Ladies and Gentlemen,

Back in business as usual, the silver cars are flying, Ferrari is next but having some difficulties and now Williams appears to be taking on Red Bull for the ‘best of the rest’ class. And there is some encouraging improvement by McLaren.

FP1- ROS (1.38.127) HAM VET RAI MAS RIC BOT KVY PER SAI

FP2 - HAM (1.37.583) VET ROS RAI RIC BOT KVY BUT MAS ALO

The surface in Sochi is very strange and different from any other track. It’s smooth and very slippery, tyres do not degrade or wear like they normally do, that’s the reason why all the teams pass on getting the medium/white sets for this race, nobody at all even tried it in the whole day. The track is so slick that practically no one escaped from s spin or an off-track excursion today, and the rubber is so slow to build up that the track remained very ‘green’ with and little improvement in lap times.

Nico was on the ball from the start, bettering Lewis register by a huge 7-tenths faster in FP1, but Lewis came back in the next session with a lap 8 tenths faster than his teammate to set up a very exciting QF session for tomorrow. VET split the Mercedes in FP2 but his SF16 stopped with a mysterious (as in they have no idea) electrical gremlin cutting short his program. “I spun the first two laps - he went on half joking - I didn't spin this afternoon, that's already a massive improvement!” RAI wasn’t very happy either, he’s got a new engine “but it’s no different” he said, complaining that the set-up is not working “as clear as I wanted”. Like everybody else he couldn’t make the tyres to work properly. At least the Finn was able to do his Friday’s homework, VET instead couldn’t finish his race-stint simulations. In the other corner, both Mercedes drivers were running exactly the same programs and with the same tyre choices, they both were able to get 20 laps on full fuel load with a set of used super-softs. The best numbers came from the Renault drivers: 31 for PAL and 35 for MAG on new sets of the yellow/soft.

Looking at sector times, the Red Bull duo are massively faster on the 90-degree slow corner section than the Williams, but the white cars are much quicker on the S1 sector thanks to their top speed. These two teams are clearly fighting for the last 2 CFA paying positions, so let’s keep a close eye on them.

Let’s cash some points now, let me try first. Cato HAM ROS VET

Cheers

Cato