather than in 2016.

The elephant in the room is the $60m or so that Honda would presumably have to stump up in order to pay off the remainder of Alonso’s Ferrari deal. But having come this far in their pursuit of Alonso, it has to be assumed Honda are fully aware of what it will take to sign the Spaniard – and how much. Join the dots together and the prospect of Alonso reuniting with McLaren next season starts to make sense. Enough water has passed under the Woking lake for the 2007 implosion to be consigned to the irrelevancy of old news.

So it could happen. But if it does, time is already ticking. Even if there’s no realistic prospect of an announcement being made this weekend, it’s surely now or never this weekend for any deal to be signed, sealed and privately delivered. PG
 

What will the glimpse of the next generation be?
Following Robert Kubica’s promotion to a race seat with BMW Sauber, an unknown 19-year-old competing in the F3 Euroseries by the name of Sebastian Vettel got his chance as the team’s test driver at the 2006 Turkish Grand Prix and quickly made headlines by topping the Practice Two timesheet. No one knew then that the German would go onto win four consecutive world titles and become one of the most successful drivers of all time, so could we be about to see a similar fairytale start this weekend?

The task facing Max Verstappen will be very different and more difficult than what Vettel encountered. He will be two years younger than the German was when he debuted and the teams knew more about their cars in 2006 thanks to relatively stable rules. Vettel also had sustainably more single-seater experience prior to his debut with two years of Formula BMW, a season and a half of F3 and outings in Formula Renault 3.5 to his name.

So what can we expect from Verstappen this Friday? A repeat of Vettel's heroics is unlikely - it would be unfair to expect anyone to top a session for Toro Rosso in 2014. Staying within a couple of tenths of Kvyat would be a good performance. Nevertheless, it is clear Red Bull have seen something special in Verstappen with Helmut Marko likening him to Ayrton Senna and describing the 17-year-old as an "exceptional talent that comes along only once in decades".

If Verstappen goes on to make as big an impression on the sport as the Brazilian it will certainly make Friday's 2am start time more bearable. In years to come, we could look back at Practice One of the 2014 Japanese GP as our first glimpse of the future of F1. WE

Oh, go on...so what are the odds on Max?
Sky Bet have popped Verstappen’s name into the betting on who will top the first practice session in Japan on Friday, and the Dutch youngster ranks 14th from the 22 drivers available for a run out on Friday.

Torro Rosso’s teenager is rated 200/1 to put in a quicker lap than the likes of favourite Lewis Hamilton (10/11), Nico Rosberg (15/8) and Fernando Alonso (9/2), though an each-way bet would still gain a large return should Verstappen somehow make the top three.

However, he’s given a better chance than Romain Grosjean (500/1), Adrian Sutil (1000/1) and Max Chilton (1000/1), but Daniil Kvyat in the other Torro Rosso is considerably shorter at 125/1.

As for the rest of the weekend, Lewis Hamilton is odds-on (1/4) to end his front-row hoodoo on this track, while he’s 20/1 to be the first driver to retire, as he was at Suzuka last year. Elsewhere, Sebastian Vettel is 11/1 to move within one of Michael Schumacher’s record six wins here. JC

Remember Romain Grosjean?
Suzuka has, over the past two seasons, offered pointed snapshots of Romain Grosjean’s progress in F1. Branded a “first-lap nutcase” by Mark Webber after their collision at the start of the 2012 Japanese GP, the French-Swiss channelled his enthusiasm far more productively when the lights went out 12 months later, springing his Lotus from P4 on the grid to take the lead at the first corner.

Although Sebastian Vettel eventually, inevitably, prised it back, it seemed at times late last year that it was only Grosjean who had not read the script, only he who seemed willing and able to put up any sort of fight as the World Champion again built that remorseless late-season momentum, only more so. From pariah to coming man: extrapolating that arc would have probably served Grosjean up as a title contender this weekend, except that life is rarely like that. Instead, Romain was last seen – or rather heard – struggling in Singapore, qualifying well down the grid before venting his spleen over the radio as he returned to the pits in an E22 car that, once again, had been found wanting.

The frustration is understandable but in Grosjean’s case, surely there’s more to it than his currently being saddled with a donkey. More than most, he will have an understanding of F1’s snakes and ladders: the false start back in 2009; the time spent in sports cars and the backwater that is Auto GP before getting a second bite of the cherry in GP2; the step back up and the speed shown, but also the smashes and the one-race suspension. To come through all that, finally build a reputation to the point where you can almost taste it…and then suddenly find yourself yanked all the way back again must be galling.

Doubtless there’s been plenty of hard work and talk of learning lessons during the lean times, but that does raise two questions: whether the good times will return to Lotus anytime soon and whether Romain is prepared to apply lessons learnt at his current team? He’s said his future is open and the Eric Boullier connection has brought talk of a move to McLaren. But as speculation about Fernando Alonso’s future becomes so bloated that it threatens to block out the sun, it’s a trail that has gone cold - if it ever really warmed up in the first place.

Meantime, Grosjean will be looking to salvage the best possible finish from what has proved a hugely disappointing season, starting in Japan. But don’t expect fireworks at Suzuka this time around. MW