"Cato Batista" 26/07/2014 23:45:02 ID #635

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Mercedes had one car at the front and the other burned up. HAM was in control in every session until the first lap of Q1 when his ‘W05 Hybrid’ went up in flames. A passing shower made Q3 very tricky (MAG* crashed out) leaving only the drying last moments of the session to clock a fast lap. VET confirmed his ‘best of the rest’ status but WIlliams found a lot of speed as the surface gained grip to get the always improving BOT to split the Toro Rosso. A monumental bad call by Ferrari left RAI without making it to Q2, he’ll start 17th. Kimi was furious: “I questioned it but cannot go against (their) advice...we (Ferrari) are not in our first year of F1.” ALO, never closer than 0.6 secs to the top 4 will start 5th.

Our results went up in smoke with Lewis’ car. Those 7 brave members picking ROS instead of clear favorite HAM were rewarded single points: Maria, Alberto, Iain, Ricardo, Sebastian, Tim & Uwe, plus Curro and Rodrigo taking a chance with BOT in third. Our QF grand total? 9 points...

The grid for tomorrow:

ROS  VET  BOT  RIC  ALO  MAS  BUT VER HUL  KVY.

*MAG will drop from 10th to start from the pitlane as he required new chassis and gearbox after his accident.

Strategy for the 70 laps will depend mostly on track temperature. The abrasive surface is a huge challenge for drivers and engineers. Any chassis imbalance will cause overheating and premature wear on tyres. If the car understeers (normally the fastest way around tight circuits) the fronts grain very quickly, but if the front end has good grip then the rears suffer and last only a few laps (particularly the rear left). The driver has to adjust his style and be very careful with the gas pedal without losing track time. For their part engineers have to decide on settings guessing how the grip will change with track temperature. We may see trains of faster cars with nowhere to advance, a common sight in this place. Three stops is the norm for this slow-speed circuit (average 'only' 185 kph), and that’s when the passing opportunities in this narrow track will happen. But this GP may be decided on tyre choice rather that tyre management: there is a 45% possibility of showers by race time. In other words, this could be by far the biggest lottery of 2014.

Hamilton owns the best marks for the Hungarian GP tied with Michael Schumacher: 4 wins (inlcuding the last 2) in 7 starts, his best personal results in any circuit too, but once again it looks like he is getting punished with most of Mercedes reliability issues. The poleman has 4 victories in the last 10 years (HAM twice).VET has never won here.

So, what is HAM going to do from the back of the field? What is MAS going to do?? If it rains who’s going to benefit or get ruined? But I don’t have to tell you, you’re already thinking all of this .

Here’s my lottery ticket: Cato - ROS  VET  BOT  ALO RIC BUT

Cheers

Enjoy!