Japan: pre-qualifying 2017

Because of the early starts of this race (7am for qualifying tomorrow, 6am for the race on Sunday), the first two articles (including this one) will be up earlier than usual, but the post-race ramble might be up after the highlights (I may listen to the race on the radio then catch highlights later).

There was an odd collision between Vettel and Stroll after the Malaysian Grand Prix ended, which caused quite a bit of damage to the German’s car. Fortunately, his gearbox has been given the green light to continue.

Speaking of crashes, Sainz had a significant one in first practice. He’s fine, but has accumulated so many penalties he’ll start either from the back of the grid or the summit of Mount Fuji.

In first practice, Vettel was two-tenths up on Hamilton, who was a similar margin ahead of Ricciardo. Raikkonen, Bottas and Verstappen followed (so, two sets of Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull), with Ocon, Hulkenberg, Grosjean and Vandoorne rounding out the top 10.

Second practice was very wet, with only five drivers setting a time. Nevertheless, those five were: Hamilton, Ocon, Perez, Massa and Stroll.

I always find circuits like Spa, Suzuka and Silverstone trickier to guess at than more extreme circuits (Monaco, Monza etc). It does look like it’s going to be tight, although the weather forecast has improved a little and now indicates it’ll be dry for both qualifying and the race.

Raikkonen to ‘win’ qualifying each way may be worth a look (the last two years he’s been very close to Vettel, with one better performance and one worse).

Also, last three races have had really low attrition rates, just 2, 3 and 0, so it may be worth looking at a high number of classified finishers (although the odds won’t be great and reliability generally this year has been a little poor). There is 2.5 for over 16.5 finishers on Betfair Sportsbook, but that means just four DNS/DNFs would lead to failure. Bit tight.

There’s an interesting special on the Ladbrokes Exchange. All Mercedes-powered cars to finish in the points (Mercedes, Force India, Williams) at 17. Williams occasionally has reliability failures, the other teams are very solid. These odds look excessive to me. They’ll be helped by Sainz’s penalty.

Raikkonen is 13 to ‘win’ qualifying. Each way, (third the odds for top 2), that’s pretty good. If the Ferrari’s fastest, he has a decent shot at pole itself. If the Ferrari is second fastest, he could still nab 2nd. As with the above bet, I don’t think that’s odds on but the odds are too long.

So, oddly, two long odds tips in a qualifying article (albeit one for the race itself).
Raikkonen to ‘win’ qualifying, each way, 13, Ladbrokes
Mercedes-powered cars to all score points, 17, Ladbrokes Exchange (under specials)

The pre-race article will be up tomorrow morning, but the post-race analysis might be later than usual as I’m probably going to listen to it on the radio then catch the highlights, which I think start at the oddly late hour of 3pm (nine hours after the race begins).


Morris Dancer

Comments

  1. I'll follow you in for half a stake on the Mercedes power points bet. Not a lot of obvious value around given the weather, although it should be dry on Sunday.
    Sandpit.

    ReplyDelete

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