"Cato Batista" 26/09/2015 20:32:39 ID #821

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Both practice sessions were practically written off today under heavy rain. Aquaplaning was so bad that only 12 drivers ventured out in intermediate rubber in P1 with Toro Rosso’s SAI on top of the sheets followed by Red Bull’s KVY. Mercedes had its drivers near the top in both sessions but the bad weather left all kind of questions unanswered regarding their ‘mysterious’ lack of grip from last week’s GP in Singapore. It’s expected that the silver cars will take their normal place at the front for this race, particularly since Pirelli’s selection moves now to harder compounds to withstand the high lateral loads of the fast corners of Suzuka: medium (white) and hard (orange). In P2 Red Bull showed its prodigious downforce to get its drivers at the front...split by the Mercedes duo. VET was next in 5th but almost 2 seconds behind.

P1­ SAI (1.49.434) KVY ROS VET HAM VER RAI MAS ERI BOT P2­ KVY ROS HAM RIC VET RAI SAI VER NAS MAL

It was a relief to see the Lotus cars taking to the track as they were locked out of their garages for more legal issues and couldn’t start preparing until late on Thursday. Their equipment arrived late for allegedly “unpaid invoices”. Their deal with Renault was supposed to be resolved by this weekend, but now GRO announced he is leaving them for the new Haas team for 2016. Ecclestone’s office confirmed a couple of weeks ago that Bernie himself took care of the team’s payroll at the end of August in order to get them going.

The weather for Suzuka looks hard to predict for the next 2 days. A mix of cloud & sun for Saturday with mild temperatures but mostly dry. Sunday will be a bit warmer with no significant precipitation. A dry race basically.

We are left with no data after day 1 for our QF forecast. We can comfortably assume that Mercedes will take their rightful place at the front grid. Even down on power we know Red Bull will be very quick in this fast circuit that demands fast directional changes, and of course Ferrari will be fighting at the front. I’d like to recommend to post a tentative pick selection and then wait for P3 to have a better idea of who’s really fast around here.

This is my ‘banker’: Cato ­HAM ROS VET

Until tomorrow with (I hope) more valuable information!

Cheers