Adam Cooper F1

Alexander Rossi says he’s determined to hang on to his Manor seat in 2016.

Inevitably Rossi has been a focus of media and fan attention in the build-up to the race.

“I think, first of all, that the reaction has been very positive, which is what we wanted to see,” he said today. “Of course there is pride that goes along with it, but that started in Singapore and Japan as well. Obviously to be here at home means a big deal, but at the same time we have a job to do and very clear objectives to meet. I’m looking forward to it; there are a lot of friends and family that will be coming this weekend. But I think once you get in the car and on track you appreciate the fact that there is a bigger picture.

Asked about his immediate and longer term goals he said: “With the current situation with the performance difference in the cars I think it’s very clear that the objective just needs to be continuing what we’ve done in the first two.

“Both of those weekends there was quite a disrupted Friday for the whole team, so I think if we have a strong Friday the Sunday result can be even more positive. In terms of next year, I’m obviously quite keen to be in a full-time seat next year, which is apparent. The position that I’m in with the team at the moment is good and we’re looking to put that all together for next year.

Rossi said he couldn’t say how much of an advantage it was that he drove the Caterham at COTA in FP1 two years ago, and thus knows the track.

“I’ll let you know tomorrow. Obviously it gives you a baseline but at the same time the cars in ’13 were clearly very different to what they are now. I don’t know how much is applicable to be honest. I think it’s more of a bonus, the fact that I’ve actually driven the track, more than anything else.”

Scuderia Toro Rosso is not planning to take advantage of Renault’s latest upgraded engine over the last four races, because the team believes that it’s not worth taking extra grid penalties.

The Italian outfit has enough examples of the current spec to get to the end of the season. Meanwhile RBR has yet to make a definitive call, although Daniel Ricciardo suggested that it was unlikely.

“We’re going to stick for the rest of the year with the old spec,” said Carlos Sainz. “Given the [performance] values that they’ve given to get another grid penalty and start last, especially with the last four tracks, they are similar to this one… Okay, they are not the best tracks because they have long straights, but it’s not the worst, so we can be very close to the top ten, so to start last, I think it’s too much, it’s not worth it, so we will commit to this year’s spec that we have now, that’s good enough to finish the year, and we have plenty of them.

“It’s an important end of the season now, because we have four races that the tracks should not be bad for us, and we lost a lot of points from the middle of the season, particular me. We need four races where we can qualify decently and race hard from the top 10. So I don’t want to take more penalties to be honest.”

Max Verstappen suggested that the team would keep an eye on how Red Bull performs if and when it runs the new engine.

“I think we have to wait and see how much the difference is,” said Verstappen. “So we have to wait and see how what Red Bull does with the engine, if they are going to use it or not here, and what the difference is. If it’s not that much and you take again a penalty then your race is a bit more difficult again. We just have to wait and see. And if it’s good then hopefully we will have it soon as well.”

Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen are both set to take 10-place penalties in Austin as they will both run fresh V6s.

Both men have already used four engines, but the team has decided that it’s worth taking the hit in the USA to gain more performance for the last three races. It’s understood that while no tokens have been used, the V6s do feature some revisions.

The news means that it’s a lot less likely that Vettel can keep the title battle alive until Mexico.

“We will have the hit of 10-places penalty for a new engine at this event,” said Vettel. “But it has always been the plan, it is not a big secret. No surprise for us. To explain to you the story, it was always the plan for us, to have the strongest engine available at every single point in the season, and I think our engine guys have done a massive job.

“So this should not be understood as a downside. If anything this is a very positive sign because we have been pushing very hard and the guys managed to make big steps in terms of performance.”

Elaborating on the pros and cons the German said: “Obviously if you look at just this race, isolated, for sure it’s not great news. But then you have to look at the while project, the whole season, and it was always the plan to have a fresh engine until the end of the season here. As I said the priority was always to have maximum power at every single race, and that has been our plan.

“It has worked very well so far. Obviously we have to take the hit here, but as I said you should see the positive, the fact that we were able to make big steps.”