"Cato Batista" 17/03/2012 22:24:59 ID #129
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It’s an all McLaren front row followed by many surprises.
It was until after session P3 that we finally saw the true potential of each teams’ machinery. Champions Red Bull have appreciably less top speed than its rivals, particularly compared with McLaren and Mercedes, which are flying on the straights, and they are slower out of the corners because they use a simpler, less powerful version of KERS. Like last year, their strength is in their overall balance but that can win races only starting from pole. WEB was faster than VET this time but all they could get was the 3rd row of the grid. Lotus is now the focus of attention with one car in 3rd –their number 2 driver GRO- and their star driver RAI in 18th after a mental fade that eliminated him in Q1. And then comes Ferrari. Their F2012 is a real handful, understeers on entry, oversteers on exit, it doesn’t like directional changes. ALO ended up beached in Q2 (12th), MAS was never closer than 2 seconds to his teammate, will start 16th. Oh boy, it’s going to be a long year for the reds.
On the other side McLaren and Mercedes are smiling. The controversial rear wing is definitely working on the Mercedes, it’s very fast on the straights but the system makes the car very hard to drive when using DRS and they are still struggling with the soft compound, although they are the most consistent in the medium one which is only 0.5s slower around this track. SCH is looking very racy, 4th is his best QF since his comeback and clearly faster than ROS. They can smell their first podium tomorrow....
The grid for tomorrow:
HAM BUT GRO SCH WEB VET ROS MAL HUL RIC
With such a narrow gap between the 2 compounds we could see many different strategies, particularly those behind the leaders aiming for one less pitstop(2). Weather is not supposed to be a factor, with sunny skies and temperatures steady around 22-24C.
Our QF results were, as you expect, bad. Nobody anticipated (including the F1 paddock) French GRO in his return taking 3rd for Lotus. Only Sebastian and I scored 2 points, with one for Alberto, Curro, Fredrik, Champ Ian, Joe, Lou, Rodrigo and Uwe.
I guess we could never imagine a more intriguing beginning of the season, and more exciting too! This weekend our CFA colleagues expand 12 cities around the world in 7 countries and 4 continents. And we are all scratching our s right now: what the hell is going to happen tomorrow?
Following tradition, allow me first: HAM BUT VET SCH GRO ROS
If you encounter any problem submitting your picks in our website http://f1.manbos.com (Manbos is working in overdrive to fix last night’s glitch) please send them to me and/or Santiago - scriadov@gmail.com.

Cheers for the new season! Enjoy!