"Cato Batista" 28/07/2013 7:17:17 ID #463

Ladies and Gentlemen,

His team was surprised, he was even more surprised than them. HAM continues Mercedes formidable QF pace to claim his third pole in a row. VET conceded that “Lewis was exceptional” in beating him by 4 hundredths of a second. Mercedes gave notice of their potential by leading Q1 & Q2 but VET had the speed to cover them, the Red Bull driver was so confident that he sailed through Q2 in used option tyres and was the only driver in Q3 left with 2 new sets of soft compound rubber. Team-mate WEB continues to monopolize for himself all the team’s bad luck, this time he was sidelined with KERS and gearbox problems. As I write this there’s no news of his team replacing the gearbox, but we could see him doing the change and taking the penalty to start dead last*. The Lotus are handling beautifully around here, GRO has been among the top all weekend although RAI is complaining the new Pirellis are “not ideal for me”. As every other driver he’s struggling with understeer with the primes. Ferrari was better than expected as QF is definitely not their forte this season. ALO was happy with fifth, “a little miracle” he said and watch out, he is starting on the left side of the grid, the ‘fast side’.

I thought we were going to harvest our best QF feast of the year, instead WEB problems and HAM amazing pole left us with one of the worst results ever! Some how Manbos collected 2 points (VET 2^nd -GRO 3^rd) to sleep tonight as the sole CFA Championship leader. Our total number of QF points today was...six!  Matias, Ricky, Erik and I saved one each to round up the score. What a disaster.

The grid for tomorrow:

HAM  VET  GRO  ROS  ALO  RAI  MAS  RIC PER  WEB* (SUT -11)

It will be a long, hot, hard race. As we saw on Friday’s preparations, the key for tomorrow’s race will be consistency on medium tyres for the long stints. Traditionally the 70 laps of this race are covered with 3 stops but the new restriction on pit lane speeds from 100 to 80 kph has added up 3 seconds to total pit stop times pushing the teams to find the right set-up to preserve the white/medium Pirellis to make them last over 25 laps. The problem will compound as track temperatures are forecasted to reach 50 deg C, something that will affect Mercedes more than any other and help Red Bull and Lotus as we saw on Friday’s simulations. This new Pirellis have the 2012 construction with the 2013 compounds, they are softer and faster with less thermal degradation. These are the tyres that will be used the rest of the season, designed to allow the drivers to push faster without so much wear concerns.

Could this be a repeat of Hockenheim were Lotus was the fastest car on race day? -they finished 2^nd & 3^rd and they were 2^nd & 3^rd last year in this GP as well- Another decisive factor in this circuit is the start where the inside ‘green’ lane is a huge disadvantage (even slots: VET -ROS-RAI -RIC- WEB). Even with DRS zones in the first 2 straights of the layout  this track is narrow and twisty, most of the passing taking place during the pit stops, but even that could be restricted this time if the goal is to make only 2 stops. And then comes the HAM factor; he likes this place, he is the only driver to win from the pole in 2 of the last 8 races, his 3^rd successive pole at the Hungaroring. Will he have the speed to hold VET & Co. for the entire race distance?

RAI is looking to stretch his record of 26 consecutive races scoring points, the only driver in 2013 to finish in the points every single time. VET has never won in Hungary; last year after 9 races he had 100 points on his way to win the title; this year he’s got 157 already...

So, what’d you say? Exciting, no?

Here I go: VET  GRO  ALO  RAI  HAM  ROS

Good luck, enjoy!