"Cato Batista" 25/08/2013 19:05:04 ID #472

Ladies and Gentlemen,

A very exciting, frantic QF session. Changing conditions made Q3 a crazy game of tombola from which Hamilton emerged the last moment winner. This was the Mercedes’ driver fourth straight pole position surprising the dominant Red Bulls in the dying seconds as the track was becoming increasingly faster, but he concedes his W04 was unlikely to challenge the RB9s in the dry. Rosberg was clearly the quickest when the rain was at its worst to ultimately finishing 4^th behind Vettel & Webber. DiResta almost produced the surprise of the day by setting the best time early on but eventually was pushed down the order to a respectable 5^th.  Button, astute as always in the adverse conditions beat the Lotus and Ferrari drivers to start 6^th.

Us? well, we did pretty bad, as usual. Ricky was the exception with a solid 1-2 to beat us all. Single points were awarded to Fredrik, Lou (HAM 1^st ) Ricardo, Tim (VET 2^nd) Ian & Rodrigo (WEB 3^rd) After that we can count 14 straight zeroes...

The grid for tomorrow:

HAM  VET  WEB  ROS  DIR  BUT  GRO  RAI  ALO  MAS

There could be 3 different races tomorrow, wet, dry, or in between. If dry (unlikely) Red Bull and Ferrari are the best bets; if wet (likely) it will be a Mercedes - Red Bull affair (in that order); and if conditions alternate between cloudy and thundershowers (very likely) then it will come down to drivers’ skills. In typical Spa-Francorchamps’ micro-climate tradition, it could be raining in some parts of the circuit and dry in others; the drivers that usually excel finding the edge on those adverse conditions are Alonso, Hamilton and Button, but this is F1 and there are no bad drivers at this level, this is when the experienced and those looking for an opportunity to shine take this situations to make their mark. 

Last year Button’s winning strategy was one stop (21 laps/medium, 23 laps/ hard) for the 44 laps. The 2 DRS zones are the ‘Kemmel’ straight after ‘Eau Rouge’ and the short start-finish line straight between the chicane and the hairpin at ‘La Source’.  With its high speeds Spa allows overtaking opportunities, actually only 15 of the 45 polesitters had won the race, 4 of the last 10 (as in the last 2 years). Red Bull has only victory here in 2011 (Vettel) but has had drivers on the podium in 3 of the last 4. Vettel has a curious record of losing one or several places at the start (5 of the last 6 times). Ferrari and McLaren split honours with 12 victories a side on this most revered of circuits.

OK, no more talking, it’s decision time, let’s play lottery! Cato – HAM VET ALO ROS BUT RAI  

Enjoy, looks like this will be a fabulous race!