Monaco: pre-race 2022
Qualifying is usually the exciting bit of the Monaco Grand Prix weekend and it had its moments this time out too.
In the first session, there was a slightly premature red flag when Tsunoda clocked a barrier and destroyed a wheel. He ended up making it through, but the timing stopped Gasly (his team mate) setting a quick time and the Frenchman just barely missed the lights for a second attempt after the red flag ended, so he was a shock departure in 17th. Stroll was likewise compromised. Both Williams failed to proceed and Zhou Guanyu was slowest of all.
The track was improving a lot, and Perez continued to look like the lead Red Bull, with Sainz also clearly in contention for pole. The top quartet had no trouble escaping Q2, but both Haas cars failed to proceed despite having some reasonable pace. Tsunoda was 11th, with Bottas 12th and Ricciardo a lacklustre 14th.
Come the final part of qualifying Leclerc was initially the fastest, ahead of his team mate, with Perez leading the Red Bull second row. But on the second runs Perez hit a barrier and a genuine red flag came out to end the session. Springtime for Ferrari. Not bad for Norris either, who put his car up into 5th, alongside Russell. Alonso and Hamilton are on row four, with Vettel and Ocon rounding out the top 10 (good performance from Vettel given his car is less than stellar).
To be fair, Leclerc’s first lap was fantastic and would’ve been hard for anyone to beat, but it’s a shame they didn’t get a chance.
The race is expected to be dry throughout, alas, and (while there were numerous fines for blocking in qualifying) there appear to be no grid penalties.
Early betting thoughts:
Norris/Russell podium
Lay Leclerc win
Lay Sainz podium
Norris is 4 for a podium (5.3 Betfair), with Russell 5. Climbing that way is possible as the cars will likely be running nose to tail as the frontrunners try to preserve their tyres so that a single stop is necessary, and so that if the safety car comes out they can take advantage of the cheap stop rather than being punished by it. What this also means, however, is that there will be a tiny or non-existent gap for clean air running to make up time after a stop, and the second car in Ferrari/Mercedes may well end up disadvantaged by coming in a lap later. The podium odds are reasonable, though not amazing.
About half the time the pole chap gets the win, but the lay odds of 1.54 are probably not short enough, alas. Not terrible, but not great.
Sainz has a lay of 1.88 for a podium. This covers both falling back through pit stops, technical woe (possible with Ferrari as both Schumacher and Bottas, using the same engines, have had reliability failings this weekend and Leclerc’s car died in Spain), and, of course, crashing. This may be worth backing, although those factors may be sufficient to make reconsidering the Leclerc win lay worthwhile.
In the manner of Seleucus, I then browsed the market to see if value leapt out:
Sainz, win, 9.4
Over 17.5 classified finishers, 3.5
Perez, podium, 2.5
Vettel, top 6, 4.5
Considering laying Sainz for a podium and backing him for a win may seem odd things to think about, but if reliability woe does strike then he could inherit the lead from Leclerc. Annoyingly, there is not an each way option on this.
From 2018 inclusive we’ve had DNF figures of 1, 1, and 2 at Monaco. That’s a bit counterintuitive and there is the chance of reliability woe as well as good old-fashioned crashing. But there are 3.5 odds on the recurrence of something that’s happened at the last three races. Looking at the last three 2022 races, DNF stats have been 2, 3, 2. Also, over 16.5 classified finishers is 2.2.
Perez suffered some pretty blatant team orders (probably unnecessarily) in Spain, but has looked the better Red Bull driver this weekend. There’s a 7 point win to 2nd difference but only 3 points from 3rd to 4th. On top of that, if he gets ahead of Sainz or if a Ferrari suffers technical woe then team orders should not stop him being on the podium. What makes me hesitant about this is that the team could just shaft him with strategy. However, they need to be careful. Perez is now looking like a very good team mate to Verstappen and the last thing they need is to chase him away by throwing him under the bus not to win a title but just to give his fellow driver a few more points.
Vettel’s car is a bit of a dog and he did very well to drag it into 9th on the grid. A bit question we don’t know ahead of time is tyre choice. I wonder if Aston Martin might slap on hard tyres to try and get him the best chance of a safety car pit stop should one arise. However, that would compromise him off the line. I like this bet idea but it does rely on guesswork and the guesswork coming off, so can’t back it.
So, as usual at Monaco the processional nature of the circuit makes it tricky finding value. This is the last event within the current contract, and some are speculating it’ll be the last time F1 races there. I wouldn’t be dismayed if that were the case.
I’ve decided to back over 16.5 classified finishers at 2.2
(2.25 with boost). Not heroic, but there we are. Probably a slightly odds on
occurrence, but with odds just over evens.
There may be a post-race analysis, assuming I stay awake.
Race start is 2pm UK time.
Morris Dancer
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