Spain: pre-race

Well, that was immensely surprising and interesting from a spectator’s perspective and immensely disappointing from a betting one. I was more confident than usual of Vergne getting through. He matched Di Resta’s pace in two sectors but failed in the third and got nudged out. The Massa tip was just a big misjudgement on my part, but the hedge got partially met, to the extent that that bet ended up being green.

Without hedging it’s s straightforward two stake loss, and with it was a small loss (for stakes of £10 the loss was £1.46). That’s not abysmal, but at the same time I’d rather have a better result than avoiding calamity.

Kudos to Mr. Nigel, whose 11/1 spot on Rosberg in the early discussion commentary proved rather inspired.

Q1 was largely predictable, although both Williams got knocked out for the first time this year.

Q2 was very tight. Button had a pretty atrocious performance to finish 14th, ahead of the Saubers, Sutil was a bit below par in 13th for Force India and the two Toro Rossos finished 10th and 11th. Interestingly Perez managed to break into the top 10, and outqualified his team mate for the first time.

Q3 was a bit of a shock. Mercedes locked out the front row, and the commentators pointed out that the last team to do this was the Mercedes forerunner Brawn. However, I wonder whether they’ll be able to make it in the race. Contrary to what I’d heard in P2 in P3 Gary Anderson was saying the fastest chaps on the long runs were Raikkonen, Alonso and Rosberg (although the latter lacked a bit of consistency). I was also a bit surprised Vettel managed 3rd, after which came Raikkonen, Alonso, Massa, Grosjean, Webber, Perez and Di Resta.

I suspect the Ferraris and Lotus will move forward during the race. It’ll be interesting to see how well Mercedes can hold on. Indeed, that’ll be the key to the result and also critical for betting.

So, let’s take a scientific(ish) approach. The hard compound is new, so we don’t have a perfect comparison, but two other races have used the medium-hard arrangement: Malaysia, and Bahrain.

In Malaysia, Hamilton qualified 4th and finished 3rd, Rosberg qualified 6th and finished 4th.

In Bahrain, Hamilton qualified 9th and finished 5th, and Rosberg qualified 1st and finished 9th.

Here are the other two races:

In China, Hamilton qualified 1st and finished 3rd, and Rosberg qualified 4th and failed to finish due to reliability issues.

In Australia Hamilton qualified 3rd and finished 5th, and Rosberg qualified 6th but failed to finish due to reliability issues.

Hamilton has gained 1 place, gained 4, lost 2 and lost 2 again, meaning that from 4 starts and finishes he’s gained a net 1 place.

Rosberg has only finished twice (not his fault the other times), and in those he gained 2 places and lost 8, meaning a net loss of 6.

Overall, in six finishes, Mercedes has lost 5 places. Both times the team has had pole previously the pole-sitter went backwards in the race. Every time one of them has qualified 3rd or above they’ve gone backwards in the race [in fairness, you can’t exactly go forwards if you’re 1st].

However, in Barcelona all but once in the last 20 odd years has the winner come from the front row. So, we’re going to see something interesting. Either Mercedes will finally manage to sort out their tyre issues, or we’ll get a winner from further back.

Last year Schumacher still had gremlins and Rosberg lost a single place, but in 2011 they did a little better (Schumacher rose from 10th to 6th and Rosberg stayed in 7th). So, perhaps the Mercedes will have better pace than is widely expected. Hmm.

Andrew Benson (BBC F1 chap) had some handy tweets about their race pace:

“Re Merc race pace. P2. ALO med tyre race sim avg 1:29.906; ROS 1:31.85. Fastest lap during it: ALO 1:29.073; ROS 1:30.880. Fuel, yes, but...”

Despite being probably the best qualifiers (certainly around the top) Mercedes have not only had zero wins so far, but fewer podiums than Red Bull, Lotus and Ferrari.

Based on that, their tyre wear issues, the long run to the start (high potential for getting passed off the line), and his strong race pace I’m going to back Raikkonen for the win at 4.8, with a hedge at 2.2. He’s also improved at every race from grid to flag, except China where he started and finished 2nd. If the Mercedes eat their tyres he should have the race pace to beat Vettel, with luck.

Anyway, let’s hope the race is nice and green.

Morris Dancer

Spain: pre-qualifying

The race is expected to be dry, and the compounds are medium and hard this weekend.

