PoliticalBetting - Channel 2

Early preview of 2012

2011-12-26T21:24:00.000Z

For the first time in a few seasons 2012 won’t see a slew of massive rule changes. With luck (as always) this may help me finally start a season in the green rather than the red.

DRS, KERS and Pirelli all remain, although the blown diffusers are to be abolished (or at least reduced significantly). Here’s a brief and approximate explanation of how the blown diffuser works, and what hot and cold blowing (do stop giggling) are:

Teams have taken to channelling the exhaust gases from the engine to specifically designed aerodynamic parts, which acts to push the car into the road, improving grip. The engine can be (and has been) used to do this even when the car isn’t accelerating, substantially enhancing grip in slow corners particularly. Hot blowing is much the same, only fuel is used to heat the exhaust gases which enhances their effect.

Possibly helpfully this was banned (in a rather shambolic way) at the Silverstone Grand Prix, which was also the only one that Ferrari won (ironically it was the only race won by a car not built in Britain). Ferrari are a bit rubbish at it compared to Red Bull, and McLaren are in between.

This may help the others catch up to Red Bull somewhat, as their downforce is the very best on the circuit (more than making up for a slight lack of straight line speed or a dodgy mini-KERS unit). However, I don’t anticipate the teams being shuffled around too much. It’ll be intriguing to see how Mercedes and Lotus (formerly Renault) do in their bid to close the gap to the frontrunners.

I think roughly 70% of speed is down to the car, with 30% from the driver. However, drivers are more consistent across seasons. So, I fully expect Vettel and Hamilton to be the best qualifiers in 2012, and Schumacher to consistently be out-qualified by Rosberg.

In 2009 I enjoyed an epic (albeit Pyrrhic) tipping victory as I tipped, but didn’t back, Button before the season began at 70/1. In 2010 I had a plethora of long-term bets, almost all of which were utterly wrong.

This season I didn’t tip on title or similar bets but did make a small number that turned out green in the end. I think a sensible approach is to avoid pre-season tipping due to the low number of tests and high degree of variability (due to fuel especially), but consider such things around a quarter or a third into the season. At that stage matters will be clearer, as will the direction of travel (which teams are improving, or not) and there’s plenty of time to hedge.

I had a pretty good run on the safety car this year. I think I’m right in saying every bet on it was green. There are two big things to look for when making such a bet: the circuit, and weather. Circuits like Malaysia and Hungary are good, as there’s lots of run-off area, and Monaco and other street circuits are bad (obviously). Weather can be hard to predict, but this can also help as many people have monsoons in mind when contemplating Malaysia, but actually it’s one of the circuits least likely to have a safety car, artificially lengthening the No Safety Car odds.

Raikkonen (surely this was Raikonnen a few years ago? Or am I going mad?) is a big wild card. He varies from Absolutely Cannot Be Bothered to Staggeringly Fast, for no apparent reason. It may take him a little while to get used to the Pirellis, but I think he’ll be a bit faster than Schumacher when it comes to re-acclimatising to F1 (he’s been out a year less, he’s raced cars competitively since and he’s a bit younger). A few races at least will probably be needed, perhaps more.

It’s also important to consider in the first few races that different circuits suit different cars, so you can’t necessarily draw immediate conclusions (the first of 2012 are Australia, Malaysia and China).

Anyway, I thought a quick rundown of the teams and drivers at the end of 2011 and their prospects for 2012 might be worth doing, so here it is:

Red Bull

The champions. Less KERS (40kW and unreliable unlike the standard 60kW other teams employ), less straight line speed but absolutely top drawer downforce which enables them to use the DRS in places others can’t, partially explaining their relative qualifying advantage. Absolute pace cannot be guessed at in 2012 but the recipe of lower top speed and excellent downforce is likely to continue.

Vettel – fantastic driver. Very good qualifier, enjoys leading from the front, is capable of excellent passes (cf Monza this year). Few weaknesses, possibly uncomfortable when things are tight in the wet (cf Canada) and, weirdly, relatively rubbish at the Nurburgring (which we next visit in 2013). Rightly favourite to retain his title.

Webber – good, but not in Vettel’s league. Had some difficulty adjusting to the Pirellis and more reliability issues than his team mate, so I expect the gap to close this year. More capable of challenging in qualifying than the race, and he needs to sort his starts out.

McLaren

Excellent straight line speed, downforce good but not on a par with Red Bull. They were actually faster than Red Bull at many races but failed to capitalise, such as in Spain and Monaco. Improved strategy (including some qualifying faux pas that cost Hamilton and the Monaco disaster) needed.

Button – better than in his 2009 winning year. He’s still got his cunning tactical mind for tyres and the ability to find grip in soggy conditions when others can’t, but he’s also a great passer. Qualifying is his weakness, but towards the end of the season he was matching and sometimes beating Hamilton. Almost as importantly, he’s got a 3 year contract and has been working the team diplomatically.

Hamilton – had a slightly rough year, but it’s somewhat over-egged. Multiple collisions, some of which were not his fault and a few that were, helped him to a lowly 5^th in the title race. However, at the end of the season he was qualifying and racing better. Man most likely (perhaps excepting Webber) to challenge Vettel for pole.

Ferrari

Dog of a car, mostly. Couldn’t get the medium compound (white) tyres to work which repeatedly compromised them (cf Brazil) all season. They also failed to challenge for pole throughout 2011.

Alonso – However, the very fact that Alonso was just a point behind Webber, who had the championship winning car, despite this, points to his continued excellence. Should he get a truly competitive car next year I think he’s the man likeliest to challenge Vettel for the title (partially due to his undoubted number one status at the team.

Massa – has put in some good qualifying performances but sadly is a shadow of his former self. I do not think he will remain as Alonso’s sidekick for long. It’s a real shame after his great 2008 season.

Mercedes

Played with themselves all year long (as it were. Ahem). Not fast enough to beat Ferrari, not slow enough to be seriously under pressure from a lower team. Great DRS and top speed but still shredding rear tyres. If they get that sorted and find a smidgen of performance they could join the big three, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Schumacher – Had a cracker of a race in Canada when he gained 4^th and only just missed out on a podium. Although the team’s best result of the year he was beaten overall by Rosberg (perhaps due to failing to finish around a quarter of the races). His qualifying remains ropey, his starts are excellent and in the latter half of the season he was a better racer than Rosberg.

Rosberg – very hard to assess as we have no idea how good his team mate is today, relatively. His qualifying remains pretty good but in terms of race pace he’s now the second driver in the team.

I’ll cover the other teams, who are unlikely to get race wins or contest for the title or regular podium places, more briefly.

Renault – renamed Lotus next year. They’ve got a surprising lineup. Firstly, the still-injured Kubica cannot drive for them (incidentally, I’ve read that the problem is now not his hand/arm but the fact he’s been so inactive and has lost the strength, perhaps especially in the neck, needed to cope with heavy G-forces) and Raikkonen is now their lead driver. Romain Grosjean also makes a return to the team, having driven for them somewhat unimpressively a few years ago. I doubt Renault will be able to challenge regularly at the sharp end but they should be just behind Mercedes.

Force India – unsurprisingly Sutil has been axed and replaced with Hulkenberg, and di Resta retains his seat. I rate both the relative newcomers highly, and think that Force India are in a pretty good position. At certain tracks (high speed circuits, like Spa or Monza) they may spring the odd surprise. Hulkenberg’s lack of race experience on the new tyres may hinder him for the first few races, but his practice sessions this year should mean his qualifying is unaffected.

Sauber – they’re keeping Perez and Kobayashi. The team often starts pretty well but lacks the knack (or money) for full-season development. Perez is pretty good, and Kobayashi likewise, but I suspect they may be let down by their car.

Toro Rosso – not often we get teams changing both drivers, and even rarer to have it happen twice. I think Buemi and Alguersuari are somewhat unlucky to both be axed, though the latter may get the final seat at HRT (a grim fate). They’re replaced by aspiring Red Bull young guns Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne. Hard to assess the drivers as Vergne hasn’t been in F1 before and Ricciardo spent a few races last season at HRT. Toro Rosso have been reasonable in 2011, and have excelled in speed traps suggesting a ferocious top speed but lacking elsewhere. Their aim must be to beat the likes of Sauber.

Williams – at the time of writing Williams have yet to announce who will partner the bank manager-pleasing Maldonado, who has not impressed with manner or skill. Barrichello seems likely to be out but Sutil, Senna, or another could take the seat. The car has not been good enough for a while, and unless they want to be overtaken by Caterham/Lotus they need to sort it out.

Lotus – renamed Caterham for 2012. They’re sticking with Kovalainen, who’s been driving well, and Trulli (probably). The team’s been the best of the backmarkers for the last couple of years but that’s not good enough. However, they do get a pleasing slice of money for their performances over the last few seasons which could help them start to actually nibble at the points occasionally.

Virgin – renamed Marussia, and featuring Glock and a new chap called Charles Pic. Most significantly, predictable yet nevertheless vaguely amusing double entendres regarding the team’s name will be a thing of the past.

HRT – rather surprisingly the 73 year old Pedro de la Rosa has gotten a drive with them. The other seat in the comedy acronym team remains vacant. The new boss, Luis Perez-Sala, has said that the team will be taking a step backwards in 2012, a statement that seems to defy all reason. How can you take a step backwards when you’re always last? Presumably this means the team will now comprehensively fail to beat the 107% rule (I use the term ‘rule’ loosely) and when they accidentally get to the starting grid their cars will burst into flames before the lights go out.

I’ll write a final preview after the final pre-season test but before the first race. Unless something dramatic happens I don’t intend to write another article between now and then.

Morris Dancer

2012 – antifrank aims ahead

2011-12-23T13:49:00.004Z

Undaunted by my mediocre predictions for 2011, I am nevertheless going to have a bash at predicting what's coming up in the year ahead. This is particularly foolish given my long-held belief that the future is unwritten, but it's always useful to have something to test my expectations against.

Looking forward by looking back

In order to understand where we are going, it's first important to understand where we're coming from. 2011 has in many ways been a remarkably static year in political terms. All three parties are more or less where they were at the beginning of the year – the Conservatives may have put on a bit of support in the last few weeks, but it remains to be seen how permanent that is.

This is astonishing, given the amount of political turbulence. We have had a very ropey year for the economy, public sector strikes, riots, widespread anger at the revealed behaviour of the press, a crisis in the Eurozone that looms ever closer and a bona fide Euro-hissy fit. Yet the political barometer has barely moved, no matter how hard it has been hit.

So the first big question to ask is why public opinion is so static. And here we come into a whole load of negatives:

1. The public doesn't approve of the Coalition. It routinely gets -20 or worse on the YouGov surveys.

2. The public doesn't much like David Cameron. He has negative approval ratings with both MORI and YouGov. (But Conservatives adore him)

3. The public really doesn't like Nick Clegg. His approval ratings are so far below water that he is exploring territory that previously had been reserved for Jacques Cousteau.

4. The public doesn't rate Ed Miliband either. There is a big discrepancy between MORI and YouGov in his ratings, but both are negative (MORI is merely poor, while YouGov finds him to be very poor). In a survey commissioned by Lord Ashcroft, the word most frequently associated with him was "weird".

5. The public doesn't like the EU. Surveys show that more people want to leave the EU than remain in it. David Cameron's refusal to sign up to the latest EU treaty was enthusiastically received across the political spectrum.

6. In fact, it's very hard to find anyone or anything at all that the public approves of right now.

The net effect of all of this, when no one commands public support, seems to be that the public are following Newton's First Law of Motion, proceeding in a straight line with no outside force operating on them.

If this is correct, then we should not expect events by themselves to make much difference until sections of the public are persuaded from their current default settings by the analysis of those events put forward by one or more public figures.

The Grid for 2012

When working out what might come next, we have to think about what is likely to come up. There are five predictable events of significance, two economic, two cultural, one international.

1. The Eurozone crisis will be resolved, one way or another

But like the film Seven, this isn't going to have a happy ending. Even on a best case outcome, we are probably in for economic disruption. On a worst case outcome, we are in for an appalling time. Worryingly, the worst case outcome is not a remote possibility.

2. The UK economy in 2012 will continue to languish

It looks reasonably likely that we shall have another recession in 2012. The parties will put their competing interpretations on the poor economic performance. Meanwhile, the public will continue to feel morose as they continue to tighten their belts.

3. The Queen will enjoy her Diamond Jubilee

There will be a lot of retrospectives about the last 60 years. The public will wallow in nostalgia and monarchism. It should be a good year for the forces of conservatism.

4. The summer will be dominated by the Olympics

All the signs are that the Olympics should be a success. The construction works have been remarkably trouble-free to date. You can guarantee that there will be some crisis, scandal or media storm about them, though. An obvious flashpoint will be the transport in London during the games.

5. The US election will be on the news all year

The US election looks to be even more of a circus than usual this time around. The Republican nomination race is frankly embarrassing and will be reported as a freak show. This will have an impact on how the public see the economic and political debate here. It may even make the public feel a little more warmly disposed towards our own selection of politicians.

My predictions

That's the easy part over and done with. Now the harder part, what am I going to predict?

Boris will probably win the Mayoral election, but it will be a lot tighter than is currently assumed

Today, you can back Boris on Betfair at 1.37 (4/11). This is far too short. There has to be at least an 11/4 chance that Boris Johnson gets embroiled in some major brouhaha in the next five months, given his remarkably chequered past.

This is a two horse race. The other serious runner, Ken Livingstone, is a two term Mayor with a formidable political machine, a continuing appetite and a flair for eye-catching election promises. He has a lot of baggage, but he has been written off far too soon. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson seems to be reacting to Ken Livingstone's campaign rather than fighting a positive campaign of his own.

Boris will probably still win because he can transcend party boundaries. But at a time when Labour is polling far better than it did in 2008 when this battle was last fought, it is not a done deal by any means.

Polling this time next year won't be far off what it is now

The public seems to have formed settled views of the respective merits of the three main parties. In the absence of anything persuading them to take a fresh look, they probably won't change their opinions.

The Conservatives' poll numbers might move if David Cameron brings back peace with honour from the EU as part of the settlement of the Eurozone crisis. The direction of movement depends on whether the peace with honour is seen in the same light as Disraeli after the Treaty of Berlin of 1878 (when we came home with Cyprus) or as Chamberlain after the Munich Accord. David Cameron will not be helped by the utterly unrealistic expectations of the right of his party. On balance, I expect that the Conservatives will stay roughly where they are now.

The economy, though grim, is probably not going to change many people's votes either way. Those who wish to believe that it is the fault of the coalition's policies will carry on believing that and those who wish to believe that it is the fault of the Eurozone crisis will carry on believing that. Those who don't know will continue not to know.

From a narrow partisan viewpoint, the coalition parties may actually do better if there is a disorderly break-up of the Eurozone. Any economic fall-out will swamp the mistakes that could be laid at their door. From a national viewpoint, it would be a complete disaster.

Labour's poll numbers will move in an inverse relationship with the Conservatives'. The public seem fairly settled in their opinion of the leading Labour figures and they don't have control of events to make the political weather. However, Labour should do well in the local elections in May, now that they seem to have belatedly realised that they need to take on the Conservatives (rather than the SNP and the Lib Dems) if they are going to make progress.

It's hard to see what the Lib Dems can do to pick themselves back up off the canvass. They'll have to take Churchill's advice and keep buggering on.

Politicians will mostly stay put

This should be an excellent year to bet against senior politicians leaving their jobs. While all three party leaders have negative ratings, it would suit no Lib Dem for Nick Clegg to stand down next year, David Cameron is hugely popular with his party faithful and Ed Miliband will do well enough in the polls to keep the wolves from the door. It will be a year to bet on things not happening rather than on them happening.

This will also generally hold good at Cabinet level, but for different reasons. Because the Cabinet is an explicitly brokered coalition, Lib Dem Cabinet members will only go for the most egregious reasons (and even then, only maybe). And because Lib Dems won't lightly resign, neither will Conservatives. The next departures from the Cabinet will probably be at a reshuffle in June/July. Bets on next Cabinet departures should be set accordingly - who is the most dispensible? Caroline Spelman and Michael Moore spring to mind. Kenneth Clarke might also choose to take the next reshuffle as a time to retire. Lord Strathclyde at 33/1 might be worth thinking about too, because he is politically dispensible, should David Cameron need to dispense with him. It might be convenient to have a Lib Dem leader of the Lords, for example.

I for one am hoping that we are going to see more markets speculating on John Bercow's departure. To be clear, he will stay put, but it would be lovely to have some more ways of making interest-free high yield returns.

The minor parties will continue to miss trick after trick...

The current political mood is as toxic to mainstream politicians as I can recall. But no minor party is taking advantage of this. The Greens are invisible, UKIP are offensively graceless and the BNP are collapsing in internal recriminations. There is a glittering opportunity for the minor parties, but none of them show any signs of having any leadership capable of taking it.

... except for the SNP

Alex Salmond is very successfully positioning himself both as head of a Scottish government and as a leading internal opponent to the coalition. It's a nice trick if you can pull it off, and it seems as though he can. He is aided enormously by the dismal quality of all his local opponents.

However, he has concerns of his own. While he can retain power easily enough, the political climate has never been less promising for Scottish independence. "Independence in Europe" is not an easy message to sell when the Eurozone is circling the plughole, and leaving what at present looks like a relatively safe haven in the UK is going to be an equally tough sell. Yet he has no excuses not to hold a referendum at some point in this Parliament. No doubt we will eventually get a referendum (though not next year). But I would not bet on it passing without a very dramatic change in the political weather.

antifrank

antifrank's almanac – reviewing last year's predictions

2011-12-21T18:29:00.002Z

This time last year, I was foolish enough to commit some predictions to pb2. It seems only fair to look at them again now with the benefit of hindsight and see how I did. My self-assessment is written in italics.

"1. Labour will prosper in the polls

In the short term, this trend will help Labour. When the public is in a hostile mood, the lightning will be directed at the parties in power. As the cuts bite deeper and taxes rise, Labour should rise in the polls. Even if the economy continues to grow, the public will feel poorer. Ed Miliband will have to work quite hard to mess this up."

Meh. When I wrote my prediction, Labour were around 42% with YouGov and polled 39% with ICM the following week. This week, Labour are around 40-42% with YouGov and polled 34% with ICM last week. So they didn't rise in the polls. Ed Miliband has not cut through in the way that he would have hoped.

"Labour can hope to win something close to an absolute majority in both Scotland and Wales with good campaigns."

I didn't see the SNP triumph coming then (though I did make a lot of money out of it a few months later). In Wales, Labour got exactly 30 out of 60 seats. If I were being cheeky, I'd give myself half marks, but the Welsh prediction was a lot easier to get right.

"2. The Greens may well become more influential

But unless Ed Miliband can turn around initial public perceptions of him, it's likely that other parties also will benefit. The Greens seem to have a major opportunity: leftwingers in particular seem to feel let down by all their regular choices. If they positioned themselves wisely, the Greens could scoop up a lot of left of centre voters who don't yet feel that the Labour party that has yet found a new direction. To date, the Greens have decided against compromising with the electorate. Do they have the vision to see their opportunity?"

Apparently not. The Greens have been conspicuous by their absence from political debate. They have only themselves to blame.

"3. UKIP should resurface

There is also an opportunity on the right. The Conservatives have got the sound money right wing vote locked up. Can UKIP exploit the cuts to its own advantage? They would need to take a populist rightwing approach, but such approaches have worked well in quite a few European countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Hungary, for example) and UKIP could do much worse than look to continental Europe for inspiration. What they really need is an impeccable rightwing campaign that needs government spending. The armed forces, perhaps?"

UKIP barely did better than the Greens. They came second in Barnsley Central, had the minor success of holding their deposits in Feltham & Heston, but otherwise, nothing. They failed to broaden their appeal to become a populist right-wing party and failed even to make much of an impact in the biggest crisis to hit the EU in decades. A couple of snotty speeches in the European Parliament are not going to give UKIP power and influence. They urgently need to rethink their entire strategy.

"4. The Lib Dems will continue to flounder"

Not my most challenging prediction.

"Expect to see the Lib Dems retreat into hyper-localism. This may prove more effective than the major two parties expect in the local elections, but is unlikely to help them much in Scotland or Wales, in both of which they can expect to be spanked."

It didn't prove much more effective in the local elections than the major two parties expected, but Scotland and Wales were just as predicted.

"On the other hand, they might just take Oldham East & Saddleworth if they can harness the tactical Tory vote."

They could, but they mightn't.

"5. The Tories will stay in touch with Labour

Tory supporters like the cuts, at least the principle of them. The Tory poll ratings have slid gently but consistently through the last few months and will probably continue to do so while the cuts continue to bite. But I doubt the slide will accelerate and in Scotland the Tories might even get an increase in support in May. In the local elections, the Conservatives will lose a lot of seats, but perhaps not as many as might be expected, given how badly placed Labour are in so many parts of southern England."

The heading was more accurate than the detail. The Tories are currently polling considerably better than I had imagined this time last year. But the Tories lost seats in Scotland and gained local election seats in England. The trajectory for the Tories has been at the top end of my expectations for them this time last year.

"6. The AV referendum will be lost

The election will take place after two weeks of Royal wedding mania and no one cares about electoral reform. The referendum will be seen to be about Nick Clegg. If Ed Miliband campaigns hard for AV also, it might also come to be seen to be a referendum about him. At the moment, neither are voter magnets."

One unequivocal success. It's particularly gratifying to see that I was right at least partly for the right reasons.

"7. Fewer than half of my predictions will come true.

Ronseal."

Another unequivocal success!

I shall put up my predictions for next year to have rotten tomatoes hurled at fairly soon.

antifrank

Full-season review of 2011

2011-12-01T08:53:00.002Z

A mixed bag, overall, I think.

The races, especially early on when the Pirellis crumbled like cheese, were pretty good and a few were excellent (China and Canada, for example). Unfortunately we did get some processions (Monaco ended badly due to the red flag, India was boring, Valencia and Singapore likewise) but on the whole racing was good, I think.

From both a betting and racing perspective the season was reasonably good but could have been better (especially in the latter half of the season). The tale of the season was Vettel/Red Bull dominance, and this made qualifying and race betting often quite difficult.

Drivers

Vettel has gone up in my estimation, as has Button. Hamilton’s gone down somewhat, but if he gets his head screwed on right he has the speed to challenge for further titles. Alonso’s as excellent as ever but he needs a car capable of more than one victory (and Silverstone may’ve been down to a rather shambolic last minute and temporary rule change).

Massa is a shadow of the driver who competed for the 2008 title and missed out by the narrowest of margins. A combination of recovering from a serious head injury and Alonso assuming the throne once occupied by Schumacher has reduced him to an also-ran.

Webber also performed poorly, relative to his team mate, and whilst he suffered the lion’s share of reliability failures Vettel suffered likewise in 2010 but still took the title.

The Mercedes pair are the most intriguing, because it’s very hard to tell who’s better. In the second half of the season Schumacher was more impressive, although Rosberg enjoyed season long dominance in qualifying. I hope that they, McLaren and Ferrari can challenge Red Bull more closely next year.

The also-rans remain also-rans. No real shift from Lotus, Virgin or HRT, although Kovalainen did manage to occasionally get his Lotus into Q2. Hopefully the extra prize money will help them to close the gap to the midfield.

Perhaps the closest battle during the course of the season was in the midfield. Renault nabbed fifth, just four points ahead of Force India. Force India have been strong throughout, and with Hulkenberg reportedly joining them (replacing Sutil) and the strong Di Resta they’ll have two potentially great drivers for next season. Renault took off like a rocket at the start of 2011, with a pair of podiums, but their front-exiting exhaust (as well as sounding awful) was dire in slow corners and they clearly missed Kubica’s world class talent.

If the Pole can’t make the start of 2012 then I’d give Senna the seat. He’s made a few mistakes, but he’s also qualified well and worthy of a race seat, in my view.

Update: surprisingly, Raikkonen has got the nod. Team mate unconfirmed, presumed to be Petrov with the announcement due by the 10^th of December.

Sauber just about fended off the Toro Rosso team to get seventh by just three points. A bit like Renault, Sauber got more points early on (Perez would’ve scored in his debut race had it not been for a purely technical infringement regarding the rear wing) but struggled more later on, perhaps due to lack of development funds. I think Perez has done a pretty good job throughout the season, and with him and Kobayashi Sauber have a decent lineup.

Toro Rosso have two cars, which is worth reminding them about because they seem to have about four potential drivers next year. Buemi and Alguersuari have both driven pretty well, but Ricciardo and Vergne[sp] are also eyeing up the seats.

Alas, poor Williams. A paltry five points, and seemingly due to axe Barrichello whilst keeping the bank-manager-pleasing Maldonado. I’m not a Maldonado fan. The side-swipe in Spa on Hamilton should’ve earnt him a serious penalty and getting penalties twice in one race for ignoring blue flags is not impressive. Raikkonen is now definitely not going to get Barrichello’s seat, so it’s unclear who will drive for the once mighty Williams.

Tracks

The start of the season seems a long way away now, especially given the sub-optimal UK coverage situation for next season. I’m not going through every race (you can, excitingly, go back and check the blog archives) but will pick out some high- and lowlights.

Bahrain –

Valencia’s chief rival for Worst Track On The Calendar. Although the reasons for the track’s absence were severe and serious it is not the sort of track that will be missed. We’re apparently headed there next year, but already that seems questionable.

China –

My worst result of the season (4 tips, 4 losers) but a very exciting and unpredictable race due to the super-fast degradation of the Pirellis. Webber charged through the field, having exited in Q1, and got himself a podium. Had the race been a little longer he would’ve certainly won.

Turkey –

No Red Bull collision, but it’s the last time an F1 race will be held there. It’s a decent rather than fantastic track, but given the state of Bahrain, Singapore, Valencia etc it’s a shame to lose one of the better new tracks.

Canada –

The longest race ever (over 4 hours) and maybe, just maybe, one of the very best. I buggered up qualifying tips badly, and it looked like my McLaren to Win tip was equally moronic when, after about 40 laps, Button was 21^st of 21 cars still running. And yet he won, and there was much rejoicing.

Germany –

It’s weird and unfortunate for Vettel that (excepting for when his car didn’t finish once) his worst result was at home. For whatever reason he just can’t excel at the Nurburgring. Annoyingly, this will only prove useful in two years as Germany alternates its circuit and next year we’ll be at Hockenheim.

Belgium and Italy –

I’ve bracketed these together for two big reasons: Red Bulls making crazy passes on Alonso. At Spa Webber passed him through Eau Rouge at full speed, and the skill of both men to avoid a massive accident was breath-taking. Vettel is often criticised for being a lacklustre passer, but at Monza he pulled a great move on Alonso, even having two wheels put on the grass.

Brazil –

An allegory of the season. Less exciting than we’ve come to expect because the Red Bulls were just too damned fast. Handy for Webber that his team mate got a gearbox problem and gifted him the win.

Rule changes

I think having both KERS and DRS is a bit gimmicky, but there’s no denying they’ve often worked well. Occasionally the DRS has been too easy/hard, but it’s the inaugural year so that’s to be expected.

The biggest change was the Pirelli tyres. Sadly they became more durable (or the drivers better at managing them) in the latter half of the season, but early on it was pandemonium as the races unfolded in brilliant chaos.

Betting

Overall, I think I did ok. Bit disappointed with recent races, but I finished ahead overall, for both qualifying and the races, and that’s better than last year. Hopefully I can beat the 2011 result in 2012.

In the first half of the season not hedging was significantly better, but in the second half hedging produced a lower less. Over the entire season it was better, by far, not to hedge.

Morris Dancer

Brazil: post-race analysis

2011-11-27T17:55:00.001Z

Since Abu Dhabi:

It’s not been officially confirmed, but it’s highly likely Hulkenberg, whom I rate, will replace Sutil and partner Di Resta at Force India.

The BBC have also released their half-season calendar, which includes the lion’s share of terrible tracks but also has a few gems (Silverstone, Spa and Interlagos). I remain less than impressed with the broadcaster’s nefarious canoodling with Sky. (The list is: Spain, Monaco, Valencia, Britain, Belgium, Singapore, Korea, Abu Dhabi and Brazil).

Qualifying summary:

Quelle surprise, Vettel got pole and broke another record (15 poles in one season). Webber also got second, making it a 1-2 lock-out for Red Bull.

I didn’t offer a tip on this as I couldn’t see past Vettel getting it in the dry but there was a serious chance of rain (it didn’t appear but numerous engineers believed this also) and that would’ve made things utterly unpredictable.

Slightly surprisingly Button beat his team mate and McLaren locked out the second row. With rain a strong possibility tomorrow and Webber’s trademark handbrake starts the moustachioed one may stand a decent chance of victory. Alonso took fifth, and Rosberg got a cracking sixth for Mercedes.

The top 10 were rounded out by Massa, Sutil, Senna (who has impressed me during his brief time with Renault) and Schumacher, who was miles behind his team mate. However, this often happens in qualifying, but in races Schumacher is one of the top overtakers and Rosberg often goes backwards, so we’ll see how that goes.

Further down the field Maldonado showed why his money has secured his seat, getting 18^th, whilst his probably soon-to-be-ejected team mate got 12^th. Petrov only got 15^th, highlighting Senna’s relative skill, and the Saubers got a poor 16^th and 17^th.

