Spanish GP 2013 - Preview
by Cato Batista, 10/05/2013 23:21:40
Ladies and Gentlemen,
After a long 3-week waiting period the fifth round of the Championship in Spain is coming up this weekend.
The track in Barcelona has a well-earned reputation for boring races, much to blame to the extensive testing done by all teams in pre-season, but according to Pirelli the weather was too cold back in February and March to apply the acquired data for the 18deg C awaiting the teams in Catalunya later this week.
To encourage all teams to put their cars to work on track right from the start of Friday’s practice sessions Pirelli will provide extra tyres. It is a prototype compound designed to last much longer and different to the orange-marked hards available for the rest of the weekend. Spectators watching the first practice session on Friday have had to endure long periods with no track action as drivers opt to save their quick wearing rubber. Each driver currently has 11 sets of dry weather tyres for a weekend: six of the harder ‘prime’ and five of the softer ‘option’. They must return one set of primes before second practice (to make sure they use them and not save them for later) and one set of each before the third session and before qualifying.
It will be exciting to see how all the new development parts introduced by all the teams will perform. This will be the test of how the next stage of the season will unfold, to see how close Lotus, Mercedes and particularly Ferrari and McLaren can get to the powerful Red Bulls. And most ...
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Bahrain GP 2013 - Erik's 6 points were sufficient
by Cato Batista, 22/04/2013 3:05:11
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It was a field day at the front for Vettel, but the rest of the field treated us to great racing and on-track fighting for all positions. Ferrari’s challenge disappointed as Alonso hit early problems leaving the door open for Red Bull’s second victory of 2013. Lotus made full use of their tyre empathy to claim the remaining podium steps by making only 2 stops.
With the unexpected results the 6 points by Erik were more than plenty to hand him victory, his first in almost 2 seasons. Only him scored 2 full positions with VET 1st and HAM 5th. Five other members came second with 5 points in a day in which we broke the all time record of 2 and 3 point scores…
Besides Erik four other colleagues predicted Vettel’s win: Carlos, Ian Mac, Ricardo and Uwe. We did fine with Hamilton in 5th –Erik, Curro, Rodrigo & Rocco; we got only one correct Raikkonen in second –Fernando- and that was it. No 3-pointers for us in either third, fourth or sixth places. Valuable single points were claimed by Maria, Santi ...
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Bahrain GP 2013 - Race
by Cato Batista, 20/04/2013 21:41:10
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Second successive pole for Mercedes, this time it was Rosberg who was surprised to find himself so convincingly in front of the time sheets. Vettel will start along the German on the front row with both Ferraris sharing the second row. Ferrari sent Massa to qualify in hard tyres knowing that Webber and Hamilton were taking grid penalties and now they have their two 2 cars is different strategies starting at the front of the field. Hamilton was fourth confirming Mercedes single-lap form but needed a gearbox replacement after hitting a kerb in P3 and taking a 5 place penalty. Webber was fifth, he will be demoted 3 spots. Massa was originally sixth only 2 tenths behind Webber, a very impressive mark for the red-colored hard compound tyres. Next in 7th & 8th were the Force Indias that now will move to the third row; Raikkonen somewhat disappointed in 9th and 10th was Button who didn’t go out in Q3 to save a set of rubber and to start on the primes.
Our QF results were kind of normal, which is to say bad. Alberto, Manbos and Tim scored two valuable points with VET-ALO in 2nd-3rd, plus another 8 single marks with either VET or ALO. No one predicted ROS’s pole.
The grid (including final revisions):
ROS VET ALO MAS DIR SUT WEB RAI BUT HAM
With track temperatures in the high 30s tomorrow will be hard to cover the 57 laps in 2 stops, but many will try it, including Massa, Button, Perez (12th) and ...
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Bahrain GP 2013 - QF
by Cato Batista, 19/04/2013 22:34:06
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Ferrari and Lotus were the cars to watch today. Massa and Raikkonen were fastest in P1 & P2 respectively, and they look to have the tyre-usage advantage ahead of Red Bull. Mercedes has gone one step back compared to earlier races and will actually struggle to beat Force India this weekend. McLaren has lost ground too, they probably not even make it to Q3. They had never won in Bahrain.
P1- MAS (1.34.487) ALO ROS VET DIR BUT WEB SUT RAI GRO
P2- RAI (1.34.154) WEB VET ALO DIR MAS GRO ROS SUT HAM
It all points to a battle between Lotus and Ferrari for Sunday’s race, both chassis are getting the most consistency with both compounds on race fuel-loads simulation and had no problems setting quick times on single lap set-up with the options. The Pirelli rubber is nowhere as marginal as last week’s tyre choice in China.
Red Bull is not strong on the medium-options, they grip level fading after 4 or 5 laps short of their main rivals which will make them very weak in the opening stint. With the high corner loads and braking stability required in Sahkhir the Red Bulls are going to be quick in QF and they will try to get to the front to compensate their possible disadvantage on race trim, particularly in the case of Webber that will have to serve a 3 grid penalty for his collision with Vergne during the Chinese ...
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