Practice 1 was slightly spoiled because it was rather soggy at first, then dried later. In the latter stage the rapidly drying nature of the track meant that times (and gaps between them) were somewhat exaggerated, limiting its use as an indication of speed. However, Ferrari will still be happy to get a 1-2 (Alonso fastest), followed by Vergne, Grosjean, Sutil, Hamilton, Bottas, Raikkonen, Rosberg and Di Resta.

P2, thankfully was nice and dry. The top 10 were Vettel, Alonso, Webber, Raikkonen, Massa, Hamilton, Rosberg, Sutil, Vergne and Di Resta. At this stage it looks like a 3 horse race, with the Red Bulls and Ferraris vying for pole and Lotus a shade slower over a single lap but very competitive in race trim.

I saw only a tiny bit of P1 but almost all of P2, and decided to try a slightly new tactic by making a few notes. The commentators were James Allen and Alan McNish, who seemed to offer quite a lot of interesting opinions/insights.

On high fuel with the medium tyre Vettel’s times were about 1:29.5 to 1:30.3, whereas Grosjean managed a lap of 1:28.4 and several faster than Vettel’s best. Mercedes suffered badly, with (if I heard correctly) times of around 1:30.8 degrading to 1:33. Looks like the Silver Arrow will be going backwards again.

Interestingly, Vettel has never had pole in Spain. Doesn’t mean he won’t this time, but his P2 fastest time was a teensy bit lucky as Alonso was 0.017s behind but got held up very slightly and probably would’ve been fastest. Although the commentators didn’t refer to his high fuel times directly I noticed myself one lap of 1:29.118, which is rather nice.

Lotus may well be fastest on race pace but overtaking in Barcelona isn’t easy so they need to start high up the grid. 2 or 3 stops can work at the circuit, and that decision may affect qualifying.

McNish was also bullish about Force India’s prospects in the race, despite slightly lacklustre single lap speed.

So, qualifying speed would seem to be Red Bull/Ferrari equal first then Lotus, with race pace Lotus fastest, then Ferrari, then Red Bull.

Oh, and a tyre on Di Resta’s car was completely destroyed, similar to Hamilton/Massa in Bahrain. Nobody else was affected, but that must be a concern.

In P3 the top 10 were Massa, then Raikkonen (separated by a tiny margin), then Webber, Grosjean, Vettel, Alonso, Di Resta, Sutil, Hamilton and Vergne. Critically, Vergne’s 10th fastest time was on the hard compound tyre (he didn’t set a fast time on the medium).

I’ve backed Vergne to reach Q3 at 3.8 (hedged at 1.6). He was top 10 in every practice session, and I’d suggest the true odds are around 1.8. It’s not a dead cert, but I do think it’s eminently possible.

Toro Rosso are one team whose updates seem to be working nicely. Williams also have taken a step forward, but Sauber and McLaren appear to be treading water. The Force India is looking pretty competitive once again.

Right now this looks like a Lotus/Ferrari duel to me, with Red Bull possibly vying for pole but unless they can start ahead and retain that advantage I suspect the prancing horse and Lotuses will beat them this weekend. Mercedes are looking less speedy than I’d imagined, and I think their imploding tyres will lead them to go backwards in the race.

The harder tyre is apparently better for the race (so says Gary Anderson, who knows his beans) so this should mean we see everyone unafraid to run through the mediums in qualifying, huzzah. Williams appear to suffer more on the mediums, so may qualify poorly but still have the prospect of snaffling a point or two in the race.

Incidentally, Webber has had two poles in Spain (Barcelona) and Vettel none.

After some prevarication (I’m not fond of multiple qualifying tips) I decided to back Massa at 14.5 to get pole (hedged at 5). He was fastest (effectively joint fastest as the margin’s so small) in P3 during the qualifying simulation with Raikkonen, a tenth and a half ahead of the rest. In P1 he was second to Alonso. The Ferrari is clearly a contender for pole and Massa has (over the last 5-6 races or so) been beating Alonso as often as not.

Anyway, let’s hope both tips come off, and that qualifying is delightfully green.

Morris Dancer

Spain: early discussion

It’s only been three weeks since Bahrain but it feels like a lot longer.