Race summary:

I offered a pair of tips for this race: Button to win at 7 (hedged at 2.5) and Alonso for a podium at 2.6.

From both a racing and betting perspective, the race was disappointing. The reason was simple: the Red Bull was absolutely unrivalled and when Vettel’s gearbox went slightly wonky the victory was gifted to Webber.

No rain meant less excitement. Frustratingly, Alonso looked likely to get a podium for almost the entire race, until the last 16 laps or so when Button, on the same compound, passed him.

There were some tussles lower down the grid, but all forecasts of rain proved false and it was an unusually processional race (at the front) for Red Bull.

The silver lining (half of one, anyway) is that the bets I’d made earlier in the season for Button to finish in the top 3 came good, as did the small hedged bet for him to win the ‘without Vettel’ market (Alonso would’ve been my first choice). However, both of these bets were made in the first half of the season.

Musings:

It’s been a season of two halves for me. After my traditional rubbish start I went from Turkey to Italy with a single loss (with hedging), but the latter half of the season has been red. In the last 6 races I’ve made a loss at 4 of them, and contemplated but decided against two long odds bets in Korea that would’ve turned the whole half-season around.

On the plus side, I was ahead for both qualifying and races. Despite the latter half of the season being better with laying, you’d be better (£43.90 better assuming £10 stakes) over the season going without hedging bets.

Bit irritated about today. Any number of small differences (rain, Vettel’s gearbox breaking) could have given Alonso third, but that’s the way things go.

The next season won’t be available free-to-air in the UK due to the BBC’s decision to shaft the licence fee-payer and canoodle with Sky (the only way the sport could stop being free-to-air). Hopefully this won’t adversely affect tipping (mind you, seeing it free-to-air in the latter half of the season didn’t stop me buggering it up).

I’m thinking of returning to the pre-qualifying, pre-race, post-race analysis style I went for in 2010. I write more or less the same amount anyway for a single article, and if anyone has views on this I’ll take them into account.

Although the last few months have been ropey, overall the season’s green and that’s pretty nice. I’ll do a review in the nearish future and another post looking ahead to 2011 (from a betting perspective, so I won’t wait for driver lineups to be confirmed). Thanks for reading my articles, hopefully you made a little bit of money, and I’ll be writing more in 2012.

Morris Dancer

Abu Dhabi: post-race analysis

2011-11-13T15:49:00.001Z

Since India:

Both Mercedes’ drivers are to extend their stay with the Silver Arrows. Rosberg’s signed a multi-year deal, with Schumacher extended his stay until the end of 2013. I really hope they can put together a race-winning car that can compete for the title in that time, so that we can see whether Rosberg can cut it at the sharp end and if Schumacher’s still got what it takes to win.

Update: read later that no decision’s been made by Schumacher, so the 2013 deal seems to be rumour, for now at least.

Qualifying summary:

I offered no tip on this. I was tempted by Hamilton, but thought he’d be 3.75. When I checked he was evens, and Vettel was around 2.4. I thought it not worth betting on Hamilton, and in the end Vettel won.

Barrichello didn’t even leave the pits in possibly his penultimate qualifying session and starts 23^rd, ahead of his team mate Maldonado who suffers a 10 slot penalty for using 9 engines.

Force India were the best of the rest, after the customary top teams assumed the top 8 grid slots, with Toro Rosso slightly underperforming given their recent level of achievement.

There is, contrary to earlier reports, no change to the circuit itself. There had been plans to amend it to encourage overtaking but instead the organisers are relying upon the two DRS zones for this. Button and some others fear there’ll still be sod all overtaking. To make matters, possibly, worse the tyres seem to be lasting a long time (more like the Bridgestones and less like the excellent early season Pirellis that crumbled not unlikely certain types of cheese).

Race summary:

I rather nervously backed both McLarens, counting it as a single tip (effectively as McLaren to Win, but going for drivers as the odds were better) based upon very good qualifying pace. More confident was the tip for Schumacher to be top 6 at 2.5. He started 8^th, makes up 2-3 places on average per race, and Massa has recently had a habit of buggering things up.

Lap 1 was damned exciting for one big reason: one of Vettel’s rear tyres deflated with immediate and permanent consequences. Although he managed to (eventually) get the car back to the pits his tyre had effectively become a flail that had wrecked any hope of continuing. The invincible Weltmeister was out.

Shortly thereafter Alonso, who maintains his habit of fantastic starts, passed not only Webber but also Button, becoming second to Hamilton’s first. It was to remain thus until the end of the race, with Hamilton untouchable and Alonso being the only man anywhere close (almost like Button has typically been to Vettel since the mid-season interval). I must say that it’s great to see Hamilton back to his old self, but I found Alonso’s performance even more impressive.

Button soon found himself with more problems, as his KERS stopped working. This affects not just the 11 seconds (or however long it is) of the power boost, but the brake bias, and resetting the system (which we learnt in the press conference he had to do multiple times) takes quite some time. His third place was fantastic given those circumstances.

Webber had a bad start (yes, again), but was also hampered by bad luck when he had an unusually long pit stop. He did gain some luck, however, as Massa had a spin later on that meant Webber was all but guaranteed fourth. Despite that mistake, Massa actually drove a pretty good race.

My confidence in Schumacher was misplaced (come the end of the season I might try checking to see if he’s usually bad at street/processional circuits). He tussled with Sutil’s Force India after being quickly repassed by Rosberg (whom he had overtaken on lap 1) and basically deserved the 7^th he ended up with. Not his circuit.

The Force Indias had a good day with a double points finish, although di Resta was understandably grumpy about the one stop strategy he had adopted. Rounding out the top 10 was Kobayashi, who was followed by his Sauber team mate Perez.

It’s worth taking a moment to seriously criticise Maldonado, who behaved like a bloody clown on the track. He got a drive-through penalty for holding up a faster car under blue flags, and then got another one for the same offence! Some other drivers were also tardy in getting out of the way. I’m not a Maldonado fan, and haven’t been since the unforgivable and stupid side-swipe on Hamilton’s car in Spa this year.

So, this race was a lot more entertaining, but rather less tense, than last year’s four-way title decider. I think the DRS zones should be a shade shorter as both were a bit too easy for passing.

Musings:

A green race, but only just. However, after the woeful Indian result I’m very happy with how things turned out. It’s true that Hamilton’s win may have been down more to luck than judgement (we’ll never know if he could have beaten Vettel) but that works both ways and is part of both betting and F1.

Next up is the season finale in Brazil, at the brilliant Interlagos circuit. It’s one of my favourites, and is not only a great racetrack but also often has tons of rain. The Brazilian Grand Prix is in a fortnight and both qualifying and the race start at 4pm.

The result in Abu Dhabi was almost perfect for my season bets, which will shortly come good (or not). Button’s highly likely to finish second, which is good for my Top 3 result but less so for my Winner Without Vettel bets. An Alonso win in Interlagos with Button 4^th or lower would go down nicely.

Morris Dancer

Lacklustre tips since the mid-season interval

2011-11-05T18:10:00.001Z

A couple of races ago I was considering making a post about a slightly poor performance since the mid-season interval. At the time I thought it was premature, but given disappointing results in Korea and now India I think that it’s worth doing.

First of all, whilst the second half of the season is presently in the red it’s worth mentioning that two circuits were effectively new (we did visit Korea last time but it was incredibly wet). There’s also a certain natural element of luck which sometimes has been on my side (the McLaren win in Canada, Schumacher being top 6 in Japan) and sometimes hasn’t.

So, the purpose of this article is to analyse what (if anything) has changed in the latter half of the season, why I’ve got certain things wrong and others right and, most importantly, what practical lessons I can learn for the next two races and for the forthcoming seasons when plenty of new races (America [twice], Russia and so on) join the calendar.

Changes since the mid-season interval

Vettel has been the class of the season throughout. However, he had more competition in the second quarter of the season. The McLaren was more competitive in the race, he still isn’t great at the Nurburgring and the unique (and slightly unfair) Silverstone circumstances hampered him and aided Ferrari.

This meant that, qualifying aside, there were more opportunities for drivers to beat him in the first half of the season. In the second half I feel that the Red Bull has quite simply dominated the field even more than before. In the five races pre-interval Vettel won a single race, since then he’s won five from six.

McLaren has inverted its relative strengths, and has been racier in qualifying but less impressive during the races, since the mid-season interval. At a number of races Hamilton has had the pace to get pole, but cock-ups prevented him from realising this potential, except at Korea. I then, stupidly, broke my own habit and backed him pre-P3 at the last race, which didn’t work.

Hamilton has been especially lacklustre in the last few races, whereas his team mate has been the class of the field (Vettel aside). The running order is clearly, in my mind: Vettel, Button, Alonso and is partly due to machinery, partly down to skill.

Things I got wrong

Getting tips wrong is pretty shitty, but if it enables you to learn something then it may help provide future profits (and there’s no point bitching about wrong tips or missed opportunities unless you get some future advantage).

Qualifying: this is the easiest area to look at. When I backed Vettel I made money, when I bet against him I didn’t. If there’s a good reason, based on practice times, to back Webber or Hamilton that *may* be ok, but is probably best avoided. Vettel’s especially good at qualifying, is in the form of his life and has the best car.

Race: Vettel isn’t a great starter, but it’s better to look at Webber, who is the worst starter of the year. This provides an opportunity to lay him for (typically) a podium, even if he starts quite high up. Correspondingly, Button and Alonso (as their team mates are performing poorly) may be value in this area.

I avoided a safety car bet in India. Whilst the weather was good and the track is nice and wide I was uncertain whether crashes would likely occur in tricky areas. This appears not to be the case, and the marshals did a good job clearing away cars quickly. So, in future, if dry, No Safety Car at India seems a decent bet.

In Korea I was gutted when an early potential tip for pole (Hamilton, at about 5 or 6) which I didn’t offer proved accurate. Even worse, I considered backing Vettel (who started second) to lead lap 1 at about 6.8, and didn’t. The Korean circuit is excellent for a second-placed chap to overtake the leader on lap 1.

Deciding when to back potential tips and when not to has been a problem. If I’d backed both the above tips I’d be well ahead right now (in fact, Korea would be my best result of the season), but I didn’t. The pole tip wasn’t backed because of timezone issues, and I think it’s fair enough to let that go. The lead lap 1 tip wasn’t backed due to lack of confidence even though I was sorely tempted, and I think that was a mistake on my part.

Things I got right

I’ve backed Schumacher twice (once due to an excellent tip from Mr. Putney, the other time off my own bat) to finish in the top 6. Somehow he seems to keep doing it despite being in a car that should average a 7^th or 8^th-placed finish. The customary Hamilton-Massa contretemps and some good tyre management has helped him out. This is not a dead cert, as Petrov proved in Korea, but at something like 2.75 or 3 may be cunning. [It’s also worth recalling he’s a great starter and often makes 3 or more places up immediately].

Rating Jenson Button. I backed him to be top 3 in one qualifying session (not tipped due to lack of liquidity) and to win in Japan. After Vettel he is the man of the moment, and appears to have the measure of everyone else. Mentally, he’s in good shape.

Looking forward

We have just two more races left, and it’d be nice to end with an upward swing. Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina circuit has been altered to try and encourage overtaking (kudos to the organisers for being dissatisfied with a processional circuit) but it’ll probably still be quite hard to pass.

A safety car appeared at one of the previous two Yas Marina races, but I’d rate it as likelier than not (especially given the new F1 tradition of Hamilton and Massa crashing).

Tyre degradation is unknown. However, higher degradation hampered Webber earlier in the season and appears to have returned as a problem in India.

Vettel’s won both previous races by over 10 seconds (Webber’s finished 2^nd and 8^th). Button’s finished on the podium twice.

Interlagos, meanwhile, has huge passing potential (and may have rain).

For future new circuits: tons of construction dust may mean that there will be little grip. A slightly better line will emerge, but even with a layout that encourages overtaking the lack of off-line grip will make it harder for the inaugural race. Possibly conservative tyres choices could emphasis this and making rising up the order more contingent upon people ahead making mistakes than passing on track.

The next Grand Prix is in Abu Dhabi, with the race on the 13^th. For Britons, the time is usual, as it’s a twilight race.

Morris Dancer

India: post-race analysis

2011-10-30T11:53:00.001Z

Since Korea:

News has broken of a 10 year deal for a new Grand Prix in New Jersey, around the streets of New York City. I must confess to being less than enthused. I’m not a street circuit fan, and fear that a decent or excellent circuit (I hope it isn’t Spa) will end up making way for another money-spinning procession. There’s also the fact that we now have two Grands Prix in Spain and the US, but none in France and the brilliant Belgian GP has an uncertain future. Hopefully vile Valencia will be axed.

Qualifying summary:

Well, that shows the folly of tipping pre-P3 (my habit is to do so afterwards). Backed Hamilton for fastest Q3 time at 3.7 with a hedge set up at 1.6. Irritatingly, he had a great chance of [briefly, at least] getting the fastest time in the dying moments of Q3, but chose to pit. I think Vettel would’ve still gotten pole, but the lay may very well have been matched.

In Q1, strangely, Button had to go out and use/waste another set of the soft tyres (this time the compounds are soft and hard, yellow and white respectively) and he was also significantly off the pace at the sharp end.

Schumacher disappointed in 12^th, but it’s probably a better place than 10^th as he has more fresh tyres than he would have and can choose which tyres he will start the race with. Hamilton, Alonso and the two Red Bulls were all very, very close (Vettel did pull a 0.3s gap but that was partly because Hamilton aborted his final run. Not sure if the Ferraris/Webber did likewise).

The Ferrari has looked pretty good in practice, but the Red Bull is, apparently, the only car that can make the white tyres work quickly. However, given the very low levels of degradation and the yellow tyre’s speed advantage this may not be an enormous help in the race.

So, disappointed somewhat for a few reasons. Bad tip, obviously, but it may’ve been laid if Hamilton had completed his final lap (though it’s understandable why he didn’t).

Race summary:

A brand new circuit presents both a great challenge and opportunity for those of us betting on the sport. In commentary for qualifying it was remarked upon that the track doesn’t really have a clean side, and that, coupled with the enormo-straight in the first sector made me wonder whether or not Vettel would retain the lead. I also, unusually, checked the speed trap standings and found Vettel almost at the very bottom (the speed trap being near the end of the enormo-straight).

In the end I went for two tips, the only ones I ever really considered. Backed Alonso for the win at 8.6 (lay at 3), and laid Vettel to lead lap 1 at 1.42 (with a suggestion *not* a tip of backing him at long odds with a paltry sum, as I could see him getting passed but retaking the lead).

In the end, the race was disappointing in terms of both action and betting. Webber actually started alright, but he bottled/lacked the speed to try and pass Vettel but managed to hold up Alonso as well. Once Vettel had the lead he never lost it.

I thought my form had improved a bit after the mid-season lull but recently (admittedly at a brand new circuit and one that was used in the dry for the first time) it’s dipped again. After this article, perhaps next weekend, I’m going to write another piece examining why that is.

Back to the race. Schumacher continued his excellent starts, leaping to around 8^th. Alonso buggered up the first corner, possibly due to Webber braking too early, and ended up 4^th, whereas Button had a great start, passing first Alonso and then Webber on lap 1. Thereafter, the Briton was a permanent fixture in the number 2 slot.

Hamilton got passed by Massa at the start. In the latter half of the race, just for a change, the two decided to have a collision. Surprisingly, the Brazilian got penalised, and after the crash Hamilton (possibly in a car suffering damage) never threatened the Mercedes ahead of him and brought it home in seventh.

There was surprisingly little action at the sharp end. Quite a few passes and close battles occurred further down the field with Force Indias, Toro Rossos and so forth, but Vettel and Button proceeded serenely to another podium. The closest fight at the top of the field was between Webber and Alonso, with the latter passing the former at a pit stop and then retaining 3^rd to the end. The Ferrari occasionally has bursts of excellent pace but was mostly slower than the Red Bull.

Schumacher, by staying out longer than his team mate, passed him during the last pit stop and claimed 5^th, having started 12^th. After Massa’s contact and subsequent penalty his day got a little worse when he thumped over the curbs and snapped his suspension, ending his race altogether. Perez did well to climb from 17^th to 10^th.

Hopefully next year there’ll be a bit less dust and more tyre degradation to encourage cunning plans and overtaking. Even more importantly, hopefully there’ll be some winning tips. Note for next year: the safety car never appeared despite quite a few collisions and off-track excursions. The track is often wide and the marshal did a good job of quickly clearing away beached cars and so forth.

Musings:

The lack of tyre degradation meant that, despite an apparently decent circuit layout, the race saw track position as a dominant factor, removing cunning strategy, effectively, as a serious option for winning the race (contrary to the early races of the season). I’ll comment more on this in the next article, but given that Abu Dhabi has been very processional, this may play a big role in the next race (NB Yas Marina has been modified to encourage overtaking for this season).

Hamilton was again off the pace. After the collision that could be due to damage, but he followed up a poor start with a lacklustre performance. Button, meanwhile, is clearly the second best driver at the moment. Alonso has the skill but his car is simply not good enough, and Webber continues to drift backwards through the field.

Mercedes: Schumacher’s been more impressive than his team mate for a few races now. I really, really hope they can produce a podium- and race-winning car next season, both to challenge Red Bull and so that we get a good intra-team rivalry.

Pretty disappointed with this weekend, but philosophical. Gambling is, after all, inherently risky, and it’s a new circuit. I’ve made some mistakes but I think I can see some lessons in them.

Abu Dhabi and Brazil are the only remaining races. As I said above, Abu Dhabi has been ultra-processional since it started hosting GPs a little while ago, but has been altered to try and boost overtaking. This will be critical when assessing bets (including for what happens if cars get stuck behind a slower driver following a poorly timed pit stop). Interlagos, by contrast, is spectacular, with overtaking eminently possible.

So, this has been a bad weekend, but there are two more to come and opportunities to make up for the disappointing performance at India. Before the Abu Dhabi race I’ll put up an article examining recent poor tips, and hopefully draw some useful conclusions for the forthcoming two races. Abu Dhabu is 11-13 November and Brazil is 25-27 November.

Morris Dancer

Korea: post-race analysis

2011-10-16T10:03:00.001+01:00

Qualifying summary:

No tip offered, due to the timezone, and now I feel like a moron. Hamilton tempted me at 5, but I neither tipped nor backed it, and didn’t even mention it. I thought that the pace advantage was strictly wet weather, and whilst the gap did close I was wrong and missed a tasty triumph. Oh well.

Schumacher qualified in a relatively poor 12^th, however, he was unfairly disadvantaged. The Pirelli tyre set he used was, unusually, out of balance and this caused a substantially vibration and cost him circa 0.9s. I hope he gets a new set for free, as, being 12^th, he can obviously opt to change without penalty but he’s already lost out due to Pirelli’s mistake and he shouldn’t lose a set of supersofts because of that.

For the first time this year a Red Bull was not on pole. Vettel was two-tenths down from Hamilton, who seemed very emotional and was just keeping it all together instead of celebrating. Button got 3^rd, Webber 4^th, Massa again beat Alonso (5^th and 6^th), and they were followed by Rosberg, Petrov, di Resta and Sutil.

The run to turn 1 is pretty short. However, Coulthard suggested in commentary that the McLarens might have a long first gear which could cost them at the start but help them out during the race (I’m not well-informed enough to explain why that should be the case, I’m afraid). I’ll check out the first lap leader market, and see what odds Vettel is to lead.

Race summary:

The grid was ideally set up for an exciting race, but a bit of a bugger when it came to betting. In the end I backed Button for the win at 4.7, with a lay at 1.8.

From the main site: “I was agonising over betting on Vettel to lead lap 1 at 6.8, but decided against it after reading of the Vettel non-penalty and Button's relief.”

The race start was unusual as everyone predicted the dirty (even) side of the track would be severely disadvantaged. In truth, there was no difference whatsoever, and the long McLaren first gear didn’t hamper them at all either. Infuriatingly, Vettel did pass Hamilton on lap 1, using the very long straights to get a great slipstream, pass him and then be in the lead in the twisty section where passing is very hard. [Hopefully I’ll remember this for next year]. Meanwhile, Button was third off the line but got passed thrice on lap 1 and ended up 6^th.

At the front, it was depressingly familiar. Vettel rode off into the sunset, his serene procession to victory disturbed only by the occasional effort to secure fastest lap (which he did on the final lap).

However, there was a tasty fight that lasted much of the race between second-placed Hamilton and Webber. Contrary to expectations the Red Bull actually had the edge on the McLaren throughout the race. However, Hamilton defended very well, and superior traction into the DRS straight prevented Webber being close enough to take advantage.

Button was aided by poor initial pits by the Ferraris and got out into 4^th, where he was neither particularly threatened nor particularly threatening. After the race both McLaren drivers complained of understeer, suggesting the set-up was slightly wrong, perhaps compromising any prospect of victory.

Interestingly, Ferrari decided to let its drivers race. As a result, Alonso was held up by Massa for the first half of the race, stayed out longer with quick primes and managed to pass him at the pit stop stage. After that he was often the fastest man on the track and was very close to Button at the end. His comedy radio message “I give up” provided some entertainment near the end. The commentary team were undecided as to whether it was a cunning plan to try and lull Button into a sense of false security, or an unsubtle way of saying “Never, ever let Massa hold me up again, you clowns.”

Schumacher failed to finish due to being rammed from behind by Petrov (as it were), and Rosberg got passed by Alguesuari near the end, the pair ending up 7^th and 8^th. The Toro Rosso was pretty tasty all weekend, and was the only car faster in a straight line than the Mercedes.

Quite an entertaining race, slightly spoilt by the unchallenged supremacy of the newly re-crowned Weltmeister.

Also worth mentioning that tyre degradation was nowhere near as bad as feared, and what had been mooted as a possible 5 stop race turned into a 2 stopper, with very little pace difference between the supersofts and softs.

Musings:

Bloody dire betting weekend. I can forgive myself the failure to go for the 5 pole bet on Hamilton, as I almost always bet just after P3. But I really buggered up the First Lap Leader bet. 6.8 was there for the taking. On the plus side, I’m so pissed off with myself for the error of judgement that I’m hopeful I’ll remember next year and not do it again.

The Button bet was reasonable, though wrong, but he never got close enough for it to even be laid. Just a rubbish betting weekend, really. The only plus side is that I didn’t go for other failed prospective bets I was considering (Schumacher at 3 for top 6 and Hamilton-Button to be top 2 at 3.25). The rocky second half of the season continues.

In non-whinging news, Red Bull secured their second Constructors’ in a row, which was not very surprising. They have had the best car, but I think Vettel may be an even bigger asset than Newey, judging by the advantage he’s had over his team mate. Next year there are few regulation changes, for once, so hopefully it’ll get closer at the front and Mercedes can offer a car capable of podiums or the odd victory.

So, the preantepenultimate race has not been a happy one for me. The antepenultimate race takes place in India in a fortnight. P3 ends at 7.30am (bit weird for a half hour finish) so I may be able to offer a qualifying tip, or two. Let’s hope it’s a bit more profitable.

Just checked the Indian circuit diagram. After the start, which is quite long, there’s a very long straight, so that could enable two opportunities for passing (or, for the leader to re-take first position if he gets dropped to second off the line) and could be a rare case of hedging a First Lap leader bet making sense. I’ll consider it nearer the time.

Morris Dancer

Japan: post-race analysis

2011-10-09T09:42:00.000+01:00

Qualifying summary:

No bets offered for this, as P3 was from 3am to 4am and I didn’t get up to watch it and bet.

The first two practice sessions were notable for a few reasons. Firstly, Vettel outpaced Webber twice, suggesting he’ll get pole without serious challenge. Secondly, Button (who has been driving very well of late) beat Hamilton twice, and, last and probably least, the Williams’ drivers took three out of four opportunities to finish a session due to crashing or mechanical failure.

Qualifying was defined by the reluctance of the teams to use up their tyres. They’re all afraid of significant tyre wear, which may hamper some teams (Mercedes, alas) but help others (Ferrari).

Q1 was notable for Rosberg failing to get out at all and therefore starting 23^rd. Button very narrowly missed out on pole to Vettel, and I feel Hamilton may have taken it had he not fallen asleep during his out-lap and missed the boat. They line up Vettel, Button, Hamilton, Massa, Alonso, Webber, Schumacher, Senna, Petrov and Kobayashi.

Race summary:

I’d offered an early tip (after P2, pre-P3) on Schumacher to get a top 6 place at 2.75, with Ladbrokes. Rosberg going out in Q1 was handy, but high tyre wear was not. I also offered what I consider a single tip for Button or Hamilton to win (I avoided the McLaren to win bet because the odds were less favourable and advocated splitting a single stake to give equal profits for either McLaren driver to win) at 4.9 and 5.9 respectively, hedges at 1.4 each. Because of the nature of the bet I’m considering the Button-Hamilton bet to be a single tip rather than two.

At the start Vettel decided to emulate Herr Schumacher and introduced Button’s tyres to the grass as he pushed him wide, enabling Hamilton to nab second. Surprisingly, the Ferraris did not start as well as we’ve grown used to, and Schumacher made up a single place, largely due to Kobayashi having a dire start.

The first few laps were displeasing, as the top cars all seemed to develop a few seconds between themselves, and I was worried it would turn into a procession with sizeable gaps between frontrunners. Happily, I was wronger than the thirteenth Duke of Wrongcaster.

Hamilton suffered a puncture, freeing Button into second and necessitating an earlier than desired pit stop. Shortly thereafter Button made his tyres last better than Vettel, who pitted first, and managed to reduce the gap to the World Champion Elect during the initial pit stops.

As has become customary on these occasions Hamilton and Massa were scrapping over a place and there was contact. It was nothing serious, but a pointy bit of carbon fibre littered the track and, some laps later, prompted a safety car to appear.

After another pit stop Button emerged ahead of Vettel, who had suffered bad traffic when he rejoined the track. All the top chaps except Schumacher had pitted twice when the safety car came out, and the wily old German ducked into the pits and got almost a free stop.

Button seriously backed up the pack when the safety car came in and then bolted, adding a healthy half second to his advantage over Vettel. By the time (2 laps later, as per the start) DRS was re-enabled he had over a second lead.

Then came the third and final stops. As Schumacher pitted last he led the Grand Prix whilst the others pitted, and his team-mate helpfully held up Massa long enough for the necessary lead to be built. Schumacher pitted and came out in 6^th, ahead of his former Ferrari team-mate. Although the gap was always small fresher tyres and the mighty Mercedes top speed meant Schumacher held onto the place until the end.

At the front, meanwhile, Alonso had come out ahead of Vettel. For many laps the German, not content with a mere third place, sought to pass the Spaniard. However, traffic issues (provoking a shaken fist of disgust from Vettel) put paid to any serious hopes of getting second. Worryingly, Alonso then started closing on Button, who benefited from the Ferrari and Red Bull tussle.

Happily, the Briton decided he wanted to win after all, sped up a little bit and got the victory by a small margin.

I’d put the Button-Hamilton tip down to sound judgement, and the Schumacher one down to pure luck.

Musings:

After some lacklustre results since the mid-season interval I can’t complain about getting two from two. That said, I did consider backing Alonso for a podium at 2.7 but thought the Ferrari incapable of such a feat versus the McLarens and Vettel.

Regarding my longer term bets (Button top 3 and Alonso/Hamilton to finish 2^nd) this result is pretty helpful. I’m green either way due to cautious hedging, but right now the former seems quite likely and the second is not yet impossible.

The race was interesting for a few reasons, one of which was the divergence within teams between drivers. Button, Alonso and Vettel had good races, but Webber never threatened a podium, Hamilton was clearly inferior to Button, and Massa was well off the pace.

Now that the title race is over it’s worth saying that it has not been the most thrilling, especially in the wake of the fantastic 2010 season. Vettel has crushed his opposition with ruthless ease.

However, individually, the races have been almost uniformly excellent. Yes, Valencia was as much fun as a distressing bowel movement and Singapore was less than super, but we’ve also had some truly epic races. China was thrilling and Canada was perhaps the finest race I can recall seeing, with the truly glorious (and profitable) victory for Button.

Bit early for 2012 season thoughts, although I would say that Alonso may be best placed to challenge Vettel as he enjoys number 1 status at a rival team.

Betting-wise, it was better not to hedge. Assuming £10 stakes you would be a whole £4 better off.

The next race is Korea in just one week’s time. I hope it isn’t quite as soggy as last year.

Morris Dancer

Mark says it was the women, I am not so sure

2011-10-03T14:17:00.000+01:00

In today's lead article on PB.com, Mark Gill contends that it was women who denied the Conservatives an overall majority in the election last year. I however wish to contend that actually it was men who denied Cameron a majority.

After the election in May 2010, I found data referring to exit polls going back to the October 1974 general election and was amazed at how much information there was as it not only showed the national exit poll, but how the genders voted, but the ages and the social classes and by using the calculation for swing several election mysteries began to make sense.

