Sky Sports' Rachel Brookes considers what makes a great grand prix, and what the future holds for Max Verstappen, as she reflects on the Brazilian GP weekend...
Thursday 19 November 2015 13:46, UK
We arrived in Brazil to the news that the Circuit of the Americas is in trouble. The race's state funding is being reduced and it may not be able to afford to host F1 in future. We may have just been to our last race in Austin.
So what makes a Grand Prix? There is no argument it costs a huge amount of money. It varies from track to track but we are talking tens of millions of pounds. Some governments help fund a race, some don't.
So how do you assess a successful GP? Is it a great challenging circuit to drive but perhaps with very little overtaking? Is that good? What if it's easier to drive, with lots of overtaking and swapping positions? Some circuits throw up a different race each year. Year one in Russia was not a great race and there were plenty of dissenters. Yet in year two we had a fantastic race - the main difference being the tyre choices from Pirelli who had perhaps been a bit too conservative in year one when Nico Rosberg managed almost the entire race on one set of tyres.
There will always be years when a Grand Prix doesn't live up to expectations, in the same way there will always be years where it exceeds them. So how much importance should we place on being in a country where the fans are passionate and knowledgeable? The lift everyone in the paddock got from the fans in Mexico was palpable. You couldn't help but think it was a fantastic event. Yet for the fans watching on TV there was were complaints and comments about it being a boring race. Try as we might, it is not always possible to pass that feeling on site to you through your speakers, but I was surprised at the apathy towards the Mexico weekend when I got home.
How about Monza? It would appear Monza has it all. Yet its presence in the calendar next year is in doubt. If you have an answer maybe you could let the powers that be know. My only suggestion is to give Mexico time. The tyre choices were conservative and if Pirelli go softer next year, and the teams have free choice of what they use, you could find yourself enthusing about the event as much as we did. The thing I always come back to is would you want to watch Chelsea against Manchester City, or Arsenal against Tottenham, or even the World Cup final, in an empty stadium? There are great football games, but there are poor ones too. It's sport, nothing is guaranteed.
First on the agenda after our arrival in Brazil on Wednesday was Jenson Button's media dinner. Every year he takes all the British media out for dinner at a Churrascaria restaurant in Sao Paulo. He pays for us all and it is a great evening. It starts with a drink in the bar before we all go through to take our seats at two long tables.
I end up sitting opposite Jenson and next to a colleague from another channel. Everyone thinks we are all in competition in terms of covering the sport but we actually all get along very well. We are all away from home for a lot of the year and some of my greatest friends in the paddock would probably be seen as my competition, but it's really not the case. We can all appreciate a great interview no matter who carries it out, and we can all acknowledge a big scoop too!
Jenson is in good form and the conversation doesn't really involve much F1 chat at all. After all what is left for him to say this year?! Also in the restaurant are Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg taking their Force India team out for dinner. There are F1 people everywhere, in every corner, and it is a lovely evening. Thank you JB!
Media day in Brazil was a busy one for me. I was doing three pieces and had to carry out all the interviews I needed for them. I spoke to Felipe Massa about his home race. Last year when I did the track parade I remember him getting very emotional and choked up as he spoke about what the fans, and the reception he gets there, means to him. Of course it was a first home Grand Prix for Felipe Nasr this time around and he seemed to be taking it all in his stride. He just wanted to have a trouble-free weekend and hopefully put in a good performance for the fans. The two Felipes had spoken about the weekend, but according to Massa, "only about how to set up the car!"
I also carried out interviews about the Mexico GP and asked why it was such a success. You might have seen the finished piece on Sky F1. One thing stood out to me: Niki Lauda telling me in all his years he has "never seen an event like this". Also on Thursday Ted interviewed Sebastian Vettel. Ted mentioned that he had heard that there may not be grid girls for the race on Sunday. Seb had been overheard on team radio in Monaco earlier in the year, complaining about having to sit on the grid "...behind George or Dave? What's the point?" So once Ted had informed him Sebastian said he was going to strike and talk to Bernie. He was joking of course.
There had been changes to the paddock in Brazil. It used to be one of the most difficult paddocks to work in but it has now been made wider and the hospitality units doubled in size at least. With the forecast rain, those hospitality units will provide welcome relief. In previous years there really was no shelter, from either the searing heat or the pouring rain.