Pirelli are making some extra tyres available in practice to encourage teams to actually go trundling around instead of sipping energy drinks in the garage.

Naturally, most teams will be bringing significant upgrades to the European part of the season. The races are both closer to one another and to the factories of the teams (most of which are based in a small part of England) so upgrades should be coming thick and fast during this portion of the season.

Will McLaren have improved? Will Webber’s car run out of petrol? Thoughts, tips, insights and the like are all welcome in the comments below.

And [this is the only bit of plugging I’ll do here, promise] my latest book, Journey to Altmortis, is out now. It’s up on Amazon and Smashwords right now. The latter site offers a variety of formats to download and if you use the code XK87G (expires the 14th of May) you get it for a third of the usual price.

Morris Dancer

2013 early season review

In line with tradition, I'm writing this to have a quick look back at the initial part of the season, which consisted of 4 fly-away races.

Unusually (in fact, I think it's the first time) I'm actually ahead at this point, although still quite unhappy with how things have gone. I'll run through the betting first and then consider where I think drivers and teams are competitively.

The first race was awkward because I dislike betting on the race before qualifying. However, a lot of rain meant I had to either sit Australia out or bet early. So, I bet early on Ferrari top scoring (5.5). Happily, they did just that, and it was a very good start to the season.

Malaysia and China saw a single race bet each, and neither came off. I backed Massa for a podium and Vettel for the win. Massa went backwards and was never in the running. In China there was a tricky judgement call to make and I got it entirely wrong, so the hedge didn't get matched there either.

Bahrain was the first race where qualifying was at a time that disposed me to bet on it, and although Alonso didn't get pole the bet was near enough for the hedge to be matched. I also backed him for the win, but any hope of that was ended by the two DRS failures and early pit stops. We'll never know if he'd've been in a position to contest the victory and that was clearly a stroke of bad luck, but good luck happens too so hopefully that'll balance out over the season.

In short, Australia was a good win, Malaysia and China single stake losses and Bahrain essentially flat (loss of 46 pence with £10 stakes and hedging). After such a good start I'm not particularly pleased, but overall the first four races are better than has typically been the case. For certain, one failed bet (Vettel) was due to misjudgement on my part, and another (Alonso to win Bahrain) was ruined by bad luck.

So, not delighted but things could be worse (and at this stage they usually are).

Onto the racing.

It's worth stating that with three weeks and the shift from fly-away to European races that the competitive order should change between now and then. McLaren especially will be looking to improve. However, it's still well worth considering how the cars and chaps driving them stack up now. The list below is in order of the Constructors' table.

Red Bull:

Whine like hell about the tyres but top both title races. Whenever the hard tyre has been used they've won the race. Car is fast in qualifying and the race, perhaps a bit harder on the tyres than some other top teams.

Vettel has been driving very well, Webber's suffered a combination of bad luck and lack of support from management as well as blatant and unpunished disobedience of direct orders from Vettel.

They'll be in the running for both titles.

Ferrari:

Better than in recent years in qualifying but perhaps not quite as good as Red Bull or Mercedes. Good pace and wear on all tyres, but the DRS problem ruined Bahrain and if it's repeated that'd be a serious hindrance. As good as any other team on race pace.

Alonso is driving well but has suffered some very bad luck with a DNF early on and then the DRS problem. 30 points already behind the lead, but there's still 15 races to go and he should be in the hunt for the title. Massa's also been driving pretty well.

Alonso will definitely feature in the title race, and the team should be there for the Constructors'.

Lotus:

Softest of all the teams on tyres, fast in the race but pretty poor when it comes to qualifying. If they can sort out qualifying they could be the best of any team.

Raikkonen is a points machine and (as well as tying Vettel for most podiums, 3/4, this season) has scored in 21 consecutive races. Grosjean has been lacklustre, until Bahrain where he did very well to join his team mate on the podium.

I expect Raikkonen to be challenging for the title. The team will only be able to do likewise if Grosjean maintains his Bahrain form.

Mercedes:

Very good in qualifying, reasonable race pace, but the car eats its tyres (still). I don't think they'll be in the running for either title.

Hamilton's driving very well, and in a better, more tyre-friendly, car I'd expect him to be able to tilt at the title. Rosberg is Webber's chief rival for Unluckiest Driver of the Year, but even starting on pole he drifted all the way back to ninth.