Why did Labour do so badly in 1983?
In the 1983 general election, there was a national swing of 5% from Labour to Conservative. This swing was repeated evenly among the genders, but not quite so evenly among the ages. There was only a 4% swing in new voters, a 3% swing in second and third time voters, but a 6% swing in the older voters. But what really did it for Labour in 1983 was the 4% swing to Conservative in their traditional class, the DE's, In October 1974, this class recorded a 57% Labour vote, in 1983 it was only 41% with most of the change in support going to the Alliance.

Why did the Conservatives win in 1992?
A 2% swing to Labour in 1992 was nowhere near the swing that Labour needed even for a hung parliament. Men recorded a 4% swing to Labour (hung parliament), Women recorded a 1% swing (Con maj) but the real problem was the famous C2's. The voters who were able to make seats such as Basildon change hands didn't swing as much. Labour only managed a 3% swing which explains why seats like Southampton, Itchen was a Lab gain but Basildon was a Con hold.

So why didn't Cameron gain an overall majority in 2010? Well, the national swing was 5% to Conservative. Men recorded the national swing, but women did better recording a 6% swing. If anyone denied Cameron an overall majority it was the first time voters. Compared with 2005, Labour fell by 7%, the Conservatives rose by 2% (a 5% swing) but it was the Liberal Democrats who rose by 4% (indicating a 1% swing from Con to Lib Dem) who puts the brakes on a Con overall majority and might also explain why as soon as the Liberal Democrats broke their tution fees promise the Liberal Democrat vote has collapased to 1979 levels (and lower in some polls)

Singapore: post-race analysis

2011-09-25T15:30:00.000+01:00

Since Monza:

My early thoughts (writing this the day after the Italian GP) are that Ferrari and Alonso may be faster than many expect in Singapore. The Ferrari has suffered on the medium compound white tyres at the last two races, as it’s not very quick at getting heat into them, leading to less grip. However, Singapore is using the soft and supersoft compounds. This will get rid of the heat issue (I think) and may also give a real advantage as the Ferrari is kind to its tyres. By contrast, tyre-shredder Webber and the Mercedes may suffer. If this proves accurate, it’ll be more of a race issue (if the race is dry) than one for qualifying.

Qualifying summary:

Unusually for a normal(ish) race in terms of practice and qualifying times I decided not to offer any tips. In my view Vettel was rightly favourite at 1.45, but the odds were too short, and (his laps being largely compromised by traffic) it was very difficult to accurately assess pace at the sharp end. I did look around for other tips, but there was nothing that caught my eye.

Practice was notable for the first session losing 38 minutes due to bizarre incompetence by the race organisers, as numerous bits of curb were unsecured. As a result, some parts have been removed, enabling drivers to take a wider line, albeit at the risk of introducing their car to the wall.

Practice saw, generally, the Red Bull fastest over a single lap, followed by McLaren then Ferrari, but Alonso marginally faster than Vettel and substantially quicker than the McLarens when it came to heavy fuel running. So, I expect Alonso to be on the second or third row come qualifying but with some opportunity to make up places in the race.

Race summary:

Well, this was two hours of tedium and woe. I backed Webber at 9.6 for the win (this lengthened to 12 before the race), as the odds were rather ginormous for a second-placed man, despite Webber’s bad starts of late. However, he decided to have yet another awful start, then managed to lose out at almost every pit stop and never challenged for the lead.

Vettel started well, retained the lead, and was only under threat briefly, when McLaren waited until the last 10 laps to get Button (also processing serenely to the podium) to have a go. Surprisingly, as both were on fresh option tyres, Button caught Vettel at a great rate of knots but the gap was simply too large to be reduced in the limited time available.

Hamilton started badly, then lost a wing in an altercation with Massa, then got a drive-through penalty because of the aforementioned contact, and did well to recover to fifth.

Webber had a bit of a disappointing race following another bad start, being held up repeatedly by Alonso and being unable to approach Button who consistently held second.

Alonso was fourth, hampered by a Ferrari that, contrary to expectations, chewed up its tyres whilst at the same time being not very fast relative to McLaren or Red Bull.

Other incidents of note include a great sixth place for di Resta, who has been impressive throughout the season, and Schumacher taking Perez from behind, losing his front wing (one can only imagine he has shares in the company that makes them, or is perhaps being sponsored to get through as many as he can this season) then ramming into the wall after a little airborne action.

The Renault was catastrophically poor. They got back-to-back podiums, I think, at the start of the season, yet finished 15^th and 17^th here (Senna again beating Petrov).

There were moments of excitement, quite a few passes, but the two leading cars were never under threat and it was more of a farcical slapstick than high drama. Not as bad as Valencia, but otherwise probably the most boring race of the season. I remain less than thrilled about street circuits.

Musings:

Given my poor performance since the mid-season break I might write something trying to analyse and resolve any problem there might be.

I got the Webber tip wrong, obviously. However, almost all the other tips I considered (Alonso for podium or win, Button for the win, lay Webber for a podium) would also have lost. The only two exceptions were backing Button for a top 3 qualifying finish at 3.4 (didn’t tip because there wasn’t enough money available) and a safety car (it did appear, but the 1.2 odds were just too short). The only betting upsides are that I only offered one wrong tip rather than many, and that the result plays quite nicely for my preferred Top 3 Title contenders and Winner Without Vettel result (Button and Alonso, respectively, but marginally green whatever happens).

I really hated the odds for this. However, you can only bet on what’s there in front of you. We go to Japan in a fortnight, then the new Korean circuit, the debut at India, Abu Dhabi and the fantastic Interlagos in Brazil.

So, the next article will either be Japan in a fortnight, or a contemplative post in a week or so.

Morris Dancer

General Election 2015 : The (Very) Early Assessment

2011-09-20T07:49:00.000+01:00

First of all, credit where it is rightly due.
To The Guardian Newspaper for their exceptionally speedy turnaround of the Boundary Commissioners inital proposals and Google Earth map file of the proposed constituencies, Anthony Wells for his even faster conversion of those proposals into constituency estimates (for all the parties not just Con, Lab and Lib Dem) and finally the Sheffield University Spatial Geography department for converting the BBC's election colours into both HTML code and RGB codes.

So, England is to lose some 30 seats and have 502 seats which according to the calculations would see 293 Conservatives elected (including the Speaker), 173 Labour MP's elected and 36 Liberal Democrats elected (based on the 2010 election) with Labour being the biggest casualties losing some 18 seats (compared to the Conservatives losing 5 and the Lib Dems losing 7), but where does this put us in the context of a general election.

Well, as we don't know what the Scottish or Welsh proposals are going to be yet, we cannot say for sure, but we can say that based on the announced reductions you need 301 seats to gain an overall majority in the new House (down from the current 326) and therefore the Conservatives (who were 19 short in 2010) are already only 8 short of an overall majority (with Wales and Scotland still to announce), but as there is only one Conservative MP in Scotland (which is likely to go) and based on the assessments of Wales in the past suggesting only three Conservative MP's, let's work on the assumption the Conservatives need five seats for an overall majority and 30 for a good working majority of 50 or so. What seats might attract their attention?

Well, the first thing to note is that the top 30 English Conservative targets are 67% Labour and 33% Lib Dem and as we saw in the locals this year, Con vs Lib Dem battles do seem to side with the Conservatives, therefore the Conservatives have their overall majority. However as we also saw in the locals, there was an almighty swing from Conservative to Labour, suggesting that it will be Labour on the advance. Current estimate: Con 303 Lab 173 Lib Dem 26

Now, for Labour to win an overall majority they have really got to go some. They need a rather staggering 128 gains just to get an overall majority of 1 (and a further 15 - 25 gains in order to get an working majority). Remind you of a certain David Cameron anyone? So what do these 128 gains comprise, well, thanks to the changes rather a large number of current Labour seats. For instance, number 10 is Hull West and Hessle, 37 is Southampton, Test, 40 is Walsall South, 44 is Birmingham, Erdington and 124 is Walsall North. Number 128 is Bosworth which would go Labour on a swing of 11.73%. The latest polls are suggesting a swing of about 5% (59 gains) but with the Lib Dems being hit the most (11% swing from Lib Dem to Lab) so based on that the tally would be: Con 249 Lab 237 Lib Dem 16

And we cannot rule out the odd suprise along the way. For instance, the Greens may have lost their Brighton, Pavillion seat to Labour, but as their number one target who is to say that they can do it again and win the new Brighton, Pavillion and Hove or even take a second seat in Norwich South (7.22% swing from Lib Dems). So as things stand at the moment, my inital suggestion is that in England the Conservatives and Labour would be virtually neck and neck with the Conservatives ahead of Labour by about 10 but with Labour certainly assured at least 50 seats in Scotland and Wales (taking them up to 287) can Ed Milliband encourage Labour to take those last 14 gains and regain a Labour overall majority?

Who now hates Nick Clegg?

2011-09-17T08:18:00.001+01:00

Last November, I posed the question on pb2 “Who hates Nick Clegg?”

http://politicalbetting.blogspot.com/2010/11/who-hates-nick-clegg.html

My analysis showed an intriguing split, with Labour supporters remarkably united in their disdain for the Lib Dem leader. If Nick Clegg is not going to add as a serious drag on his party’s polling, he needs to improve his public standing before the next election.

Have Nick Clegg’s ratings started to improve?

No. The two pollsters who regularly poll on the standing of the party leaders, YouGov and IPSOS-MORI, offer no comfort to Nick Clegg. Both have issued new polls on this subject this week. By 67% to 22%, the Great British public as polled by YouGov think that he is doing badly rather than well. According to IPSOS-MORI, 59% are dissatisfied with the way that he is doing his job as Deputy Prime Minister and only 31% are satisfied. These figures are actually considerably worse than in November last year.

Where has this deterioration come from?

Impressively, Nick Clegg seems to have been able to alienate still more Labour supporters in the last 10 months. IPSOS-MORI now find that fully 78% of Labour supporters are dissatisfied, up from 71%, and 90% of YouGov respondents with a Labour allegiance now think that he is doing badly, up from 87% last year.

He still gets the nod from the largest part of Conservative supporters with IPSOS-MORI (49% to 41%) and his figures are a respectable 39% to 51% with Conservatives with YouGov. But to put this in context, Conservative supporters still rave about David Cameron – fully 94% of YouGov Conservative supporters think that David Cameron is doing well and 78% of IPSOS-MORI Conservatives are satisfied with him. Nick Clegg is standing in his shadow, so far as Conservatives are concerned.

It gets worse. According to YouGov, 28% of current Lib Dem supporters now think the Lib Dem leader is doing badly. In November last year, this figure was 14%. So this has doubled in 10 months. IPSOS-MORI shows a less dramatic move in dissatisfaction among Lib Dem supporters – up from 34% to 42% since November. But it’s unlikely that Nick Clegg will take much comfort from that.

Has the intensity of anger diminished?

Not obviously. YouGov allow respondents to say whether they think Nick Clegg is doing badly or very badly. 59% of Labour supporters say that they think that he is doing very badly. That is actually a slight improvement on the 61% who thought this last year, but the Lib Dems would need to be very creative to turn that into a bar chart. Meanwhile, fully 36% of all respondents now think that he’s doing very badly, up from 27% last year.

Conclusion

Nick Clegg needs to improve his ratings from the very poor levels that they plunged to following the formation of the Coalition. But instead he is sinking further. He has 3 years and 9 months at most to see improvements. But given what has happened to his polling in the last year, it may already be too late. The public may already have made their minds up.

antifrank

Italy: post-race analysis

2011-09-11T15:24:00.001+01:00

Since Spa:

In a first this season there will be both two DRS zones (which we saw in Montreal and Valencia) but also two detection zones. The thinking is that this will aid overtaking, of course, but also that it will make up for a lesser DRS effect, presumably due to the generally high speed nature of Monza.

Tyre allocations for the weekend are the same as for Spa (soft yellows and medium whites). This is bad news for Ferrari, who suffered greatly when trying to get heat into the white tyres at Spa. They’re also more adversely affected by the cold, for the same reason.

Qualifying summary:

The first practice session was handy as all times were set on white tyres, enabling an approximate comparison. McLaren were fastest, followed by Red Bull, with Ferrari some way back.

Second practice had Vettel, Hamilton and Schumacher at the top, followed by the two Ferraris, Webber, Button and Perez. However, the commentary chaps reckoned that the McLarens were relatively slow on heavy fuel. That could prove handy for Red Bull and Mercedes.

Third practice had Vettel ahead of everyone by a few tenths, and on that basis I tipped him for pole at evens.

To my surprise and delight, Vettel not only got pole, he slaughtered his opposition. Hamilton and Button were 2^nd and 3^rd, but Hamilton was almost half second behind the Weltmeister.

Even more oddly, Webber (who had just one run rather than two) was down by seven-tenths on his team mate, and managed only 5^th, directly behind Alonso and ahead of Massa. The top 10 were rounded out by Petrov, Schumacher, Rosberg and Senna, but it’s worth mentioning that Rosberg did Q3 on the prime tyre (the slower white compound) and Senna did not set a time at all.

Race summary:

I found the race even harder to predict than qualifying. In the end, I opted for a Vettel win tip at 2.3 and a Webber podium tip at 2.75 (although this did later lengthen to 3.25). A gentleman from Putney suggested, pre-P3, backing Schumacher for a top 6 place at 3.05, which I also put a little on.

The start was very exciting. Alonso, Vettel and Hamilton entered turn 1 abreast, and left it in the above order. Meanwhile, Webber and Button continued their habit of starting poorly, and Schumacher continued his of taking off like a rocket. However, the midfield was torn to shreds by a HRT car which decided to go for some off-track rally action and rammed its way through half the midfield runners.

A safety car appeared, a few cars (especially those that had slyly begun the race on medium white tyres) dove into the pits, and the numerous cars, including Rosberg’s and Petrov’s, destroyed by the incident were removed from the circuit.

At the sharp end, Schumacher’s ultra-fast Mercedes had gotten past Hamilton, and was holding him up. This continued for many laps, and the wily old fox was rather robust with his defensive moves at times.

Still before lap 10, Webber (who had fallen back, due to his bad start), tried passing Massa but unfortunately forgot that two objects possessing the same co-ordinates in time and space contravenes the laws of physics. He whacked the Ferrari, lost his front wing and spun Massa around. Shortly thereafter, Webber’s car, angry at his mistake, refused to turn at a corner (possibly due to nearly zero front downforce resulting from no front wing) and he thumped nose-first into a barrier and out of the race.

Vettel, meanwhile, completed a staggeringly good pass on Alonso, going around him in a sweeping, high speed corner. Pass done, he then drove off into the sunset and divided the rest of his time between growing and maintaining a healthy lead and doing the Financial Times crossword.

Schumacher put Hamilton onto the grass slightly (still, better than a concrete wall at 200mph), allowing Button to sneak past his team mate and then immediately past the German. Many laps later Schumacher yielded to Hamilton, perhaps reasoning the pass was only a matter of time and such defensive driving was damaging his tyres.

As predicted the Ferrari was poor on white tyres and this enabled cunning Button to pass him and reach second place. Briefly it appeared as though Alonso might yet retake the place, but by the final lap he was just ahead of Hamilton. Another lap and he would’ve finished in fourth.

Musings:

Schumacher got a very solid fifth, for the second race running, making Mr. Putney’s tip nice and profitable (and better than mine). I got one right and one wrong for the race making it very slightly profitable, and got my solitary qualifying tip correct. After the woes of Spa I’m happy enough with two from three, and a small profit augmented by the wisdom of Mr. Putney.

Webber crashing out was irksome, both as it meant that bet failed and I have no idea if it would have come off. I think it had a reasonable chance, but we’ll never know.

Yet again, both Ferraris and Schumacher had electric starts, Red Bull varied between a big sluggish (Vettel) and nodding off (Webber) and Button was also a little slow. I did consider the First Lap leader bet briefly but decided against it.

There is a silver lining to Webber’s failure to finish (the first time since Korea last year a Red Bull has failed to win points at a race), which is that Alonso now becomes second in the title race, a more profitable place for my Winner Without Vettel market bets (Alonso or Hamilton winning gives more than anyone else). However, still a bit irked that he crashed out, but that’s racing.

So, why did the car that is substantially slower than its rivals in a straight line manage to win at a circuit which is all about top speed?

Because, as I’ve said before, Vettel is clever. He and Webber opted for differing gear ratios at the top end (gears 6 and 7). Vettel went for short ratios, reducing top end speed but, I believe, enabling the car to be quicker through the sweeping corners. In practice and qualifying the McLaren was much faster in sector 1 but was losing about half a second in sector 3 to the Red Bull.

This is also why Hamilton had such difficulty, even with DRS, passing Schumacher. The Mercedes was cheerfully set up to be fast as hell in a straight line, but McLaren had copied the Red Bull path. The problem is, overtaking in a straight line is bloody hard when the bloke in front is about the same speed as you, and passing elsewhere, even if you have speed in hand, is also tough.

Unfortunately, after the epic old European circuits, we’re off to the tedium of Singapore in a fortnight. Hopefully it won’t be like Valencia, presently the only boring race of the year.

Morris Dancer

Belgium: post-race analysis

2011-08-28T15:21:00.001+01:00

Since Hungary:

Renault have decided that Quick Nick Heidfeld isn’t quite doing the job they’d hoped he would. So, they’ve replaced him with Bruno Senna, and replaced his salary with the millions in sponsorship the Brazilian nephew brings with him. I hope Senna can do a good job, but it’ll be difficult for him. He’s only ever driven a HRT before, he’s not raced competitively for over half a year, the Renault’s gradually slipped down the running order and Spa is a circuit where top speed really helps (cf 2009 when Force India got pole then 2^nd) and the Renault engine is not the fastest.

Qualifying summary:

Practice was dominated by rain, with very little dry running and lots of intermediate tyre usage. It was hard to predict a pole sitter. I considered Webber the best bet (thought I was tempted by Button) as only Red Bulls have had pole this season, he got pole last year, he was fastest in P2 and P3 and if it was dry for qualifying Red Bull usually does even better.

Qualifying was hugely eventful from start to finish. Schumacher, celebrating 20 years of F1, didn’t even finish his out lap as a rear wheel parted company from his car and ensured he started from a career worst of 24^th. Meanwhile, Paul di Resta failed to escape Q3, and joined a quintet of backmarkers in 18^th. However, Kovalainen did manage to get into Q2 (albeit in just 17^th).

Q2 was almost as exciting for reasons good and bad. With just under 7 minutes left Sutil crashed out and the debris on the track got the session red-flagged, with Alonso in the drop zone. He managed to recover, but Button (then very high up the timesheet) waved past Hamilton (then in the drop zone). However, Button was called into the pits and ended up getting dropped in just 13^th place. Hamilton, meanwhile, secured entry into Q1, as did both Renaults and Perez. Unfortunately, the end of Q2 was marred by Hamilton making a robust but perfectly legitimate pass on Maldonado to get his best time. Maldonado, relegated to a mere 16^th, then swiped Hamilton’s car, causing superficial damage. Disgraceful behaviour (perhaps harking back to memories of a meeting in Monte Carlo) that earnt Maldonado a 5 place grid penalty and Hamilton a reprimand (for some reason).

Q1 saw dry tyres (the faster softs) used for the first time in qualifying. To my delight, Webber was consistently and substantially faster than his rivals (Vettel and Hamilton) for much of the session, only to drop to 3^rd in the latter stages. Happily, the 1.8 lay I’d suggested was accepted, so I ended up green anyway. Senna got a very impressive 7^th (ahead of Petrov in 10^th), Alonso got a substantially unimpressive 8^th (Massa snagged 4^th) and Vettel led Hamilton and then Webber at the sharp end. Rosberg and Alguersuari got 5^th and 6^th, Perez 9^th.

Race summary:

I imagined there would be plenty of cunning tips to offer, given Alonso, Button and Schumacher were heavily out of position in 8^th, 13^th and 24^th respectively. That, sadly, turned out not to be the case. In the end I opted for laying Webber for a podium at 1.81.

The first lap was notable for two main reasons: firstly, Rosberg got the lead from 5^th, and secondly Webber started with all the vigour of a hung-over octogenarian with rheumatoid arthritis, dropping all the way back to 8^th or so.

Senna unfortunately forgot that the first corner involves turning the car, rammed Alguersuari like a killer whale trying to drown a calf, and effectively ended the latter’s race whilst ruining his own.

At this point I was pleased. And then even more confirmation of my seemingly correct tip: Vettel reported severe blistering. I’d utterly forgotten to account for the tyre degradation (what with almost no dry running in 5 hours of practice and qualifying), and the Red Bulls seems to be suffering most (especially compared to the Ferraris and Button).

Down the field Schumacher was passing people left right and centre, and Button, who was down to 19^th at one point, was doing likewise. Incidentally, the other drivers all agreed that the Mercedes was fantastically quick in a straight line (even versus the very fast McLaren). Of course, that might be because Mercedes went for a dry set-up rather than a compromise.

Unfortunately, Kobayashi attempted to break the laws of physics and occupy the same time and space as Hamilton, spinning the Briton and putting him into the barrier. Hamilton left the race, the safety car arrived, Vettel sneaked into the pits and got a free pit stop (and so did many other drivers).

Webber had recovered from his early woes and Vettel too was coping with the blisters. Their only rival at the mid-stage was Alonso, who was ultimately to get passed by Webber (Alonso was on the harder tyre at the end and could not make it work, unlike the Red Bulls and Button, who began on the harder tyre) and then Button. Vettel scored yet another triumph (he was actually 2.9 and longer than Hamilton, then 2.7, just before the race) leading Webber and then Button. Alonso was 4^th, Schumacher managed to pass his team mate to get 5^th, and Rosberg was followed by Sutil, Massa, Petrov and Maldonado.

So, two bets, both wrong. If you hedged you’d be up about 60p. On the other hand, if you didn’t, you’d be down £20. Ironically, even though I laid Webber for the podium at 1.81 I could’ve hedged easily probably at 4-5 or even longer, given his atrocious start.

Musings:

Feel rather disappointed with my betting, particularly in the race when I should’ve recalled tyre degradation and Webber’s China drive (from 18^th or so to 3^rd) and backed Button and Schumacher to get podium and points (I did consider those bets, along with a Rosberg podium and Alonso win at 13 each, but decided they were too risky). Without hedging, this was the worst result since China in April.

The Mercedes was bloody fast in a straight line. Fastest of any car, and Schumacher was very quick throughout as well. The next race, in a fortnight, is Italy, and Monza is, like Spa, a speed circuit. Mercedes and Schumacher might just spring a slight surprise there. Rosberg maintains his habit of going backwards in the race.

I’m convinced Vettel and Red Bull are effectively uncatchable for the Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles. It was strategy rather than raw pace that got him the win, and it’s very hard to see anyone else taking his crown.

Morris Dancer

Mid-season review (racing):

2011-08-14T07:23:00.001+01:00

The season so far has been very good. We lost Bahrain (which is about as traumatic and upsetting as a massage with a happy finish) but in the first 11 races we’ve seen only one that was out-and-out boring (Valencia, due to a vile, tedious and woeful track).

By contrast, we’ve had many great races, and an absolute corking classic in Canada (which was also fantastic last year). Excepting the first few races, the challenge for the victory has come from multiple teams, and although Red Bull has dominated qualifying throughout they’ve come under pressure there as well.

Why has the racing been so good (Valencia aside)?

The numerous rules changes are undoubtedly the critical factor. The new DRS, KERS coming back and Pirelli making tyres that degrade more rapidly have all played a role, increasing overtaking and emphasising the importance of strategy. I would axe either DRS or KERS (I think having both is too gimmickity, and would probably take away DRS) but overall the new rules have made the sport even more enjoyable to watch.

The Pirelli tyres have meant that tyre management is highly important. Webber both suffered and benefited from this early on. He needed one more pit stop than Vettel in the early races, costing him points (a problem deepened by reliability issues). However, in China his numerous fresh tyres enable him to charge up the grid and achieve a great 3^rd place.

The weather has also, generally, been conducive to great racing. The epic rain delay in Canada served up a fantastic race and a great British victory, and Hungary also saw the race defined by the teams’ tyre choices (both strategically and in relation to the elements).

In some ways, it’s reminiscent of 2009. Like Button then, Vettel has accrued a monstrous advantage, and the fact that the chasing pack (Alonso, Hamilton, Button and Webber) are numerous helps him further, as they take points off of each other and make catching him even harder.

However, I’d put the Red Bull as the third best car now in race terms. The McLaren and Ferrari are both better on the day. But, for Vettel to lose now he would need either Hamilton or Alonso to average a finish 11 points ahead of him at each of the 8 remaining races. That’s a huge ask. It is not, however, impossible.

McLaren and Ferrari tend, in recent seasons, to start more slowly than Red Bull but develop much more throughout the season, and this has happened again. I’d also say that Hamilton and Alonso are approximately on a par with one another and Vettel, and Button is fantastic in changeable conditions. In 2009, Button’s advantage began to be steadily eroded in the latter half of the season, and I think he only clinched it at the penultimate race in Interlagos.

Will the same happen to Vettel?

I’d say it’s unlikely. The gap is enormous and he’s aided by multiple competitors. The Red Bull (KERS excepted) has been as reliable as a Yorkshireman called Bob. To lose it’d need probably a combination of the following to occur:

Multiple DNFs for Vettel

Consistent wins from Hamilton or Alonso

Vettel finishing 4^th or lower on a regular basis

I’d be more inclined to have a look at laying Red Bull for the Constructors’. I did consider it (it’s 1.04 right now) but I’d need to see McLaren wiping the floor with Red Bull at a few races before tipping it.

Looking further down the field, there’s actually quite a lot of interesting things to say. Sauber have improved and now regularly challenge for points. Kobayashi is still highly entertaining, and I rate Perez highly (he would’ve scored points in his first race but for a tiny technical transgression with the rear wing).

Force India have improved recently as well, as di Resta has great potential for the future. Renault, by contrast have moved backwards, and I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to get Kubica back next year. I just hope they can give him the car he deserves.

Mercedes have never lived up to the post-Brawn potential. This is probably because budget constraints meant Brawn had to axe a lot of staff, and the team hasn’t really recovered. Schumacher has had occasional flashes of brilliance, the most obvious time being the Canadian Grand Prix where he came within a whisker of a podium, but it’s hard to assess him given the car isn’t good enough. I think he has the raw pace and good feel in wet conditions, but lacks the fine touch needed to stay out of trouble. I hope he can snag a podium this year or next.

I still don’t see the point of the new teams. Six cars between them and not a single point. I got no points watching the 2010 season on TV. I know someone has to be at the back, but middle of the road teams like Sauber, Toro Rosso and Williams manage to have at least a chance of points regularly.

The next race weekend begins in 12 days, at Spa. I’ve heard rumours it might end up alternating with a re-introduced French GP, which would be disappointing but far better than losing the track altogether. Spa’s a proper, exciting, race circuit, like Interlagos or Silverstone, not a dreary lump of tedium like Valencia or Bahrain.

I don’t anticipate huge changes in relative pace despite the 4 week break because for most of that time the teams have been commanded to have time off. Still, we’ll find out in a fortnight what’s what.

Morris Dancr

Mid-season review (betting):

2011-08-05T07:29:00.003+01:00

This season has, in many ways, been the exact opposite of 2010, my first full season of tipping. Although both started badly, 2010 was worse. Last year I was good at qualifying and pretty rubbish at races, this year, the reverse is true. (After Hungary if you bet on every tip I offered, without hedging, qualifying would yield a net gain of £17.15, with races putting you ahead £113.19). Overall, this is much better than the broadly flat first half of 2010, but for reasons I shall explain later I’m not entirely happy.

Another reverse relates to hedging. For those unaware, hedging means that when you back somebody doing something (say, Vettel getting a podium) you then set up a lay (betting against them doing that something at much shorter odds) on the reverse. The theory is that, because F1 is especially prone to randomness, unpredictability and woe, people will often get close to something but ultimately fail. Unfortunately, and in very stark contrast to last year, hedging has been better at only one race (Monaco). If you bet and did not hedge on every one of my tips (with a £10 stake) you’d be up £130.34 for the season so far, but with hedging this would be just £73.84. That’s a pretty enormous difference and the rather splendid graph below will show how this worked race-by-race.

So, why hasn’t hedging worked in 2011 when it was very good in 2010?

Obviously the answer must be one of the many differences this year. One obvious candidate is the excellent level of reliability, particularly after the first few races. We’ve also, generally, had good weather. When we haven’t (Canada, Britain, Germany) I’ve generally done ok but lost through hedging things that actually happened. In Canada, I backed McLaren for the win, and it was on the final lap Button got the lead, in Silverstone, Alonso was very fast indeed and got the wine.

Essentially, I’ve been more accurate in the race than I thought I would, and in qualifying I’ve either been right or, more often, so hugely wrong the hedge never got taken.

I’m going to try and modify my hedging approach a bit, perhaps suggesting it slightly less often or at shorter odds. I’m a cautious gambler by nature, but this clearly isn’t working well in 2011.

We’ve had 11 races so far, and around half of them have been neither here nor there in terms of winning/losing (with a loss or win of £10 or less). One was awful (China, where I managed to get 4 tips from 4 wrong) and two have been really quite splendid (Spain and Germany). I am glad to be better at races than qualifying, as that’s more profitable, but also a bit disappointed that I had a terrible race in China and around half of them (including the Hungarian Grand Prix) didn’t really yield much of a result.

