Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let’s get ready for a double shot of F1 racing. We are going to China this weekend and then Bahrain the following week.

The best news we had in a long time was the defeat of the all-mighty Mercedes by Ferrari in the second round of the Championship. But let’s get not too excited, the W06 is still a faster car than the SF15T and with the expected lower temperatures in Shanghai and the softer compounds chosen by Pirelli we most likely will see another dominant show by the silver cars. But Ferrari’s renaissance is for real, their engine is definitely the most improved from last year, you just have to look at the partial times in sectors 1 & 2 from Sepang where Ferrari was consistently quickest in the long straights that required sheer horsepower. Mercedes came on top thanks to its better downforce in the corners of sector 3 but the message was clear: the italians had found the 60 BHP they were lacking last season. And here comes the interesting part: the Ferrari chassis is faster and more consistent in the long stints/heavier fuel loads of race conditions, the only weakness so far we’d seen in the Mercedes machine. Now, the only way to take advantage of that is the right strategy and for a change that’s what Ferrari did to perfection in Malaysia. The next factor to consider from now on is that Mercedes is wearing more rear tyres in higher track temperatures, particularly the prefered softer of the 2 options.

All of this may not be enough for Ferrari to beat Mercedes in the 2015 Championship, but at least we know how motivated VET is this year, and we just have to hope for Kimi to have a little bit of better luck!

Talking about motivation I’m sure HAM will be very happy with his new $40m-a-year contract with Mercedes, he now will be the second-best paid driver in the world behind ALO and his $50m-a-year with McLaren-Honda. Both drivers allegedly signed to 3-year contracts.

And another reason that will make ALO particularly happy after watching his old car finally becoming a race winner is that the FIA has increased the engine allocation from 4 to 5 engines for the rest of the 2015 season. The move was unanimously welcomed by all the teams as some drivers already having introduced second power units after completing only one race weekend, and none happier than ALO who started the season in the second race with his second engine after MAG blew the first unit on his way to starting grid in Australia!

NOTE- Please make sure you submit your QF & Race picks for this and the next race even if you don’t hear from me since I’m currently traveling and might encounter connectivity problems.

‘Till tomorrow (internet connexion pertimiting…)

Cheers