"Cato Batista" 04/07/2016 1:28:07 ID #960

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Mercedes drivers are once more involved in controversy, this time not on the opening but in the last lap of the race. HAM won after passing - and surviving a collision with ROS as they fought for the lead. Nico was handed a 10 second time penalty for completing the last lap with parts hanging from his damaged car in what appears to be his fault when trying to force Lewis off line. The penalty didn’t modify his 4th place. Another great drive by VER to finish second once again defeating RAI, seems the youngest driver has got the measure of the oldest. RIC brought home the sister Red Bull in 5th, and 6th was a surprising BUT completing a fantastic drive with the clearly underpowered McLaren. VET crashed out of the lead when a rear tyre exploded. It was a day to confirm that all the teams are far from understanding the performance of the Pirellis.

Will Mercedes impose team orders from now on? ...yeah, I know, that’s the bad news.

It was going to happen sooner than later, Luis has been learning the art of F1 forecasting pretty quickly and today our 2016 rookie scored the first victory of his CFA career. Grand Prix racing interest came late in his life, it all started by following our CFA pool and website articles and after patiently waiting 2 years for an invitation he is now an avid participant, what’s more, I’m happy to inform he is a knowledgeable, passionate F1 connoisseur. Luis predicted only 4 of the 6 top drivers today, but all of them in the right position: 1-3-4-5 for 12 points and a name in the record books. Lou and Danny were next best with 3 triples and 10 points. Several others hit 2 correct positions (Fredrik, Uwe, Ricardo -9p; Carlos, Manbos, Hector, Joe & Sebastian -8p) but if I hadn’t mention your name this GP was a disaster.

Except Lorenzo (with ROS) all the rest scraped a 3-pointer thanks to HAM in first, but we failed in most other positions. After HAM’s a third of the votes went to RIC in 5th (his starting position), 5 others had RAI in 3rd and only Luis and Lou pick ROS in 4th (luck or what?) Nobody predicted VER in second and of course BUT in 6th wasn’t even in our radar.

We added 37 golds to our tally, the average up to this race was 29.5 (21% accuracy) Group point average was 7.3, up from the 6.8 of 2016, but that number doesn’t reflect the reality of this GP: there was a big difference (5-6-7 points) between winners and losers, and that made an impact on the title race.

Tim is still the indisputable leader, but except Manbos that has been following him like his shadow, we’ll find all the top 10 positions changing hands.

This how we stand: -and if not for Sebastian the names of the ‘original’ CFA members are completely missing from the leading group, they are all at the bottom, by the way-

81 points -Tim

78p - Manbos, and Danny jumping from the back of the top 10 to 2nd

77p - rookie Luis going through the field from 12th to 3rd

75p - Maria Elisa now shares 4th with Rodrigo and Sebastian -he’s recovering positions 

74p - 3-way-draw between Rocco, Curro -both losing places- and Fredrik breaking the top 10 for the first time.   

The wrong side of the table starts with Erik  (61, one above the Black Horse, oh, but the BH doesn’t score QF points...) and follows like this: 62p Uwe & Ricardo (both kind of recovering); 64p Joe; 65p Santiago; 69p Carlos; 70p Fernando. Illustrious names from another era. 

Tough business this CFA.

Stay tuned because this coming Thursday we start preparations for the British GP 08-10 July. Can’t wait for the next Lewis & Nico episode.

Cheers

Cato