Ladies and Gentlemen,

A very interesting FP Friday. On top of the news is HAM as he will have to take a total of 30 grid penalties and will start at back of the field. As we knew, he was going to need an extra engine on top of his allocation of five sooner or later, but problems during FP1 and FP2 has left the team with no choice but to do it now. No one has ever won a GP from the back of the field, but Spa is definitely one of the best tracks to make up places.

Mercedes and Ferrari were the only teams practising exclusively on the super-softs in FP1 topping the timesheets with the very fast Force Indias in the mix ahead of the Red Bulls, these last 2 teams in the softs. Pirelli has imposed very strict high tyre pressures to the objection of everyone as the hot temperatures are causing a high rates of degradation on the super-soft, sometimes finding the yellow rubber passing its best before the end of just one lap.

In the afternoon session for the first time in ages we saw another name other than Mercedes leading the charts with both Red Bull near close and then the Force India and one Ferrari, then ROS in 6th. VER admits that Mercedes is still “a couple of tenths ahead of us” but even with the high track temperatures and the consequent low grip the RB12 was the best car today. As we had seen recently, high track temperatures work on Force India’s advantage, so far PER and HUL are showing better rubber wear. Another eye opener has been the performance of newcomers Haas, comfortably in the top 10 today. The much anticipated horsepower increase in the Honda units has not produced the expected half second-per lap gain in the McLaren. Besides, ALO will make HAM company serving a 35-position grid penalty as had to replace the brand new Honda evolution unit in FP1.

FP1- ROS (1.48.348) HAM RAI PER VET RIC VER HUL BOT GUT

FP2- VER ( 1.48.085) RIC HUL VET PER ROS RAI GRO BUT GUT (HAM 13th)

Mercedes has introduced several upgrades for this race using 5 of their remaining 11 tokens. Are they feeling the pressure?...

From the 32 tokens allowed for the season to each engine manufacturer, Mercedes has now 6 remaining; Ferrari has used 29 and has 3 left, same as Honda, and surprisingly Renault has only used 11 and still has 21 left.

It’s time for us to be active participants, let me start. Cato -HAM ROS VER

Over to you

Cheers