The race is expected to be dry, and the compounds are medium
and hard this weekend.
Practice 1 was slightly spoiled because it was rather soggy
at first, then dried later. In the latter stage the rapidly drying nature of
the track meant that times (and gaps between them) were somewhat exaggerated,
limiting its use as an indication of speed. However, Ferrari will still be
happy to get a 1-2 (Alonso fastest), followed by Vergne, Grosjean, Sutil,
Hamilton, Bottas, Raikkonen, Rosberg and Di Resta.
P2, thankfully was nice and dry. The top 10 were Vettel,
Alonso, Webber, Raikkonen, Massa, Hamilton,
Rosberg, Sutil, Vergne and Di Resta. At this stage it looks like a 3 horse
race, with the Red Bulls and Ferraris vying for pole and Lotus a shade slower
over a single lap but very competitive in race trim.
I saw only a tiny bit of P1 but almost all of P2, and
decided to try a slightly new tactic by making a few notes. The commentators
were James Allen and Alan McNish, who seemed to offer quite a lot of
interesting opinions/insights.
On high fuel with the medium tyre Vettel’s times were about
1:29.5 to 1:30.3, whereas Grosjean managed a lap of 1:28.4 and several faster
than Vettel’s best. Mercedes suffered badly, with (if I heard correctly) times
of around 1:30.8 degrading to 1:33.
Looks like the Silver Arrow will be going backwards again.
Interestingly, Vettel has never had pole in Spain.
Doesn’t mean he won’t this time, but his P2 fastest time was a teensy bit lucky
as Alonso was 0.017s behind but got held up very slightly and probably would’ve
been fastest. Although the commentators didn’t refer to his high fuel times
directly I noticed myself one lap of 1:29.118, which is rather nice.
Lotus may well be fastest on race pace but overtaking in Barcelona
isn’t easy so they need to start high up the grid. 2 or 3 stops can work at the
circuit, and that decision may affect qualifying.
McNish was also bullish about Force India’s
prospects in the race, despite slightly lacklustre single lap speed.
So, qualifying speed would seem to be Red Bull/Ferrari equal
first then Lotus, with race pace Lotus fastest, then Ferrari, then Red Bull.
Oh, and a tyre on Di Resta’s car was completely destroyed,
similar to Hamilton/Massa in Bahrain.
Nobody else was affected, but that must be a concern.
In P3 the top 10 were Massa,
then Raikkonen (separated by a tiny margin), then Webber, Grosjean, Vettel,
Alonso, Di Resta, Sutil, Hamilton and Vergne. Critically, Vergne’s 10th fastest
time was on the hard compound tyre (he didn’t set a fast time on the medium).
I’ve backed Vergne to reach Q3 at 3.8 (hedged at 1.6). He
was top 10 in every practice session, and I’d suggest the true odds are around
1.8. It’s not a dead cert, but I do think it’s eminently possible.
Toro Rosso are one team whose updates seem to be working
nicely. Williams also have taken a step forward, but Sauber and McLaren appear
to be treading water. The Force India is looking pretty competitive once again.
Right now this looks like a Lotus/Ferrari duel to me, with
Red Bull possibly vying for pole but unless they can start ahead and retain
that advantage I suspect the prancing horse and Lotuses will beat them this
weekend. Mercedes are looking less speedy than I’d imagined, and I think their
imploding tyres will lead them to go backwards in the race.
The harder tyre is apparently better for the race (so says
Gary Anderson, who knows his beans) so this should mean we see everyone
unafraid to run through the mediums in qualifying, huzzah. Williams appear to suffer
more on the mediums, so may qualify poorly but still have the prospect of
snaffling a point or two in the race.
Incidentally, Webber has had two poles in Spain
(Barcelona) and Vettel none.
After some prevarication (I’m not fond of multiple qualifying
tips) I decided to back Massa at
14.5 to get pole (hedged at 5). He was fastest (effectively joint fastest as
the margin’s so small) in P3 during the qualifying simulation with Raikkonen, a
tenth and a half ahead of the rest. In P1 he was second to Alonso. The Ferrari
is clearly a contender for pole and Massa
has (over the last 5-6 races or so) been beating Alonso as often as not.
Anyway, let’s hope both tips come off, and that qualifying
is delightfully green.
Morris Dancer
7 comments:
More in hope than expectation, I'm taking Sergio Perez to finish Top 6 which Bet Victor has on offer at seemingly generous odds of 6/1 (first of course he needs to qualify top 10 in qualification which might itself prove to be something of a challenge).
As I've mentioned before he really needs to start performing and fast (i.e. by achieving 6-10 point finishes consistently), otherwise Perez might just find himself out of a job. With McLaren's supposed improvements due to be introduced this weekend, perhaps this is the time for him to prove he's up for it.
Peter's earlier Massa tip is looking rather better than mine for Rosberg (though I doubt Massa will win).
The Mercedes may be a bit faster than they appeared in P3, as both drivers did two fast runs on the same set of options, and it's possible/probable that they were practicing for a Red Bull style Q1 and Q3 run on a single set rather than for the Q3 shootout.
Whether this puts them anywhere near the sharp end is a bit doubtful, though.
Any of the top six look possibilities for pole (this is a strong track for Webber and he had traffic on his quick run; even Grosjean could be in there if he puts a proper lap together), so I'm going to watch the odds for a bit.
... and I'd I'd want slightly longer odds for Vergne.
I've got to say that I find it hard to believe Perez will be top 6. I'd be surprised if he made Q3, and apparently the McLaren's long run pace is also pretty bad.
I did consider Webber for pole, but decided Massa had bettre odds.
I was thinking about Vergne for Q3 prior to P3, but when he got 10th on the harder compound that persuaded me. Anyway, we'll find out shortly.
Not bad from Rosberg.
:-)
Never saw that Mercedes performance coming. Congrats, Mr. Nigel.
A bit disappointed Vergne didn't get through *and* the hedge didn't get matched. He equalled Di Resta's time in the first two sectors but lost a little in the last, so Q3 was at least possible.
The Massa hedge got mostly matched (in isolation that result was green) so, for hedged, that's counting as one positive and one negative.
I'm going to leave it a little while before looking at race bets. My initial thoughts are Lotus to go forwards, Mercedes to go backwards.
"*and* the hedge didn't get matched"
That's what put me off that bet - the minor markets on Betfair are too illiquid to be able to rely on laying the bets when odds ought to move (and don't).
I did notice that Mercedes ran long race-sim stints in third practice - unlike most of the rest. I think their qualifying pace came as a bit of a surprise to them, too.
Is the hard tyre really going to be the best race tyre ?
From what I saw of practice, some teams were struggling a bit to run long stints on it, while doing decent runs on the option.
(I suspect Rosberg missed a trick by going out for a second run in Q3. Being the only leading runner with a clean set of medium tyres for the race would have been arguably more valuable than pole... which I think he would have got anyway ?)
That did cross my mind (mostly later, as I was reasonably [unreasonably?] confident of it coming off). If it had been a more liquid market I really think the 1.6 would've been matched, but that's something I should've considered.
I may rewatch qualifying on the iPlayer, but I think they said that the gap between the compounds (in terms of speed) diminishes when it's... colder. I think. The Lotus, I believe, used more hard sets than most of the others, but it's also softer on its tyres.
A big question is whether the Mercedes can last on its tyres. Even if it doesn't chew through them an extra pit stop or higher than average degradation could cost them. Overtaking's tricky around Barcelona (I doubt the second DRS zone will do much) so the start will be critical.
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