U.S. GP 2012 - QF

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Red Bulls are the fastest in day 1. VET was a massive 1.5 secs ahead of the pack in P1 and 7 tenths in front of teammate WEB and ALO in P2. He needed only four laps to establish the top mark after losing 25 minutes of the session with a water leak. They were supposed to have tyre warm up problems in temperatures below the 18s but instead they’d found adhesion from the out lap while every else are struggling -McLaren among the big names- to get both compounds up to working temperatures; they are too hard. Pirelli is providing hard-prime / medium-option tyres and they already acknowledging the compound choice for this track was too conservative.  There’s no degradation and little wear, this will be another 1-stop race.

P1- VET (1/38.125) HAM ALO BUT  WEB MAS  HUL  KOB  ROS PER

P2 – VET (1.37.718) WEB  ALO  HAM  BUT  MAS  ROS  SEN  KOB  SCH (Lotus 11-12)

In the opening session the surface was too new and green, drivers were comparing it to sliding in the rain. From this early stage the promise of a challenging track for the drivers is becoming a reality. The hairpin at the end of the start-finish line has produced its intention of being extremely hard to judge, its blind entry at the top of a rise is unforgiving and who knows how the charging field is going to survive past the blast from the green lights onto this blind-sharp left corner one. The next section, corners 3-6 is probably the best trackside viewing area of any track in the world, according to the lucky ones that were there today watching F1 cars being pushed to their limits in this series of super fast left-right-left-right sweepers, already Red Bull and McLaren the quickest chassis in this series of snapping directional changes. The third section is the typical slow corner sequence found in most tracks, technical but  mostly relying on mechanical grip than driver’s skill beyond being patient and smooth on the gas pedal. As usual Mercedes power was king on the straights, with ROS managing good laps based on top speeds, but Red Bull was quick in straight too line explaining in part their laptime advantage. In general, both Saubers were the fastest in the speed traps.

The sad part is that as challenging as the track is, there will be very little overtaking, as BUT says “The corners into the straights are too slow, you need faster corners onto the straights to accelerate past other guys...”  Qualifying will be as critical in Monaco as it will be in Austin.

Expect the lap times to become tighter than today’s once the surface get rubber-in and all the teams set up for low fuel – option tyre QF laps to close the gap on the reigning Champions.

Here goes my QF picks – but it will not be a bad idea to wait for P3 before you final saying.

Cato - VET  WEB  ALO

Good luck!

f1.manbos.com

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