"Cato Batista" 22/06/2015 4:51:18 ID #777

Ladies and Gentlemen,

And yet another Mercedes one-two, but this time Nico had a perfect take off to grab the lead at the first corner and went on to celebrate his 30th birthday in style winning his 3rd GP in the last 4 races. Williams took for the second consecutive time the third step of the podium, this time with MAS. VET was delayed in his pit stop and couldn’t catch the Brazilian to reclaim his customary 3rd place. BOT and HUL drove their usual excelent to finish 5th & 6th. It was the typical 2015-style race, meaning not very exciting but with a good dose of wheel to wheel racing in the mid-field. ALO and RAI tangled in the opening lap in dramatic fashion but fortunately without consequence for any of them, but the accident added more fuel to the rumors that Kimi is on his way out of Ferrari.  (it was his fault)

After the third GP of the season in China Rodrigo was sitting dead last and 5 points away from the worst classified, 5 races later he has 3 victories with record numbers and is now in the top group only 7 points behind the lead of the leaderboard! Rodrigo score 4 triples for 14 points and if not for a stuck wheelnut on VET’s Ferrari he was on route to achieve another perfect forecast. He wasn’t the only colleague to predict Nico beating Lewis, another four brave souls picked the correct Mercedes one-two against the established wisdom: Alberto, Fredrik, Matias and Joe, these last two collecting 3 triples to finish runner-ups with 12 and 11 respectively. It wasn’t an easy prediction, just ask Tim and Rocco, they came from winning in Montreal to tie again but this time in last place with 5 points. Their personal battle for the Canadian GP honours will have to be decided at the next meeting.

Our best result today came courtesy of HUL in 6th place with 11 picks (50%) and then BOT in 5th with 8 votes (36.6%). None of us correctly predicted neither 3rd or 4th places (MAS-VET).  Our average today was 8.9 points, the 3rd highest this season although this number does not reflect our 30-gold count, pretty much the season average but way below the Chinese GP record of 91, the 83 triples of Spain or half the 61 from the opening in Australia.

The CFA Championship is reaching epic proportions. Each QF session, each Race there are position changes from top to bottom, but nothing as intense as the battle for the lead. The top six are within 6 points!  Danny arrived to the weekend atop of the standings, Fernando took over by Saturday and today Danny is back on top but finds himself in Fredrik’s company tied at 98 points. Fernando trails 2 behind and is now sharing second with the ever present Manbos (96). Kart Champ son Joe (akas Rocco, his dad) is now leveled with Maria Elisa at 94 (she’s been fourth or better all year, watch out!). Rodrigo is flying, he's scored 57 points in the last 4 races (let's be grateful he is so bad in qualifying -4 points all year!) he is only 3 points behind (91) the top six group tied with Lou (the sleeper). Closing the top 10 it’s me (90) and Carlos (89). Less than 10 points separates the rest of the field, it’s that tight.

But it gets better. With Ian McIntosh out for the season (“technical infringement” let’s say - he’ll be back next year) all of the sudden the dark end of the table has trapped Alberto (75), Lorenzo & Uwe (76) in a desperate war. Matias, a veteran of those territories, is breathing safe (81) after a string of good results.

The good news is that we’ll have another chance in 2 weeks for the British GP (03-05 July).

Can’t wait

Cheers

Cato