Mid-season review - betting

I’m posting this on both http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/, the new home of my F1 articles/tips this season, and http://politicalbetting.blogspot.co.uk/, the old one, so that people who frequented the old site and may’ve missed the move are made aware.

The mid-season review for betting will be shorter than usual because I’ve covered much of it previously.

Normally, my season would involve a slow start, a strong end to the first half, a second half slump and a slight pick up at the end. This season has been weird. I had a great start, and a slump for almost all the rest of the first half of the season.

In addition, I’ve always made smaller bets (often early on), and not tipped them on the basis of either buyer’s remorse, lack of liquidity or because I’m trying something new and cunning. Typically, these have made me losses, but this season I’ve had two winners at 8 (Rosberg to win Monaco and Lotus to top score in Germany).

In short, this is Bizarro-season.

However, I think I’ve identified some of the reasons I’ve been screwing up. Ironically, my assessment of pace before the first qualifying occurred was actually spot on, but since then it’s strayed. I was too slow to recognise the Mercedes-Red Bull hegemony in qualifying and to realise that Ferrari and Lotus were drifting back on race pace.

It’s also important to consider that the first half of the season may be of less use than usual for predicting the second half, perhaps excepting Germany. That’s because the tyres are going to change in-season for safety reasons, and the practice of swapping rear tyres has been banned. This appears to have returned Mercedes to their tyre-chewing ways (and Mercedes alone will lack the opportunity to test the new tyres before Hungary) and has also hampered Force India. Ferrari’s pace seems somewhat diminished, whereas Lotus is both fast and kind on its tyres. Red Bull probably remains top dog overall.

Hopefully the season will continue its Bizarro form, and instead of a latter-season slump I’ll enjoy some great success. At the moment the results are red for both hedged and non-hedged, although the hedged loss is less than half the non-hedged loss.

The racing review will be up after the Young Driver Test, which may afford an opportunity to assess the tyres and their impact upon the forthcoming races.

Morris Dancer