In the case of Friday's F1 Show it was very warm and muggy. But aside from some rain the night before, the forecast had been completely wrong. We all know using data abroad is expensive so to save money a lot of us try to just use wifi while away. On this occasion I wanted to check something in the Internet while on the way back from the track. Traffic is always bad in São Paulo so bus journeys can be anything from 30mins to two hours. As my 3G kicked in I started to get news alerts about what was happening in Paris. I told a friend and she too started searching. Word then spread throughout the coach but we didn't appreciate the magnitude of it until we got into our hotel rooms and switched on the only English-speaking news channel we had. I was due to go to dinner with a couple of friends but we all cancelled and stayed in the hotel to watch the TV coverage. We had a massive thunderstorm that night which lasted several hours and eventually at around 11.15 pm the power went in the hotel and the TV signal was lost. We had another eight hours before we would find out the enormity of it all.
The racing continued as it has a habit of doing, and qualifying threw up a familiar scenario for me. Fernando Alonso had broken down, again. This time, as the weather was nice he sat on a marshals chair at the side of the track enjoying some sun on his face before getting his lift back to the paddock.
Earlier this year Fernando told me to judge his move to Mclaren in November. Then the day after the Spanish Grand Prix he said to judge at the end of the season. So on Saturday after qualifying I put it to him. "You told us to judge you in November and yet the two images from this weekend are you sitting on the Armco yesterday and now sitting in a chair at the side of the track, what should we judge from that?" He said it was a question for Ron, Eric and Arai. So I asked him if he would be putting the question to them. "I already have," he replied.
Due to the changes to the paddock the drivers actually walked past the podium and Fernando suggested to Jenson they stop for a photo as it had been such a long time since either were up there. A moment of fun but the sentiment wasn't lost on those who have seen the two world champions defend their team and engine partner week in, week out.
On Saturday evening I decided to run the track. Run and walk is more accurate. It was still around 28 degrees and due to the location of our office I started the lap half way round. I figured that getting the hills out of the way early in the lap would be of benefit. Unfortunately I set off way too quickly up the hills and took far too long to complete the lap. It's so useful though. I had walked the track before, back in 2012 but I had forgotten how steep the inclines were and how much of a camber there was in certain parts of the track. It also helps you understand why some teams struggle so much in certain parts of the track. I was definitely more McLaren than Mercedes that evening! Deployment issues!
During the race I usually stand in the pen waiting for drivers to arrive once they are out of the race but once Carlos Sainz had been in I went back into the media centre to watch on the screens in there, and in the shade, and was able to stay until ten laps to go. A rare luxury! What that also means, though, is that once it finishes I have 16 drivers arriving all at once. That's when you need your notes to figure out who are the most important interviews as there is a real chance you will miss a few. As it was, I think only Kimi escaped while I was interviewing another driver. I knew Max Verstappen had been quite angry on the radio so I made sure to ask about it as well as talking to him about some of his great overtakes. One line of the commentary definitely stood out for me this weekend and it was Martin Brundle saying "and that is why he will be world champion one day" after yet another one of his bold moves.
Max is possibly one of the most talked about drivers in the paddock right now. It is clear Red Bull want to do all they can to hold onto him but they face the fiercest of competition. Mercedes and Ferrari have him on their radar and don't want to see him tied into a long term contract elsewhere. With Kimi only signed for one more year he would seem like the ideal replacement. With one more year to mould the team and the car around him, even Sebastian Vettel might accept him as a team-mate despite the obvious threat. But what of Haas 2016 team-mates Esteban Gutierrez and Romain Grosjean? Both have signed deals for next year with the hopes of wearing red in the not too distant future. Could Max's increasingly spectacular performances have just put the brakes on them?
Sunday nights flight home was a popular one with several drivers on board to London. Usually a sociable place the whole flight fell silent after takeoff and stayed that way as almost everyone slept right through until breakfast. It's been a long season and the opportunity of 12 hours sleep was too good to miss.
Oh, and there were grid girls...for half the drivers. Lucky Seb got a grid boy.
RB
