"Cato Batista" 17/09/2016 22:46:50 ID #1006

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Without any competition, the pole for the Italian GP was a private duel between the Mercedes duo, with HAM the very dominant side. He’s got now 5 Monza poles tying Fangio’s and Senna’s record.

Ferrari was unchallenged for the second row, but the red cars are half a second away from the silver ones. BOT was impressive in the Williams beating RIC for 5th by one thousandth of a second, then came VER’s Red Bull only 22 hundredths behind. The Force India duo came next but they both are very unhappy with the car balance. Pirelli has allowed the teams to reduce tyre pressures after the overwhelming Spa complaining (down 0.5psi / fronts - 1psi rears to 23 & 20.5 respectively) and that was enough to change the order of the teams fighting for 3rd best. The Force India cars had to reduce drag  and now they have the fastest overall top speed (347kph) but they are unstable in the corners -where Red Bull excels. BOT showed great skill to get ahead of the Red Bull with the Williams dialed with minimum downforce, but MAS couldn’t make it work leaving only one white car in the top 10. The big surprise today was GUT bringing a Haas into Q3 for the first time ever, the mexican consistently faster the GRO in the last several outings.

CFA qualifying was a feast-for-(almost)-all: 14 members scored plenums, that’s a record. I know, not much to celebrate from this one.

The grid for tomorrow:

HAM ROS VET RAI BOT RIC VER PER HUL GUT

Mercedes is again in a league of its own. They sailed through Q1 & Q2 with softs, about a second faster that Ferrari in the super-soft!. They will now start the race with a better tyre strategy -like if they needed it- The 53 laps race distance can be covered with one stop, to do that the teams will have to try the white-medium rubber after the starting red-tyre set is due, and of course Mercedes is better placed that the rest to do that. Pirelli says tyre wear is minimal in Monza despite the high speeds because cornering loads are reasonably low. So don’t count much on pit-stops to overtake, but in general this is a circuit where passing is not a problem.

Mercedes has now 44 victories over the last 51 GPs and has taken 49 of the last 52 poles. HAM has won 2 of the last 3 Italian GPs including 2015 from the pole. The winner at Monza has gone on to win the Championship in the same year 4 of the last 5 times. The ratio pole/win in Monza is one of the highest in F1: 9 of the last 11 races, 13 of the last 17.

I honestly don’t’ think this is going to be an exciting GP, but you never know, I hope I’m wrong.

The battle BOT v RIC v VER and perhaps to include PER & HUL will be the action to watch, as for the top 4 I’m curios to see if any colleague will take any risks, that could be the winning ticket, let’s see.

Cato - HAM ROS VET RAI BOT RIC

Good luck!