Singapore GP 2012 - QF

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Red Bull finds in its element in the slow circuits. Vettel went trading fastest laps in P1 with Hamilton to top the first session, both a second faster than Button and Alonso.  Fifth was Maldonado (you never know where he is going to turn up) ahead of Webber and Rosberg; both Force India were top 10 same as PER despite complaining his Sauber was very unstable. The track was so green after the morning showers that the teams sent their drivers in intermediate tyres for the installation laps. In the extreme slippery conditions Alosno was fastest with the grooved tyres until it was dry enough for the slicks. No one tried the option tyres in P1.Pirelli has brought the soft & super-soft combination, same as they did in Monaco & Montreal.

P2 developed a similar pattern with Vettel & Hamilton lapping the fastest on soft compound ahead of Alonso & Button In the last half hour the super-softs came out and with a cleaner surface the lap times improved by almost 2 seconds settling the final positions. The most revealing data coming out of the session was the speed and consistency of Alonso’s Ferrari under fuel load in the long run simulations, ahead of Hamilton and Raikkonen. The other was Red Bull’s qualifying pace, with Vettel 3 tenths faster than Button and quicker than most rivals even when he was on  the yellow-prime tyres.  Force India confirmed their best-third team form with the 6th & 7th spots, well ahead of the Mercedes cars and their new exhaust and the Saubers, both Kobayashi and Perez fighting handling problems. One of the keys to be fast around the Marina Bay Circuit is the ability to bounce over the kerbs on corner apex and being able to immediately get back on the power as soon as the chassis settles, something the Red Bull and McLaren’s suspensions are doing better than the rest.

P1- VET (1.50.566) HAM BUT ALO MAL WEB HUL DIR RIC PER 

P2- VET (1.48.340) BUT ALO WEB HAM DIR HUL ROS MAS GRO (RAI 12th)

In typical Kimi’s style he acknowledged they don’t have a solution for his Lotus lapping 2 seconds off the pace: “no grip, we lack downforce”  on both types of compounds. On the other side, Vettel was playing down the fast pace of the Red Bulls as reference to Hamilton being affected by traffic in his flyer laps, but there was no mention of their other concern: early degradation on the rear red-options, which by the way is badly affecting Hamilton too.

Well, we know who are the fastest guys around here, and if the dry-forecast is correct we should not have big surprises.  The problem is of course...the order!

Let me try first: Cato – VET  HAM  BUT

Your turn, good luck!

Cheers

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