Malaysian GP 2013 - Race

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Q3 was decided in Intermediate tyres as rain hit the session.  The top 3 Vettel, Massa  & Alonso admitted the conditions helped them as the fastest car today was Mercedes.  Hamilton was the quickest in the dry in Q3 and Rosberg had been fastest in all on Q2, but in the closing moments Vettel bolted a second set of Inters while the rest opted to do the session in a single set to save new ones for the race. Raikkonen was penalized with 3 grid positions for blocking Rosberg and will drop from 7th to 10th. It’s the 4th straight race that Massa out-qualifies Alonso.  McLaren showed signs of improvement pushing both cars in the top 10 but still behind the impressive Sutil in the Force India.

If qualifying was a lottery under the wet conditions, be prepared for the same tomorrow. It’s going to be pretty unpredictable!

We score our typical average results in QF, that is, low.  Uwe, rookie Roger, Ian and I got 2 points each, no one imagined Massa in second (although Fernando, Lou & Rodrigo had him in third).  All points came from Vettel on pole (12) and Alonso in 3rd (9).

The grid for tomorrow:

VET  MAS  ALO  HAM  WEB  ROS  BUT  SUT  PER  RAI

Here comes that tough question again: wet or dry? On slicks Lotus and Mercedes are fastest, on Inters it is Ferrari and Red Bull.  With it’s very high humidity and temperatures in the 30 deg plus, tyre degradation will make this a 3 stop race for the 56 laps (except for Lotus?), but the possibility of precipitation is at 50% for tomorrow at the time of the race. Passing should not be an issue in Sepang with two long back to back DRS-zone straights, actually many drivers are saying the double DRS zone is useless in this circuit because if you pass a driver in the first straight you’ll lose the place again on the second zone.  The lap times from the Saturday dry-practice 3 session were very interesting because the top nine were separated by only half a second

– VET  HAM  SUT  WEB  RAI  DIR  BUT  MAS  ROS (ALO 10th -.8 sec ).

In 14 Malaysian GPs the poleman  has won half the editions. This was 10 years ago Alonso’s first F1 win, he celebrates his 200 GP start this weekend. Hamilton has scored points every time here since his debut in 2007.

Now the hard (fun) part: to decide what to do! The possibilities are endless with or without rain. Let’s see how good we are...

Cato – ALO  VET  RAI  MAS  HAM  BUT

Make your move, good Luck!

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