"Cato Batista" 09/07/2011 13:52:40 ID #78
Ladies and Gentlemen:
There was no relevant information coming out of Friday’s sessions. If this day is usually dedicated mostly to race set-up and less QF prepping, intermittent heavy rain left the teams without any significant data to assess their upgrades, particularly McLaren’s new rear wing and Ferrari’s new aero kit. Actually, the big news came from the political scene, were a last minute change in FIA’s ruling on the blowing diffusers saga overshadowed the action on the track.
Late Friday, the FIA backpedal the restrictions on off-throttle exhaust gasses because Renault –engine providers to 3 teams including Red Bull- argued their engines are designed to operate with a constant flow of gasses and this constraint will damage the motor’s reliability. The French manufacturer dispute was based on Mercedes using a similar process (cutting from 8 to 4 cylinders off-throttle). The end result was the FIA now allows 50% gas flow off-throttle, effectively preserving Red Bull aero design advantage.
On track action was limited because it is optimistically expected that QF and race will be dry affairs. Most of the running was done on intermediate rubber and the only noteworthy times were set at the end of P2 when the dry line started to appear.
P1- WEB SCH BAR PER MAS ROS ALO HAM HUL ALG
P2- MAS ROS KOB HAM BUT SUT DIR BAR PER BUE
On the few occasions when Red Bull sent their cars out they looked clearly like the fastest ones. On the wet conditions Schumacher and the Mercedes were in good form, same as Barrichelo in the Williams and Perez in the Sauber.
With its fast, long duration corners Silverstone will certainly suit to Red Bull’s strengths. Ferrari was the better chassis in sector one with its better stability under braking and hard acceleration out of slow corners, but their partial times on the very fast sector 3 were not on par to the RB7s. McLaren tried their new rear wind especially designed reduce drag under DRS activation, but couldn’t get any relevant information under the prevailing conditions.
To sum this up, we are in the dark as of what’s coming up for QF. Well, same as usual, no?
Place your wagers:
Cato – WEB VET ALO
‘Till tomorrow