"Cato Batista" 08/05/2015 23:08:09 ID #750

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Mercedes is in front of Ferrari, all normal, the surprise was to find the Renault-powered cars right behind them in both free sessions today.

HAM continues to operate in the zone, seems he can’t do anything wrong these days. ROS was in front of him in P1 but on his QF simulation in P2 he was hit by downshifting problems ending third behind VET. With Williams out of the picture since they mostly run full-load  simulations on Friday’s it was Red Bull & Toro Rosso occupying the second half of the top 10. Missing from the Renault-powered fleet is RIC who was only able to do a handful of laps in P1 and had to run a high-mileage engine in P2 to save his 4th and last new engine for Sunday’s race. It’s expected that next week the vote to expand the number of engines to 5 this year will be turned down as Ferrari, Williams, Force India & McLaren oppose the motion “for cost savings reasons”. Mercedes, Red Bull & Toro Rosso are in favour to increase it to 5, but it’s not going to happen.

P1 ROS (1.26.828) HAM VET RAI SAI VER KVY MAS RIC NAS

P2 HAM (1.26.852) VET ROS RAI KVY VER BUT BOT SAI MAS

Track temperatures today reached 50deg C, with every single driver complaining of lack of grip on high fuel loads with the primes, which for this GP are the hard-compound (orange) Pirellis. The Circuit de Catalunya represents one the biggest challenges every year in tyre management for its very abrasive surface and the difficult set-up required to deal with some very high speed corners as well as the slow chicane. Toto Wolff was the voice of optimism from the Mercedes corner saying they are pleased with their pace on the long runs with the hard compound, suggesting they have Ferrari covered on their own game for race day. The Scuderia has shown their strength again with the medium-compound (white) with Kimi lapping faster than anyone on used options and full tanks.

Pole position is critical in Montmelo, even though it’s a wide track with long straights passing here is very limited. In the 24 editions of the Spanish GP in Barcelona the polesitter has won 18, 11 of the last 13. We can expect a real battle in QF for track position tomorrow, even if that pushes drivers to use all their medium-compound allocation during Q2 and Q3.

HAM has been on pole every race so far in 2015 but he’s never won 5 poles in a row in his career. Mercedes has 15 consecutive pole positions, still far from the Williams record of 24 back in 1992-93.

So here we go for our first test of the weekend. Our best qualifiers so far this season are: Hector with 9 pts, Ian, Santiago, Carlos with 7 pts.

Cato: HAM ROS VET

Cheers