"Cato Batista" 19/09/2014 22:56:15 ID #662

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a surprise when the Mercedes are not taking the two spots at the top, but even a bigger surprise is to find a Ferrari fastest in one of the sessions. Alonso put a display to edge Hamilton in P1 with the British restoring the order in P2. Rosberg was third in the morning but couldn’t do better than 9th in the afternoon, the reason was that he had to abort his QF simulation lap when the session was red-flagged when Maldonado  (you guessed) hit the wall with such force that will need a chassis replacement. The best lap times came early on the sessions, before the half-hour mark when the teams have to return a set of option tyres (even if they don’t use them), but the rest of the time was dedicated to figure out how to get the best from the Pirellis. We’ll get to that in a moment. Red Bull’s superior downforce is expected to present the main challenge to the Silver cars in this labyrinth of 23 corners of 90 degrees, but Vettel hit early engines problems and had to sit out most of P2 coming out in the last minutes to grab 5th place, very impressive for only 5 laps of testing on the softer compound. It’s seem now inevitable that Vettel will have to use a sixth engine this season and assume his penalty. Ricciardo made this prediction good by finishing 3rd only 3 tenths behind Hamilton. Williams in the other hand is struggling, its chassis better suited for the high speed circuits. Looks like the battle outside the top six will be between McLaren and Force India.

P1- ALO (1.49.056) HAM  ROS  VET  RIC  VER  RAI  BUT  KVY PER

P2- HAM (1.47.490) ALO  RIC  RAI  VET  MAG  BUT  PER  HUL KVY

As important as the pole is in this circuit, the teams are concentrating their work in understanding tyre performance. The time differential between the soft and the super-soft is an enormous 2.5 seconds. Even Pirelli admits is more than they want. The problem is that the option super-soft won’t last more than 5 laps before hitting thermal degradation, and the prime-soft is not reaching proper working temperature. Yes, I know what you are thinking, Sunday is going to be a lot more complicated than usual.

In a new development, the FIA has decided to limit the ban on radio communications to just driving advice. After many complaints the full clampdown on driver’s information over the radio or pit board will be implemented until next season. The reason for this extension is due to safety issues as well as the different size in the dashboard display on the steering wheel. Teams that opted for the smaller display will be in disadvantage as there are no restrictions on messages over the steering mounted display. As you might think, this issue is not going away soon…

And here we go again: decision time. Cato - HAM  ROS  VET

What’d you say?

Good luck!