Japanese GP 2013 - Race

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It was an all Red Bull front row as we thought, but in reverse order: Webber beat Vettel for the first time this season. Their number one driver was sidelined with KERS problems in P3 “but that’s no excuse, Mark was faster” admitted Vettel.  Mercedes decided to dial their cars completely different:  HAM’s (at his own request) was set-up for single lap and Rosberg’s for better long-run tyre-conservation race trim; they ended up 3rd and 6th respectively. Lotus and Ferrari made it through with their ‘No 2’ drivers ahead of their teammates; another impressive qualifying by Hulkenberg in 7th ahead of world champs Alonso, Raikkonen & Button.

In our end, I sincerely believed we were going to pile a mountain of points from this QF session; reality is we scrape only 8 points collectively! Seven of us scored singles with Hamilton in 3rd (Erik, Fredrik, Fernando, Manbos, Santiago, Tim & I) plus another point with Vettel’s second place (Joe). What a disaster (thanks again Mark!) I guess we should be used to it by now!

http://f1.manbos.com/userbets.asp?t=2013&gpn=Japan&nevent=qualifying

The grid for tomorrow:

WEB  VET  HAM  GRO  MAS  ROS  HUL  ALO  RAI  BUT

The prime is expected to be the favored tyre for race day to cover the 53 laps in 2 stops. Looking at how closed qualifying was (half a second from 2nd to 14th place in Q2) this is shaping up to be a great race...behind the Red Bulls that is. The drop in track temperatures made the Lotus almost 2 seconds quicker on hard tyres from Friday to Saturday, same as the Mercedes of Rosberg who has been lapping as fast as the Red Bulls on heavy fuel load simulations. Similar climate conditions are expected for Sunday.  In the Ferrari camp there is talk of fighting with Mercedes for second place in the Constructors’ Championship, there’s no false hopes of catching Vettel anymore. Even Adrian Newey stayed back at the factory for this race as they are already working flat out on the new 2014 car. Both RB9s have new motors to deal with the demands of Suzuka, their 8th and last engine for the season.

Seventeen of the last 18 races at Suzuka had been won by World Champions (Barrichelo the exception in 2003). In 20 of the 24 editions of the Japanese GP taken place at this track the winner has come from the front row (Raikkonen the notable exception in 2005 coming from 17th place).

And here comes the hard part: to demonstrate our renown expertise (?).

Race Picks- Cato- VET  WEB  GRO  ROS  HAM  RAI

Good luck (we need it!)

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