"Cato Batista" 18/07/2014 22:31:39 ID #619

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The reason all  teams so willingly comply removing the FRICS (front-rear interconnected system) was because Mercedes has been refining theirs longer and is working better. Without it lap times were estimated to be between 2 and 4 tenths slower. At the end of day-one the Mercedes drivers traded places at the top of both sessions, same as usual but Red Bull in Ricciardo’s hands is as close to them as we’d seen so far, only one tenth behind on FP2. In the first session it was Alonso’s Ferrari the ‘best of the rest’ 2 tenths behind Rosberg with Ricciardo in 4th. McLaren introduced a radical new rear wing that seems to be working well particularly in the faster sectors; both their cars are comfortably top ten (rookie Magnussen ahead of Button) and they could be in the mix with Ferrari comes race day. Williams, not as fast today as has been in the last races still made it as the 5th fastest team.

P1 - ROS (1.19.131) HAM ALO RIC BUT VET MAG RAI KVY SUT

P2- HAM (1.18.341) ROS RIC RAI MAG MAS BUT VET ALO BOT

The biggest change without FRIC is that the cars are more difficult to drive. Without the system they have to dial a stiffer set-up and they lose braking stability. The difference in driving will be easy to spot for us because the cars can not climb the side kerbs as before. According to Ricciardo. “It is just the ride itself: the bumps, kerbs, you feel them a little bit more, you don’t have the extra support. But in terms of balance and the way the car behaves, it doesn’t change much”. It’s only one day without the much talked about system but you can conclude than in general the gap between Mercedes and the rest of the field has closed a bit. The best example is Sauber, a car that has been extremely difficult to drive all year and today has made the biggest improvement on the field. They were not able to perfect their FRIC so far this season and now they are close to break into the top 10.

What nobody expected was to find tyre problems. With track temperatures reaching 58c(!) Pirelli’s compound selection of soft (yellow) and super-soft (red) seems inadequate. The italian tyre maker was looking for a lap difference of about a third of a second, but in the hot temperatures the option super-soft is almost a full second quicker and is not lasting but a handful of laps, particularly on high fuel loads. This not only will affect the Race itself but QF too as there will be a one-lap only opportunity to post a flier, with no room for any little mistake whatsoever with  lap times as close as they are around here.

Time to work. Do you need to flip a coin between the Mercedes guys? will one of them crack under pressure and will get displaced by a Red Bull?...was Alonso sandbagging today as somebody said?...

Let me start: Cato - HAM  ROS  RIC

Your turn

Cheers