"Cato Batista" 23/07/2016 20:45:33 ID #977

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Seventh front row by Mercedes this season, but it wasn’t as easy as it sounds. A heavy downpour at the start of the session made for a very wild QF. Q1 was interrupted by 4 red flags, Q2 started on inters and ended up in slicks. The ever changing conditions almost caught HAM out but he just made it to Q3, not so for RAI and PER. In the final shootout it all came down to the very last lap and then ALO spun out in front of HAM, but ROS, even if had to lift for the yellow flags, was able to secure pole by one and a half tenths. Red Bull has the second row with RIC finally ahead than VER, but the Dutch kid has been impressive so far, he was 2 thousandths of a second behind ROS in FP3!. VET will share 3rd row with the other impressive kid SAI in the Toro Rosso, and then kind of a surprise to find McLaren with 2 cars in row 4 (perhaps because this circuit is only 51% on full throttle?), and 5th row one Force India with HUL and one Williams with BOT (MAS crashed out in Q1).

In CFA results Hector hit the right combo ROS-HAM-RIC to earn a QF plenum to lead this department in 2016 with 21 points and in the process he’s moved up in the standings to 4th place.  Our forecasts were all over the place with all the HAM-ROS-VET-RIC-VER permutations. As a result we register Hector as the big winner, Carlos, Erik, Manbos, Joe, Rodrigo & Sebastian with 2 points, Alberto, Luis & Santiago with 1p, and all the rest not mentioned...nada.

The grid for tomorrow:

ROS HAM RIC VER VET SAI ALO BUT HUL BOT

Strategy-wise this points out to be a borderline 2 stopper, with high temperatures expected similar as today’s, tyres are not lasting past 25-30 laps of the 70-lap distance. As well, all the drivers have unused new sets of the faster red compound since most of QF was run on wets or inters, and that will open the possibility of a 3-stopper which will might allow to make up track positions and be prepared for a Safety Car intervention (40%). Race Control is warning all drivers that a “3 strike” clampdown will be imposed for those exceeding track limits, which means if a driver passes the circuit’s exterior white line by more 20 cm more than 3 times will incur a drive through penalty.

Since 2004 with Michael Schumacher no drive has gone to win the Championship the same year they’d won in Hungary; the pole-sitter has won only 3 of the last 10, all of them was HAM who is pursuing his 5th GP victory in this track; ROS has never been on the podium here; four different teams had won the last 4 editions.

This is one of those GPs that regularly produces surprises and first time winners. Is this a chance to take risks? (don’t ask Fredrik, he’s already leading!).

And here we go, another nervous outing for the CFA members!

Cato - HAM ROS VER VET RIC SAI

Over to you

Have a good race!