Malaysian GP 2013 - QF

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The top 3 teams are very close in outright speed –only 92 thousands separated the fastest Lotus-Red Bull & Ferrari- in the rain interrupted P2 session but when it comes to tyre durability Lotus has the clear advantage. The issue is so concerning that team preparations during practice sessions was mostly focus in long runs for race conditions. 

Pirelli aims for their hard compound (prime) to last just over 20 laps and up to 15 for the medium (option), this will make the race a 3 stopper in theory but RAI’s Lotus is set to repeat his 2 stop strategy without losing any speed to the front runners. In fact, Kimi is the front-runner: second in P1 and fastest in P2.

P1 – WEB (1.36.935) RAI VET ALO ROS SUT MAS DIR HAM GRO

P2 – RAI (1.36.569) VET MAS ALO WEB GRO ROS DIR HAM SUT

Red Bull and their superior downforce aerodynamics are aiming for the pole as usual, but the current Champions are shredding the hard-primes much below the targeted 20-plus laps. Mercedes opted to used both sessions to find a set up for the heavy load-long race stints, as a result they are getting controlled degradation on  the hard tyre although they had done very little running on the medium and may leave them unprepared for qualifying.  Ferrari is happily sitting in the middle: very close to the front in single lap form and confident with their tyre longevity for the race. The situation in the McLaren camp is as bad as we haven’t seen in years, there’s even talk of bringing the 2012 car out of retirement, they are crossing their fingers for a wet race on Sunday, that’s probably their only hope. Force India is now the 5th best team, they will get both their drivers in the top 10 pushing the silver cars out of Q3, but Malaysia’s capricious weather may decide to intervene during qualifying and stir things up a bit, we’ll see.

Decision time, every point counts.

QF Malaysia - Cato -  VET  RAI  ALO

Good luck!

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