Formula One: Vettel forced to sit out qualifying

The Marussia F1 team show solidarity behind injured French driver Jules Bianchi. Picture / AP

GP circus in crisis with three more teams on brink of failure

Tyres screeched and engines roared as Sebastian Vettel performed a few doughnuts on Austin's North Congress Ave this week, but the four-time champion is forced to sit on the sidelines as Formula One's depleted field turns a wheel in anger for the first time at the Texan city's bespoke circuit this weekend.

This year's new engine rules, which have contributed to the demise of two teams before the US Grand Prix, have been blamed by the German driver for his expected no-show in qualifying.

With the Renault engine in his Red Bull repeatedly letting go earlier in the year, Vettel will have to take his sixth power unit of the season in Texas, which will force him to start from the pit lane even if he qualifies on pole. Sporting logic dictates he will sit it out.

"Qualifying is the time when you go quickest over the whole weekend, so it would be a shame to miss out on that," Vettel said. "But points are scored on Sunday, and if it's what we have to do, then it's what we have to live with.

"It's part of the regulations. I didn't make them, but equally everyone has to respect them. I'd love to change it, to qualify in the normal way and use every practice session to the maximum."

It was an overcast day as Vettel and his Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo hared around downtown Austin, but there is an even bigger cloud hanging over F1 as it heads into the final three rounds of the 2014 season.

Caterham and Marussia are absent, in the UK equivalent of receivership, caused partly by the huge cost of complex engines this year, with little sign of returning soon.

Both the Red Bull drivers' early careers were helped by racing for teams towards the back. Ricciardo, who spent six months with HRT in 2011 - they collapsed at the end of 2012 - said a smaller grid was bad for young drivers and spectators. "It was definitely a good stepping stone," he said. "It allows you to learn under the radar. There's nothing like seeing a full grid - it's a great spectacle. From that side and from the driver development side, we need more cars and teams. It would be a shame if this is a permanent loss."

A battered Tony Fernandes, founder of Caterham, blamed Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes for his Oxfordshire-based team's demise. The Queens Park Rangers owner said football was a sport in which minnows could hope to compete, and F1 was not. "People can blame whoever, but the big teams are as much at fault as anyone," the Malaysian businessman said.

The malaise around F1 does not seem to have put off the sport's next most likely entrant. American Gene Haas spoke bullishly of his outfit's chances before his home event.
But attention is turning to Sauber, Force India and possibly Lotus as the next teams under threat.

Former FIA president Max Mosley fears more teams will follow. "It's not a fair competition anymore," he told BBC Radio. "The big problem is that the big teams have so much more money than teams like Caterham and Marussia.

"From a sporting point of view, the sport should split the money equally and then let the teams get as much sponsorship as they can. A team like Ferrari will always get more sponsorship than Marussia, but if they all get the same basic money, then they all start on a level playing field, particularly if you have a cost cap where you limit the amount of money each team is allowed to spend."

Marussia's lead driver, Jules Bianchi, remains critically ill in hospital in Japan.

-Telegraph