Brasil GP 2012 - Preview

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This is it, our last assignment of 2012. We’re heading to the Brazilian GP for the 20th round of what’s been a fantastic season. All eyes will be on Vettel and Alonso to crown the new Champion, however with 13 points advantage the odds stack on Vettel’s favour. The scenario is like this: for Alonso there’s only one option, he has to finish in the podium; in Vettel’s case all he needs is a 4th place finish.  Since his first Brazilian GP in 2008 Vettl has been 4th or better in Interlagos each time; Alonso has never won here. Either way, the winner will be youngest triple World Champion in history.

There are no improvements or new parts expected on the cars since they were shipped from Austin on Sunday evening. The new rear diffuser Ferrari tried on Alonso’s car made him slower than the old-style used on Massa’s so the team will revert to setting both F2012s with the old spec. Red Bull main concern will be facing another alternator failure, like Webber last weekend or that of Vettel when he was leading in Valencia. They have been using the 2011 alternators as opposed to Lotus and Caterham, but now they’ll switch to the new 2012-spec for this last race as advised by supplier Renault. They admit having another reliability concern in the form of faulty KERS systems, something that seems to affect Webber frequently but never Vettel. How curious.

And then comes the weather. Interlagos has the most unpredictable micro-climate from all the circuits in the calendar, famous from changing from rain to sunny skies and back in irregular patterns. As we speak the forecast calls for a partly cloudy Friday, thunderstorms for Saturday (dry for QF) and rain on Sunday during the race. This is what Ferrari and Alonso are praying for, a crazy race where anything could happen. Or as one of our most respected members suggested: they need Massa to qualify near the front to run Vettel off the road, or wait to be lapped to do it, or ask Sauber (if they want more engines) to cut him off... or like sometimes in the past, get some kind of help from the FIA ...

Either way, this will be a very exciting weekend.

'Till tomorrow

Cato

Back to Comments          Back to InfoNews