Brazilian Grand Prix 2016: 5 Bold Predictions for Interlagos Race
The penultimate round of the 2016 Formula One season will take place at this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos, where Nico Rosberg can secure his first world championship.
After finishing second to Mercedes team-mate and title rival Lewis Hamilton in the recent Mexican GP, a 10th victory of the year in Brazil will be enough for Rosberg to clinch the crown and follow in the footsteps of his father, 1982 world champion Keke.
At a circuit where he won convincingly in 2014 and '15, the German couldn't wish for a better place to stage his day of destiny, but can Rosberg be trusted to finish the job in style?
Here are five predictions for the Brazilian GP, featuring Hamilton, Red Bull's Max Verstappen, local hero Felipe Massa and Renault driver Jolyon Palmer.
Nico Rosberg Will Retire Trying to Make Up for a Disastrous Qualifying Result
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Unless Hamilton suffered any more reliability problems, winning the championship in Mexico was always going to be impossible for Rosberg.
As F1 arrived at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, paddock talk was that a 10th victory of 2016 would be enough for him to take the title as long as his team-mate finished 10th or lower.
Of course, Rosberg was smart enough to know that was never going to happen, and after performing a damage-limitation exercise in Mexico, he will play for his first genuine "match point" in Brazil, where the equation will be much simpler.
Win the race, and the world championship—and all that comes with it—will be his.
As reported by Motorsport.com's Adam Cooper, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff believes Rosberg will be more at ease now his destiny is in his own hands, now he is back in control.
At a circuit where he has dominated from pole position in each of the last two years, F1's ultimate fair-weather driver will be praying for the kind of bright, hot conditions that defined the unusually uneventful 2014 and '15 Brazilian GPs.
So it is rather predictable, then, that rain is set to be the recurring theme of the Interlagos weekend, according to the BBC forecast.
Although Rosberg has kept the podium finishes flowing in recent weeks, he has offered occasional signs that it will not take much for him to panic—barging into Kimi Raikkonen in Malaysia and making a complete and utter mess of final qualifying in the United States.
And, so near yet still so far from finishing the job, he may lose all sense of perspective if things don't quite go to plan in Brazil.
A rain-interrupted qualifying session will create a last-man-across-the-line scenario, with the No. 6 car eliminated from Q2 in the dying seconds.
Starting way down the order with his closest rival at the front, Rosberg will summon the spirit of Jenson Button's championship-winning performance in 2009 and calmly make his way past the midfield cars until he reaches the rear of a Red Bull or a Ferrari.
Knowing the car in front won't move aside at the first sight of a Mercedes, he will either launch an overambitious, Sepang-style pass and get it badly wrong or be lured into asking too much from his power unit and suffer the same fiery failure that forced Hamilton to retire from the lead in Malaysia.
Maybe luck, as they say, will even itself out over the course of a season.
Lewis Hamilton Will Win from Pole Position to Retake the Championship Lead
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With victory in the Mexican GP, Hamilton equalled Michael Schumacher's record of winning at 23 different F1 circuits.
But the one he really wants—probably the last remaining track on his bucket list—has always eluded him.
Hamilton has enjoyed some degree of success in Brazil over the years—indeed, his greatest moment came when he won his first title at the end of that manic 2008 race—but he remains without a win at Interlagos in nine previous appearances.
It would be particularly painful if he were to relinquish his grip on the world championship at the home of his boyhood idol, Ayrton Senna, in front of a crowd who—having detested him during his battles with Brazil's Massa—have come to regard him as one of their own.
And if he is to keep his own chances of winning a fourth title alive, this is a race he cannot afford to lose.
Despite his failure to stand on the top step of the podium, Interlagos is hardly a bogey track for Hamilton, who could have won in 2012 had he not collided with Nico Hulkenberg in slippery conditions and may have won in 2014 had he not spun at a crucial moment.
And as Rosberg wrestles with his nerves, Hamilton will finally string together a solid Brazilian GP weekend to take his third consecutive pole-to-flag victory.
Hamilton's ninth win of the season, coupled with Rosberg's first retirement since Spain, will give him a six-point lead, setting the scene for a winner-takes-all finale in Abu Dhabi.
Max Verstappen Will Cause a Collision with Sebastian Vettel at Turn 4
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When Verstappen nearly catapulted Raikkonen into the trees at Spa, what was said after the race was almost as worrying as the incident itself.
As reported by Motorsport.com's Valentin Khorounzhiy, the boy wonder hinted his sudden, sharp change of direction on the Kemmel Straight was payback for his earlier collision with the Ferraris, which effectively ruined his adopted home race in Belgium.
