Abu Dhabi: pre-race 2018


Well, I got that wrong. Raikkonen was some way off, so it was plain misjudgement on my part. Very surprised just how big the Mercedes advantage was, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the pace running order reversed in the race, as happened to a large extent in Brazil.

Alone of the top six, Verstappen starts on the hypersoft. This may harm his prospects, but that didn’t really happen much at the last race. And the Red Bull is pretty kind to its tyres.

In Q1 there was no surprise to see the Williams slowest. This year’s car has been horrendous, harking back to the blue days of yesteryear and making the recent relative revival under Massa and Bottas seem a long time ago. Vandoorne also failed to progress. Somewhat more surprising was a double Toro Rosso departure. Gasly would’ve escaped but just before the last corner he suffered a reliability failure that robbed him of power and booted him from qualifying. Very bad luck for the Frenchman.

Q2 had one or two notable features. Every departing driver was from a different team (fastest to slowest): Sainz, Ericsson, Magnussen, Perez, and Alonso. Only Alonso outqualified his team mate, of those. Also worthy of note is that there’s a massive performance gap between the hypersoft and ultrasoft, yet the top three teams were so dominant they still made it through on the ultrasoft. With one exception. Verstappen was slow (I think he just screwed it up) on his initial lap and, for safety’s sake, had to set a quick time on the hypersoft. Will this compromise him? Maybe. It didn’t seem to happen last time, when everyone thought it would.

In Q3, Hamilton seemed on another planet, especially in the third sector. Bottas managed to get within a tenth and a half, sealing a record fifth consecutive front row lock out for the Silver Arrows. Ferrari may be a bit grumpy on the second row, Raikkonen behind Vettel and just three-hundredths ahead of Ricciardo. Verstappen, perhaps surprisingly, was nearly two-tenths off his team mate.

However, given the flattering effect of the ‘party mode’, I think Red Bull could be very tasty in the race. Assuming they finish.

Grosjean was best of the rest, a tiny margin ahead of Leclerc. Ocon starts 9th, qualifying two-thousandths of a second ahead of Hulkenberg.

Initial betting thoughts were:
Verstappen/Ricciardo podium
Sainz points
Leclerc/Grosjean winner outside top 6

Verstappen is 2.9 and Ricciardo 2.87 for a podium. They’re both pretty tempting.

Sainz is 1.61 for points. Too short, given he starts (just) outside the top 10.

No market for winner outside the top 6 went up within my time (I’ll check tomorrow morning, if I’m able to. May be busy).

Perusing the markets didn’t throw up much, although Verstappen to win each way at 12 looked tempting.

Decided to back Verstappen/Ricciardo for a podium at 2.9 and 2.87 respectively (splitting one stake).

Race starts at 1.10pm. Let’s hope the season ends rather better than it started.

Morris Dancer

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

F1 2014 - Second and Third Tests

Image
Bit of a whopper of an article, but it didn’t make sense to write two for the Bahrain tests, as they were so close together. Many of the rule changes are helpfully outlined here: http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/22058/9077826/gearing-up-for-2014-the-rule-changes-uncovered-and-explained-part-one This is one more reason why reliability is to critical. Losing a whole power unit (exceeding the 5 per season limit) means starting the next race from the pit lane. Losing a component, such as the turbo, means a 10 place grid penalty. On day one of the first test in Bahrain it appeared the Renault/Red Bull woe might continue. However, both Red Bull and Toro Rosso got in good running on the second day. Any remaining issues seem more to do with the car rather than the power unit. It’s been suggested the Renault requires significantly more cooling than rival engines, but apparently there are upsides. If the horsepower rumours were true (Mercedes being mighty and Ferrari better
Read more

Japan: early discussion

Image
As we enter the latter stages of the season we have multiple pairs of back-to-back races, hence this discussion starting a day after the Korean Grand Prix (which may be the last, incidentally. The circuit’s too isolated, surrounding developments haven’t been built and the organisers are annoyed by the high cost of staging the race which is the only use of the circuit all year). The Suzuka circuit is a proper one, with lots of elevation changes, a very fast flowing section (similar to Silverstone) and some very high speed corners. Sadly, I expect this will mean it’ll suit Red Bull. However, given their resurgence, it’s worth mentioning that last year Sauber had a strong result at Suzuka, when Kobayashi got third. Perhaps Hulkenberg will be able to get good points again (thanks to him Sauber are now tied on points but ahead of Toro Rosso in the Constructors’) and Gutierrez could nab his first point or two. Lotus benefited from some fortune with the safety car timing in Kore
Read more

America: pre-race

Image
Q1 saw the pointless teams ditched as usual, but there was a stark divergence between the Williams’ drivers. Bottas was 1st (in Q1 only), and Maldonado 18th. Turns out money can only buy seats, not speed. Surprising to see such a difference between the two drivers, though. Sutil went out in 17th, and may have suffered some sort of technical problem as he peeled off after his final lap. During Q2 it was confirmed Sutil had a problem, namely a slow puncture. Q2 saw the surprise departure of Rosberg. The Mercedes seemed to be the best of the rest, so that’s quite a shock. Not only that, he’s 14th, behind Ricciardo, Di Resta and Button (although Button suffers a 3 place grid penalty for ignoring red flags during practice). Massa is behind Rosberg, followed by Vergne. Impressively, Sauber got both of their cars into the top 10. Q3 was surprisingly close, but Vettel narrowly got pole ahead of Webber. Grosjean continues his strong form with 3rd, followed by Hulkenberg, who is
Read more