"Cato Batista" 04/09/2014 22:13:26 ID #652

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are going to the 13th and last European round of the season at the legendary Monza circuit.

The build up in the last two weeks since de Nico-Lewis coming together at Spa will make this GP a tense affair between the 2 championship contenders. We may find out what the new internal policy Mercedes will apply from now on; in one side they assert that their drivers are still free to race each other but on the other they simply can’t afford to lose another race like in Belgium. In the past we had seen team orders based on priority to the driver who qualifies fastest or whoever is ahead after the first corner will not be challenged. Let's see what Mercedes has decided to do. Nico, following the usual Public Relations rutine has apologized, but more or less everybody agrees that it was a racing accident, except Lewis of course. He is 29 points behind and there are seven races to go, the pressure is on him.

Latest from the silly season is that Alonso is not going anywhere, even though he knows Ferrari will need until 2016 to prepare a winning car. He took the opportunity to confirm his loyalty to the Scuderia and to make sure the tifosi know that the team will struggle this weekend on its home race. McLaren/Honda now is targeting Vettel for next year, and with RIC’s current winning form it seems Red Bull will have no problem letting him go. McLaren is not showing any interest on keeping Button, the ‘09 Champion knows it and is already looking for another seat, and rookie Magnussen although a good driver is not the fabulous discovery they claimed when they got rid of Perez.

I find interesting that every single driver when asked about 17-year old Max Vertappen coming to F1 next agreed on exactly the same response: he’ll have no problem because “these F1 cars are very easy to drive, not like in the past”...

Last Italian GP our CFA winner was the Rocco & son Joe duo for the second consecutive race, this time with 11 points from 3 triples. Manbos held the lead in the standings with 105 points under huge pressure from Santiago and Rocco, not like this year when Santiago has been unchallenged at the top for the last 9 races! - since the Chinese GP (We have to do something!!)

‘Till tomorrow

Cheers

Cato