Favourite race: Canada

The longest F1 race this season and, indeed, in every season of F1 to date. Over 4 hours, with more time spent under a rain-induced red flag than racing. By lap 41 the sole McLaren (my tip being for them to win) was 21^st of 21 remaining drivers. By lap 69 Button was 2^nd. On the final lap Vettel made a mistake and Button won. Bloody exciting race ending with a tiny overall profit but huge relief.

Most profitable race: Germany

Odd race this. I felt unusually confident about every tip, which was fair enough as they all came off, but rather flat afterwards. Not sure why, but having made a puny £3 odd at Hungary I much prefer the flat but profitable sort of result. At this race I thought it clear that Webber a good chance of nabbing pole, but didn’t reckon on Hamilton’s great performance. This switched my thinking from Alonso to the Briton for the win and the drop-off in Red Bull performance ensured Vettel failed to get a podium for the only time in the first half of the season.

Favourite tip/bet: McLaren to win Canada

I’d buggered up qualifying (as usual) with two failed tips, and my single race tip was looking as forlorn as a lonely puppy. In the rain. With three legs. Happily, Button decided the time was ripe for the greatest F1 victory for quite some time, and it came off.

Three articles or one per weekend?

This season, I changed my approach from 3 articles (pre-qualifying, pre-race and post-race) to just the one after the race, with tips offered on the main site. How do people think this working? Would my loyal readership (both of them) prefer me to revert to the 2010 system?

Despite getting hedging wrong and needing to improve qualifying in particular, the start to 2011 has been notably better than 2010. The next race is Spa, with race day on the 28^th. I anticipate this being tricky for the Red Bulls, but we’ll have to wait and see. Unlike some circuits (yes, Valencia and Bahrain, I mean you) it’s a great track and should produce a fantastic race.

Morris Dancer

Hungary: post-race analysis

2011-07-31T15:28:00.000+01:00

Since Germany:

Well, this season had been going pretty well, until I found out today that the BBC has not bothered to wait until its F1 deal ends in 2013 before shedding coverage. From 2012 to 2018 the BBC will cover just half the races, with Sky showing all of them. I’m undecided as to whether this is better or worse than no TV coverage at all. I also think it’s the first time that F1 has not been shown on free-to-air TV in the UK. Given BBC Three and BBC Four both appear to be safe, despite BBC One and Two being crammed with repeats, I am significantly unimpressed. For a broadcaster that has guaranteed funding of £3bn plus a year the BBC manages to show bloody few programmes I actually want to watch.

I feel particularly sorry for the BBC F1 team, who have been excellent (indeed, BAFTA-winning) and deserve better than this limp-wristed halfway house.

At this stage, I think (from a betting perspective) I’ll be able to continue offering tips. Nevertheless, I’m pretty livid. The BBC’s managed to infuriate every F1 fan, spend a load of money and fail to secure a real season of F1 for the next 7 years. Takes a special sort of genius to come up with that.

Qualifying summary:

I agonised a bit over my qualifying tip. Considered di Resta and Perez for Q3, but decided the odds were against it, and the lack of a racey lap from Hamilton in P3 made judging it hard. I thought Vettel had the measure of Webber and pole would be between him and Hamilton, and opted for the German at 1.8.

Qualifying was a bit of a surprise. Hamilton looked tremendously fast in the first two sessions and got the fastest lap in the first phase of Q1. I was surprised that Vettel wasn’t faster, and Webber was well off the pace, ending up sixth on the grid.

The Ferraris, especially Alonso, were also less competitive than I imagined, and Massa out-qualified his team mate for the first time this year. The pair line up 4^th and 5^th.

At the sharp end, yet more surprises. Button forgot he’s rubbish at qualifying and blitzed the Ferraris, putting in a fastest lap just 0.046s slower than Hamilton.

Vettel, unlike Hamilton and Alonso, improved with his second run to snatch what had become a seemingly unlikely pole position, which was a great relief (particularly given I’d said I was tempted by Hamilton’s odds of 9.5 earlier in the week).

The Mercedes does not look in good shape. It had lagged a long way off full-fuel pace in practice, due to severe tyre wear, and I suspect both drivers will do poorly. For the race, I can see any of about four drivers winning it, so it’ll be fun trying to tip.

Race summary:

I offered a pair of race tips: No Safety Car at 1.65 (odds increased to 1.78ish later) and laying Vettel for a podium finish at 1.39. I really wanted to bet on the race winner, but I could see any one of four drivers (Hamilton, Alonso, Button and Vettel) getting it. Sadly the long shot didn’t come off, though the odds-on one did, making this a rather pale green race weekend.

Contrary to the weather forecast, there was drizzle and a wet track at the start, and again later in the race.

It started with all cars on intermediates, and the top 3 stayed in formation early on. The Ferraris got bad starts, and both were passed and held up by the two Mercedes for quite some time.

After the early pit stops Vettel exited behind both McLarens, and it was clear the British drivers were the fastest. Webber and Alonso were capable of catching Vettel, but circumstances prevented them.

Halfway through the race Nick Heidfeld’s Renault burst into flames and then literally exploded just outside the pits. Thankfully, the race director judged that an exploding car is no justification for a safety car, so that bet at least came off.

Meanwhile, the cars had split on tyre strategy. Button, Vettel and Webber were on the slower but longer lasting primes (soft yellows) and Hamilton and Alonso were on the faster options (red supersofts) but had to stop again. Given the soggy track, this looked bad for Hamilton and Alonso. Then it started raining again. The McLarens duelled for the lead, and Hamilton got it before diving into the pits, as Webber had done so, for intermediates. However, their action proved premature, the rain dried up and both men had to stop again for the primes.

This gifted Button the lead, and Vettel was unable to make any headway against him. Alonso, having stopped for primes but not wasted time with the intermediates, was in a clear third.

Hamilton had to serve a drive-through penalty and came out just behind Webber. The pair were 4^th and 5^th, and some heavy traffic afforded the Briton an opportunity to pass which he pulled off.

Further down the field, di Resta scored a great 7^th, both Toro Rosses got in the points and Rosberg came 9^th for Mercedes.

On track, it was a reasonably good race, but the result was not what I was hoping for. Any one of the top 5 could’ve been on the podium, and Hamilton was rather unlucky not to finish higher.

Musings:

http://www.rtl.de/formel1/livestream/index does provide free qualifying and race coverage, I think. It’s in German, which isn’t ideal (unless you’re German, obviously) but it’s better than paying through the nose due to the BBC’s epic shafting of British F1 fans.

Bit displeased with the result in two ways. Firstly, the rain was very unlikely (20% of trace amounts according to one forecast) and that had a huge impact on the end result. However, F1 is, as I’ve said many times, especially prone to unpredictable factors, which includes weather.

Worse was my own indecision on who to back for race winner. Initially, I thought Vettel, Button, Hamilton and Alonso all had a decent chance. I was pretty confident that the McLaren would be fastest in the race and considered the 9.8 for Button and 2.2 for McLaren, but decided against it. I shouldn’t be too disappointed, but that was a clear misjudgement on my part.

Vettel’s lead grows again, thanks to this result. He is now 85 ahead of his team mate, with Hamilton 3 points behind Webber, Alonso 1 point behind Hamilton and Button 11 points behind Alonso.

There’s a bit of a break now, and the next race is the fantastic Spa on 28 August. I’ll do a pair of mid-season reviews to fill the gap, one about the season from a betting perspective, and another from a race perspective.

Morris Dancer

Germany: post-race analysis

2011-07-24T15:58:00.000+01:00

Since Britain:

The hot/cold blowing row is over. After some frankly farcical last minute changes last time, the teams and FIA have agreed to go back to the Valencia rules and will stick with them throughout the season. Hot/cold blowing will be banned in 2012.

Interestingly, Sebastian Vettel has warned Red Bull against complacency, citing Ferrari as a possible danger to his title bid. This is interesting because of many reasons. Firstly, it indicates he isn’t on cruise control, or does not want to be seen to be. Secondly, it suggests that Ferrari’s very strong pace in Britain was not due mostly/solely to the rule changes. I’ve said it before, but Vettel’s a great driver because he has the speed of Hamilton and the brains of Schumacher (and a car designed by Adrian Newey doesn’t hurt either).

Mercedes hope to see an improvement in Germany (they had an exhaust update for Silverstone which seemed to work but the British summer meant they didn’t get much dry-running to test and perfect it). Given that, and the competitiveness of the top 3 teams we could see a rather close and interesting race.

Qualifying summary:

I buggered up the timing for my Webber tip (pole, 3.8) which was 5.1 in the morning and 4.9 about three minutes after my tip. Oh well. Recommended a 1.5 hedge as well.

Hamilton was staggeringly good in qualifying. Having (accurately, I thought) despaired of all hope when it came to pole, he comprehensively exceeded expectations by a country mile, seizing second and getting ahead of Vettel. Alonso, by contrast, was surprisingly slow after having looked very racey in practice (it may be that the cold does not suit the Ferrari). Button was well off the pace, over a second behind his team mate.

Happily, Webber did get pole, making it an unusually green qualifying session, with a grid line up I certainly didn’t expect.

Racing summary:

I offered two bets for the race. Hamilton to win at 3.95 (hedged at 1.5) and laying Vettel for a podium at 1.55 (hedged at 4). I did consider a No Safety Car bet, but given the uncertain weather and limited recent history of the circuit (2 races, 1 with a safety car, 1 without) I decided against it.

The race was fascinating, with tight racing, overtakes, mistakes and excitement throughout the field and the race. What really made it so good was the unseasonable cold, but that’s a matter for the musings along with the undercut issue.

Off the line Webber started slightly poorly, but Hamilton and the Ferraris had flying starts. Hamilton got into the lead, followed by Webber, and Alonso soon got past Vettel (who had made one of numerous mistakes). Further down the grid, Schumacher had a stereotypically good start and Button went backwards.

The top 3 were in a league of their own today, miles ahead of everybody else. It was nip and tuck throughout, and the undercut worked once for Webber but then failed for him. Hamilton was fantastically aggressive and skilful, fending off Webber after one pit stop and then brilliantly passing Alonso in a near identical scenario. McLaren have made some strategic howlers (the most notable perhaps being the pit stop woe at Monaco) this season but were spot on bringing Hamilton in early for the final, late, mandatory switch to the significantly slower medium tyres. Red Bull’s failure to copy promptly destroyed any chance of Webber advancing from his then third place, as the medium tyres were, surprisingly, faster than worn soft tyres.

McLaren and Ferrari both have big reasons to feel fantastic. The cold really doesn’t suit the prancing horse, and the McLaren looked thoroughly off the pace throughout practice.

So, how did their team mates fare? Massa had a great race, in 4^th, holding off Vettel for lap after lap (and whose failure to pass him will do nothing to dispel the view that he’s not so hot in traffic). Unfortunately for the Brazilian his pit crew lost a duel with the Red Bull crew and on the final lap he was passed in the pits and ended up 5^th.

Button had an atrocious start, but was recovering well (after failing to pass Petrov for ages in the early stages). Eventually he passed Rosberg and I think he could’ve caught and perhaps challenged Vettel and Massa but a hydraulics failure meant he had to pit and retire on safety grounds. This is his second consecutive failure to finish, after the problem with his nuts (ahem, wheel nuts) in Blighty.

Vettel never featured at the sharp end and, until the very end, lacked the pace of the frontrunners by quite a margin. He was dogged but ineffective in his efforts to pass Massa (for a time he had brake problems but not throughout the race), but his pit crew delivered him the pass. When your worst weekend gives you a 4^th place and the height of your problems is your lead being reduced to 3 race wins + 2 points it’s not so awful.

Further down the field, Sutil scored a brilliant 6^th for Force India by pitting fewer times than other teams, followed by Rosberg and Schumacher. Kobayashi recovered well from a lowly start (17^th) to get 9^th and Petrov nabbed the final point.

The race was the most exciting dry race in recent memory, with three highly competitive chaps from different teams fighting throughout for the victory. The winning bets were nice too.

Musings:

Cold weather gave us some useful information about the cars. The Ferrari dislikes the cold but was still very competitive. The McLaren loves the cold, and the Red Bull is somewhere in between.

It alters the way the tyres work. They’re slower to come up to temperature which means they degrade more slowly, but it also means that the first few laps, even on the faster softs, are slower. This means the undercut doesn’t really work. (NB the undercut refers to pitting before a close competitor, so that the faster new tyre means you gain relative time, putting you ahead of them when they pit shortly thereafter).

I’d say that Alonso remains the largest threat to Vettel, but I’d be quite surprised if the Weltmeister didn’t retain his crown.

Yet again, non-hedging was better than hedging (frustrating to lose 1.1 of a stake through really bad timing on the Webber tip). There’s one more race, next week in Hungary, before a 4 week gap. I’ll probably write two reviews, one about racing, the other about betting, to fill the gap.

Morris Dancer

Britain: post-race analysis

2011-07-10T16:03:00.001+01:00

Since Europe/Valencia:

So, the FIA cunningly elected to ban hot/cold blowing. I shall briefly explain the basics of this, which I barely understand myself. It’s technical, but important (like working out how to undo a bra with one hand).

Cold blowing involves passing air through the exhaust even when the throttle is not being pressed. This air is then channelled in such a way to increase rear downforce, which increases grip, decreases tyre degradation and enhances lap times. Hot blowing is much the same except that it involves the burning of fuel (whilst off-throttle) and is more effective.

Both were meant to be banned. Now it’s turned out the ban was just a heavy restriction, and that has been thoroughly changed for each engine. The problem is that Mercedes claimed they need a 10% overrun (hot blowing, I think) for reliability. The FIA agreed. Renault, who supply Red Bull, claimed they need some cold blowing for the same reason, and the FIA said they could have 50% (interesting, given they only used 45% before now). Both sides are unhappy, and McLaren reckon Red Bull, already well in the lead, may have a further advantage.

It’s a right dog’s dinner. There’s no way of knowing who gets the advantage or if it’s more or less equal.

Update: very shortly before qualifying Red Bull were told Renault engines can only have 10% cold blowing. Remains to be seen what the future regulations will be.

Qualifying summary:

Backed Alonso for pole at 6.6. Unfortunately it didn’t work out.

Qualifying was heavily disrupted by occasional bursts of light rain that were just enough to make setting faster times on slicks impossible, but not wet enough to make the intermediates worthwhile.

First glance of the impact of the engine rule changes is that, for all their bellyaching, Red Bull remains top dog, but only just. Ferrari are in a very strong second. Although Button snagged fifth he was a huge 0.7s off Massa, and barely ahead of di Resta, who put in an excellent effort. Hamilton got a rather unimpressive tenth.

Race summary:

Put forward a single tip for Alonso at 4.5 (with Ladbrokes rather than Betfair, as the odds were longer and there’s no commission), advocating a lay at 1.5 on the betting exchange. Happily, this one came off, and so the race and weekend overall was green. Again, better without hedging (I’ll address that in my mid-season review).

The race was a little bit bizarre at the start, because a shower had passed over about half the track. The start was bone dry, but half of it was sopping wet, so the drivers universally decided to start on intermediates. Vettel got a cracking start, passing Webber, and Alonso just held station.

There was a little passing at the sharp end early on, with Hamilton and Schumacher making up many places quite quickly, though generally the first phase of the race was notable for the gaps between the cars. There was soon a 4s or so gap from Vettel to Webber and a similar gap to Alonso. Schumacher continued his penchant for mechanical rhinoplasties, and was the first fellow on slicks when he came in for a new nose.

As Schumacher banged in fast laps the other drivers ditched their intermediates for softs (being wet initially they did not have to use hard tyres during the race) and the race began in earnest. Red Bull remained out in front, and there was a nice fight between Alonso and Hamilton, with the Briton passing the Spaniard but not really pulling away.

Unfortunately, Schumacher then got a stop and go penalty, with a 10 second wait (the Silverstone pits are very short, hence the harshness of the penalty). Despite this, he had a pretty good race and finished 9^th, having started 13^th and suffered that penalty. I rate his performance more highly than Rosberg’s 6^th (17s ahead).

Vettel did suffer a slightly rubbish pit stop, and was stuck behind the (at-this-stage) significantly slower Hamilton, whilst Alonso, staying out longer on his tyres, scampered off into the distance. It’s no small irony that Hamilton really helped Alonso get away as Vettel was unable to pass the Briton.

El Cheerio was unstoppable today, pulling out a very healthy lead which Vettel, even in clear air at the end of the race, was unable to reduce. Hamilton lacked fuel at the end and had to go into fuel-saving mode (so the engine had less power). This meant he had no chance to stop the faster Webber from taking 3^rd, and enjoyed a very robust tussle with Massa for 4^th, which he just managed to retain.

Webber really closed up fast on Vettel, and the German barely kept ahead of the Aussie despite the Red Bull boss Christian Horner deciding to issue a team order (which they tend not to do) on the last lap or so to hold station. Webber ignored the request/order but didn’t manage to pass Vettel, incurring a double psychological blow.

McLaren recovered enormously in the race compared to their woeful qualifying. Button could have scored good points, but he was released from a pit stop before one of his wheel nuts had been put on, forcing him to retire in a rather shambolic way.

It was also a good race for Perez, who again scored points and notched up a good 7^th. Di Resta started in a brilliant 6^th but only finished 15^th.

Musings:

It’s hard to be sure whether the plethora of very good shiny new upgrades Ferrari brought to Silverstone or the engine changes helped the most, but this was a great leap forward for the prancing horse. In race trim the McLarens and Red Bulls were very similar, and I’d say Ferrari was a touch better. I don’t know what will happen regarding the regulations, but if they stay as they were for this race Alonso may stand a chance.

Silverstone is a particularly tasty track for Red Bull. It’s possible their relative loss of performance is more than indicated by the result, and they may be (on average) the third team going by race pace. We’ll find out as the season continues.

The German Grand Prix is in a fortnight, followed by the Hungarian Grand Prix just a week later. After that there’s a four week gap, during which I’ll post the mid-season review.

Morris Dancer

Europe: post-race analysis

2011-06-26T16:08:00.000+01:00

Since Canada:

Ugh. There are increasing reports that the BBC, which receives more guaranteed funding than NASA, has chosen not to spend on F1 despite it being hugely popular and the coverage being excellent. This means it will probably either end up on ITV (hopefully they won’t run bloody adverts during live racing again) or Sky, which I don’t have. Marvellous. And by ‘Marvellous’ I of course mean ‘Whoever made that decision deserves to be fired from some sort of giant artillery gun into the heart of the sun’.

The contract ends in 2014, but rumour has it some penny-pinching arsehead is intent upon breaking the contract early.

In other news, there’s no throttle map alteration between qualifying and race, so this should reduce Red Bull’s qualifying advantage. However, it’s so vast I’d be unsurprised if Vettel got pole.

Qualifying summary:

No tips, as I only had a few minutes and it looked like Vettel would get pole at short odds.

I missed this live and saw snippets online. Sadly no change at the front, and whilst it’s nice to see the Ferraris seemingly more competitive we’ll have to see if this is borne out during the race.

Race summary:

Betting-wise, I only offered one tip, and Button never threatened to get a podium so it wasn’t even hedgable, alas.

From a racing perspective Valencia/Europe was always going to suffer by comparison with the epic Canadian Grand Prix, but, even given that, I think it’s fair to say Europe was the most tedious race of the season.

Every single car finished, which is great if you get turned on by reliability, but if you aren’t a Volvo salesman it does indicate the tedium of the race. Most of my underlying assumptions regarding Button were wrong. Webber did suffer slightly from tyre degradation, but not so much it cost him a podium spot. Massa did have decent pace and neither Alonso nor Hamilton crashed out or had a similar issue. I was right about Vettel being over the hills and far away. He won with depressing ease, to be honest.

More importantly, McLaren lacked race pace. They were clearly inferior to Ferrari but superior to Mercedes, and I’ll go into more detail about that in the musings below.

Schumacher had another bad time in Valencia, mostly because his front wing was ruined by a Renault, meaning he had to stop again, and he then ran out of option tyres.

Alguersuari got a great eighth for Toro Rosso and Perez almost managed to make a one-stopper work again, but in the end had to settle for 11^th.

I’d imagined the processional boredom of Valencia would’ve been blown away by the delights of KERS, DRS and the Pirelli tyres. Instead, it was just a bit dull. Vettel was never threatened, most of the cars had a substantial gap both ahead and behind them, and there wasn’t even an exciting crash to liven things up. The good news is that Silverstone’s a proper circuit, and we’re there in a fortnight.

Musings:

Why were McLaren so rubbish in the race? Well, Button did get stuck behind Rosberg for a bit, which hampered him early on, but throughout both cars were slower than Ferrari. Button also had a KERS failure, but I don’t think that made a difference to his finishing position.

There are a few potential explanations. I do not believe the circuit is especially bad for them, as they got two podium places last year. It is possible the loss of hot/cold blowing changes from qualifying to race actually hit them hardest, but a perhaps the more probable explanation is that it was hot and that this disproportionately affected the McLaren.

Next race will see the hot/cold blowing banned entirely. Silverstone is a pretty McLaren-friendly circuit, so they absolutely must aspire to beat Red Bull in Blighty.

Interestingly, every single one of the five tips I considered (Ferrari win at 9.2, 18 or fewer drivers at 2.96, Safety Car at evens, Massa to finish outside the top 6 at 2 and the Button tip) was wrong. That doesn’t speak well of my betting eye this weekend, but at least I only bet and tipped one of them.

Button and Webber are tied on 109 points, a full 77 behind present and future World Champion Sebastian Vettel. I really can’t see him losing from here.

All good things come to an end, but hopefully I’ll be able to offer some better tips for the race in Silverstone, and I’m pretty sure the race will be a damned sight better than a Spanish procession.

Morris Dancer

Canada: post-race analysis

2011-06-12T23:15:00.000+01:00

Since Monaco:

Whilst Hamilton’s outburst was still stupid, evidence has emerged suggesting he was perhaps harshly treated regarding the Maldonado penalty (although it didn’t actually cost him anything). More info here:

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/interesting-analyses/

More importantly, Bahrain has returned from the racing dead and will now take over India’s slot in October, with India’s inaugural race being shifted to December as the final race of the season. I think this is wrong on numerous levels. It appears to give an endorsement to the Bahrain Government, it over-stretches an already full season and it means that the off-season is far too short. [Including the provisional Turkish GP, 2012 has a 21 race calendar, which exceeds the informal desire of the teams to have a maximum of 20].

Update: pissups and breweries spring to mind. The FIA suddenly remember they’ve ignored their own rule that all teams must agree to any calendar change (and none of them wanted to go to Bahrain) and it’s not terribly clever for publicity to visit a country in such circumstances. I feel most sorry for the Indian chaps, who have been dicked about by FIA incompetence, and those who may have cancelled airline tickets to India only for the race to return to its initial calendar slot.

Perez did P1 but declared himself not quite up to racing, so his seat (for Canada) is taken by de la Rosa. Hopefully that’s just a one-off, as Perez has generally been quite impressive.

Qualifying summary:

Rubbishly, I got both tips wrong. Vettel, yet again, got pole. I was pleased to see the Ferraris putting in competitive times, and 2^nd and 3^rd puts them in a great position for the race, but was utterly baffled by the lack of pace from Mercedes.

The much hyped McLarens did poorly, getting only 5^th and 7^th. Apparently, this is because they ran more front wing (a wet setup) which reduced their straight line speed. Effectively, they compromised qualifying pace for an optimal (if it rains) race setup.

Less explicable is the poor pace from the Silver Arrows. It was overcast and cooler, but they went from very competitive in practice to also-rans in Q3. Di Resta got 11^th, just missing out on the final session.

Race summary:

Canada last year was probably the most baffling, complicated and exciting race. This year, it was extraordinary in even more ways.

First off, betting. Last year I offered 4 tips and managed to get all wrong. I did equally ‘well’ this year in qualifying, with 2 tips wrong, but happily my McLaren tip for the win (at 5.9, with a hedge at evens) came off, in dramatic fashion. For those interested, over the course of the season so far not hedging is rather more profitable.

Bad weather had been forecast and duly arrived. Personally I think the safety car start was unnecessary, that it stayed out too long both initially and following the red flag restart.

The first tranche of racing laps were remarkable mostly for Hamilton getting involved in incidents. The Maldonado incident in Monaco showed the wisdom of reserving judgement (it seemed at the time to be Hamilton being reckless but actually was probably not the case when screenshots were seen afterwards). He tapped and spun Webber and then hit Button later. Button was ok, but Hamilton’s rear suspension was broken and he became the first retirement.

More rain came, and we had a second consecutive red flagged race. Hours, literally, of waiting ensued. Button was well down the field at this stage (I forget how far back). He got a drive-through penalty for excessive speed whilst following the safety car, and at one point was 21^st on the grid.

Because some drivers hadn’t bothered with intermediates, the top few looked unusual. Naturally, Vettel was there, serene in 1^st. Kobayashi was second, followed by Massa then the two Renaults. Webber and Alonso had opted for intermediates just before the heavy rain and were well down the field, albeit ahead of Button.

The race restarted under the safety car, which stayed out so bloody long numerous drivers almost immediately dove into the pits for intermediates. It wasn’t long after that that the drivers switched to the supersoft dry tyres, and then magic happened on the track.

Vettel was still leading, but Schumacher, who had caught and passed both Massa and Kobayashi was closing him down. A few laps later Webber was chasing down Schumacher, but then was Button, flying faster than anyone else had in the race. Sadly, yet another safety car appeared and the first three became close (there was a Virgin backmarker between Button and Webber). At this stage there were roughly 10 laps left.

The safety car departed, and Button cleared first the Virgin, then Schumacher and Webber. Webber managed to pass Schumacher for the final podium spot (bit of a shame) and on the penultimate lap Button was close enough to Vettel to deploy the DRS. The gap was just under a second going into lap 70 of 70. But then, the Weltmeister made an extremely rare mistake, straying onto the wet part of the track, and Button passed him, halfway through the last lap, to achieve the most unlikely and sensational of wins.

The race (which lasted about 4 hours and 5 minutes) was the longest in F1 history, with more time spent waiting for the restart than actually racing, I believe. Button had 6 pit stops (including the drive-through) to Vettel’s 3 and rose from 21^st to 1^st.

Hopefully I haven’t missed too much of importance. Bizarre to watch a 4 hour Grand Prix then write it up past 11pm.

Musings:

The mid-season review will actually be after race 11 (Hungary), as that’s just a week after Germany and then there’s a 4 week gap to Spa.

Button’s under investigation for a collision with Alonso which saw the Spaniard retire from the race. I think it (like most collisions today) was a racing incident and hope nothing comes of it.

The soft tyres made no appearance in the race, but they and the supersoft held up surprisingly well in Canada, given the harder Bridgestones degraded rapidly last year.

The next race is in Valencia in a fortnight’s time.

Morris Dancer

Monaco: post-race analysis

2011-05-29T15:34:00.001+01:00

Qualifying summary:

After the crash in P3 essentially prevented representative qualifying simulation I decided against betting on qualifying. My instinct [stated in the comments of the Spanish race analysis] was that Hamilton was fastest but there was no evidence and with Alonso looking racey and Vettel faster than I anticipated I decided to just sit it out.

Neither HRT set a time in Q1 and it’s unclear whether they’ll be allowed to race. The Renaults disappointed in 11^th and 16^th, Heidfeld once again punching below his weight.

Unfortunately Perez had a substantial crash in Q3, which I imagine will rule him out of the race, though I don’t know for certain, and also came late on and prevented Hamilton, who had delayed his single planned run and then been slowed by Massa on his first flying lap, from setting a quick time. There was just 2 minutes and 26 seconds on the clock when the session was red flagged. The nine drivers all got out but there was very little change in the order, Vettel (perhaps fortuitously) got pole with Button second and Webber third, and Hamilton achieved only seventh. Schumacher got a tasty fifth.

Race summary:

Being green or red on the Button to win at 7.4 tip depends whether you laid at evens, as advocated. If so, you’re up, if not, you’re down. Disappointing that it didn’t properly come off, but that’s why I hedge.

Button’s failure to win was not due to lack of pace but the frankly inexplicable strategy from McLaren. They cunningly went to the super-soft (faster but less durable) tyre first, unlike their rivals Ferrari and Red Bull. However, they then went onto another set of super-softs, necessitating a third stop, in order to have run both compounds during the race. Button then dropped from second to third.

Alonso had to stop again, and was in second, Vettel was pushing the limits with a single stop. Analysts suggested that Vettel’s tyres would dramatically degrade around the late 60s, enabling Alonso and Button to pass him.

But then the safety car emerged following a crash and the race was red-flagged. It was restarted under the safety car but, crucially, every car could put on fresh tyres, giving Vettel a get out of jail free card and enabling him to win at Monaco for the first time. For all his flawless driving, Button actually went backwards, from 2^nd to 3^rd.

Sadly, this not only meant the tip had very little chance of coming off, it also robbed race fans of a potentially epic finish as a car with extremely old tyres was chased by a car with very old tyres which was chased by a car with fresh(ish) tyres.

