Oct 14, 2011
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It is something of an F1 tradition, wherever we are in the world, that rain is predicted at some point over the Grand Prix weekend, even if it is high summer and possibly even if we had a race in the middle of the Sahara desert. Here in Yeongam, the predictions were for rain on Friday followed by a dry weekend: at the moment the weathermen are spot on. There was a hint of déjà vu as, this morning, the track looked like the one we left a year ago after that infamously rain delayed race.
Eventually, towards the end of the afternoon session, a dry line began to emerge, but as those who ventured out on slicks soon discovered, it might have looked dry, but it was still as slippery as an ice rink. As we returned to our hotel on Thursday night, Jean-Eric Vergne informed us in confident tones that it was not going to rain today. Sadly for our Frenchman, wishful thinking is no match for a weather front, but he put a brave face on it when he headed for the track this morning. It was the first time since the European Grand Prix that Scuderia Toro Rosso has run a third driver, when Daniel Ricciardo used to fulfil that role, so it did not seem strange seeing Jaime standing at the back of the garage watching his car being driven by someone else. He was no doubt pleased that JEV, as we’ve learned to call Vergne, brought the car home in one piece.
In fact, it was essentially a trouble-free day and the Spaniard and the Swiss rattled off a total of 52 laps in the afternoon, although in both cases their forays onto slicks were aborted. Fastest was the McLaren duo of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button in that order. In third place on the time sheet came the newly re-crowned World Champion Sebastian Vettel, followed by Fernando Alonso. Mark Webber was fifth, ahead of our very own Alguersuari. Buemi was ninth. Depending who you believe, Saturday is either going to be dry or there’s a chance of a light shower, but either way, the TR6 seems to be working reasonably well, but until it’s time for the qualifying session, it’s hard to say what sort of day it will be, given how evenly matched the teams are in the middle of the grid and how quickly the hierarchy can change from track to track.
Credit: Scuderia Toro Rosso (www.scuderiatororosso.com)
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