Australia: pre-qualifying
Unfortunately, both Sky
and the official F1 site have been redesigned to make them worse. In
a perplexing move, the official site’s results page now no longer
shows the gap between the top time and those following.
Practice 1 had Rosberg
about three-hundredths ahead of Hamilton, but Hamilton was 1.2s ahead
of third-placed Bottas. Bottas was three-tenths up on Sainz, with
Vettel and Verstappen close behind. Massa, Raikkonen, Maldonado and
Ricciardo rounded out the top 10.
In second practice
Rosberg was fastest again, exactly one-tenth up on Hamilton, who was
seven-tenths ahead of Vettel. Raikkonen was four-tenths off his
German team mate, and was followed by Bottas, Kvyat, Sainz,
Maldonado, Grosjean and Hulkenberg.
The McLarens have been
very slow, 14th and 15th, and 13th
and 16th.
Point of order: at the
moment, Sauber are still running Ericsson and Nasr. Van Der Garde
does not have a super licence. Whether this’ll change, I don’t
know, but without one, he cannot race in F1.
Worse still, according
to this BBC report the Sauber team principal, Monisha Kaltenborn,
could potentially face jail over the farce:
Stevens and Merhi,
Manor Marussia’s drivers, did not run in either practice session so
far.
Based on the first two
practice sessions, a few bets spring to mind, not unlike a frolicking
gazelle:
Rosberg pole
Maldonado top 10
Vettel/Bottas top 3
Lay Magnussen top 10
Rosberg was just about
evens for pole. As I think it’s 50/50, that doesn’t tempt me.
Maldonado was around
1.66 for Q3. Given I think the Mercedes, Ferrari, Williams and Red
Bulls are definitely faster, that’s too short.
Bottas and Vettel were
2.5 and 3 respectively for top 3. Hard to pick, and with
Massa/Raikkonen (or even Ricciardo) perhaps capable of an upset,
again it doesn’t tempt me.
The odds on laying
Magnussen for Q3 were 50. Whilst I think it very unlikely, I don’t
lay such long odds.
An unexpected bet
caught my eye: Ladbrokes, 2.87 for a gap from pole to second of 0.15s
or less. Unfortunately, the new F1 site’s appalling redesign
appears to have made it impossible to find anything from last year
[or earlier] except race results. That’s terrifically stupid and
bloody irritating. I wanted to see what the results were from last
year.
Anyway, decided against
that bet. Possible one Mercedes will have a problem, or one driver
put in a fantastic lap. So, no tip for qualifying.
Remember, qualifying
and the race start at the early hour of 5am. Normally it’d be 6am,
but following Bianchi’s crash several races now have earlier
starts, to allow more light if they drag on and to try and decrease
the possibility of a severe accident occurring.
And for those without
Sky, it’s worth noting the BBC is not showing qualifying on TV or
broadcasting it via radio. BBC coverage of qualifying [live] is
limited to audio/text via the website, which is pretty poor.
Morris Dancer
Apologies, qualifying starts at 6am, it's only the race that starts at 5am.
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