I'd be surprised if they can fight for either title, but podiums and perhaps the odd win should be achievable.

Force India:

Great start, and a real surprise, for me. Strong race pace, perhaps a shade slower in qualifying. However, they have suffered some serious pit stop woe (hopefully that's a one-off).

Sutil really hit the ground running this year, and Di Resta's also been driving solidly. They should aim to get the odd podium and try to finish ahead of everyone outside the top four.

Whilst not a title contender in either race, Force India has had the strongest start of the season of any midfield team, even outscoring McLaren.

McLaren:

Managed to have the strongest car last year, few regulation changes and become the sixth fastest this year. Poor in qualifying, slightly better in the race, which is unacceptably bad from one of the biggest teams in the sport.

Button had some bad luck when a pit stop only bolted on three tyres rather than the traditional four, but even so he wouldn't be miles higher in the table. Perez, like Grosjean, had a ropey start to the year but hard racing in Bahrain netted him some nice points and may bode well for later on.

Unless the big upgrades planned for Spain work well, immediately, they're out of both title races. If they work well then there's a chance that they could feature (worth recalling Ferrari's 2012 upgrades at this time worked very nicely and really helped Alonso out).

Toro Rosso:

A bit of an anonymous car. Not bad enough to be noteworthy, not good enough to be remarkable. Aside from a strong performance by Ricciardo in China, that is.

Ricciardo had a great qualifying and strong race in China to start and finish seventh, but Vergne's sole point came from a tenth-placed finish. However, they'll be glad to be ahead of the Williams team and Gutierrez.

Definition of a midfield team. In the running for occasional points, unlikely to leave in Q1.

Sauber:

Very disappointing after a cracking season last year, which saw them score four podiums.

Gutierrez struggles to escape Q1, and although I rate Hulkenberg the German's also failed to score many points. Qualifying is too weak and they need to improve.

With the possible exception of Williams, Sauber should be the most disappointed of the midfield teams, compared to last season. And, if he doesn’t improve, I'd fire Gutierrez.

Williams:

The most disappointing midfield team. They underperformed last year with a strong car, but this year the car's gone dramatically backwards and it may well be the worst team excepting Caterham and Marussia.

Bottas was tipped by many, including me, to be rookie of the year but he's finding it difficult to escape Q1. Maldonado's harder to assess. He hasn't had any accidents but it's hard to say whether it's down to him or the car that he hasn't scored a single point in four races.

If Williams can't improve the car significantly they may wish to jack in the 2013 development and focus heavily on 2014.

Marussia:

They seem to have taken a fair step forwards and now have KERS, but still seem a distance away from troubling the scorers which, in their fourth season, is not great.

Jules Bianchi is perhaps the best performing of the new drivers, regularly outclassing Chilton and both Caterhams by a large margin. He may well get a drive elsewhere, especially if Gutierrez and Bottas don't improve.

Caterham:

The worst team on the grid, although they did have a better race in Bahrain. Pic jumped ship from Marussia but that doesn't look so wise now and he, along with Van Der Garde, have seen the ghost of driver past (Kovalainen) return to provide some development assistance.

Their main hope is that next year there are significant regulation changes.

Incidentally, I've backed (with a small stake) Raikkonen for the title at 7.4. My thinking is that his car is kind to its tyres, he's very fast and very reliable and I expect him to be in the hunt throughout the season. Hopefully that'll mean his odds will shorten nicely to enable hedging.

The Spanish Grand Prix is next up (10-12 May). I'd expect hefty upgrades for just about everyone, but perhaps the most interesting team to watch out for is McLaren. The order may well be rejigged a bit, but I'd be surprised if there were enormous changes.

As always, comments, tips, questions and cogitations are all welcome in the comments section.

Morris Dancer

Bahrain: post-race analysis

A slightly frustrating race, from both a spectator and gambler perspective. Alonso's DRS problems robbed us of any chance of a fight for the win and Massa's double tyre issue prevented him from getting anywhere near the podium. However, congratulations to Mr. Putney, whose Vettel bet paid off handsomely.

The start saw Rosberg get away cleanly, Alonso pass Vettel and then lose second to the German swiftly. It was clear early on that Rosberg's primary direction of travel would be backwards, with both the others much faster. However, Alonso's DRS became jammed open and his hope of victory disappeared like a virgin in a brothel. He managed to reach the pits, they manually slammed it shut, but then it came open again and a second pit stop was necessary.

