SHANGHAI REVIEW BY BEN STEVENS
Saturday
After the misery of Friday, Saturday
brought the sun to Shanghai International
Circuit, and a plethora of on-track action.
Unless you want to count the farce that
was Friday’s sessions, FP3 was the first
chance the teams got to put their cars through
their paces, and dare I say it was… exciting?
That’s not usually a world you use to
describe practice, but the combination of long
runs and qualy simulations against a short
clock made it a frantic 60 minutes. Especially
after the discussion over shaking up the
weekend format, it only boosted the case for
such a move.
And while it hasn’t been unheard-of for
Ferrari to “win” the final practice session, it
was clear their 1-2 here – with a three-tenths
lead to Mercedes – paved the way for one hell
of a fight. It’s readily apparent this is as close
as Mercedes have been run at any point in the
V6 era, and even though Lewis Hamilton still
ended up on pole, this was a definite “win” for
the Scuderia.
Anyway, onto qualifying. HAM-VET-
BOT-RAI. No, it’s not quite BUT-GRO-PER,
but it’s looking like it’ll be a familiar sight
on Saturdays this year, and with it, expect
plenty of arguments about “car v driver”
to flare up too. Has Ferrari caught up (and
Hamilton’s just that good)? Or does Mercedes
still have the edge (and Vettel’s just that
good)?