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
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