Latterly, Webber recovered from a bad start and an abysmal pit stop (Hamilton, who had a demolition derby of a race, and Vettel were similarly afflicted) to nab 4^th at the end, and Kobayashi got a fantastic 5^th for Sauber. Maldonado was very unlucky not to get 6^th after Hamilton clumsily crashed into him in the final few laps.

Monaco saw a good number of overtakes. It wasn’t too easy, but it was possible. Red Bull and Ferrari made an initial strategic mistake but McLaren’s idiocy gifted them the best spots on the podium.

Musings:

Vettel should not have won here. Button had the pace but a combination of ill fortune with the safety car and a bad strategic call from the team gave the Weltmeister a slice of luck he really did not need.

Once again, fewer stops actually proved more beneficial. But for the late safety car, Vettel may have lost a place or two. The DRS and tyre degradation have their overtaking impact severely diluted on circuits like Barcelona and Monaco.

Yet again, Vettel’s supposed rivals have taken points from one another rather than from him, allowing him to extend his already sizeable championship lead. However, the McLaren was the fastest car in race trim, as it was in Spain.

We’re off to Canada in a fortnight. Montreal was amongst the most exciting races last season, as differing strategies and huge tyre degradation led to a fluid, complex battle for victory. This season, it’ll have two DRS zones.

Morris Dancer

Spain: post-race analysis

2011-05-22T16:20:00.000+01:00

Qualifying summary:

First off, nice to be green by taking the risk and backing Webber at 3.7. I was quite pleased Vettel very narrowly beat him in P3, as I’d decided against backing the Aussie earlier and his odds were a bit shorter before that.

A bit of a weird, and very complicated, qualifying session. In Q1, Heidfeld failed to set a time as his car wasn’t repaired after it burst into flames during P3, so he starts last. Barrichello’s Williams suffered some sort of failure and he also exited at this stage, in 18^th.

The Force Indias are 16^th and 17^th, but did not waste a set of softs in Q2, putting them in a stronger position for the race. This is unlike Ferrari, both of whom got to Q3 but lack any fresh softs for the race.

At the sharp end, Webber beat Vettel by two-tenths, although the Wunderkind lacked KERS. Both were miles ahead of third-placed Hamilton, who leads a very closely matched trio of himself, Alonso (El Cheerio, judging by his reaction to 4^th) and Button.

Race summary:

This was a fantastic race. Not only did it have everything in a racing sense, it also saw both my tips end up green. My 4.2 podium tip on Button was based on an assumption he would pass Alonso off the line (be fair, nobody in the entire world saw his start coming) and then manage his tyres better than Hamilton. Both turned out to be wrong, but he got a podium anyway. The No Safety Car Tip at 1.68 or so was just based on checking recent races, combined with the sunny weather forecast and high level of reliability in F1 this year. [NB for both qualifying and the race the return was better if you didn’t hedge].

Spain has a very long starting straight, and the clean side (odd, as usual) is a healthy advantage. I assumed both McLarens would make one pass or more each and perhaps challenge the Red Bulls based on tyre degradation.

Instead, Fernando Alonso did his best Speedy Gonzales impersonation and, from 4^th and the dirty side of the track, passed everyone. Unlike at some other circuits, most notably Turkey, the DRS did not make overtaking a piece of cake. This held up Vettel, Webber (who had slipped back) and Hamilton, which later proved handy for Button.

Button had the worst start possible (well, apart from crashing, obviously), falling from 5^th to 10^th. At this point, I strongly suspected my tip was bloody stupid. However, in stark contrast to Turkey, the three stop strategy was better than the four stop. This matters because, firstly, it meant the tip came off, but also because it proved that strategy is not just a case of cramming in as many stops as possible. Webber is harsher on tyres than most drivers, so circuits that have short pit stops are better for him, because there’s less punishment for more stops. Likewise, Button, a smooth driver, can manage them a little better. However, no driver can work magic and there’s a pretty narrow window to work in, drivers can’t just keep going for ages because the tyres will simply fall to pieces.

At the sharp end, we had a fantastic duel for the last part of the race between Vettel and Hamilton. Vettel sometimes had KERS, sometimes didn’t, and just about managed to keep Hamilton behind him. I think that the McLaren had better pace, but Spain’s a hard place to overtake and the DRS didn’t give a big help.

Vettel did fantastically well, and very much deserves his win. Interestingly, Heidfeld progressed from 24^th to 8^th and his team mate Petrov went from 6^th to 11^th.

Musings:

A thrilling race weekend, which reaffirmed what became clear quite early on this season: tyres and strategy are the dominant factor. Grid slots are nice, but it’s better to be 10^th with fresh tyres than 6^th without, especially at a track where the hard tyre is simply too slow to be worth using. If a team wastes a set of softs in qualifying, as Ferrari did, it doesn’t matter even if you get right to the front: you’re toast.

Red Bull maintain supreme dominance of qualifying. However, this is not really reflective of true race pace, where McLaren seem to have substantially closed the gap.

The next race is Monaco, which will have (I imagine) softs and super softs. Here, overtaking on track is ultra-hard, and tyre management will be even more important than usual. Last year Webber led Kubica in qualifying (I backed Kubica at about 7/1 for pole and he just missed out), so it’ll be interesting to see what Webber’s odds are. I also think Button could have another nice result.

Just one week to go until Monaco, and a fortnight later we have the fantastic race in Montreal.

Morris Dancer

Turkey: post-race analysis

2011-05-08T15:35:00.000+01:00

Since China:

The Chinese post-race summary by Martin Brundle is here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/formula_one/13108931.stm

3 weeks is a long gap, especially after the prolonged inter-season interval, but it’s nice to be back. We learnt from P1 that the Pirelli wets really do not last a long time, perhaps degrading after a mere 5 laps in wet but not torrential conditions. In addition, it was revealed that Turkey’s pit stop time penalty is very short, a mere 15 seconds, promoting the strategy of numerous stops. This, in turn, adds to the premium of saving softs during qualifying so there are more of them for the race.

Qualifying summary:

My tip on a Vettel pole was not especially heroic at 1.66, but it did pay off.

Kobayashi’s car died during Q1, which means he starts 24^th on the grid. Meanwhile, Red Bull slaughtered their puny rivals, getting P1 and P2 with a single flying lap. Vettel is a mile faster than his rivals and has another fresh set of softs waiting for him. Massa, weirdly, didn’t bother with Q3 despite reaching it and he starts 10^th. Schumacher’s a slightly disappointing 8^th but his monstrous starts means that those immediately ahead of him need to be very wary at the start.

Race summary:

Two tips, one came off, one didn’t, so the race result was slightly red but the weekend result was slightly green. I correctly predicted Rosberg would breeze past Webber who was hampered by the dirtier even side of the track but he just lacked the pace to properly challenge Vettel. After a bad weekend in China, it’s nice to finish green.

Hamilton had a decent start but buggered up a corner very early on, allowing El Grumpino (perhaps El Happino would be more appropriate today given his excellent result) and Button to pass him. There followed a lot of entertaining action between the McLaren drivers and elsewhere, with the comedy highlight being Petrov trying to shunt Heidfeld into the pit lane and the two Renault drivers gesturing at each other with all the friendliness of a Coalition Government.

For the first time, the DRS made things a bit too easy. It’s probably hard to decide precisely where to stick the activation and detection points but they seem to have got it wrong in Turkey.

Every frontrunner save Button went for 4 stops. For a time Vettel seemed content with 3, but had the luxury of electing for a 4^th to ensure he wasn’t passed by Webber or Alonso, who had fresher tyres. The 73 pit stops complicated the race a lot, but despite that Vettel was always (in real terms) the comfortable leader. A combination of the best car and one of the very best drivers makes his title challenge utterly irresistible at this stage of the season. It also makes betting on poles, podiums and winners a pain, so let’s hope the other teams catch up sharpish.

The race saw a great leap forward for Ferrari, especially Alonso who narrowly missed out on 2^nd but whose 3^rd will greatly invigorate the prancing horse, who had been looking a little lame in the previous races. Massa did poorly, slipping back to 11^th (this may be attributable to a poor pit stop he had).

On that point, both McLaren drivers had one bad pit stop each. Hard to say if the conditions made it a bit tricky or if the high number of pit stops just meant we saw more bad ones. They finished as they started, 4^th and 6^th, and that is just not good enough.

If Ferrari are poor at qualifying and hot in the race then Mercedes are the precise opposite. I think Rosberg’s finished worse than he’s qualified at every race, and slipped back to 5^th. Schumacher is just not sharp enough in tight contests and fell back to 12^th. Sadly, I think he ought to retire.

Kobayashi enjoyed another banzai performance, starting from 24^th (his car broke in Q1) and ending up 10^th, nabbing a point.

Musings:

We’ve seen some patterns now emerge. Safety cars are rare, as are cars breaking down. Just a single retirement this time, I think (di Resta, with a Virgin failing to start). As well as checking the safety car market I’ll start looking at the number of classified cars.

There was some very good news in that Bernie Ecclestone clearly stated his intention to try and keep the Turkish GP. It’s amongst the best new circuits, a cut above the tedium of Bahrain and Abu Dhabi (although the latter has been redesigned this year to encourage overtaking) and I hope it remains on the calendar.

There are two types of tyre wear, due to mileage and driving style. You can’t do a damned thing about the first (unless you crash, in which case tyre degradation is not your biggest problem), but the second can be changed a bit. However, even Button today struggled with a 3 stop strategy, so it’s my view that driving style is a marginal difference whereas mileage is the major difference.

The next race is Spain in a fortnight, and Monaco follows just a week after that.

Morris Dancer

Labour voters in the south of England – missing or voting tactically?

2011-05-03T17:45:00.001+01:00

The East Anglian experience

Last week, I looked at the apparent extent of tactical voting in Devon, Dorset and Somerset by comparing results in the 1992 and the 2010 elections. I came to the surprising conclusion that while there was some evidence of tactical voting in Devon and Somerset at first blush, if it was taking place in Dorset, it was well hidden and that in all three counties the apparent extent of tactical voting was much less than I had expected.

How can we look behind the raw data in these three counties? At some point, I shall get to look at the demographics, but for now I want to try to compare the experience in these three counties with the experience in other counties where we can rule out tactical voting with some confidence.

As Mark Senior rightly noted in a comment to my last article, the voters in each county will have changed substantially over time – some will be dead, some will have moved away, some will not have been old enough to vote in 1992 (and a few will not even have been born then). It is a demonstrably false assumption that the replacement voters would behave exactly as the former voters would have behaved at each election. But for all that, it's a convenient starting point.

No two constituencies are exactly alike, never mind whole counties, so we need to be very careful not to over-interpret. However, Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire (East Anglia for short) have some similarities with Dorset, Devon and Somerset. All six counties are southern English and predominantly rural. It's safe to say that Labour has never looked on any of these counties as their heartlands and it does not win and lose elections here. So, with the exception of a handful of seats, it doesn't have much cause to make much effort in any of these six counties. So the rise and fall in its vote will reflect long term trends - and the success of the Conservatives and the Lib Dems in persuading its voters to defect to them for principled or tactical reasons.

In stark contrast to Devon, Dorset and Somerset, the East Anglian counties are and throughout the last twenty years have been almost completely lacking in traditional Lib Dem/Conservative marginals. Only North Norfolk even remotely fits the bill, and Norman Lamb now holds this with a massive majority. In the other two seats that the Lib Dems now hold, Cambridge and Norwich South, Labour were the previous holders and remain to this day firmly in contention in both (Labour are now a close third in Cambridge, but were second before the last election). The Lib Dems are not breathing down the Tories' neck in any seat in these three counties. So we should not expect to see any significant amount of tactical voting anywhere in East Anglia.
What do we see? In 1992, Labour held Cambridge, Ipswich and Norwich South: three out of the 20 seats in the area at the time. They did so with a total vote share of 28%. So the first thing to note is that for an area not thought of as a Labour heartland, Labour actually polled rather well, considering - its share of the vote in that election nationally was 34.4%. This is well above the level found in Devon, Dorset and Somerset at that time.

And indeed, Labour built on that success. As well as the three seats that it won in 1992, Labour subsequently held at various times Peterborough, Norwich North, Great Yarmouth, North West Norfolk, and Waveney (and came within an ace of taking Bury St Edmunds in 1997). Labour has been a strong and recent presence in these three counties.

But what of 2010? That election can only be described as a disaster for Labour in these three counties. It now does not hold a single seat in any of them (it managed to keep a foothold in both 1983 and 1987), and there are now 23 seats, owing to the population growth in the area. And it took a mere 18.8% of the vote in these three counties. Nationally, its share of the vote was 29% in 2010. Even without a calculator, it is easy to see that there has been a big falling off as compared with 1992.

If we had been looking at these figures in the south west, we would have been readily assuming that tactical voting had been taking place. We would be strongly thinking about attributing the excess swing against Labour to voters who had decided to throw their lot in with the Lib Dems to stop the Conservatives. But we know that can't be happening in East Anglia, because there are no such seats. Yet the swing is greater in East Anglia than in the south west.

Are there any special cases? Well, you might want to take North Norfolk out of the equation in 2010, where the Lib Dems have been strengthening throughout the intervening period and opposing the Conservatives without Labour featuring. And you might want to take both North West Norfolk and South East Cambridgeshire out of consideration, because the Labour candidates in 2010 both in those seats disgraced themselves. If we also strip out the seats where Labour was in serious contention in 1992 and 2010, we find that Labour polled 18.4% in the remainder of this area in 1992, but that this fell to 15.3%. This is an only slightly greater fall than the difference in the national shares between 1992 and 2010, and an entirely expected result.

A smaller swing against Labour overall in the south west between 1992 and 2010 masked a larger swing against Labour in the seats where Labour was out of contention. So that does tend to suggest that tactical voting in the south west did make a bit of a difference. But only a bit.

In East Anglia, the opposite happened. Labour suffered big falls in support in the seats where it had previously been in contention. In every seat in the area other than Ipswich, turnout increased in 2010, so it doesn't seem to be the case that Labour voters sat on their hands. They turned out to vote for other parties. In other words, it seems as though Labour really were as unpopular in East Anglia in 2010 as the raw data suggests.

We do need to look at demographics next (in both of these areas). This may shed a quite different light on the extent of any tactical voting.

In the meantime, if I were a Labour supporter I would be wondering what has happened to the Labour support in the south. "Tactical voting" is a convenient but inadequate explanation in the south west, as my last article suggests, and as we have seen, completely fails to explain what happened in East Anglia. Deeper thought is needed as to how to turn this around.

antifrank

AV Q&A

2011-04-30T11:49:00.004+01:00

In order to spare the regulars on pb1, I've put the Q & A on AV that I've written below. I've tried to make it as objective as possible - obviously complete objectivity is impossible, but I've tried to address where and why AV differs from FPTP, what the arguments are (and why both official sides have come up with crap arguments) and why I came to the conclusion to vote Yes. It's long, but there have been many questions raised and much debate about the whichness of what, and what "is" means, so it would be rather a challenge to make it shorter without ducking some of the issues.

Q - What is AV?

A - AV, or Alternative Vote, is the common name for Instant Runoff Voting. We’ve all experienced runoff voting, even if not under that name: In an election or contest, the last placed person is eliminated and another round is run, until the winner gets the majority of the votes in that round.

Q – Why is Runoff voting ever used, then?

A – To prevent what’s called “vote splitting”. If there are more than two candidates, it’s likely that at least two of those standing are going to be more similar than the other(s). They’ll be “fishing in the same pool” for votes. But your vote can only go to one of them, so even if their stance is agreed by the majority, they’ll probably lose. And the winner could well be someone who would lose against either of them individually. So improving choice in this way would mean reducing the democratic result – not good.

Q – So why not restrict the lineup?

A – Because that restricts your choice. There’s plenty of complaints already that Westminster MPs and their political Parties aren’t in touch with what you want. Is it really a good move to restrict the scope of candidates to what they consider worthwhile?

Q – Okay. Any other reason why runoff voting is good?

A – Yes – the “wasted vote” argument. You’ve all seen the leaflets: “If you vote for the SNP, you could get Labour”. “The Tories can’t win here”. “Only Labour can beat the Tories here”. “It’s a two horse race between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats”. Each and every one of those is appealing for you not to support the candidate you want for fear that your positive vote will result in someone you really want to avoid getting elected from winning. Smaller parties like UKIP and the Greens are squeezed out immediately. Independents have an incredibly difficult task to leap into contention. Under First-Past-The-Post, it’s horrifically obvious that if you vote for what you want, you stand a very big chance of getting what you detest, so you are encouraged to vote for what you don’t really want but could probably put up with. And in the next election, as your votes went for these “I could probably put up with them” candidates, the alternatives languish without hope.

Q – What’s “First Past the Post”?

A – The existing system. Add up the number of votes that people get and whoever is in the lead – regardless of what the final score is – wins.

Q – So where’s the post? And what happens if you get past it second?

A – There isn’t one. You can lose with 49% of the vote or win with 26% of the vote (and both have happened). And it doesn’t matter when you finish counting your votes either.

Q – So why do they call it First Past the Post?

A – Search me, mate. I didn’t come up with it.

Q – So – you can win with 26% or lose with 49%. Why the difference?

A – It depends how many candidates are standing, whether your main opponents are sufferi ng from vote-splitting or not, how many people have bought your arguments on wasted votes, and so on.

Q – And that’s supposed to come up with the right winner? It’s supposed to be fairer?

A – Well, it’s certainly very simple. And the Big Two parties are almost always in one of those top two positions so they can use the wasted vote argument, so they like it. And it makes it a lot harder for large chunks of their support to wander off to a new smaller party or an independent or a splinter of their own party who may be closer to your views. The “nowhere else to go” argument.

Q – It’s very, very simple and some politicians like it because it makes their lives easier isn’t really the best selling point. Is there any way to find out how they really feel about it?

A – Yes. The Leadership contests for the Parties.

Q – And what do they use? First Past this non-existent Post?

A – Ah, no. The Tories use “Exhaustive Ballot”, Labour use straight AV within an Electoral College and the Lib Dems use something called STV.

Q – Doesn’t help me.

A – Might help if I say that each and every one of them is a runoff voting system. No FPTP for them.

Q – Ah. There’s a hint. So why do they use Runoff Voting?

A – To ensure that the winner has a broad range of support without risking someone unpopular from getting in due to vote splitting.

Q – Sounds familiar. So why’s it good enough for them but not us?

A – Because they benefit from the existing system.

Q – Haven’t we used the existing system for time out of mind?

A – The existing system of one person one vote for one member per constituency under FPTP has only been in its current form since 1950. Before that, university graduates got another vote under a more complicated multi-member version of AV called STV, and owners of businesses got an additional vote where their business was. And from 1945 backwards, more and more constituencies had multiple MPs. And the rules on who could vote changed repeatedly over time as well. Interestingly, back in the 1930’s, Parliament passed a Bill to require the use of AV for Parliamentary elections.

Q – So why wasn’t it used?

A – Collapse of Government. And then a World War came along and voting reform rather dropped off the bottom of the priority list. And after World War 2, the Big Two parties found out just how much they benefited from FPTP and, curiously, didn’t seem to want to change the system.

Q – Funny, that. Well, runoff voting sounds good, but running round after round is going to take ages and be very costly. Is it worth the hassle?

A – That’s where it turns to “Instant” Runoff. If the candidate you want to win makes it through every round, who will you vote for?

Q – Well, the obvious answer is “my candidate”, but I might change my mind. How do you cope with that?

A – We can’t – it’s all down to your preferences at the Instant you fill in your ballot. To be fair, you don’t get to change your mind under FPTP when you walk out of the ballot booth.

Q – Well yes, but if there were multiple rounds, the candidates could give more speeches and change tack a little and my preferences would change. Isn’t that unfair?

A – Well, it would definitely be unfair on the candidate who just got eliminated and therefore never got a chance to try to change your mind, certainly. And if we did it that way, we’d run into the cost and time issues, just to allow some of the candidates to change their appeal and others not. The method of crystallising your preferences at the instant you fill in your ballot does seem fairer all round.

Q – Okay, say you can assume that my vote for my preferred candidate sticks with him (or her) throughout all the counting rounds – I can go with that. What do you do if and when he (or she) is eliminated.

A – You have to tell us – in that instant you fill out your ballot – where you’d like your vote to go in the runoff if and when your candidate isn’t there. You do this by putting a “1” by your first preference – the candidate who you most want to win, a “2” by your second, a “3” by your third preference, and a “4” by your …

Q – Fourth preference. I get it. Hardly rocket science is it?

A – I’d agree. Some politicians apparently consider it far too hard for normal people like you and me, though.

Q – Aren’t you being a bit snarky there?

A – No, some really have explicitly said that it’s too complicated.

Q – Do I have to list a number by every candidate? What happens if I genuinely no longer care?

A – Stop writing numbers at that point.

Q – People have said that it gives you multiple votes. Is that true?

A – No – your vote only counts once in every round, just as for any other runoff voting. Only the highest preference left in the race is looked at – lower preferences are ignored. If your candidate gets all the way to the final runoff, your preference of who else you’d vote for in the final runoff if your preferred candidate doesn’t make it is ignored.

Q – Now you’re just stating the obvious, aren’t you?

A – Again, you’d be surprised.

Q – So – under First Past the Nonexistent Post, the “winner” can be someone who only got their due to a split vote or by pressuring enough people to forget about who they’d really want to vote for, it gives you nowhere else to go but the big parties, it stops independents in their tracks … and it’s not good enough for politicians themselves. That’s accounted for most of the No2AV arguments I’ve seen. What about this “It will cost £250 million” leaflet?

A – Oh that’s easy. Add up the price of all these leaflets, add up the price of running the referendum, and if you assume that we’d need to buy loads of voting machines, you get that figure.

Q – But everything but the voting machines is also a cost for not changing. Why do we need voting machines, anyway?

A – We don’t.

Q – So why does this leaflet say we do?

A – All’s fair in love and politics. We don’t need them, but if you believe it, it means the story’s worked.

Q – What’s this about BNP voters getting multiple votes? Do the BNP support AV?

A – No they don’t – they’d find it harder. Under FPTP, they might win on 26%; under AV they’d have to convince a lot more people to vote for them at some stage of the process. The argument is that the BNP are a minor party and their supporters are more likely to have their candidate get knocked out, so their vote would transfer, whilst that of a major party might not.

Q – But that just means they’re not getting a shot in the final runoff, but the supporters of the big parties are. Why’s that a bad thing? And it’s the same for UKIP, the Greens, the Campaign for an English Parliament, Mebyon Kernow …

A – If you say it quickly enough it sounds dodgy. All’s fair in love and politics, remember. They’re also saying that the winner might need those lower preferences, and that votes from BNP supporters are yucky.

Q – But not from the other parties? How do they know they’re not getting votes from BNP supporters already?

A – They are, and they know it. Some parties print leaflets aimed at BNP supporters already, trying to pressure them to swap their vote completely under the “wasted vote” argument. In others, there are no BNP candidates, so how do you know who the BNP supporters are voting for?

Q – Well, maybe there are no candidates there because there are no BNP supporters. Have you considered that?

A – Doesn’t work – that there are BNP supporters in 338 constituencies with an average of 3.7% support in those 338 even after the wasted vote pressure, but absolutely none in the other 312 constituencies doesn’t really add up. Rather more likely that the BNP run out of money for deposits.

Q – Will AV mean that we automatically end up with perpetual Hung Parliaments and Coalitions?

A – No.

Q – I was kind of hoping for a bit more. Can you expand on that?

A – Okay – critics claim that AV would end up with perpetual hung Parliaments because the top two Parties would no longer have such strength. It’s a bit of a shot in the dark to rerun previous elections as if they were under AV, but the British Election Survey – of tens of thousands of people every election, carried out by academics, has got second preference choices for elections since 1964. If you assume that first preferences equate to the votes cast and second preferences are as given, two elections that had majority Governments end up Hung – 1964 and 1974 (October). Both had majorities of 4 (ie 2 MPs past the finish post) under FPTP, so you’d need a knife-edge result to shift it. All others result in the same winner as before, or were hung under FPTP anyway.

Q – Seems fair enough. So it won’t cause much change then?

A – Again, we can’t say. Those assumptions are dubious – in the best study, it was found that a fair chunk of people had different first preferences to how they cast their FPTP vote, and running hypothetical scenarios is always risky. So – we don’t know, but what evidence there is, is that there would be only a very marginal effect.

Q – Only 3 countries us AV and one of them - Australia - wants to move away from it. Why should we move towards it?

A – How many countries in Europe use FPTP? Just us? When we were putting our monarch under the rule of law with Magna Carta, how many other countries had done so? Does that worry you, or do you think that we should care less what others do and more what we should do. And with respect to Australia, the unrest there is – according to more specific opinion polls – because it’s compulsory to put a preference against everyone, regardless of whether you care or not.

Q – How does that help democracy? If you don’t care, you’re just putting random numbers down.

A – It’s worse than that – the parties, knowing that you probably don’t care too much beyond a certain point, issue preference cards to recommend how you vote. So a system which should give power to the people, gives it back to the politicians at the last moment. Polls giving the choice of “optional preferencing” versus “compulsory preferencing” versus “anything else at all” come up with a landslide for “optional preferencing”.

Q – A friend of mine said “It will lead to the tyranny of mild preferences”. I’m not really sure what he meant, but it sounded impressive and not the kind of thing I’d like to see. What did he mean?

A – He means that he assumes that people won’t really care much what happens after the first – or, at most, second – preference, so will put down mild gradings of support. So someone who is fervently for one party is cancelled out by someone who kind-of-just-about prefers one party over another between fifth and sixth preferences.

Q – Well, that sounds like a fair criticism! Isn’t it?

A – Think about it a bit more. Firstly, many people say that between their third and fourth (or lower) preference is where they really start to care. If they think that two or more parties are very similar in a way they like, they’ll put them in order but would like a way to signal that they really, really don’t want party number four. They can’t, but it’s not really appropriate to call that a “mild preference”. And if you think about it, practically all of the party election campaigns are based around mild preferences. “Your preferred party can’t win, you mildly prefer us to them, so vote for us!”. “You wouldn’t normally vote for us, but we’ve done some things you might like, give us a try for once”, “You kind of like us but would probably prefer not to bother voting today – please vote anyway” are what most of them boil down to (very few are “You hate us, but please vote for us anyway” or “We know you’re going to vote for us so we’re wasting money on a leaflet to ask you to do what you’re going to do anyway” ). And they do it because it works. All campaigns are down to maximising “the tyranny of mild preferences”. AV beats FPTP because it allows you to honestly go with your strong (positive) preference than aim to avoid your mild (negative) preference.

Q – I’ve seen claims that it would stitch up the system to lock the Conservatives out. Is it true?

A – These are based on the theory that there is a “centre-left majority” in the UK which only results in Conservative Governments due to vote splitting on the left. Only trouble with that theory is that it’s rubbish.

Q – How come? If the Lib Dems are on the left, then it makes sense – remember your points on vote splitting earlier.

A – Because in election after election, Lib Dem voters turn out not to be a monolithic bloc of “left wing voters”. In 8 of the elections since 1964, they (or their predecessor parties) had a net preference for the Conservatives, as against 4 where they preferred Labour – albeit the preference for Labour in 1997-2001 was far greater than any previous such preference. Recent polls indicate that the remaining Lib Dem voters again prefer the Conservatives.

Q – Won’t the politicians who truly believe this be rather disappointed then?

A – My heart bleeds.

Q – The Yes2AV people also say that it would get rid of safe seats. Is that true?

A – Um – let’s just say it’s a considerable exaggeration. If a candidate gets over 50% - or even pretty close to 50% - of the vote today, or has a very healthy lead over the second placed candidate, it’s not going to be appreciably less safe. We may, after people are freed to vote how they want rather than how they fear, find in the long run that some seats aren’t quite as safe as they were, but overall, not really.

Q – Would it have stopped the expenses scandal or made MPs work harder.

A – I can’t really see any way how those would have happened, either. Sorry.

Q - They also say that it ensures that whoever wins gets over fifty percent of the votes. That’s true, isn’t it?

A – Kind of yes and kind of no. In any run-off vote, to win you need more tan half of the vote – in that round. But with some people choosing not to preference any further down than the level where they don’t care any more, the winner may well get just under half of the number of all votes cast in the first round. So it’s arguable.

Q – Some actors say I should vote yes and some sportsmen say I should vote no. Should I take any notice of them?

A – If you can’t think for yourself, sure.

Q – If I want a different form of change – say list PR, STV, AV+ or AMS, how should I vote?

A – Vote as to whether you think AV is better than FPTP. But if you’re wondering which result is most likely to bring about further change, I’d suggest that the rejection of a preferential runoff system would damage the case for any other preferential runoff systems in future (like AV+ and STV). Many people believe that if AV fails, the pressure for a larger change will become irresistible, so – if AV+ and STV become less likely and pressure continues to build for a change and is not alleviated by a potential move to AV, then it would be logical that the chances of a move to List PR (like the European elections) or AMS (like the Scottish Parliamentary elections) would become significantly higher.

Q – I heard that there’s a way in which AV breaks down – if your vote increases, you can lose. Is that true?

