"Cato Batista" 19/04/2015 10:30:32 ID #742

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Mercedes was on top when it really counts: in P2 when temperature conditions were similar to those expected at race time. But Ferrari is again very close and their long-stint laptimes could be a real threat to Mercedes.

Nico is looking to score his 3rd straight pole in Sakhir and this time he is going faster than Lewis. The German topped the timesheets on soft tyres in the second floodlit session 0.115 seconds ahead of his teammate, the difference was a small mistake by HAM locking up a front tyre into turn 8 on his fastest lap.

Ferrari’s drivers were on top in the 50 deg C track temperatures of the first session with Mercedes only 15th & 16th, clearly concentrating in preparations rather than fast laps.

P1- RAI (1.37.827) VET BOT SAI RIC VES ALO NAS KVY MAS

P2- ROS (1.34.647) HAM RAI VET BOT RIC MAL NAS KVY MAS

As Mercedes talks about how Ferrari is now a direct competitor, at the Scuderia they think the Silver cars not even showing all their true potential. Nico was able to extract 22 laps out of the the soft compound and also was the driver on the mediums this evening. But Kimi was consistently delivering the best average speed in the long stint simulations.

This is what they have to say today:

VET: “Hopefully we can continue that trend by looking after the tyres and put some pressure on the teams in front...There’s only one team in front, of course!”

HAM: “With these tyres and with Ferrari in the mix, I think we could see a real special race here”  

ALO was 12th in P2 and for the first time he is talking the McLaren is “capable of making Q2…”

Now let’s work on the points, our championship points. Nico for 3 straight poles on Sakhir? or Lewis for 4 poles in a row in 2015? and then VET, RAI or...BOT? not a lot of choices out there.

Our best qualifiers this year so far are: Hector with 8 points, Ian & Santiago with 7.

Let’s try again: Cato: HAM ROS VET

Good luck!