This screwed up his race. Not only was his first pit much earlier than he would have liked, the second cost him another 19 seconds or so and lack of DRS cost him pace and overtaking opportunities.

I'm not sure if Stefano Domenicali spent the weekend punching mirrors but Massa had problems too. His front wing was damaged slightly, he suffered massive rear tyre delamination[sp] (not just degradation, the whole thing was falling to pieces, akin to Hamilton's practice problem) and then suffered another significant rear tyre issue later.

Vettel sailed away into the sunset, but the competition was much closer behind him. The Lotus team had great strategy and it's nice to see Grosjean return to some form after a quiet start to the season. He took the last podium spot, behind his team mate, away from Di Resta, which must be galling for the Scot. However, fourth is still a strong finish.

Hamilton's race was a bit unusual. He seemed destined for a poor return as he was 8-10 throughout, but then his tyre management seemed to pay off and in the latter stages he ascended to fifth, after a titanic tussle with Webber. The Australian also lost out, possibly on the last lap, to Perez. After Martin Whitmarsh said the Mexican needed to 'get his elbows out' the young driver certainly seems to have done that, passing multiple drivers, driving hard and, arguably, dirty. Button and Alonso both complained about his behaviour on the radio, but that's impossible to assess just listening to it on the radio.

Alonso finished eighth, which isn't bad considering his problems but it seemed that a sixth place could've been possible before Perez passed him fairly late on.

Rosberg had a bloody awful race, going all the way back to ninth. Given his team mate started there but rose to fifth it must be pretty disheartening. Chewing up the tyres remains the problem of Mercedes. Button got the last point, but he looked like a higher points position was achievable earlier in the race.

Sutil was unlucky to finish thirteenth. He had a puncture very early on, and that basically ruined his race. Massa ended up fifteenth, but that wasn't his fault. Pic (in the Caterham) managed to beat Gutierrez (Spanish for "Fired after one season if he doesn't improve"), which is a nice little result for the team.

Had he not had terminal woe, I think Alonso would've contested the win with Vettel. However, I still think that Mr. Putney's bet on Vettel was better judged than mine on Alonso, because Alonso was 2.6 and Vettel 4.1 (well, that and Vettel actually won, but you see what I mean). I was quite surprised that whilst some (especially Mercedes) were chewing their tyres the Red Bull seemed to have no real issue.

Worth also remarking that the Lotus remained kind to its tyres, and a double podium finish is very tasty for them.

After four races, here are the standings:

Vettel 77

Raikkonen 67

Hamilton 50

Alonso 47

And Constructors':

Red Bull 109

Lotus 93

Ferrari 77

Ferrari had a shocker of a day, but it was all bad luck. Their car is fast and pretty good on its tyres, and both its drivers are doing well. There's also team harmony, unlike in Red Bull and perhaps McLaren. If Grosjean can maintain his form then Lotus could yet challenge for the Constructors' title. I still think Vettel, Alonso and Raikkonen will be the main contenders for the Drivers' title.

I'm a bit irked that a bet which I think was reasonable and could've come off didn't due to bad luck. However, luck's all part of gambling and over the course of a season these things tend to even themselves out.

With a standard £10 stake, this weekend was a loss of 46 pence, with hedging, and £20 without (first weekend where there's a divergence between hedging and not). After a tasty start in Australia things haven't been so good, but it was nice to get the first qualifying tip right and overall the first four races are green either way.

I'll be doing my usual mini-review of the first part of the season between now and Spain, which is in 3 weeks.

Morris Dancer

Bahrain: pre-race

The failure Hamilton suffered during the final session of practice was due to high tyre degradation, it turns out.

The first qualifying bet of the year was green, with hedging, and red without. Reasonably happy with that, though obviously I would've preferred Alonso to be on pole.

Q1 was as tedious as usual, with the exception of a statistical quirk. Both Williams drivers had identical lap times. Bottas went through because he set his first, Maldonado joined Gutierrez (who has not been very impressive so far this year) and the pointless teams.

Q2 saw the remaining Williams and Sauber exit, and likewise both Toro Rossos. Perez and Grosjean, unlike their team mates, both failed to reach the final phase of qualifying.