A – Yes. Every voting system has some fundamental flaws – it’s been proven that it’s impossible to have one that’s perfect. That is AV’s biggest flaw – if supporters of a candidate who otherwise was going to lose anyway move another candidate from last to first, it can change the order of eliminations and change the winner such that the one they are now voting for loses. It’s called “violation of monoticity”

Q – That’s a bit convoluted and unlikely, isn’t it?

A – Well, yes, but it has happened in the past. Admittedly, it is rare enough that it’s worthy of note whenever it happens, and it’s implausibly difficult to bring about deliberately. In comparison, FPTP’s key flaws are that the winner could easily be the loser in a head to head with ANY of the other candidates, and the addition of choice similar to one existing candidate can mean that the candidate who should win, doesn’t. And these are common enough that they have become the focus of much of the efforts of the parties in each constituency – to convince you that if you don’t vote for them, the above will happen to your misfortune. If you want to know the technical names, they are “violation of Condorcet Loser” and “violation of Independence of Clones”.

Q – Actually, I didn’t really want to know the names. So, to sum up the arguments against: that the FPTP loser can win is not a valid criticism, as the only way the result changes is if the FPTP winner only got there due to vote splitting. And the parties themselves use runoff voting to ensure that that scenario doesn’t happen for them anyway. Everyone only gets one vote in every round and it’s the same for all of the voters, the claim of it costing a conveniently specific high price is pretty much made up, the argument on BNP voters relies on “we don’t explicitly see it happen under the current system so we can pretend it doesn’t happen” and ignores the fact that all the other voters put together are a much, much larger influence, the idea of a permanent stitch up against one of the parties is rubbish, and the perpetual Hung Parliament argument is baseless – but there is, as with every voting system, at least one flaw and for AV it’s this “monoticity” thing, which is fairly rare and improbably difficult to deliberately cause?

A – Yup.

Q – And positive reasons to vote for are that it produces a result that isn’t distorted when you vote for who you actually want – because vote splitting won’t be a problem, that minor parties, independents and different flavours of opinion within the big parties which happen to march with your actual views could more easily be represented, and the party leaders can’t take you for granted anymore because you will now have somewhere else to go without fear of disaster. If you get to vote for who you actually want and they can’t produce leaflets to try to scare you into voting for them even if you don’t really want to in order to avoid a worse fate – because of these rather common flaws of the FPTP system – what will they produce instead?

A – Don’t know, but I’d enjoy finding out.

F1 2011 season, after 3 races

2011-04-25T15:05:00.001+01:00

Well, we should have had 4 by now but Bahrain was axed. It may return, though it seems a little unlikely. A shame to lose a race but if we had to lose one then Bahrain is not the hardest blow to bear.

I’m going to take a general approach rather than looking at each race specifically, as there are already post-race reviews up.

Red Bull clearly have the best car. It’s the fastest and in most regards it’s highly reliable. Well, for Vettel. Webber has faced some sort of reliability failing at every race and has done well to score good points despite this. Vettel, in stark contrast to 2010, started with near perfect reliability and performance and deserves his massive lead. However, Red Bull is not invincible. Its KERS breaks down frequently and has a problem with overheating, and Webber usually needs an extra pit stop per race due to tyre mangling.

McLaren made an enormous, staggering leap forward from pre-season testing, when their car was as magnificent and impressive as Crassus’ performance at Carrhae, to the season itself. Their car is in a strong second place, close enough to challenge Red Bull for podiums and, with fortune/superior strategy, wins. They’re also a cut above the likes of Ferrari, Renault and Mercedes. McLaren’s job now is to stop Red Bull running away with the title. Hamilton may well be Vettel’s closest rival this season, though it’ll be interesting to see how Button does.

Ferrari did the exact opposite of McLaren. They seemed ultra-competitive in testing, perhaps even better than the Red Bull, only to be a bit lacklustre in the season. The car just isn’t quick enough. On the plus side, Massa’s got his head screwed on right and has beaten Alonso twice out of three attempts, aided by Alonso ramming Hamilton in Malaysia. Ferrari have less than half of Red Bull’s points (50 to 105), highlighting the task they have. But, things looked impossible for Alonso last year and he came within a whisker of winning the title.

Renault have produced a cracker of a car which has delivered 2 podiums in 3 races. It’s a great shame that Kubica was not able to drive for the team, and here’s hoping he recovers fully and gets back for 2012. Heidfeld and Petrov seem to veer from the ridiculous to the sublime, scoring either no points or standing on the podium. Their car is very tasty, with a superb start, but is a bit off the pace in qualifying. The title is out of reach but they are doing well in their bid to beat Mercedes and become the 4^th team (32 points to 16).

Mercedes are still not living up to the memory of the Brawn team. The car is just not fast enough and they’ve had some bad luck, with both drivers victims of misfortune in Australia. However, it is a very good car in a straight line and Schumacher’s been starting brilliantly. It was great to watch him and Alonso duelling in China. If they don’t develop some pace soon, Rosberg will probably seek a faster team.

Sauber have made a good start, and only failed to score in the first race due to a silly technicality which meant they broke the rules without gaining any speed advantage. Kobayashi seems to have been passed more than expected, but Perez is doing very well in his first season, though he could perhaps tone down the aggression a touch.

Likewise, Force India have a class act in di Resta, who is punching above his weight with the car and keeping his team mate, Sutil, honest. Toro Rosso are also doing alright, without setting the world alight.

The lowest three teams, Lotus, Virgin and HRT, are still way off the pace. I hope they’re able to up their game. Personally, I’d be quite happy if HRT and perhaps Virgin were axed.

So, how are the rule changes working?

KERS is back, and works the same as before. Recycling energy used when braking, it affords a brief 80bhp power boost to promote overtaking or defending. It works pretty well, though the system can break, leaving a car lumbered with a hefty weight and no performance boost.

DRS is a new, simple, cheap system which allows a car to basically go faster in a straight line when within 1 second of the preceding car, on a specified straight. It produces a bigger advantage than KERS and the two can (and often are) used at the same time.

I like KERS. And I like DRS. But I think having both is a little over the top and would prefer DRS to be axed.

However, both of the above pale in comparison to the impact brought about by the new Pirelli tyres. Pirelli were given a brief to increase degradation so that strategy and tyre management became critical, as in Montreal last year. Excepting that instance, 2010 saw highly durable, reliable Bridgestones which almost always meant that teams opted for a single stop. Pirelli have given us something new, a fantastically exciting Chinese GP and put strategy ahead of qualifying in terms of importance.

I do wonder how the race in Montreal will go, given that even the granite-like Bridgestone tyres needed multiple stops.

I’m also glad the 107% rule has been reintroduced. It was breached by both HRTs in Australia, and they were not permitted to start the race. Quite right too.

The next race starts on the 8^th of May, and is in Turkey. This may well be the last race at the circuit, which is one of the better new ones. Let’s hope my rubbish betting improves somewhat.

Morris Dancer

In search of the Braggites: a tale of three counties

2011-04-23T15:24:00.005+01:00

Last summer, I looked at how the Labour vote in Conservative/Lib Dem marginal had fallen to far lower levels than occurred to the Lib Dem vote in Labour/Tory marginals or to the Conservative vote in Lib Dem/Labour marginals:

http://politicalbetting.blogspot.com/2010/08/conundrum-for-labour-strategists.html

I concluded that if this was as a result of tactical voting for Lib Dem candidates by Labour supporters, as recommended by Billy Bragg, the Conservatives could look forward to substantial numbers of seat gains at the next election if Labour voters decided not to continue with their tactical voting.

The critical question, therefore, is to establish just how much tactical voting of this type was taking place, and then we might be able to assess how much unravelling we could expect. Easier said than done. PB superstar Andrea suggested to me that I might look at the overall vote tallies in whole counties at successive elections and this is what I have done.

Andrea suggested that I looked at Devon. At the 2010 election, there were 12 constituencies in Devon. 601,300 voters made their way to the polling booths and 85,556 of these cast their vote for a Labour candidate: 14.2% of the vote.

No two general elections are exactly comparable, but 1992 is probably the easiest election to compare with 2010. The Conservatives weren't too far ahead of Labour and, importantly for our purposes, the Lib Dems were new on the scene so a culture of tactical voting would not be as mature as it is now. How have things changed?

There were 11 seats in Devon in 1992. 638,104 voters cast their vote and 122,854 of these voted Labour: 19.3% of the vote. Evidently, there has been a decline in the Devon Labour vote in that time – but of course, Labour polled better nationally in 1992 than in 2010, so that doesn't prove much. Labour polled 29.0% nationally in 2010 and 34.4% nationally in 1992. Making the appropriate adjustments, we could have expected the Devonwide Labour vote to have been 16.2% in 2010 if there had been no additional tactical voting. Since it was in fact 14.2%, that suggests that there might have been some additional tactical voting, but it's hardly overwhelming evidence.

What if we strip out those seats where Labour was out of contention? Labour's vote in Devon is very efficiently distributed. On its puny vote share in 2010, Labour managed two MPs out of 12 (by comparison, the Conservatives tallied 16.7% of the vote in Scotland and managed one MP out of 59). Labour was a reasonably close second in a third seat. Nicely done.

In 1992, Labour had one MP and finished a reasonably close second in three other seats. Not quite so efficient, but then it had to overtake the Lib Dems in all four of those seats. A pretty good effort really.

The numerate will have realised that means that Labour's performance elsewhere in Devon was at joke party levels. In the remaining nine seats in 2010, 463,633 voters cast their votes, but only 36,280 of these were Labour votes: 7.8% of the vote. Labour was pushed into fourth in two of these constituencies by UKIP. This sounds strongly indicative of tactical voting. Was it?

In 1992, there were seven Devon seats in which Labour finished third. It gathered 55,221 votes out of 431,028 cast in those seats): 12.8% of the vote. So it should be noted that Labour was already performing dismally in rural Devon, even then. If we make the same adjustment to the vote share to allow for the differential performance of Labour nationally, we would have expected it to have got 10.8% of the votes in these constituencies. This suggests that an additional 3% of Labour's vote has been lost to tactical voting – not as much as I originally might have expected to see.

Of course, Devon is just one county, so I thought it worthwhile to look at Dorset and Somerset. In Dorset, Labour didn't take a single seat in either 1992 or 2010. In 1992, Labour took 54,613 out of 407,472 votes (13.4% of the votes), while in 2010 it took 47,594 out of 391,111 votes (12.2% of the votes). Allowing for its relative performance at these two elections, Labour actually did better in Dorset in 2010 than it did in 1992, and this remains true even if you strip out the 2010 result in South Dorset (where Labour previously held the seat in 2005). Billy Bragg's appeal for more Labour tactical votes appears to have fallen on deaf ears: a prophet without honour in his homeland.

Somerset tells a different story. Labour was neither first nor second in any seat in Somerset in either 1992 or 2010. So you might expect to see more evidence of tactical voting here. And you do. In 1992, 38,561 Labour voters dutifully wasted their vote out of 297,857 voters: 12.9% of the vote. In 2010, this shrivelled to 22,163 out of 286,279: 7.7% of the vote. You would have expected to see 10.9% of the voters going red in 2010 if national trends had been followed. The Lib Dems now hold four seats out of five in Somerset, where in 1992 they held one. It seems reasonable to conclude that tactical voting has increased.

What can we conclude? First, that Labour have polled appallingly in these three counties (outside Plymouth and Exeter) for a generation. There comes a point where a Labour tactical voter is indistinguishable from a lifelong Lib Dem voter. Secondly, that there has been increased tactical voting, at least in Devon and Somerset, but that it has been on nothing like the scale that some, including me, have assumed. Maybe 10 Lib Dem seats nationally are at risk to the Tories from an unwinding of the increased tactical voting, but to lose more, the Lib Dems would have to lose long term Lib Dem voters as well as reds in yellow clothing.

Which leaves one further question: just who are all these Labour supporters who claim to have voted tactically for the Lib Dems?

antifrank

China: post-race analysis

2011-04-17T11:13:00.000+01:00

Since Malaysia:

Both Alonso and his best friend forever Hamilton got slammed with 20 second time penalties (the former for ramming the latter, who got his for apparently moving around too much on track to stop the Spaniard passing him). This made no difference to Alonso, who stayed 6^th, but put Hamilton 8^th, behind Kobayashi.

Here’s the analysis from Brundle: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9453362.stm

Qualifying Summary:

The most exciting and unpredictable session so far, at the back of the grid anyway. Webber remains assailed by dire luck, lacking KERS, suffering a pre-qualifying electrical failure and then having the team put him out on hard tyres which saw him qualify a staggeringly rubbish 18^th.

Renault continues to veer from the ridiculous to the sublime. Heidfeld, fresh from a podium in Malaysia, qualified a pitiful 16^th. Petrov got a great Q2 lap time but then his engine died on track and the result was that he’s 10^th and 11 drivers were on track all at once to try and qualify for Q3. In Renault’s favour is their ultra-brilliant start and their very good raw pace, so the race may not be an utter disaster.

Schumacher continues his rather lacklustre qualifying performance in 14^th, but his young gun team mate got an excellent 4^th. I’m sure Rosberg will be keen to leapfrog his elder colleague, who has 2 points to Rosberg’s 0.

The Toro Rossos and di Resta did very well. I must say I’m tremendously impressed with the rookie Scot, who has outqualified Sutil at every race so far and matched him for points. However, I suspect they may prove easy prey to Petrov off the line.

During Q2 I thought it might be a close three way battle for pole, and was quietly hopeful of my 5.4 tip on Hamilton. Then I saw Vettel mercilessly crush his rivals, yet again, and felt a bit moronic. I think I’ll revert to only offering pole tips post-P3. Vettel’s 0.7s margin of victory is enormous. It also shows what a disaster Webber had. 1^st and 18^th for Red Bull. I think the key is the combination of Vettel and the car. It is a very good car, but he’s the best driver on the grid and together, they’re seemingly unstoppable.

One important factor that the commentary team highlighted was the possibility that lower temperatures, as well as decreasing tyre degradation generally, help Red Bull especially. This may be related to the car generally and also the specific heating problems with KERS. Vettel was fast enough to easily get pole, even without KERS (worth around 0.3s per lap), but if it fails during the race he’ll have all the weight with none of the performance, and the McLarens just might be able to make it a contest.

Race Summary:

Betting-wise, a disaster. This was mostly because I wholly misjudged the start and didn’t realise Webber could have KERS mended. Neither Renault got a great start, Petrov made up only a single place and rarely looked like getting in the top 6. Webber was poor for the first half of the race but then raced through the field to get a fantastic 3^rd. Vettel had his worse start yet, dropping to 3^rd from the line but recovering well to get a 2^nd. My supposition in backing 10 plus seconds for the victory margin was Vettel staying first and steaming into a big lead.

I also, rather less than brilliantly, forgot to try hedging the bets, though I suspect only the Webber one may’ve been hedgeable at probably poor odds, so it probably didn’t make much difference.

The start was very exciting and at odds with my predictions. At the sharp end, both McLarens zoomed past Vettel, who had a dire start. He was also, briefly, passed by Rosberg but regained the place swiftly. A little further back, Massa overtook Alonso, and Schumacher had another staggeringly good start. Neither Renault made up much ground, and nor did Webber.

We then entered a very complicated race as teams went for differing strategies, with most opting for 3 stops but a few (including Vettel) trying just 2. This was further complicated by the fact that a few drivers (Hamilton, Petrov and Webber) had 2 sets of new soft tyres (Hamilton had deliberately only used 1 set in qualifying for this reason, Petrov and Webber did not participate in Q3, hence saving their tyres).

At various points of the race numerous drivers and teams looked like possible contenders for the win or a podium spot. Massa’s early pass on Alonso, backed up by some good driving thereafter, saw him return to some better form after his crash two seasons ago. He briefly led, and in the end got a good 6^th. Alonso never really looked in contention, but did have quite a few entertaining jousts with Schumacher, the pair ending up 7^th and 8^th. Schumacher made up 6 places from his starting position, and Rosberg got 5^th to secure Mercedes best race result this season.

Renault had a poor race. Petrov did make up a place, but Heidfeld did not get into the points. Disappointing from a team that previously had a pair of podiums. Toro Rosso also had a rough ride, with neither driver staying in the top 10 after an excellent qualifying.

So, what about the big boys? For a time a 1-2 for McLaren seemed possible, but Webber’s fresh tyres and raw pace enabled him to overhaul Button and nab 3^rd, a stunning result from 18^th on a grid, especially given his KERS didn’t work for part of the race. McLaren got their first win with Hamilton surviving a pre-formation lap scare when his car wouldn’t start, and 1^st and 4^th is a decent result. Vettel was compromised by a combination of a start slower than a Super Aguri in quicksand and the wrong strategy (2 stops rather than 3). Ironically, Webber’s higher tyre degradation and extra softs probably made certain his 3-stop strategy which paid huge dividends.

Something for both McLaren and Red Bull to feel thrilled about, and for Vettel and Button to rue.

Musings:

Turkey is next, but there’s a three week hiatus, so I’ll probably write an interim article about how the season’s shaping up and how the various rule changes are working out and affecting things.

The qualifying failure was mostly me being daft and betting pre-P3, which I shall not do again. Racing failure was just a huge misjudgement and a little bit of bad luck (namely Vettel choosing now to finally have a bad start).

Forget qualifying. Strategy is now the king of F1. Hamilton really did learn a trick from his Malaysian misadventure, and his cunning plan to save a set of softs and slightly sacrifice grid position was inspired. But, this can also work, accidentally, for a chap out of person such as Webber. We ought to watch out for this in the future.

I am a bit displeased with a 0 from 4 for this race. However, it is early days, we’re just 3 races into a probably 19 race season (still no word for certain on Bahrain). The next set of races are European, so P3 should be at a decent time, enabling, hopefully, some green qualifying sessions.

Morris Dancer

“A choice between having cancer and AIDS” : Mario Vargas Llosa

2011-04-16T04:07:00.002+01:00

The Peruvian Presidential Election 2011

On Sunday 10 April 2011 Peruvians went to the polls to elect their new president. If no candidate receives 50% of the vote a second round of voting involving the top two candidates will take place on Sunday June 5^th. Under the Peruvian constitution current President Alan Garcia is prohibited from seeking successive re-election.

With about 93% of the vote counted (the final results won’t be known for a few days due to the logistics of counting votes from the Atacama desert across the Andes to the Amazon basin) the results are:

1. Ollanta Humala Gana Perú* (Populist Left) 31.7%

2. Keiko Fujimori Fuerza 2011 (Populist Right) 23.5%

3. Pedro Pablo Fuczynski (PPK) Alianza por el Gran Cambio (Centre Right) 18.7%

4. Alejandro Toledo Perú Posible (Centre Left) 15.5%

5. Luis Castaneda Solidaridad Nacional (Right) 9.9%

* The party labels used are an umbrella term for a coalition of parties eg Gana Perú is made up of the (Partido Nacionalista Peruano), the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista), the Peruvian Communist Party (Partido Comunista Peruano), the Revolutionary Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Revolucionario) and the Political Movement Socialist Voice (Movimiento Político Voz Socialista).

It is clear therefore that the second round runoff election will be between Humala and Fujimori. This should be interesting to say the least – Humala came to prominence in October 2000 when as a then Lieutenant Colonel he led a military uprising against the President Alberto Fujimori – the imprisioned father of Keiko. To say that there is bad blood between the two would put it mildly!!

In the 2006 election Humala recieved 30.6% of the first round vote before losing in the second round to Alan Garcia gaining 47.4%. The slight improvement in his vote and the divsions amongst his opponents lead me to believe that Humala will win the second round.

Looking at a breakdown of the vote we can see where the election was won and lost. Of the top three Humala succeeded by winning big in his heartland of southern Andean Peru stacking up 55-60% of the vote in Cusco and Puno for example and a massive 86% in Moquequa, whilst ensuring a steady spread across the rest of Peru. Fujimori was the most consistant candidate gaining 18-27% pretty much everywhere and leading in the Lima exterior and Ica regions of central Peru. PPK´s support was limited vitally entirely to Lima and essentially the upscale districts of San Isidro, Miraflores, La Molina etc. Outside this heartland his performance was dire. This upscale vote can be expected to swing behind (reluctantly) Fujimori. The second round battle will be decided in, what I call “middle Peru” – the forgotten, dusty towns like Ancash, Iquitos and Cajamarca.

An analysis of the campaign

With his second place in 2006, high profile and populist credentials it was certain that Humala would stand. Demonised as a Peruvian Hugo Chavez, who would kick all gringos out of the country, steal your pension and nationise the Banks thus destroying Peru´s booming economy, Humala played a very savvy, understated campaign. Allowing the others to exaggerate and caricature him as an extremist he maintained centre stage whist appearing calm and collect. This culminated in the final and most watch TV debate held on the preceding Sunday 3^rd April at the Sheraton Hotel. In this debate he calmly avoided answering any questions and behaved in a calm almost boring manner. This had the desired effect. It made opposition claims that he was some kind of baby eating Gaddifi / Chavez love-child seem absurd, calmed fears and resulted in a stunning surge in the opinion polls. From being in the high teens and low twenties at the end of March in the days following the debate he hit the 30% becoming the clear front-runner. He has managed to maintain this calm and mild exterior through-out the campaign until the last minute of his post-election address outside the hotel Sonesta El Olivar in San Isidro where he couldn´t resist climaxing with a few viva socialism chants – whilst not quite in the league of Kinnock at the Sheffield Rally in 1992 if I was his opponent I would be using that over and over against him.

Keiko Fujimori ran the most impressive campaign. A Congresswoman since 2006 she broke through achieving national prominence during the trial of her controversial father and formal president Alberto Fujimori. His imprisonment for the maximum 25 years for human rights abuses, corruption and bribery was the foundation for her Fuerza 2011 campaign. The most well organised campaign though, perhaps, least impressive candidate she was the first to actively campaign. This was well rewarded with a pretty consistent 20-25% across most of Peru. Will she be able to achieve 50% plus? This I doubt. The left and centre-left will not forgive her father for his abuse of power, human rights abuses and the Grupo Colina death squad responsible for the murders of many.

Without doubt the most charming of candidates was Pedro Pablo Fuczynski. A former Prime Minister and co-Chairman of the First Boston bank he was the darling of the Lima elite. Yet in spite what the establishment felt was his qualifications for the job he was a lacklustre candidate. Outside Lima city he vote share was pitiful and his campaign can best be encapsulated in a moment of utter farce. Walking through the shanty towns of Lima he was regular accosted by locals, apparently as a result of local superstition about white people, wanting to touch his genitals!! While he smiled and “handled” the situation genially it nevertheless was illustrative of how different and out of touch he appeared to most Peruvians.

As for the other candidates: Alejandro Toledo, convinced that his name-recognition as a previous president and early poll leads would see him to victory led a lazy and moribund campaign which only came to life in the last days; Luis Castaneda, former mayor of Lima, had perhaps the worse campaign imaginable going from 75% approval ratings and first position to fifth less than 10% of the vote.

Anyway I hope you find this all an interesting diversion and if you have any questions please feel free to ask or email.

Macchu Picchu

Horseracing – A Dangerous Game

2011-04-14T18:05:00.002+01:00

Peter the Punter on the Grand National

It was as a young boy standing by the rails at Tattenham Corner, Epsom, that I witnessed my first horseracing accident. A horse stumbled and fell coming down the hill. Both horse and rider were trampled by those behind and the jockey was kicked into the timber and concrete running rails. He was stretchered away, unconscious, an arm hanging limp from one side. The hand bore the unmistakeable mark of a hoofprint in crimson where the flesh had been torn from the bone. He no doubt survived, though I doubt the horse did, but it taught me then that horseracing is a very dangerous game.

The lesson has been repeated countless times since, most recently whilst viewing along with several million others the TV coverage of this year’s Grand National. No matter how thrilling the race, the loss of brave and beautiful animals casts a gloom upon the occasion. The two stricken horses in last Saturday’s race were shown unusually clearly by high camera shots as the remaining field sped past the dolled-off fences. Perhaps it was this graphic portrayal of death-at-the-races intruding into the afternoon’s entertainment that prompted stronger than usual calls for the event to be banned. Understandably and predictably, the calls reflected more passion than reason.

The Grand National is not an especially dangerous race. It is extreme, in that it is the longest race in the calendar and the obstacles are unusually large and testing, but these are not the main reasons why jump racing is so risky. Ginger McCain, trainer of three-times Grand National winner Red Rum, nailed it when commenting after the race “It is speed that kills.” Steeplechases run over the minimum trip of two miles are probably the sport’s most dangerous events, since they require precision jumping at high speed over stiff fences. If you really want to eliminate the riskiest races, you would probably start with these and then work your way up through the distances until you get to the longest races, such as the Eider Chase and finally, of course, the National.

Hurdling illustrates the same principle. There are fewer fallers – about one every fourteen runs as opposed to one every seven in steeplechases – but the speeds are generally much faster and the falls therefore more serious. Again, it is the shorter, pacier races which are the more dangerous, rather than the marathons.

There was an unusually high number of finishers in this year’s National - nineteen as against the more typical dozen or so. The winner’s time of just over nine minutes was very quick. The unseasonal warm weather and dry conditions no doubt played their part and probably contributed to both fatalities too. They occurred early, when the horses were travelling at their fastest, as McCain’s dictum might have predicted. Each year the jockeys are warned to take it steady early on but the instruction is not so easy to follow. Racehorses love to race and forty of them gathered before a noisy throng are only too likely to defy the restraints of even the strongest professional jockeys and set too fast a gallop.

Like other dangerous sports, such a motor racing, horseracing has done much over the years to improve safety – for example, the introduction of plastic running rails, vastly improved vetinary and medical facilities, and the redesign and resiting of fences, including the National fences at Aintree, which though still awesome enough are not as tough as they used to be. The reduction in size and difficulty has doubtless contributed to fewer casualties over the years, but it does also to some extent cut the other way. Because the obstacles are easier, the horses take them faster, again increasing the risk.

You cannot get away from it. Horseracing will never be entirely safe. So do you ban it? If you do, you would have to ban all horseracing to be consistent. Fatalities on the flat are commonplace too, although a high proportion occur in training away from the public gaze. And if you ban all horseracing, what about other equine sports and pastimes, such as Eventing, Arab Racing, Pony Trekking or Sunday afternoon cross-country hacking on a tired old nag? None of these activities are particularly safe for man or beast, as participants will well know. And once all these dangerous activities have been banned, what about others where animals regularly suffer death or injury, such as greyhound racing, pigeon fancying and fishing?

Logic and consistency in this matter leads one to some extreme conclusions if you start from the premise that the death of two racehorses is in itself grounds for banning a race. A more practical, sensible and ultimately humane approach would be to continue the process of making it safer and fairer. Knowledgeable followers of the sport will be familiar with the kind of thing. You could for example reduce the length of the run to the first fence, thereby forcing the horses to slow sooner. Greater watering of the course would help too. And field sizes could definitely be reduced.

These are only some suggestions. There are no doubt others which could be introduced without destroying the unique character and appeal of the race. Banning it would serve little purpose however, except to appease certain lobbies and some once-a-year race watchers who wear their heart on their sleeve and their brains somewhere entirely different.

Malaysia: post-race analysis

2011-04-10T11:39:00.001+01:00

Since Australia:

The Saubers were found to have been in breach of some finickity regulations regarding their rear wings. This led to both being disqualified, so, sadly, Perez did not get his deserved points finish. However, this did mean the Briton Paul di Resta scored a 10^th place and 1 point in his first ever race.

There was musing from some that KERS would matter more for Malaysia, and a suggestions that the Red Bulls would need to sort out their heating issues and fit the system to do well.

In a new and presumably regular feature, Brundle’s done a brief but informative analysis video of the Australian GP. Well worth a look: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9437681.stm

Qualifying Summary:

Well, I didn’t see that coming. My view, after P1 and P2, was that Red Bull were a dead cert to take pole, and that, as such, Webber was too long, especially given his previous poles at the circuit. So, I tipped him at 4.3.

But, qualifying was very different to expectations. In Q2 and Q3 both McLarens were very, very competitive, and really challenged for pole. It looked as if Hamilton was to cause an upset, and at the last moment was himself beaten by a perfect lap from Vettel.

The margins were very tight, and the pole-sitter regularly fails to win or to even enter the first corner in the lead. The start tomorrow will be phenomenally exciting. The heat may play havoc with Red Bull’s KERS, tyre degradation will be high and there’s the possibility for showers (though earlier forecasts indicated these may not occur and may be light).

The dominant Red Bulls and McLarens are followed by the substantial slower Renaults and Ferraris, with Rosberg 9^th and Kobayashi 10^th. For anyone but the top four to get a podium spot will be dependent on either reliability issues or extra pit stops (due to degradation and/or changeable weather).

Race Summary:

In betting terms, a good race. I tipped No Safety Car at 2.52 (it actually went as long as 2.9 or 3 pre-race) and it came off. My reasoning was that Malaysia has had very few safety cars, just 2 races from 11 (including today’s) feature such an occurrence, and the weather forecasts were for light showers (which is what we ended up getting). For those interested, I use http://www.weather-forecast.com/ and http://www.wunderground.com/ when considering race and qualifying weather.

My decision was heavily influenced by a handy article (http://www.formula1.com/news/features/2011/4/11891.html) on the official F1 website, and I intend to look at a similar bet in Hungary. If you backed both the single qualifying and single race tips then you’d be ahead overall (hedging made no difference as Webber never got to short enough odds and I did not advocate hedging the race bet).

