Saturday 10 July 2010

Silverstone: pre-qualifying

Hmm. The weekend before the race I had a quick look at Button’s record here (he’s 10, 5 more than Hamilton, for pole, so I thought it might be value). He’s finished second to his team mate [of the time] at every British Grand Prix after 2005. Not a good record. Vettel, Hamilton and Alonso have all won here.

However, the circuit has been altered, lengthening the lap and the lap time. Remains to be seen what the impact of this will be.

P1 saw Vettel top the timesheets by 0.3s, then Hamilton, Kubica, Webber, Sutil, Rosberg, Hulkenberg, Button, Schumacher and Barrichello.

P2 again saw Red Bull fastest, but this time it was Webber, with Alonso a surprise in second, then Vettel, Massa, Rosberg, Schumacher, Petrov, Hamilton, Sutil, Barrichello with Button a lowly 13th.

McLaren’s performance was, indeed, so poor that the team decided to ditch the upgrades for the weekend. It’ll be interesting to see how they do in P3 and qualifying.

P3 saw, towards the very end, Vettel’s nose cone go wonky and slump down. Not sure how serious an issue it is (Red Bull managed to remove it easily enough). Button had some sort of suspension problem, and Ferrari were looking into a mysterious problem with Alonso’s car. Anyway, the order was Vettel, Webber, Alonso, Rosberg, Massa, Kubica, Hamilton, Schumacher, de la Rosa and Barrichello, with Button in 12th.

The weather is looking good for qualifying.

McLaren not looking good, and, worse still for them, the Mercedes, Williams, Ferrari and Renault are all looking tasty, with Red Bull as imperious as ever.

Bit of a toss up between the Red Bulls, I think, with Alonso a potential wild card. I’ve backed Webber at 2.94. It’s true he was second in the simulation, but he spent most of P3 with heavy fuel, whereas Vettel was light throughout. Plus, Vettel’s confidence/car may be slightly damaged by the nose cone going wonky. So, back Webber at 2.94 (I’ve set up a lay at 1.2).

This is a quote from the BBC F1 site:
“BBC F1 analyst Anthony Davidson: "If the problem with the nose mounting on Vettel's car is on the chassis side, it's a big problem."”

Apparently a new nose has been tried, and it’s holding.

Button has come 8th, 13th and 12th in each practice session. I got a miniscule sum laying him at 1.12 to reach Q3, and a bit more at 1.26. After wrestling a bit with it, I’ve decided to tip laying him to reach Q3 at 1.3.

So, Webber for pole at 2.94 (it’s just lengthened actually), and lay Button for Q3 at 1.3 (I’d set up a back at something like 3 or 4, just in case).

Morris Dancer

7 comments:

Morris Dancer said...

Just making sure comments are ok.

I wonder if the comments enabled thing before automatically occurs after a set period of time.

Also, Sutil's gearbox issue is minor and, annoyingly, Webber's odds have lengthened to 3.4

jamei said...

I luckily got on Webber early in the week at 5.5 and Alonso earlier today at 16 and 17. Those odds looked good even before it became apparent that the McLarens upgrade wasn't going to work. The mean P1/P2 position is a reasonable predictor of qualifying position. Just working out when to lay now.

I'd certainly agree with laying Button for Q3, but I've spent all my cash on the Top Summer Temp market.

Morris Dancer said...

A little surprised and disappointed Webber never led Q3 (discounting when he'd done a lap and Vettel hadn't).

Still, the 1/3 lay came in, so green overall.

Pre-race post may take a while. Finding value will be hard given the Red Bull supremacy.

Nigel said...

Good calls.

Webber might well have done it with the new nose - which went to Vettel.

Morris Dancer said...

Well, 1 good call at least :p

Cheers for that info. I had wondered about the nose. You would've thought they'd've brought new noses for both cars.

Still trying to find value. In the big markets, the only stand-out possibility is Webber to win at 4.2, but I think Vettel will win. However, 1.6 is pretty rubbish, especially given crosswinds and reliability concerns.

Nigel said...

I wouldn't blame Webber for being a little bit annoyed by his team.
Red Bull had an upgraded nose for Silverstone, but only two copies of it. When Vettel's broke, they gave him Webber's, and Webber got the old version for qualifying. No way of knowing whether it was worth 1/10s per lap, but I'd stlll be a bit pissed off.

Morris Dancer said...

That seems a bit off. Whilst a Vettel fan, it's pretty discourteous and partisan to behave like that.

Anyway, not spotted anything yet, I'm going to try and finish off the pre-race thing this evening.