"Cato Batista" 01/08/2011 14:50:08 ID #100
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Fabulous, wild race. Rain came unannounced and Button was once again the master of the adverse conditions. We were treated with yet another display of supreme skills and wheel to wheel racing, ‘each race is better that the one before’ wrote Santi when publishing the official results. Red Bull has no longer the fastest car and looks like we’ll be treated to 3-way battles among the top teams for the rest of the season.
In situations like this with many dissimilar predictions the outcome is one winner by a large margin with many losers miles behind. Ian scored 4 triples (1-2-5-6) to reach 14 points and his first victory of the year, our tenth different winner this season. The best results after that were 12 points for me (3 golds) and 10 points each for Alberto, Curro and current championship contenders Joe, Uwe & Tim (2 positions each).
Only two colleagues correctly anticipated Button and Vettel on top of the podium, winner Ian and Rodrigo. Our favourite driver to win this race was VET with 14 votes with only 5 for Hamilton and just 1 for Alonso. Our best results came from Massa in 6th with 8 picks, Alonso’s 3rd with 7, Webber’s 5th with 6 and only one (Alberto) had Hamilton in 5th.
The Championship race is more like a mad game of ‘serpents and ladders’, we are swapping positions from top to bottom. Uwe has regained the lead and has a 2-point breather to Tim and Rocco (102-100); Joe keeps climbing and now has taken Manbos 3rd place (98-97), Curro (95) has done the likewise to Erik who’s now sharing 6th with Ian (94). Lou (93) and Fernando keep sliding downhill; the current Champ came from 3rd just a 3 races ago to tie Carlos, Ricky and I in 8th overall (91 points). Next are Maria and Alberto (90), that’s only 13 points separating the top 15 members!. Then comes Matias (88), Ricardo (87), Santiago (86), Rodrigo (84), and Fredrik (79) passing the dungeon’s keys to Sebastian (76).
We’re now ing into the mandatory 4-week holiday period, returning to the magnificent Spa in Belgium on August 28th. It will feel like an eternity, I know.
When we return for our preview on Aug 25 we’ll have to talk about the recruits for the 2012 season. There are five serious and proven petrol- friends willing to take part in our illustrious association and I’d like to hear your opinion on this issue. On a separate note 2 members submitted their forecasts past the deadline, their pledges were accepted based on technicalities (there would be no clemency if they had won the race, no way...) which resulted in our participation record to stand at 100% for 2011. I want to thank you all for your enthusiasm, this is fantastic!
See you in four weeks –hang in there!
Cheers
Cato