Formula 1 CFA Comments
Canadian GP 2013 - QF
by Cato Batista, 09/06/2013 5:21:16
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It’s now all about the weather factor. The first session was mostly too wet for slicks, DiResta topped the sheets as the last few minutes allowed for the medium tyres. A late yellow flag prevented several drivers to better the Force India’s time but the conditions in general were too tricky for the rubber to work properly.
In P2 we had a first taste of the new Pirellis modified to try to eliminate delamination that will be introduced at the British GP. MAS was the fastest overall in this compound until the top guns came out in softs to ensure a 3 way battle between Hamilton and the Red Bulls until Alonso jumped ahead of them.
P1 -DIR (1.21.020) BUT GRO ALO RAI RIC ROS PER VET WEB (MAS 11)
P2 – ALO (1.14.818) HAM GRO WEB ROS MAS VET SUT BUT (RAI 11)
The difference between Alonso and Hamilton was 12 thousand of a second, no bad for the Mercedes driver who admits he doesn't feel confident with the brakes. Nothing to do with the car, he said, it’s more a matter of “feeling through your foot and your boot”.
Lotus had mixed results, Grosjean was quick out of the box posting good times within a few practice laps on each session, but Raikkonen never found his rhythm troubled by set-up issues. McLaren is looking a bit better here, Perez was the fastest through the speed traps and Button was comfortable the best ...
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Monaco GP 2013 - QF
by Cato Batista, 24/05/2013 21:54:43
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The feeling in the paddock is that all the elements are in place for a Silver Arrow victory. There are not long fast corners in Monaco, therefore no high temperatures and degradation to deal with, the weakness of the W04. The challenge around here is the repeated low-gear acceleration that can easily produce high wear, but as everybody noticed on Thursday both Mercs spend most of P2 testing long runs on the option-super soft tyre, and they were fast and consistent with both drivers completing 20 laps stints (double what almost everyone else tried) which opens the possibility to do the ideal one-stop strategy on Sunday. To do that the opening stint has to be around 28 laps on ‘options’ and 50 laps en the ‘prime’ soft compound.
This is the one race where long run pace may turn out to be not so important negating the strength of Lotus and Ferrari, although these two are very close to Mercedes in QF speed. The ideal scenario is to secure the front row with both team cars, allowing the fastest driver (or the best off the line depending on team orders) to escape as the sister car holds the pack allowing the team tactical flexibility. And we know Ross Brown’s boys there are under team orders.
It all points out to a very exciting Q3 shoot out tomorrow. It will be the most important QF session of the year.
Last year Webber won from the pole, Red Bull has won the last 3 Monaco GPs. Alonso will try to be the first driver ever to win the ...
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