An eye-for-an-eye approach, as Raikkonen later added, can "end up in a very bad way" behind the wheel of a grand prix car, and it will be fascinating to observe how Verstappen reacts to his latest sense of injustice in Brazil.
The teenager did not directly come to blows with Sebastian Vettel in the Mexican GP, but that team-radio rant and the humiliation of being dragged out of the pre-podium cool-down room when his post-race penalty was applied left Verstappen outraged.
"I think he has to go back to school or something," he said of the four-time world champion, per Motorsport.com's Pablo Elizalde and Andrew van Leeuwen, mocking Vettel for his "ridiculous" moving under braking against Daniel Ricciardo.
Although the so-called Verstappen Rule has prevented drivers from such manoeuvres, the Red Bull driver may be able to teach his rival how to do it properly this weekend.
With a mixture of long, high-speed stretches and slower, technical sections, Red Bull and Ferrari will be evenly matched at Interlagos, where Verstappen and Vettel will meet on track once again.
The long straight between Turns 3 and 4 has been the scene of several wheel-banging incidents in recent years, with Kamui Kobayashi taking Kazuki Nakajima out of the 2009 race and Hamilton hitting Valtteri Bottas in 2013.
During the race, Vettel will have a DRS-assisted run on the No. 33 car on the run toward Turn 4, only for Verstappen—unable to change the habit of a lifetime—to ease across the track, dump him on the grass and send him spearing into the barriers.
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Felipe Massa Will Crash out on the 1st Lap in His Final Interlagos Appearance
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Driven on by the human heat of his home crowd, Massa was once invincible at the Brazilian GP.
His three pole positions and two victories at Interlagos are the abiding memories of his Ferrari peak, the moments most will recall when he hangs up his helmet in the coming weeks.
Even when he was removed from a race-winning car, Massa's knowledge of every lump and bump in the track surface was there for all to see—particularly in 2014, when he finished as the best of the rest behind the all-conquering Mercedes drivers.
But something changed last year, when changes to the kerbs almost seemed to rob Massa of his secrets, forcing him to relearn a circuit he once knew like the back of his hand.
On a weekend the R-word entered his head for the first time, he was 0.4 seconds slower than Williams team-mate Bottas in qualifying and had a quiet race en route to eighth place—his worst home result in five years—before being disqualified for breaching tyre-pressure rules.
All of a sudden, the king of the Brazilian GP was just another driver on the Interlagos grid.
Although he has performed like a driver counting down the days until his retirement for much of this season, the Sao Paulo-born driver is determined to go out with a bang, telling Motorsport.com he is preparing for a "very special" weekend he will never forget.
But, on track at least, it will be an event that won't live long in the memory.
Massa's 2015 struggles will continue this weekend, when he will make mistakes throughout practice before being eliminated from the first segment of qualifying for the third time this season.
After absorbing the emotion on the grid, he will climb into his FW38, make a typically fast start and—in his desperation to make up for his poor grid position—drive straight into someone else's accident on the opening lap.
It won't be the way Massa will want his last Brazilian GP to end, but nothing will make them forget the driver he used to be.
Jolyon Palmer Will Return to the Points for Renault to Enhance 2017 Prospects
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Palmer has improved considerably as his debut season has progressed, but his upturn in form may still not be enough to secure a place on the 2017 grid.
Esteban Ocon's imminent move to Force India, as reported by Autosport (h/t Eurosport), will eliminate one of Palmer's chief rivals for the last remaining Renault seat, but it will also remove his main insurance option.
And if Kevin Magnussen turns down the two-year deal that Haas have reportedly offered him, per Motorsport.com's Cooper, to sign a Renault contract extension, the plucky Brit will be left with no option but to join the rat race for the vacant Sauber and Manor seats.
Or will he?
Although Magnussen now appears to be the leading contender to partner Hulkenberg for next season, team principal Frederic Vasseur has insisted a final decision is yet to be taken, telling Autosport (h/t Eurosport) how Renault are facing a difficult choice.
Given how quickly negotiations in the paddock can be concluded, however, that glimmer of hope may be gone come the season-ending Abu Dhabi GP, which will place a large emphasis on Palmer to make Renault's decision even tougher in Brazil.
As impressive as his top-10 finish in Malaysia was, outperforming Magnussen and scoring points at a circuit where he has never raced before would increase his reputation significantly as silly season edges toward its conclusion.
After their promising performance in Mexico, Palmer has told the team's official website how Renault should be "pretty confident" heading to Brazil, where he will enjoy a trouble-free weekend, qualify comfortably in the midfield and finish ninth or above.
With Magnussen and Palmer tied on two points finishes apiece in 2016, Renault then won't know where to turn.
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