"Cato Batista" 22/06/2012 21:12:12 ID #184
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Red Bull showed up with a vastly revised RB8 for practice today. Not a simple update like Lotus did, we are talking new front wing, front suspension, sidepods, lower body, exhaust and interestingly a whole new floor. The car was very quick out of the box with Vettel second on P1 and fastest on P2. Webber had some teething problems and lost valuable running time. The new version was not particularly faster in any specific area like top speed or traction but after putting all sectors together emerged on top by 13 hundreds of a second over the much improved Force India of Hulkenberg. It may not sound like a big gap, but consider that the 15 runners qualified within 9 tenths. In P1 the top 9 were separated by less of 3 tenths!
P1- MAL (1.40.890) VET WEB BUT ALO DIR SCH HAM ROS RAI
P2- VET (1.39.334) HUL KOB SCH SEN DIR ALO GRO WEB ROS (RAI 11th, BUT 12th)

Friday’s session were largely devoted to work on race set-up. The main concern in everybody’s minds is how to manage the harder selection of Pirellis available this weekend in the higher temperatures expected for Sunday. The man under the microscope was Grosjean in his Lotus, without a doubt the quickest and the most gentle on its rubber on heavy-load and long run simulation. McLaren is the question mark, they are not showing their QF pace yet, only Button did a few runs on the medium soft and low fuel in P1 (4th); Ferrari wasn’t looking at easy either, each stop for ALO meant big aero adjustments, not the fine tune up you do when you are close to your optimum set–up.

This is one of the tracks that evolves the most throughout the weekend from being totally green on Friday to very fast at the end of the race on Sunday mainly because its smooth but abrasive surface. Offering very limited opportunities of overtaking, starting grid positions are premium in here, so it is expected that the teams will concentrate in QF set-up on P3 Saturday morning, but there’s a sense of concern floating in the air that we may see a repeat of Montreal, where strategy and tyre management overcame qualifying results.

What’s a good tip for QF? Your guess is just as good, you can cover all the top teams with a blanket these days! Mercedes recorded the top speed thanks to its double DRS rear wing system (Schumacher 319 kph), but Hulkenberg’s Force India had 3 of the 4 top speed traps best marks. Hamilton was next (318kph) tied with Vergne’s Toro Rosso, Rosberg’s Mercedes and Perez’s Sauber. One thing is for sure, it’s going to be another fabulous qualifying session, don’t miss it!
My Bingo ticket: Cato – VET HAM SCH
Good luck!
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