Ladies and Gentlemen,

The weekend we had been waiting for a long time is finally here. We are back in racing mode for the 11th round in arguably the greatest track of them all, Spa Francorchamps for the Belgian GP.

Most relevant news in the last 4 weeks comes from the driver’s market, and if there are not big changes so far from the top team lineups the first surprise comes from Red Bull’s junior team Toro Rosso announcing they will replace Jean-Eric Vergne with 17-year old Dutch Max Verstappen. The news raised eyebrows not only for his youth but for his limited racing experience. The son of Jos Verstappen won the Kart-World Championship in 2013 and is now competing in Formula 3. That’s it. Those in the know say they had never seen a talent like him, his car control and maturity way beyond his years, but they say the same about his dad about 18 years ago. He will be of course the youngest F1 driver ever.

There will be 2 new faces driving this weekend: American Alexander Rossi will replace Max Chilton in the Marussia team and German Sports Cars veteran Andre Lotterer will debut in F1 taking popular Kamui Kobayashi’s place at Caterham.

Another interesting information coming out of the very secretive F1-finance world is the list of driver’s salaries. Top earners are Alonso, Vettel and Raikkonen with $31.7 million US, next is Hamilton / $28.8, then Button $23.1, Rosberg / $17.3, and then a long gap to Massa & Hulkenberg at $5.8, then Perez, Grosjean, Maldonado at $4.3. The deal of the century has to be 2 time winner this year Ricciardo at 1.1 million. Compare that with teammate VET…”it’s because he (Vettel) is worn down after 4 titles” said Christian Horner (really?). At the bottom we find Ericsson and Kobayashi (until this morning) with $216,000.

Alonso is renegotiating his contract with Ferrari these days, and if he is not getting a good car at least he wants to compensate the 5-year lack of results with a fat pay cheque: the Spanish Champion wants 50 million dollars per year for a 3-year contract, one of the biggest contracts in the history of F1, curiously enough the same amount Schumacher got when he moved from Benetton to Ferrari 18 years ago. Rumors are swirling that Alonso will likely move to McLaren and their Honda engines for 2015.

So much to talk about and so little space, so let’s concentrate in our responsibilities. Last year’s Belgian GP winners were the Rocco & son Joe with a strong 15-point score. Manbos held the lead of the Championship at this stage with 96 points ahead of Santiago with 92. Compare that to the 104 points Santiago’s got this season (thanks Silver Arrows!)

Get ready, first round of decision making is coming up tomorrow.

Cheers

Cato