Belgium GP 2013 - QF

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Red Bull emerged alone at the top of the timesheets but as usual the picture of who’s fastest is not quite clear.

The first session was wet and only past its half way mark the dry slicks came out to start preparations. In the mixed conditions Alonso was fastest but the track was still about 5 seconds slower to come to any conclusions. 

Looking at the forecast a typical Ardennes Forest weather is brewing up for the weekend, which means unpredictable showers coming down at any time! Despite the threat of thundershowers all the teams focused their time in P2 to comprehend Pirelli’s chosen rubber for this race: hard/prime, medium/option, their two hardest compounds to cope with the very high lateral loads of this high speed layout.

The most concerning issue on Friday was the identical rear-right tyre sudden deflations that affected Alonso and Vettel in exactly the same part of the track. Pirelli ‘is analyzing’ this situation and so far they don’t think this will affect safety, but definitely there’s a sense of concern hanging in the air.

P1- ALO DIR SUT PER ROS VET GUT HUL RIC BOT

P2- VET (1.49.331) WEB  GRO  MAS  VER  RAI  ALO  PER  ROS DIR

The Red Bulls were separated by 6 hundreds, and even though Grosjean was 8 tenths behind his Lotus was just as fast in the long run simulations on both compounds. Mercedes disappointed as they had the quickest machine before the summer break  but their initial set-up was wrong and now they had fallen behind in their programs, but you can’t stop wondering if they are sandbagging since both Hamilton & Rosberg were very slow on the speed traps, usually their strong point. Some said they are saving engines by using lower RPMs on the straights; there are 9 races left and they are already borderline on their engine usage for the balance of the season. But don’t rule them out for QF tomorrow, if they show competitive times after FP3 they will be up there with Red Bull fighting for the pole. Ferrari has good form in race trim but they will not challenge for the front rows on Saturday morning, just as usual.

Spa has an amazing QF record in that it’s got 9 different polemen  in the last 9 years: Schumacher, Trulli, Montoya, Raikkonen, Hamilton, Fisichella, Webber, Vettel & Button.

Our 2013 QF record is frankly awful; Manbos and I are leaders with 11 points each after 10 races. Our collective average is a dreadful 0.63 points per race per member, our worst ever!  

Well, it doesn’t look any easier this time but let’s give it a try: Cato – VET HAM  RAI

Good luck!

Cato

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