"Cato Batista" 05/07/2014 21:03:09 ID #612

Ladies and Gentlemen,

British weather showed up with british punctuality to produce the most intriguing starting grid of the season. Rain came and went throughout QF; tyre choice and hitting the track at the right time made a lottery for the 3 sessions. ROS prevail to grab pole leaving title rival HAM back in the third row. Those brave drivers who tried a last moment flyers on slicks when there was a dry window of opportunity later in Q3  improved to take the upper rows, like the McLarens. Ferrari was long gone by then, a slow reaction to conditions in Q1 left its drivers in 19th & 20th. Red Bull ended up second with VET 1.6 seconds behind ROS, RIC was 8th. Both Force India and Toro Rosso completed the top 10.

Our QF marks as a result were not surprisingly bad. ROS brought 1 point for 10 of you (Alberto, Carlos, Curro, Hector, Lorenzo, Ricky, Rodrigo, Santiago, Sebastian & Uwe). That was it.

The grid for tomorrow:

ROS VET  BUT  HUL  MAG  HAM  PER  RIC  KVY VER

To make any predictions based on this grid we have to look into 2 factors: weather and data from Friday’s long-run simulations. Rain forecast for Silverstone stands at 50-50 by about the end of the race (3pm local time), so let’s plan for a dry race. The medium will be the compound choice for the 52 lap race, not only is the faster (as is supposed to be) but is showing relatively low degradation. Comparing average times from the leading teams on their 12-lap simulations from P1 & P2 this is the order behind Mercedes: Red Bull clearly second ahead of Ferrari (do ALO & RAI have any chance from the back of the field?), McLaren, then Williams but they are having problems with excessive rear tyre wear. Force India is next and last is Toro Rosso in the top group. Looking at Force India seems that they'd found the right set up overnight, both HUL and PER had a much better car today. If track temperatures remain below 20 deg C strategies will likely be 2 stops med-med-hard, but if they climb we could see 3 stoppers to run the new prime sets not used in Q3..

Pole position historically does not have an advantage in Silverstone, it has won only 4 of the last 19 GPs; nobody has won it out of the top 10 or outside the front 2 rows since 2000. From the current field of drivers only five had won here in the past -ROS (last year) HAM, VET, RAI and ALO twice-. BUT, the most experienced on the grid has never made the podium in his home GP.

Crunch time. All I know is that there will be a lot of reshuffling in the CFA Championship after this one. Cato - ROS  HAM VET BUT RIC HUL

Let’s see what you have!

Enjoy!