Q3 happily saw everyone actually trying to set a fast lap time. Hamilton's 5 place gearbox penalty and Webber's 3 place penalty afforded the Force Indias a great opportunity to be higher than they usually would be, and Massa slyly went out on hard tyres, knowing this. Rosberg was fastest, slightly surprisingly, with Vettel second. Alonso was third and decided against finishing his final lap. Hamilton and Webber are next, but both will be shuffled down, so Massa will start fourth, alongside his team mate. Di Resta and Sutil are next, with Raikkonen a surprisingly lowly ninth and Button a less surprisingly lowly tenth.

Given long run pace I think Ferrari are sitting pretty. The Lotus is also quick but they start ninth (eighth, upon checking, due to the penalties) and eleventh. Red Bull may be a tiny bit slower than the two rival teams and will probably suffer worse tyre degradation. Not sure why the Lotus is so slow. They may've cocked up the setup, or made it very biased towards the race rather than qualifying. We've seen in the recent past Raikkonen climb from seventh to first, so they may yet do well.

With grid penalties, here's how the top 10 stacks up:

Rosberg

Vettel

Alonso

Massa (hard tyre)

Di Resta

Sutil

Webber

Raikkonen

Hamilton

Button

Mercedes are worried about their rear tyre wear, as epitomised by Hamilton's problems in P3. Red Bull seem to have worse tyre wear and slightly slower pace than Ferrari, and Alonso is driving very well. He improved in both races he finished, and I've therefore backed him at 2.62 for the win (hedged at 1.25) despite my dislike of short odds.

As Mr. Nigel pointed out in the comments of the pre-qualifying piece, Lotus really seem to have lost a lot of pace. I can't see the Force Indias going further ahead, and expect Rosberg to go backwards. Hamilton will be interesting to watch as he's fast but the tyres might not be his friend on Sunday. It'll also be fascinating to see how Massa's oddball strategy plays out. Fourth on hard tyres is a good place to start, but he may suffer slightly at the start (softer tyres start better).

Hard to try and bet on, but the grid is set up nicely for the race. I'm hoping for an exciting, and profitable, race.

Morris Dancer

Bahrain: pre-qualifying

Seems that articles put up on Monday become auto-moderated by Friday, so when timezones mean I won't offer a qualifying tip I'll put the early discussion up on Monday, and when that's not the case I'll put it up on Tuesday.

The tyres for Bahrain have been changed from soft-hard to medium-hard.

P1 saw Massa edge Alonso, with Rosberg, Vettel and Di Resta following. Button was sixth, and followed by Webber, Sutil, Raikkonen and Grosjean. Hamilton was on a fast lap but eased off, so his 13th is not representative.

In P2 Raikkonen topped the timesheets ahead of Webber, Vettel, Alonso and Di Resta. Massa was sixth, then came Grosjean, Rosberg, Sutil and Hamilton.

On the long runs it seems to be between Ferrari and Raikkonen for the best pace, with the Lotus perhaps a shade easier on the tyres. It also looks like Force India, especially Di Resta, are in good shape.

In P3 Vettel had a lap ruined by traffic so his pace is not perhaps the most representative, unhelpfully. Alonso was fastest, then Vettel, Webber, Raikkonen, Hamilton, Grosjean, Sutil, Di Resta, Rosberg and Hulkenberg. Massa, surprisingly, was just 11th.

Tyre wear will be critical for the race, so that's something else to watch. Red Bull have had worse degradation than other teams and the Lotus is nice to tyres, so that's worth considering.

Gary Anderson was of the view that Vettel's quick lap still wouldn't've been fast enough. Alonso was 4.5 for pole, which I backed immediately (hedge at evens), but his odds then lengthened (5.3 at the time of writing). So, I'd back at 4.5 or longer and hedge at evens (for the record it'll count as a 4.5 tip).

Updated extra bit: he's 5.5 at Ladbrokes. So, if you haven't bet yet, I'd advocate backing that and hedging on Betfair.

Several other potential bets interested me (backing either Force India to reach Q3, laying Button to do so) but none had appealing odds.

So a single, and unusually quick, tip. Alonso to get pole at 4.5, hedged at evens. Let's hope the Prancing Horse proves faster than the Red Bull.

Morris Dancer