Now, to the race itself. The start was electrifying, and provided useful confirmation of a few things seen in Australia, but which required a second race to prove were not simply flukes. The Renaults take off like bloody rockets, Vettel had a good start and so did Schumacher. Webber’s dire start was due to a combination of a long opening straight and his total lack of KERS due to a reliability failing.

There was plenty of overtaking and the numerous pit stops made it sometimes difficult to tell who was where precisely. Button will be thrilled with a deserved second after Hamilton suffered first a slow pit stop and then poor pace, and then needed another pit stop.

Webber had a topsy-turvy day of good and bad luck. First his KERS failed and he got passed by every man and his dog on the opening straight. But, he managed to fight back, after a prolonged duel with Kobayashi, and get himself into a decent position. Then Alonso attempted to break the laws of physics and instead broke his own front wing, necessitating pit stops for both himself and Hamilton. But for that, Alonso could’ve gotten the third podium spot.

Vettel’s KERS also broke, midway through the race, but somehow he managed to stay competitive and maintained a small but comfortable lead over Button in the latter stages.

The race saw the McLarens and Red Bulls fairly evenly matched for pace, with Vettel’s blistering first few laps providing him with a lead that ultimately meant Button had no chance to overtake him at the end. The Renaults were competitive in the race itself, though their qualifying pace seems to paint them as merely the leading midfield team. They scored a second consecutive 3^rd, although Petrov failed to finish after his efforts at flight proved unsuccessful.

Ferrari ended up with 5^th and 6^th, though it could have been 3^rd and 6^th. Excepting his inept attempt to pass Hamilton (which he was certain to do, given time) Alonso drove a very good race. The car really isn’t fast enough but the drivers seem to be punching above their weight. If Ferrari can get a grip and produce some upgrades Alonso could yet be a title contender. [Although that would require someone to beat Vettel, at some point].

The tyres did indeed degrade faster than in Australia, with most drivers (barring those afflicted with accidents) opting for 3 stops, but Webber needed 4. I cannot see him having a realistic shot at the championship if this continues. In the colder than expected Australia, a part-time street circuit, he needed to stop 1 more time than Vettel, and the same happened in the hot, humid, purpose-built racetrack in Malaysia. It’s early days, but he cannot give his team mate 20 seconds plus every race and hope to win.

Musings:

The next race is in China, which is tasty for McLaren. It’s also just a week away, minimising any opportunity for upgrades and redesigns.

The Red Bull KERS needs work. It failed pre-race for Webber and mid-race for Vettel, who drove brilliantly to offset any loss in pace. This could compromise the team and drivers if they can’t get it sorted, especially as China has a bloody big straight.

Renault are rubbish at qualifying but tasty in the race, especially at the start. This ought to be remembered for future races.

The Williams has, I think, a 0% completion rate. I’ll try to remember to check the lay odds of being classified, and likewise for HRT.

I imagine China will be broadly similar to Malaysia in terms of qualifying and race pace and the overall result. It’s got a super long straight and occasionally rains, though I’ll check the weather forecast nearer the time (we still have sod all idea about Pirelli wets and intermediates in terms of both grip and durability). Unfortunately P3 is from 4am to 5am and qualifying starts at 7am, so I’m not sure if I’ll offer any qualifying tips.

Morris Dancer

AV – What are the Effects?

2011-03-28T18:35:00.009+01:00

There’s been a lot of sound and fury on who’d win and lose from the proposed AV reforms (such as the No2AV claim that effectively Nick Clegg would be the One Man with the One Vote), and it occurred to me that we’ve not had the facts presented in one place.

Whilst some of the arguments over AV have been on the philosophy of the system, much of the undercurrent has been on the party political fallout. With most sides simply guessing.

As it turns out, most of the projections of past elections that have been bandied about over the years aren’t much stronger than educated guesses – Dr Roger Mortimer of MORI has an excellent summary of the AV issues here - which includes much of the facts behind the philosophical discussions as well.

The major issues with projecting these outcomes, he summarises thus:

- Most estimates of how an AV election would turn out assume that voters’ first preferences would be the same as their vote under FPTP. But that is almost certainly not true. The trouble is there is no simple way of finding out or reliably estimating how it will differ at constituency level. How many people are voting tactically (and where) who wouldn’t do so under AV? We know how votes are spread by constituencies at the moment, but we don’t know what the spread of AV first preferences will be.

- Surveys can ask voters what their second (and lower) preferences would be, but we don’t know how this will vary by constituency, which can make all the difference to the election outcome. We certainly can’t assume that, say, Lib Dems in Scotland will split between Labour and the Tories as their second choice precisely the same way as Lib Dems in the South East of England, or that rural and urban are the same.

- Most people don’t really understand alternative electoral systems, so asking them what they would do under a different system may not get accurate answers. Once a new system is in place and they have got the hang of it, they may well vote completely differently to the way they think they would now.

- Parties will behave differently under AV and that may affect the way voters think about them. e.g. If the Lib Dems asked voters in a constituency to give their second preference to the Tories, would that lose them the first preference vote of some left-leaning LibDem voters?

Given those caveats, it’s not surprising to find that some estimates of election results vary between well respected sources. Most are fairly close – I’ve found more than one result for each of the 1983-1997 elections, but all bar the 1997 one are very close to each other. The 1997 one is a pronounced exception, with Conservative seat totals confidently projected at 110, 96 and 70 from three different calculations.

The elections prior to 1983 don’t seem to have had projections made (at least not easily locatable online), but data from the British Election Study (BES) data is now online at the BES Information Site, with data going back to 1964. I’ve run an estimate for the 1979, 1974(October), 1974 (February), 1970, 1966 and 1964 elections.

Enough preamble, what’s the outcome?

Only two elections would have changed their headline result: the October 1974 election would have had Wilson still short of a majority, and 1964 would have seen Home denying Wilson a majority – and the Liberals under Jo Grimond as kingmakers. The reason that the third party has always done better in these projections is that they have (until now) always been preferred to the “other one” of the big two by Con and Lab voters – which may change now they’re in Government.
Who (out of Conservatives and Labour) loses out? It changes – dependant on who is least disliked by Liberal/Lib Dem supporters. This is how it’s happened over the past 46 years:

Net Preference for Con/Lab by Lib/Alliance/LD voters across elections (Source BES 1964-1997, 2001/5 ICM/BBC from Curtice paper, 2010 BES from paper by Sanders et al)

On the above graph, blue corresponds to an advantage for the Tories, red to an advantage for Labour. Current polling suggests that the remaining Lib Dems have a small net pro-Tory preference (that is, the line has crossed back over to the blue side), but 2015 is still a long way off.

Well, that’s what the past looks like – but the big issue with AV is how it will change voting behaviour in the future – with the ability to cast a first preference vote with far less worry about wasting it, will UKIP, the Greens, far left Socialist parties and so on see big boosts in their first preferences? Will we see constituencies where voters have long abandoned hope in their first preference major party suddenly shift sentiment? Subsequent elections will be based on the now-different results that AV will produce and we’ll enter uncharted waters. One thing that does leap out – more constituencies change hands under AV projections than under FPTP ones, so election night may prove rather more anxious for MPs and more entertaining for the rest of us.

Footnote for sources: For this article, I’ve taken the projected totals for the 1983-2010 elections (using John Curtice’s projections at the BBC website here as my starting point. The ERS present different totals for 1983-1997 here, again citing Curtice. The third calculation for the most disputed outcome (1997) is here, by Dunleavy, Margetts, O’Duffy and Weir. For the 2010 election, I’ve used the paper by Sanders, Clarke, Stewart and Whiteley (available here, but an alternative is presented by the ERS and presented by the Guardian here)

Australia: post-race analysis

2011-03-27T09:16:00.001+01:00

Qualifying summary:

No bets on this, due to the timezone difference and the added difficulty of assessing a brand new season. It was interesting for several reasons. The tyres held on longer than expected, Heidfeld failed spectacularly with 18^th and a Q1 exit whereas his supposedly inferior team mate got an excellent 6^th, and the KERS failed for Schumacher (costing him a Q3 place), Hamilton and Vettel*. The latter two slaughtered the rest of the field, and Vettel was tremendously impressive, effectively a second ahead of Webber.

The qualifying session was also notable for the very good improvement for McLaren, and the lacklustre performance by Ferrari and Mercedes. Toro Rosso did well, and Sauber will be thrilled with Kobayashi’s 9^th. Hard to assess the Williams as Barrichello uncharacteristically slid off and ended Q2 in a gravel trap which put him 17^th.

*Later information indicates Red Bull simply aren’t bothering with KERS.

Race summary:

Well, the tip for Hamilton to win at 5.8 didn’t come off. Hamilton was clearly better than everyone save Vettel, but the Wunderkind was in a class of his own. The McLaren driver impressed hugely by doing so well with a broken floor, but frankly Vettel had the entire weekend sewn up. He dominated qualifying, he was never in danger of losing the race and these are ominous signs for the rest of the field. Nor can his success be ascribed solely to the ingenuity of Adrian Newey, Red Bull designer, as he also wiped the floor with his Australian counterpart.

On bets considered but not tipped, Schumacher for top 6 and Button for a podium would’ve proved losers (due to an accident and a deserved drive-through respectively), the 10.5 for Petrov to get a podium would’ve won. Irritating, as always, but it is at least a sign that my eye is in, which is nice.

The start saw some interesting things. It cannot be definitively stated that this represents each team/driver’s true starting form as it’s just one race, but useful pointers may’ve been seen. Schumacher and Petrov started brilliantly, as did both Red Bull drivers. Surprisingly, the McLarens had poor starts, as did (I think) the Ferraris.

Petrov did staggeringly well to get a deserved podium. If I’d believed in him more I would’ve tipped the 10.5 I considered, and that was clearly an error of judgement on my part. Meanwhile, Quick Nick qualified a pathetic 18^th and achieved a paltry 14^th in the race.

As for Alonso, he ended the race as he ended 2010: behind Petrov. A good solid 4^th, nothing spectacular, aided by his team mate getting out of the way and Button getting a drive-through. Ferrari are the third-placed team right now (or possibly fourth, after Petrov’s Renault).

Webber finished 5^th, 38 seconds down the road from his team mate. Button recovered well from his drive-through to nab 6^th, with an excellent 7^th for Mexican superstar Sergio Perez who stopped but once. His team mate, the popular Kobayashi, got overtaken quite often but managed to finish 8^th. A lacklustre Massa came in 9^th with Buemi 10^th.

Tyre degradation was substantially more than last year but not farcically high. As a result we got some interesting strategic divergence, from Perez’s 1 stop to the 3 stops of Alonso and Webber and the 2 stops of Petrov. It may be worth keeping an eye on Perez’s odds, because if he can put in 1 or 2 fewer stops per race than his competitors then he is likely to climb the standings from the grid to the result (he went from 13^th to 7^th today).

We cannot assess Mercedes. Both drivers were victims of other people crashing into them. Williams likewise failed to finish, although that is better than HRT, who failed to start.

It is worth saying that reliability generally was excellent. Most retirements seemed to be due to accidental damage. It’s disappointing to get my tip wrong, but it is nice to get the season underway and we now have some concrete information.

Musings:

Betting earlier affords better prices but higher risk. Scott P cunningly backed McLaren for the win at 6/1, pre-qualifying, with Coral. After qualifying, the odds were halved (with Betfair). Occasionally last year (usually with tiny stakes) I bet on winning teams pre-practice, but I usually prefer to have more information available before betting, at the cost of shorter odds.

I’ve found it a bit weird only writing one article this weekend. Less work though. Do people prefer this, with tips offered on the main site and a review on pb2, or think the old three articles per weekend system was better?

Already Vettel is evens for the title and Red Bull are shorter than that for the Constructor’s. We’re 1 race into a probably 19 race season, so I think this may be a little bit of an over-reaction. That said, Vettel absolutely slaughtered his opposition today. The question is, will he be able to repeat that on a circuit with many straights and slow corners?

The next race is in a fortnight’s time, in Malaysia. The qualifying and race start at 9am. It’ll be a bit earlier than I’d like, but I’ll try to offer qualifying as well as race tips.

Morris Dancer

Pre-season betting thoughts

2011-03-13T08:44:00.000Z

Given the longer than expected wait, I’m going to fill the Bahrain-sized gap with a shorter post about betting, given the rule changes.

It’ll be mostly conjecture, of course, but that’s always the case pre-season.

There are 19 races (possibly 20, if Bahrain returns). If Korea is dry throughout, we’ll effectively have two new tracks in Korea and India (which is reportedly ahead of schedule). I’d guess that India should be good for McLaren, as it’s got quite a lot of long straights, which may also serve the increase the distortion between practice and qualifying times and race pace.

Qualifying may see the market for getting into Q3 becoming more interesting. If Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, Renault, Williams and Toro Rosso are all capable of it, it may become an opportune (or very difficult) market. [It’s worth pointing out that the previously poor Mercedes seems a bit racier since it had some upgrades fitted].

Pole will be the same as last year, because the adjustable rear wing can be used in qualifying and practice, so the P3 simulation runs should provide a good guide. (NB the last 3 races in Australia, our first destination, have had pole-sitters who did not top the timesheets much at all in practice).

The races will see many changes. The 107% rule means that, occasionally, a slow team will end up not even starting. KERS means that the teams with the best system (and best engine) may regularly gain a place or two at the start. The adjustable rear wing should, slightly, aid overtaking, and its highly regulated use in the race and free use in practice and qualifying will create a gap between practice and qualifying pace and race pace.

Perhaps the biggest change is that the tyres, now Pirelli, will no longer be made with the resilience of granite, but of crumbly cheese. An average of two pit stops was expected per race, rather than the standard (dry) one from Bridgestone. However, in a preview of the season the eminently sensible Martin Brundle reckoned three to four pit stops per race would be likely. This is deliberately to try and create more Montreal type racing. I have mixed views, as I found Montreal very exciting and had my worst result of the season there. Extra pit stops create more opportunity for cock-up, whether a poor pit stop or getting back out into traffic.

This also puts a premium on tyre management, and Button has reported he loves the new tyres. So, perhaps he’ll do well. (Then again, I thought that last year).

(For more info on tyres falling to pieces, check out this link: http://pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=43040).

Reliability will matter a lot, obviously, and in new and exciting ways. When it was last used, the KERS system occasionally broke, which then requires the car to carry quite a lot of weight for no advantage at all.

I’d expect the above changes to make the pole-sitter less likely to win, compared to last year. Extra pit stops adds possibility of misfortune, KERS adds opportunity for being passed at the line and the adjustable rear wing makes being passed later on more likely too.

If Ferrari and Red Bull are top dogs, initially at least, then the advantage ought to lie with the team most reliable. On recent history, that would probably be Ferrari. However, the cars are new, so we’ll have to wait and see whether the Red Bull (and especially Vettel) trend of being fast but fragile continues.

Unhelpfully, those pesky colonials have P3 at 3am and qualifying starts at 6am. I’ll make a decision nearer the time, but my inclination is to sit qualifying out rather than either get up at an ungodly hour or miss out on the usually helpful (although not at Australia, see above) P3 qualifying simulation.

The first race of the season (unless the hated dictator Julia Al-Gillard is toppled, of course) will be on the 27^th of March, starting at 7am UK time. Hurrah!

Morris Dancer

Testing and adjustable rear wing

2011-02-21T17:02:00.000Z

There is a question mark over the adjustable rear wing. It’s been introduced to help effect overtaking, and there are three levels of success that might be achieved (or, to be more exact, one level of success and two levels of failure). If it does not work, then it will have failed. But, if it works too well and actually hands an advantage to the chap behind, then that’s artificial, unfair and a bit rubbish. The happy medium is that it aids overtaking and gets rid of the dirty air problem without making second place the position of choice for the penultimate lap. We’ll have to wait and see whether it’s brilliant, useless or worse than useless.

The distortion effect (due to it being available throughout a lap for practice and qualifying but only on one straight when a second or less behind someone in the race) will vary from circuit to circuit. More long straights will maximise the difference, obviously, and I think this may lead to Mercedes-powered vehicles (McLaren, Mercedes etc) being underestimated for the race following qualifying (at some circuits).

So, to testing!

Renault had a nifty idea. They’ve rejigged their exhaust system to increase downforce, basically. It seems to work nicely.

“BBC Sport's Andrew Benson: "In answer to 'anon' below, it's fair to say the Pirellis have proved in Valencia to go off very quickly - particularly the rears. But the company has been asked to provide less durable tyres than Bridgestone tended to make, because there's a belief that tyres that go off quickly make better racing - just look at the Canadian Grand Prix in 2010. The tyres have been developed since the post-season test in Abu Dhabi, and there is a media briefing on Thursday at which more will become clear about Pirelli's plans."”

That was from the live text from the first test, day two.

After the first test Schumacher said that the new tyres were like driving on ice, whereas Button really liked them. Kubica also indicated that they degraded rapidly, and Barrichello expressed some concerns about the increasing number of buttons on the steering wheel increasing the driver’s workload. It’s very difficult to read much into testing, but Button’s best time was 0.8s faster than Hamilton’s in test 1. That could be down to anything, but if it’s repeated at other tests it may indicate that Button’s chances are better this year than last.

Between tests 1 and 2 there was some very sad news. Robert Kubica, Renault’s lead driver and one of the most talented chaps on the circuit, was involved in a crash whilst rallying. He was trapped for over an hour, during which his hand was partially severed. Whether he’ll ever return is unknown (edit: he should be able to return, and is trying to come back this year), and even in a good scenario, rehab could take a year. I really hope he can return, as he is a very fast driver and has the skill (if not the car) to take a world title someday.

On the driver front, it creates a huge problem for Renault. The only chaps equal to Kubica are probably Vettel, Alonso and Hamilton, and they’re not up for grabs. The team has indicated that it’s considering Bruno Senna (reserve driver), Nick Heidfeld and Vitantonio Liuzzi for the seat. I’d go for Heidfeld if Kubica’s out for one year and Liuzzi if he is not going to return. Of course, the team may not have that information when they make their choice.

During the second test, Vettel said (in a Q&A with the official F1 website) this:

“When the tyres go off, it’s not as easy to use as when the tyres are fresh, but you get used to it. KERS is not so easy to use, but again it’s a case of getting used to it - its practice in the end.”

That’s quite interesting, and may suggest that, as well as the obvious reasons relating to tyre degradation, changing tyres might have the additional advantage of improving speed by making the adjustable rear wing more effective.

Alonso, interestingly, believes the adjustable rear wing will only be of benefit if the car being pursued is substantially slower than its pursuer:

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/89479

Schumacher raised doubts about the Mercedes pace in the second test. Ultimate pace seems fine, as he posted a very good fastest lap indeed, but the consensus appears to be that Red Bull and Ferrari are the quickest right now.

Immediately after the test, this interesting piece was posted on the official F1 website (http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2011/2/11745.html):

“From what we learned from those so far, we believe that we’re still on course to see two pit stops per race, which obviously might be one stop on some circuits and three stops on others, depending on the individual cars and track characteristics,” explained Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery.

Between tests 2 and 3, something interesting and disturbing emerged. The fourth test was shifted to Bahrain, from 3-6 March, with Bahrain also hosting the first Grand Prix from 11-13 March. The ‘problem’ is that recently the Arabs have decided that toppling dictatorships is tremendous fun, and Bahrain has been seeing its share of angry protestors and trigger-happy security forces.

Hopefully, the two sides can negotiate and peacefully reach a settlement, and the race (admittedly a minor point in the grand scheme of things) can go ahead. If there is trouble, it may jeopardise both the first race and the 4^th test (I’d guess they’ll have a back-up track lined up for the testing).

Update, 17^th February: now the streets of Bahrain are quiet, armoured vehicles are patrolling and the government’s had a crackdown. A GP2 race has had qualifying shifted to the morning of race day. Unsure if that’ll happen with F1.

The first day of the third test saw the first wet running with the new tyres, due to heavy rainfall the night before. There was also some wet running on day three.

We also learnt, from the excellent Ted Kravitz, that the Red Bull loves the adjustable rear wing:

“Red Bull and Ferrari have topped the timesheets so far, and from watching the cars on track, look the class of the field. The Red Bull RB7 is using its moveable rear wing in places no other car can, for example in the middle of the fast corner heading onto the main straight.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9402470.stm

The 20^th saw Ecclestone finally (not) make a decision regarding whether there ought to be a race in Bahrain. He’s ducked it, and said it’s up to the crown prince. So, the crown prince either takes a tremendous risk by letting go of the race, knowing it may never come back after £1bn of spending, or he takes a tremendous risk, knowing that any main or splinter opposition group could disrupt the race or even pose a threat to the safety of those involved.

I’m unimpressed with this, frankly. Ecclestone’s right to say that the crown prince knows the security situation far better than he does, but it’s Bernie who runs the show. The crown prince is not the king of F1. He ought to be asked for advice, and then Ecclestone should make the decision.

Update, 20^th: Ecclestone has stated that if Bahrain is cancelled in March it could occur later in the year. This may be the best option.

On the 21^st we finally got the not entirely unexpected news that the Bahrain test is cancelled and the race itself has been postponed to an unspecified date. The first race of the season will be at Australia on the 27^th of March.

Given the lengthier than planned wait, I might write yet another pre-season article.

Anyway, here are my general impressions, based on the BBC live text of the various sessions:

Red Bull and Ferrari are both looking competitive in terms of pace, but the prancing horse has the edge when it comes to reliability. Indeed, most cars look a bit suspect in this area.

McLaren and Mercedes both look off the pace, though with the testing variations the times themselves can be highly misleading.

Toro Rosso and Renault look like they may punch above their weight in 2011. However, Sauber looked the same pre-2010, and it was a dog in the first part of the season.

Bahrain is a Ferraritastic circuit, so McLaren and Mercedes will not exactly be in tears about getting extra testing time and delaying a race where they may not get the top spots.

Looking through the calendar, the only other real potential flashpoint is Abu Dhabi, but that’s in November and I’d expect any disturbance to either be done and dusted or not happen at all by then.

My earlier vague witterings about Mercedes and Schumacher/Rosberg now look a shade silly. Still, I did state expressly that they weren’t tips and that I’m not betting pre-season. As of now, Vettel and Alonso look like the chaps with the best prospects, but the season is longer than ever and will be tricky to predict.

A reminder, to me as much as anyone reading this, that whilst practice is valid as a guide for qualifying, neither practice nor qualifying will give us a true picture of race pace. This will make predicting races somewhere between tremendous fun and infuriating, especially as they’ll now average 2 pit stops per track.

Morris Dancer

Sorry for problems on the main site

2011-02-08T07:57:00.003Z

We've had severe technical problems over the past couple of days and I am unable to access the admin area of the site.

This means no new posts from me and we cannot free up comments in the moderation queue.

If this continues then we will switch temporarily to this site - Politicalbetting Channel 2.

Pre-season rule changes and driver lineups

2011-01-29T08:12:00.000Z

I wrote this over a prolonged period, adding little snippets as they arose, so it’ll probably be a bit long and jittery.

There are a number of technical changes for the 2011 season, the details of which are linked to here - http://www.formula1.com/news/features/2010/11/11579.html

The short version is this:

No more F-ducts or double diffusers

Bridgestone replaced by Pirelli as sole tyre manufacturer

Adjustable rear wings intended to aid overtaking (detail here): http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9313790.stm)

KERS returns

107% rule returns

I very much welcome the return of KERS. The sexy power boost button mixes up starts and restarts from the safety car, and, I think we can all agree, a big button that makes your car go faster is quite brilliant.

Just after the end of the 2010 season Eddie Jordan asserted that Mercedes had a better system ready than Renault, but we’ll have to wait and see.

It is reckoned that the Pirellis will possibly degrade faster (a damned good thing) and aid certain drivers. Schumacher and Massa did well in the preliminary tests in Abu Dhabi, for example. Faster degradation would mean fewer predictable one stop strategies and more Montreal style madness.

The adjustable rear wing really should make overtaking easier. However, it is important to know that whilst it can be used at any time during practice/qualifying it cannot be so freely used during the race. Specifically, it cannot be used on laps 1 or 2, or the first two laps after a safety car restart [when all the cars will be bunched up]. It can only be used on a specific straight, when within 1 second of the car ahead. So, it will not affect the Lap 1 Leader market. In addition, this means that the practice and qualifying times will probably (sometimes) be slightly misleading when it comes to race pace. It is effectively a straight line speed boost, so the distortion will be small or non-existent at a track with a single straight and tons of corners and maximised at tracks with multiple long straights.

The FIA has also decided, in its infinite wisdom, to drop the unenforceable [if Ferrari do it] team orders rule. In other words, they are now permitted. To help out other F1 fans, I’ve compiled a brief list of translations of phrases used this season and what they will be next season.

“Fernando is faster than you” = “Felipe, baby, get out of the way”

“Enter fuel management mode” = “Don’t even think about passing your team mate”

“Jenson, fuel is critical” = “Oi! Knock it off!”

Another interesting fact is that all four top teams (Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes) have not changed their drivers. Mercedes will be most interesting to watch, as it’s unclear whether the car will be competitive enough, whether Rosberg has the cutting edge of a champion and whether Schumacher can enjoy a better season than his somewhat lacklustre 2010 return (although he did improve markedly towards the end).

Renault/Lotus [see below] has retained the stellar Kubica, and the gold-plated Petrov.

Speaking of teams, F1 appears to have ended the realm of madness. Next season will see Lotus competing in black and gold colours, and Lotus competing in black and gold colours. No typo. We will have two Lotus teams. (Lotuses? Loti?). One will be the present Lotus team (named Team Lotus) led by Tony Fernandes. The other will be backed by Group Lotus and parent firm Proton, and be called Lotus Renault. The reasons are complicated, legalistic and a bit petty, and the result will make commentating fun. Bear this in mind if you plan on betting for or against a Lotus team.

Update: Tony Fernandes has decided that Team Lotus will not race in black and gold to prevent confusion.

Regarding new drivers, Pastor Maldonado of Venezuela takes Hulkenberg’s Williams seat. Bit of a shame, as I thought Hulkenberg did well, but Maldonado brings Venezuelan cash, apparently. The banzai superstar Kobayashi is joined at Sauber by Sergio Perez Mendoza of Mexico, who will have to work hard to hold his own against the entertaining Japanese driver.

Virgin has signed up Belgian Jerome D'Ambrosio to partner Timo Glock. This matters because if he can drum up greater Belgian support for the sport then it may help Spa, one of the finest of all circuits, stay on the calendar. There’s a real risk that it might end up going when a number of new races are added (there’s a 20 race limit to the season, and with the addition of India this year it’s already been reached. With Russia, the US and perhaps other countries joining some circuits must be ditched soon).

Toro Rosso have left their lineup of Buemi and Alguersuari unchanged.

With a quartet of drivers vying for Force India seats, there has been a prolonged wait to find out who gets the green light. Sutil was likely to retain his seat, and Liuzzi lose his (despite having a contract for this year). Possible replacements include the British Di Resta and Hulkenberg.

Update: It’s now been confirmed that Sutil and Di Resta will race for the team next year, with Hulkenberg as reserve.

There has also been a significant change in the BBC F1 commentary box. Legard has been axed as lead commentator and replaced with Brundle, whose former role of second commentator/race analyst has been assumed by Coulthard. This has surprised many who expected any potential new combination to feature one ex-driver (probably Brundle) and a BBC journalist. How this fares we’ll have to wait and see, but I trust we’ll see fewer inexplicable errors and strange moments of excitement as well as better commentary chemistry. However, many wanted James Allen out, and then found they disliked Legard, so it may simply be that everyone suffers by comparison with Murray Walker.

The first race (sadly the woeful Bahrain) will be difficult to predict. Testing provides only the haziest of pictures due to the wildly differing fuel loads, and it will only become clear how the rule changes work in race conditions in race conditions.

One, slight, advantage to visiting Bahrain first is that it’s difficult to overtake at the circuit, so if the adjustable rear wing and KERS work well we may see this reflected on race day. There’s no point introducing overtaking aids if they only work in places like Spa and Interlagos.

A reminder that, initially at least, I’m going to offer tips on the main site, and write just a post-race analysis after each race, including how the tips (hedged and unhedged) played out.

Anyway, this post will hopefully take care of updates regarding teams/driver/rule changes, and all the housekeeping, as it were, should be done now. I’ll write a season preview after testing and before Bahrain, and then the season begins.

The testing schedule is as follows:

Valencia : 1 to 3 February
Jerez: 10 to 13 February
Jerez: 17 to 20 February
Barcelona: 25 to 28 February

So the next article will be up after the 28^th of February and before the 11^th of March, when P1 of Bahrain begins.

Morris Dancer

MBE asks: Was it English votes for English fees?

2010-12-14T15:39:00.002Z

MPs regional breakdown	Aye votes	No votes	Abstentions	Total
England	311	209	8	528
Northern Ireland	0	12	6	18
Scotland	6	51	2	59
Wales	8	32	0	40
ALL MPs	325	304	16	645

A guest slot on the big vote and the West Lothian Question

Linlithgow and East Falkirk includes much of the late, lamented constituency of West Lothian. Last week its Labour MP, Michael Connarty, was one of 51 Scottish representatives to vote against Higher Education funding reforms, even though only English universities were directly affected.

