"Cato Batista" 11/05/2012 22:56:39 ID #159
Ladies and Gentlemen,
There has been a small change in Pirelli’s rubber supply that will influence the entire weekend: they are providing for the first time the two extreme compounds from their range of four instead of the traditional one grade in-between difference. With track temperatures of 43C there’s a sense of panic along the pitwall owing to severe early degradation on the (yellow)soft and the lack of balance on the (silver) hard. Understeering was the order of the day for everyone with its consequences: overheating the front tires and under heating the back ones. The concern is that tire wear has been much higher than in pre-season testing, particularly on the hard choice. Even McLaren can’t make the rear set to reach proper working temperature; the team was baffled to find that spite the supposed difference in lap times between the 2 compounds Hamilton was quicker in the prime compound! Webber went to suggest that some drivers will sit out Q3 (if they reach the final 10) to save sets of new tires. Keep an eye on that tomorrow.

There was not much attention by the teams to prepare for the QF runs. The best times of the day were set during the first half hour of P2, the only part of the session on low fuel and option tires. Alonso was quickest on P1 when the circuit was about a second slower than the afternoon session. Times in P2 were more revealing of the status quo, especially on long run simulations where Lotus is clearly the best and most consistent car, but they can’t find a way to produce the single lap performance of Red Bull and McLaren, or even Mercedes. The polesitter has won 9 of the last 10 races in Barcelona (Vettel was the exception last year winning the race on 4 stops) as you can imagine the relevance for qualifying tomorrow. Webber has been on pole for the last two years in Montmelo.
P1- ALO (1.24.430) VET KOB BUT BOT (Bottas, Williams reserve driver) SCH GRO HAM RAI HUL
P2- BUT (1.23.399) VET ROS HAM RAI GRO WEB SCH KOB HUL (ALO 14th)
No such thing as an easy pick for QF tomorrow but between the top four teams McLaren and Red Bull look like the best choice with Mercedes and Lotus just slightly behind. Ferrari? the last time they were on pole was Singapore 2010.
Race day will be a different history, but let’s decipher one problem at the time:
QF picks: Cato – VET HAM BUT
Good luck!