Canada: pre-race 2018


Qualifying was even tighter than I’d imagined. Very mixed up grid at the sharp end, including varying tyres. Could be intriguing.

Qualifying began with yet more bad luck for Grosjean. The poor chap must’ve run over a witch’s cat during pre-season testing. His engine ejected a magnificent plume of smoke in the pit lane. Although he pulled over and his engineers were able to wheel him back to his pit box, that was the end of his session. In less surprising news, both Williams failed to escape, and Ericsson was ahead only of Grosjean. Slightly unexpectedly, Gasly was also eliminated, although that may have been due to having to use an older, less powerful engine.

Q2 had an interesting result, with the McLarens slowest (Alonso faster) and Leclerc qualifying ahead of both of them in his Sauber. The Monegasque seems to be doing rather well. Ahead of him, but by less than a tenth, were Magnussen and Hartley. The Kiwi will be pleased to qualify well, which may dampen rumours of his imminent firing (or not). At the sharp end, the Mercedes and Ferraris used ultrasofts (the second softest, and yes, the naming conventions are now faintly ridiculous) for better longevity on the first stint in the race, the Red Bulls (perhaps easier on their tyres) used the faster hypersofts. Hamilton gave himself a fetching flat spot on his race tyres. May be able to change that, not sure.

The second session also saw a weird incident, with multiple cars backing up for space and Vettel encountering them towards the end of a hot lap, which forced him to abort. Searched for penalties, couldn’t find any info.

In Q3 things were tight on the first runs. Vettel was fastest, Hamilton had a poor lap (initially 5th), Raikkonen could’ve been a bit quicker. On the second runs, Vettel retained poll, Bottas put in a stonking lap for 2nd, and Verstappen was surprisingly quick in 3rd. Hamilton could manage only 4th, Raikkonen slipping to 5th as he fluffed his lap immediately and couldn’t improve. Ricciardo was just 6th (apparently his qualifying performances in Canada have historically been a bit lacklustre).

Things were pretty tight between the top three teams. Given lack of qualifying mode for the Red Bulls, does that bode well for them in the race?

Further back, Hulkenberg put his beach towel back on the 7th spot (nearly a second off Ricciardo’s time), followed closely by Ocon and Sainz. Perez must’ve made an error (the Force Indias only had one quick run) because he was half a second off Sainz’s time.

Weather forecast has an almost 0% chance of rain.

Initial thoughts:
Red Bull top score
Ricciardo podium

The top scoring team market wasn’t up, which is weird given how much time has passed since qualifying and how competitive the teams appear to be.

Ricciardo is 5 for a podium. Given he tends to qualify relatively poorly and the Red Bull looks tasty on race pace, and starts on the best tyre, that’s pretty tempting. I will check the markets for other stuff, but quite content to take that if nothing else leaps out.

Other stuff I saw:
Renault are 2.25 for a double points finish. They start in the top 10, both drivers are good, and the qualifying performance deficit will be largely eliminated in the race. Pretty good, though a problem with this sort of bet is it requires both chaps to be ok, doubling the potential for a problem.

Gasly is 2.75 to win group 4 (also including the Williams and Ericsson). On pace, he should do this easily. Reliability is the only question mark, I think. He’s had a DNF at a third of races, with the Williams more reliable (none for Stroll) and Ericsson likewise. Bit marginal, on that basis.

Ricciardo’s also 26 for the win (third the odds for top 2). I prefer the podium bet, but this is quite interesting too. Bottas starts 2nd but has odds of 6.5 (behind both Hamilton and Verstappen, with Vettel rightly favourite).

Just the one tip:
I’m perfectly happy backing Ricciardo at 5 for a podium (rather odd to find something and back it in a straightforward manner, but there we are). It's 5.25 with boost.

Race starts a smidgen after 7pm, which is annoyingly late. Because of the finish time, the post-race analysis will be up tomorrow at some point.

Morris Dancer

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Monaco: pre-race 2023

F1 2014 - Second and Third Tests

Japan: early discussion