Of course, his constituents would pay more to study in England, and, indirectly, spending changes south of the border affect Scottish funding. Rather than unravel how “English Votes for English Laws” could be defined, lets examine its Commons arithmetic at the tuition fees vote.

English MPs were 311-209 in favour of the measures with 8 absent or abstaining, a hefty majority of 102. Yet the overall margin of victory was slashed to 21 by MPs from Scotland (majority of 45 against), Wales (24) and Northern Ireland (12).

It may seem strange to grandstand over a vote with no direct impact in your seat, but Lib Dem rebellion was strongest in Wales with all 3 MPs voting no; their Scottish MPs voted 5-4 (2 abs) while surprisingly their English colleagues were most loyal at 23-14 (6 abs).

This suggests local circumstances, and the leftward political centre of gravity in the Celtic nations, were factors in the Lib Dem rebellion’s size and shape: more so than their English MPs’ calculated aversion to cutting subsidies for their own constituents.

Total discipline from Labour, SNP and Plaid, and cross-party consensus in Northern Ireland, accentuated the Anglo-Celtic gulf. In contrast, all eight Tory rebels – 6 noes, 2 abstentions – hold English seats, although so do all bar nine Tory MPs!

The West Lothian Question also worked against the Conservatives in 2004, when Labour’s plan for “top-up” fees in England scraped through by five votes. English MPs disapproved, but 46 loyal Scottish Labour MPs, with less to lose, proved crucial.

England’s MPs are now distributed 296/188/43 plus one Green, Speaker, three Deputy Speakers and a vacancy. The Coalition’s theoretical majority there is 150, while the Tories alone have an outright majority of 64. Some form of EV4EL may tempt Cameron, particularly if the Lib Dems look unreliable. But if even the difficult fees vote could be steered through, does he really need it? And with its potential to reduce their leverage, should the Lib Dems be wary?

Numerical notes: tellers are included with voters, but the Speaker and his deputies excluded from consideration. With one by-election due, this restricts England to 528 potential votes from 533 seats. No allowance was made for the alleged “vote swap” of two English Lib Dems absent in Cancun. NI includes five abstentionist Sinn Fein MPs.

My Burning Ears

2011 - the visions of antifrank

2010-12-13T19:20:00.001Z

It's that time of year where we look back over the last year and pretend that we knew what was going to happen all along. All the political journalists are no doubt preparing their predictions for the year ahead, so I thought I would get in first.

So, where to start? I'm a firm believer in making predictions based on things we already know. So what do we already know?

1) The public don't like what the Government is doing

Government approval is negative and has been for some time. Minus 7 is typical.

2) The public are cooling on David Cameron

His approval ratings are now barely positive. He is, however, the leader with the best approval ratings.

3) But his party is doing fine

The Conservatives' ratings are at worst barely lower than their last election result and at best significantly better. After they have spent 7 months introducing cuts, I expect that they are fairly content with that tally for now.

4) And Conservatives love David Cameron

Ignore all the rightwing headbangers' mutterings: while David Cameron is getting 95% satisfaction ratings from intending Tory voters, he is in a very strong position.

5) Labour supporters are really unhappy with Nick Clegg.

Upwards of 70% of Labour supporters in YouGov surveys rate Nick Clegg as performing his job very badly. This analysis is not shared by Conservative or Lib Dem voters, both of whom broadly approve of him.

6) The Lib Dems have lost half or more of their support

Whether or not you believe the YouGov ratings that are now regularly dipping into single figures, the other pollsters are also finding a lot fewer Lib Dems than voted for that party in May.

7) Those (few) Lib Dems that remain are reasonably happy with the government, the Lib Dems and Nick Clegg

The remaining Lib Dem voters are supportive in large but not amazing numbers of all three

8) Meanwhile, Ed Miliband is making a very hesitant start

Only 27% of YouGov poll respondents were prepared to say that he was up to the job. 19% of stated Labour supporters said that he wasn't up to the job. His leadership ratings are now firmly negative, as the don't knows are breaking towards don't like.

9) But despite this, Labour is doing fine

Labour is in the lead with every single pollster at present

10) And there is a succession of bad news ahead for the Government

a. VAT is rising
b. The tax take will rise further in the new financial year
c. The impact of the cuts will become visible

11) But the economic outlook is currently better than most of us would have predicted at the general election

a. Economic growth has far exceeded expectations in the last two quarters and there are indications from both manufacturing and construction that these areas are growing strongly
b. Though the possible impact of continuing Eurozone turmoil is hard to assess

12) And the public have numerous opportunities to express their views

With a by-election pending in Oldham East & Saddleworth, a referendum on AV, elections in Scotland and Wales and local elections throughout Britain, a large section of the public will get chance to pass judgement on current events

augur antifrank's predictions

With these trends, what can we expect in the year ahead? Well, the public are in a surly mood. No politician in the main three parties is meeting with consensus approval.

1. Labour will prosper in the polls

In the short term, this trend will help Labour. When the public is in a hostile mood, the lightning will be directed at the parties in power. As the cuts bite deeper and taxes rise, Labour should rise in the polls. Even if the economy continues to grow, the public will feel poorer. Ed Miliband will have to work quite hard to mess this up.

Labour can hope to win something close to an absolute majority in both Scotland and Wales with good campaigns. If they don't win an absolute majority in Scotland but are the largest party (which has to be the single most likely outcome at present), will they seek to govern with a minority or will they seek to form a coalition? My guess is that they will seek to govern as a minority, though they would be wiser to form a coalition with the Lib Dems.

2. The Greens may well become more influential

But unless Ed Miliband can turn around initial public perceptions of him, it's likely that other parties also will benefit. The Greens seem to have a major opportunity: leftwingers in particular seem to feel let down by all their regular choices. If they positioned themselves wisely, the Greens could scoop up a lot of left of centre voters who don't yet feel that the Labour party that has yet found a new direction. To date, the Greens have decided against compromising with the electorate. Do they have the vision to see their opportunity?

3. UKIP should resurface

There is also an opportunity on the right. The Conservatives have got the sound money right wing vote locked up. Can UKIP exploit the cuts to its own advantage? They would need to take a populist rightwing approach, but such approaches have worked well in quite a few European countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and Hungary, for example) and UKIP could do much worse than look to continental Europe for inspiration. What they really need is an impeccable rightwing campaign that needs government spending. The armed forces, perhaps?

4. The Lib Dems will continue to flounder

The Lib Dems are having to participate in all kinds of nasty cuts with the Tories. This is a new and very painful experience for Lib Dems, who largely came into politics to do nice things (the Tories on the other hand have strong stomachs for such matters and it probably helps them keep their own voters happy).

Such policies will not help the Lib Dems to attract voters back in the short term, at least in national opinion polls. Expect to see the Lib Dems retreat into hyper-localism. This may prove more effective than the major two parties expect in the local elections, but is unlikely to help them much in Scotland or Wales, in both of which they can expect to be spanked. On the other hand, they might just take Oldham East & Saddleworth if they can harness the tactical Tory vote.

5. The Tories will stay in touch with Labour

Tory supporters like the cuts, at least the principle of them. The Tory poll ratings have slid gently but consistently through the last few months and will probably continue to do so while the cuts continue to bite. But I doubt the slide will accelerate and in Scotland the Tories might even get an increase in support in May. In the local elections, the Conservatives will lose a lot of seats, but perhaps not as many as might be expected, given how badly placed Labour are in so many parts of southern England.

6. The AV referendum will be lost

The election will take place after two weeks of Royal wedding mania and no one cares about electoral reform. The referendum will be seen to be about Nick Clegg. If Ed Miliband campaigns hard for AV also, it might also come to be seen to be a referendum about him. At the moment, neither are voter magnets.

7. Fewer than half of my predictions will come true.

Ronseal.

antifrank

For St. Andrews Day: Holyrood 2011 The New Constituencies

2010-11-30T11:32:00.002Z

Happy St Andrew's Day one and all. As we are only 5 months out from the Holyrood elections, I thought it might help the serious gamblers on PB if I set out the 73 new constituencies and where possible show the relevant 2007 winner and runner-up and my early guess at likely winner in May. The new seat is named first and the old seat in brackets below. In a couple of cases where seats are completely new or go completely there is no comparison.

Some seats have had little or no boundary changes like the 3 island seats while others like the Highland seats, the Aberdeenshire and Angus seats and the Borders seats have seen major changes.

The Weber Shandwick website www.scotlandvotes.com attempts to show what would have happened in 2007 on the new boundaries and for example turns Jim Murphy's East Renfrewshire (Eastwood at Holyrood) into a safeish Tory seat because Labour has lost its heartland of Barrhead from the constituency into a neighbouring already safe Labour Renfrewshire one.

Unless there is a big sea change between now and May, I reckon many of the SNP gains in 2007 on huge swings resulting in tiny majorities, in almost all cases far below the average of 2000 spoilt votes per seat will return to Labour and the LibDems will lose out in places like Dunfermline which swung back so heavily to Labour in May.

Constituency
Name
New Seat
(Old Seat) 2007 Winner 2007 Runner Up
2011
Nov 2010 Prediction
1.Aberdeen Central
(Aberdeen Central) Lab Hold SNP Lab Gain from SNP
2. Aberdeen Donside
(Aberdeen North) SNP Hold Lab SNP Hold
3. Aberdeen S & N Kincardine
(Aberdeen South) SLD Hold SNP SLD Hold
4. Aberdeenshire East (Gordon) SNP Gain SLD SNP Hold
5. Aberdeenshire W (Aberdeenshire W and Kincardine) SLD Hold SNP SLD Hold
6. Airdrie and Shotts (Airdrie and Shotts) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
7. Almond Valley (Livingston) SNP Gain Lab Lab Gain from SNP
8. Angus North and Mearns
(Angus) SNP Hold Con SNP Hold
9. Angus South - - SNP Hold
10. Argyll and Bute (Argyll and Bute) SNP Gain SLD SNP Hold
11. Ayr
(Ayr) Con Hold Lab Con Hold
12. Banffshire and Buchan Coast (Banff and Buchan) SNP Hold Con SNP Hold
13. Caithness, Sutherland and Ross (C, S and ER) SLD Hold SNP SLD Hold
14. Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (C, C and D V) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
15.Clackmannanshire and Dunblane (Ochil) SNP Hold Lab SNP Hold
16. Clydebank and Milngavie
(C and M) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
17. Clydesdale (Clydesdale) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
18. Coatbridge and Chryston (C and C) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
19. Cowdenbeath (Dunfermline East) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
20. Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (C and K) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
21. Cunningham N (Cunningham N) SNP Gain Lab Lab Gain from SNP
22. Cunningham S (Cunningham S) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
23. Dumbarton (Dumbarton) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
24. Dumfriesshire (Dumfries) Lab Hold Con Con Hold
25. Dundee City East (Dundee East) SNP Hold Lab SNP Hold
26. Dundee City West (Dundee West) SNP Gain Lab SNP Hold
27. Dunfermline
(Dunfermline West) SLD Gain Lab Lab Gain from SLD
28. East Kilbride
(East Kilbride) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
29. East Lothian
(East Lothian) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
30. Eastwood (Eastwood) Lab Hold Con Con Hold
31. Edinburgh Central (Edinburgh Central) Lab Hold SLD Lab Gain from SLD
32. Edinburgh Eastern (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) SNP Gain Lab Lab Hold
33. Edinburgh North & Leith (Edinburgh North and Leith) Lab Hold SLD Lab Hold
34. Edinburgh Pentlands (Edinburgh Pentlands) Con Hold Lab Con Hold
35. Edinburgh Southern (Edinburgh South) SLD Hold Lab SLD Hold
36. Edinburgh Western (Edinburgh West) SLD Hold SNP SLD Hold
37. Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire (R and Berwick) Con Gain SLD Con Hold
38. Falkirk East
(Falkirk East) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
39. Falkirk West (Falkirk West) SNP Gain Lab Lab Gain from SNP
40. Galloway and West Dumfries (Galloway and Upper Nithsdale) Con Hold SNP Con Hold
41. Glasgow Anniesland (Glasgow Anniesland) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
(Glasgow Baillieston) Lab Hold SNP -
42. Glasgow Cathcart (Glasgow Cathcart) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
43. Glasgow Kelvin (Glasgow Kelvin) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
44. Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn (Glasgow Maryhill) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
45. Glasgow Pollok (Glasgow Pollok) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
46. Glasgow Provan (Glasgow Springburn) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
47. Glasgow Shettleston (Glasgow Shettleston) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
48. Glasgow Southside (Glasgow Govan) SNP Gain Lab Lab Hold
49. Greenock and Inverclyde (Greenock and I) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
50. Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse (Hamilton South) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
51. Inverness and Nairn (Inverness E, Nairn and Lochaber) SNP Hold SLD SNP Hold
52. Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley
(K and Loudoun) SNP Gain Lab Lab Gain from SNP
53. Kirkcaldy (Kirkcaldy) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
54. Linlithgow (Linlithgow) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
55. Mid Fife and Glenrothes
(Fife Central) SNP Gain Lab SNP Hold
56. Midlothian N and Musselburgh (Midlothian) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
57. Midlothian S, Tweeddale and Lauderdale
(T, Ettrick and L) SLD Hold SNP SNP Hold
58. Moray
(Moray) SNP Hold Con SNP Hold
59. Motherwell and Wishaw (Motherwell and Wishaw) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
60. Na h-Eileanan an Iar
(Na h-Eileanan an Iar) SNP Gain Lab SNP Hold
61.North-East Fife (North-East Fife) SLD Hold Con SLD Hold
62. Orkney
(Orkney) SLD Hold SNP SLD Hold
63. Paisley
(Paisley North) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
64. Perthshire North (Tayside North) SNP Hold Con SNP Hold
65. Perthshire South and Kinross-shire (Perth) SNP Hold Con SNP Hold
66. Renfrewshire North and West (Renfrewshire West) Lab Hold Con Lab Hold
67. Renfrewshire South (Paisley South) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
68. Rutherglen (Glasgow Rutherglen) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold
69. Shetland (Shetland) SLD Hold SNP SLD Hold
70. Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch (Ross, Skye and Inverness West) SLD Hold SNP SLD Hold
71. Stirling
(Stirling) SNP Gain Lab Lab Gain from SNP
72. Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Strathkelvin and B) Lab Gain SNP Lab Hold
73. Uddingston and Bellshill (Hamilton N and Bellshill) Lab Hold SNP Lab Hold

2010 season review: tips and bets

2010-11-27T10:39:00.003Z

In the first half of the season if you backed all my tips and didn’t lay, you’d be a muppet because I say in almost every post bets that can be hedged should be. However, you’d also be down £8.14. I don’t have a figure for the result if you did hedge your bets, but believe you’d be moderately ahead.

The first half of the season also saw a huge divide regarding qualifying and race betting. Namely, I’m alright at qualifying betting but as much use as a condom made of sandpaper when it comes to race day.

More detail is available here, as is a lovely graph:
http://politicalbetting.blogspot.com/2010/07/mid-season-review.html

In the latter half of the season (Silverstone to Abu Dhabi) I kept better records of what happened regarding the bets and what the impact of hedging is. Naturally, hedging does make things a bit fuzzier, as people will hedge at different times with different stakes.

Without hedging, just 3 of the last 10 races ended green. With hedging, this number rises to 5. Hedging improved the result at 5 races, made no difference at 3 (the ones where I couldn’t tip much due to stupid start times or personal business) and worsened the result at 2. At Spa and Monza, hedging turned red results into green ones.

Below is a splendid graph showing the impact of hedging. The blue line is what happened if you put £10 on every tip, and left at it that, the pink line is what happened if put £10 on every tip and (if possible) hedged.

The total affect, from Silverstone to Abu Dhabi, is an improvement of £61, taking a £53 loss and making it into an £8 profit. Now, that’s still a bit rubbish, but it does show just how useful it is to hedge bets.

In F1, fortune can be very capricious. A good example is the Turkish GP, where I got my best result not due to foresight but because Vettel very helpfully collided with Webber. Obviously this works both ways, such as when Alonso failed to get pole at Hockenheim by 0.002s after I’d backed him at 6.8 [and laid at evens to end up all square].

Weather, mechanical failure, being hit by another car and driver error can all ruin a race, and advantage those behind. This is why I think hedging is best, with the odd exception (first lap leader being one).

For the next season, my plan is to offer tips on the main site, and do a post-race analysis for each GP. Depending on how things go, I may revert to the three articles per Grand Prix format.

Going forward, I will probably do a preview of the 2011 season in February, and possibly write a little about the testing in that month. The first race is, sadly, Bahrain from 11-13 March.

So, this is the final 2010 post. On track the season had many ups and downs, as did my tips. Hopefully the next season will see a bit more reliability from me, and a competitive Mercedes joining the Red Bulls, Ferraris and McLarens battling for race wins.

See you then.

Morris Dancer

Who hates Nick Clegg?

2010-11-21T17:56:00.001Z

Since the Lib Dems threw in their lot with the Conservatives in the aftermath of the general election, Nick Clegg has come in for a lot of flak on the more left wing blogs and newspaper sites. It is often asserted that Nick Clegg is despised as a hate figure, perhaps even a figure of fun. Is that true?

Well, we have had two recent polls where the public were asked to judge his performance, from YouGov (14 Nov) and IPSOS-MORI (27 Nov). The results are pretty similar. YouGov found 40% thought he was doing well and 50% thought that he was doing badly as leader of the Lib Dems, while IPSOS-MORI found 38% were satisfied and 49% were dissatisfied with his performance as deputy Prime Minister. Despite the difference in the questions asked, the words "margin of error" spring to mind.

Are these unprecedentedly bad figures?

No. These are perfectly normal. Gordon Brown twice managed to hit minus 62 in June 2008 with YouGov. David Cameron was at minus 27 in September 2007 with YouGov. Nick Clegg's positive approval ratings first broke 40% as recently as May 2009. His 38% positive approval rating with IPSOS-MORI is pretty comparable with the 42% positive approval rating that he had with IPSOS-MORI in January.

What has changed is that Nick Clegg has far higher dissatisfaction ratings. In January 2010, only 26% were dissatisfied with his performance. That has shot up.

Do 2010 Lib Dem voters feel betrayed?

On the evidence of the IPSOS-MORI poll, yes, many do. 52% of 2010 Lib Dem voters are dissatisfied with Nick Clegg. This comprises fully 10% of the sample questioned by IPSOS-MORI. This is a troubling figure for Nick Clegg, there's no getting away from it. If that is the result 6 months in, he is going to struggle to win their support back.

How do current Lib Dem voters feel about Nick Clegg?

This is unclear. YouGov found that a mere 14% of Lib Dems felt that Nick Clegg was doing badly or very badly, while IPSOS-MORI found 34% dissatisfied with they way that he was doing his job. These figures are based on small samples, but the difference is striking. Perhaps this reflects the different questions asked. More data is needed.

The internal dissent is certainly higher than David Cameron faces - 97% of YouGov Tories profess satisfaction with him, a result worthy of Pyongyang (ISPOS-MORI registers a scarcely more plausible 92%) - but Ed Miliband has yet to enthuse Labour YouGov and IPSOS-MORI respondents, with 15% of both already unhappy with him. Of course, there are rather more Labour supporters at present than Lib Dem supporters.

Where does all the dissatisfaction come from?

Three words sum this up: current Labour supporters. IPSOS-MORI finds that 71% of Labour supporters are dissatisfied with Nick Clegg's performance as deputy Prime Minister and YouGov finds that fully 87% of Labour supporters think that he is doing badly as leader of the Lib Dems. This fits in with the anecdotal evidence of who is making all the noise about him.

There is also a geographical component to this. Sub-samples are not weighted, so are dangerous to rely upon, but the 68% disapproval in the YouGov Scottish sub-sample will not give Nick Clegg much encouragement in an area where 11 Lib Dem MPs have seats, while both YouGov and IPSOS-MORI find rather higher support for him in the Midlands and the South. There seems no reason to disbelieve this.

How angry are the dissatisfied?

Pretty angry, it seems. YouGov give respondents the opportunity to say whether they think Nick Clegg is doing badly or very badly. 27% of all respondents think Nick Clegg is doing very badly, including an incredible 61% of Labour supporters. That compares with 42% of Labour supporters thinking that David Cameron is doing badly. It is Nick Clegg that's getting the Labour heat.

But outside the ranks of Labour supporters, there is no such anger. A mere 2% of current Lib Dem supporters and a mere 3% of Conservative supporters rate Nick Clegg's performance as very bad. This anger is an entirely partisan phenomenon.

What does this mean?

What it means, I think, is that there is a dialogue of the deaf. Current Lib Dems and Tories don't understand Labour anger. Labour supporters don't appreciate that their reaction is particular to them.

Labour will no doubt feel confident that it will hang onto the support of the very unhappy. But making Nick Clegg into a human piñata doesn't look like a promising way of getting many new recruits.

antifrank

2010 season review: prediction

2010-11-20T10:18:00.001Z

This review is about how good practice sessions are for predicting qualifying, and how good practice sessions and qualifying are for forecasting race winners. After this, I’ll write a final review summarising betting success or lack thereof during 2010.

I allocated 1 point for every correct prediction. So, if P2 had Vettel the fastest and he subsequently got pole that’s 1 point. If he then won the race then (in the numbers for the winner) that’s also 1 point, and a further 1 point from qualifying.

In addition, for pole position, I allocated 0.1 points for a prediction of a chap that came within a tenth of pole. So, entirely at random, if Alonso came within 0.002s of Vettel for pole, and P2 had Alonso as the fastest, that’s 0.1. I included this because I think a chap that close to pole is both capable of getting it and close enough to be very layable.

So, which practice session was best for forecasting pole? Here are the stats:
P1 = 4 = 21%
P2 = 2.4 = 13%
P3 = 7.2 = 38%

This is good stuff, because I’ve said throughout that P3 (with the low fuel qualifying simulation run) is best for predicting the pole-sitter, and that P2 is probably the least useful as it includes heavy fuel running.

What about the race winner, though? Again, I looked at the practice sessions, and qualifying, and here’s what emerged:
P1 = 5 = 26%
P2 = 4 = 21%
P3 = 5 = 26%
Q = 8 = 42%

Unsurprisingly, pole is the best predictor, but still less than 50% correct. Interestingly, all three practice sessions are about the same in terms of predictive power, getting the answer right about a quarter of the time.

We need to consider the Vettel Effect when looking at these numbers. He got pole more than half the time this year, and failed to get a win from pole pretty often. So, his lack of reliability (mechanical as well as personal) will have a dramatic impact on the results.

So, what happens if we remove Vettel from the equation by cutting out races where he got pole? He got 10 poles, so stripping those races reduces the number to 9 (just under half). Here are the qualifying stats:
P1 = 0 = 0%
P2 = 0.1 = 1%
P3 = 3.1 = 34%

Race stats:
P1 = 2 = 22%
P2 = 1 = 11%
P3 = 1 = 11%
Q = 5 = 55%

With the exception of qualifying predicting the race result, all other sessions see reduced predictive power. However, the grid becomes a better than evens forecaster, getting it right 5 times out of 9.

Will this hold true next year? KERS, especially if some engines have superior systems, may give an almost automatic number of passes off the grid for some cars. If the Pirellis do (intentionally) degrade more than this year’s tyres then this will increase the impact of strategic decisions (deciding when to pit) and tyre management. Neither of these will affect qualifying, so I fully expect P3 to be best at predicting that again next year, but both would affect race results, making things a bit more mixed up at the sharp end.

However, we also need to look at the predictive results for each individual race. There are some oddities (no-one saw Hulkenberg’s stellar pole in Brazil coming, for example), but a few patterns too. Here are the individual race predictions for pole and the race win (NB numbers are totals of all practice sessions/all practice sessions and qualifying):
Bahrain = 0/1
Australia = 0.1/0
Malaysia = 2/0
China = 0/1
Spain = 0/1
Monaco = 0/1
Turkey = 0/1
Canada = 1/2
Europe = 1/2
UK = 2/1
Germany = 1.1/1
Hungary = 2/1
Belgium = 1/0
Italy = 0/1
Singapore = 0.2/1
Japan = 2/3
Korea = 0.1/0
Brazil = 0/2
Abu Dhabi = 2.1/3

There are clearly quite a few races with little foresight offered by practice/qualifying, but a few do stand out as being predictable. Abu Dhabi and Japan especially, with high qualifying predictability in the UK and Hungary. Whether this is repeated next year remains to be seen, but is something I’ll try to remember to keep my eye on.

Although P3 is the best qualifying predictor and qualifying is the best race predictor neither got it right even half the time, and this ought to be considered for next season.

The next, and last, review will be about how the tips I offered (particularly in the latter half of the season) turned out.

Morris Dancer

2010 season review: racing

2010-11-16T12:28:00.000Z

This first review will be purely from a sporting perspective. Later ones will examine how good practice and qualifying are for predicting race results, and how the actual betting went.

I’ve been, lazily, into F1 for quite a while, and keenly into it for the last few years. I’ve got to say that I think 2010 has been one of the very best seasons ever, and the best I can personally recall. There were five genuine title contenders, numerous twists and turns, with driver errors and reliability problems galore, plus a final glorious sting in the tail.

This year also saw the return of seven times champion Michael Schumacher. He did start off well below par, but towards the end of the season was more competitive, given the Mercedes was a leading midfield vehicle rather than a car capable of winning races.

Three new teams joined the sport (HRT, Virgin and Lotus), and were frankly unimpressive. I’d definitely axe HRT, and probably Virgin and Lotus as well.

But the real trademark of this excellent season was the action at the sharp end between Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull. Ultimately Red Bull tied up both the Constructors’ and, through Vettel, the Driver’s titles.

Unlike 2009, when Brawn had the fastest car by miles at the start, McLaren had the quickest car at the end and Red Bull was second best throughout, 2010 saw Red Bull fastest throughout the season. McLaren and Ferrari got close at times, but never really surpassed the double-title winners.

The early season saw two phenomena that dictated the standings for a time: Vettel’s shocking reliability and Button’s excellent tyre calls in changeable conditions. The Briton scored his two victories in Australia and China, sandwiching Vettel’s first victory in Malaysia. The German ought to have won in the first race (Bahrain), but his spark plugs had other ideas.

After this, Webber and Hamilton started racking up serious points. Both had back-to-back victories (Webber in Spain and Monaco, Hamilton in Turkey and Canada), and, after Alonso got the controversial and ultimately pointless win in Germany, they got their final wins in Hungary and Belgium.

Button, unlike his rivals, never had consistent reliability issues or numerous driving errors. His main problem was a lack of speed, especially in qualifying, which made his races even harder, and he gradually slid down the table as others kept getting wins. In terms of driving reliability, he was clearly the best contender of the season.

After Belgium, a horrible thing happened. Alonso started winning races. The last six were shared equally between El Grumpino and the Wunderkind, although Alonso’s Korean triumph was solely due to Vettel’s engine exploding (yet again) denying him another victory. Alonso drove tremendously well after Hockenheim. He did enjoy some luck, but earlier in the season a combination of safety cars and penalties had cost him dearly, and fortune evened out over the course of the season.

Hamilton’s challenge had veered into the concrete barrier of woe due to a series of self-inflicted (if moderately unlucky) DNFs, when a number of overtaking attempts went wrong and wrecked his races, and his hope of regaining the crown.

For a long time Webber seemed favourite for the title. However, a slip up in Korea, when he spun (and took out the unfortunate Rosberg) cost him a podium. Vettel then beat him in Brazil, and the Aussie had to finish ahead of Alonso in Abu Dhabi. Instead, the Aussie crumbled, delivering an unimpressive 5th spot on the grid, with his team mate grabbing pole. In the race, he was too slow. Even though Alonso was backed up by Petrov he never came close to passing the Spaniard or even trying to.

Alonso had the easiest job in Abu Dhabi. With Webber behind him, all he needed was 4th or better. He qualified 3rd and although he was passed by a fantastically quick Button at the start he was still fine. Then Ferrari made a huge mistake. They copied Webber’s tactical error and pitted, forgetting about Vettel (who led almost all the race). Alonso emerged behind Petrov, who drove very well and kept the Spaniard behind him for more than half the race.

Vettel made a number of serious mistakes during the season. Torpedoing your team mate never goes down well (except with the McLarens following you), and Button was unimpressed when the German accidentally took the Briton (and himself) out later in the season. But in Abu Dhabi he was just about flawless. He got pole, he led for almost all the race and he got the victory. Even better, fate was, for once, kind to Vettel. His rivals finished too far back and he was staggered to become the youngest ever world champion, and a deserving one too.

Could next season be as good as this? The F-duct is gone, but KERS is back and a moveable rear wing (meant to aid overtaking) is introduced. Renault and Mercedes will be trying to thwart the top teams from this season, and it’ll be fascinating to see if they manage it.

Recent news: Hulkenberg has parted ways with Williams. Despite a decent season for the rookie, he’s been axed, probably because the team needs more money. He stands a chance of getting a spot with a new team, or with Force India. Williams have confirmed Barrichello is being retained for 2011, which will be the Brazilian’s 19th season in F1.

Morris Dancer