"Cato Batista" 10/10/2015 19:47:10 ID #833

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nico has the upper hand over Lewis. He did less mistakes, worked a lot more laps and he’s been consistently faster than his teammate. Qualifying was a huge challenge for everyone today as all the time they had for working on QF and race set-up was reduced to 38 min instead of the normal 3 and a half hours normally available from the 3 free practice sessions when SAI’s Toro Rosso suffered a heavy accident bringing P3 to a halt. He was airlifted to hospital and the latest news is that he is fine but his participation in the race tomorrow is questionable depending on final medical clearance. BOT took full advantage of the Williams 10 kph top speed advantage on the longest straight to claim ‘best of the rest’ honours ahead of the Ferraris; Force India's early good form was confirmed with both drivers next (separated by 32 thousands) over a tenth ahead of GRO’s Lotus and VER’s Toro Rosso. Last of the shootout was RIC’s Red Bull over a second away as he didn’t push in the final stage.

Our CFA results were pretty extreme: Fernando and I score plenums, Carlos & Tim got 2 points, Fredrik & Santiago saved 1 point and the rest got nothing. Even though these were low scores they made an impact on the point standings. What a battle this is!

The Grid for tomorrow:

 ROS  HAM  BOT  VET  RAI  HUL  PER  GRO  VER  RIC

This Sochi layout could be great for go-kart racing, as it stands the best and only possible chance to overtake will be on pitstop strategy, and since none of the teams collected sufficient long-run simulation data is a total mystery what the race stints could be like. We know that ROS was told by his race engineer to be very careful on the super-soft set he was using in Q2 because he was going to need them for the race. That confirms Pirelli’s intention to make this at least a 2 stopper for the 53 laps race distance. We know that the cars were dialed for top speed compromising instead downforce and corner grip as there is no need to be fast around the maze of 90 degree corners; top speed is more important in the straights in order to attack and defend position.

The best reference we have to forecast this GP is looking at last year’s race (and the place for that is Santiago’s 2014 report): There were almost no position changes from the starting formation: only KVY dropped out from 4th and ALO passing RIC for 6th. The most exciting moment (?) was when ROS locked up his brakes destroying his front tyres and his chance of chasing his teammate. The start of the race will probably decide the outcome, ROS knows this as he was very active practicing starts time after time, even in the wet FP2 session.

Weather will be warmer tomorrow and that probably make tyre management a bit easier. As always the drivers that understand tyre behaviour best (RAI, GRO, PER) could have a chance of a better result.

Crunching time...Cato- ROS HAM BOT VET RAI PER

Anybody taking chances?...or playing the black horse instead and waiting for a ‘real circuit’ to make a move?...Can't wait to see what you think!

Enjoy, good luck!

Cato