Bahrain: pre-qualifying 2021

I offered one tip on the 16th, elsewhere, for Perez to win each way (fifth the odds top 3) at 8.5, with boost, on Ladbrokes. As always with such off-blog bets, I won’t count it, win or lose, towards my ‘official’ results. 

Bahrain provided spectacular entertainment last season and if this season-opening race is half as good it’ll be a cracking start to the season.

Development has been particularly tricky this year as teams only had a couple of tokens to spend. Exceptions include McLaren, who had to alter things to fit their new Mercedes engine, and Aston Martin, who can upgrade 2019 Mercedes parts to 2020 Mercedes parts without costing tokens.

Testing’s always tricky to tell. I think Ricciardo’s looking at home in the McLaren, and Vettel’s low number of laps was not great, but telling pace is tricky. The Red Bull starts looking comfortable for Verstappen. Will Mercedes have mastered their snappy rear? And how do the teams stack up on pace?

We shall see. Practice will offer some more useful guidance, but teams are likely to still have a sandbag or two aboard.

Speaking of practice, Verstappen topped the first session of the season three-tenths ahead of Bottas. Norris was two-tenths down the road, followed very closely by Hamilton and Leclerc (I’d put a tiny sum on Leclerc to be top 3 and he was less thana tenth off). Perez followed the Monegasque, and was ahead of Gasly, Sainz, Ricciardo, and Giovinazzi.

Verstappen was also quickest in second practice, less than a tenth ahead of Norris. I do wonder if that really reflects McLaren’s pace. If so, they’ve made a huge advance. Hamilton was a tenth further back, narrowly ahead of Sainz, so Ferrari look competitive too. Bottas was next, followed by Ricciardo, Tsunoda, Stroll, Gasly, and Perez (six-tenths off his team mate).

The pre-final practice bet that appealed most was Bottas, each way (fifth the odds top three) at 11 (12 with boost). Perez doesn’t look dialled in yet, so I backed this.

Verstappen was dominant in third and final practice, seven-tenths ahead of Hamilton. Surprisingly, Gasly was third, three-tenths off the Briton and two-tenths ahead of Bottas. Perez was fifth, followed by Sainz, Raikkonen, Ocon, Stroll, and Ricciardo. A third practice note to remember is that it’s a lot hotter than qualifying, which is more dusk, as per the race.

Looking to qualifying, which starts at 3pm, Verstappen was clear favourite at 1.36, with Hamilton out to 3.8. Perez and Bottas were 19 and 21 respectively (sadly, each way was top two to not an option that appealed).

However, an unexpected delay, hence this being up a bit later than normal, gave time for match markets to appear, including an alternative (number two) with 3 (3.1 with boost) for Sainz to beat Gasly in qualifying. Bearing in mind that the Ferraris didn’t run the soft tyre in qualifying and they’ve been looking good all weekend, I’ve decided to back that.

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