Motorsport Musings Ramblings of a racing enthusiast…

F1 Betting Tomfoolery: Part III

I am a little bemused to read that some folk in the press are proclaiming that the Australian Grand Prix was the best race since Japan 2005; perhaps even better. Was it, really? Nothing to do with the fact that, even by F1 standards, the race that preceded it was a total borefest and completely failed to live up to the massive hype surrounding it?

Even a makeshift race involving a few shopping trolleys and a couple of traffic cones around my local supermarket car park would have provided more entertainment than Bahrain managed to rustle up. So the fact that the Australian Grand Prix proved to be a corker, seems to have catapulted it to the top of people’s favourite race of recent times.

It was quite apparent that towards the end of the race, when the random elements had vanished and the track surface was bone dry, things had settled down, and once again overtaking was at a premium.

The temporary street circuit in Melbourne has always attracted drama and incident, and sure enough, things got off to a chaotic start on the first lap of the race.

Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi saw his front wing detach itself (not for the first time) coming out of Turn 3. The GP2 Asia Series winner then torpedoed wildly out of control along the next straight, clouting the inside wall on the approach to Turn 6.

Worse was still to come however, as he was heading straight into the path of Sebastien Buemi’s Toro Rosso and Nico Hulkenberg’s Williams.

The end result: a spectacularly messy crash, which lead to a four lap safety car period and my £6.00 wager on Bernd Maylander making an appearance transforming into £9.00 as result. Kerching!

Better still, Kobayashi’s harpooning of Hulkenberg also resulted in my other bet of the weekend coming to fruition, as Rubens Barrichello beat his Williams team-mate in the process. Kerching! Kerching!

Thankfully all three drivers involved came away unscathed from the incident.

Not a bad weekend really, with both bets coming up trumps within the first forty seconds of the race. Time to assess what to place the colossal £15.40 in my betting kitty on this time around then...

Rumble in the Jungle?

The most predictable thing this weekend appears to be the weather.

Just about every weather agency out there are anticipating some severe thunderstorms, particularly during qualifying on Saturday which ends at 5pm local time. Race day looks set to be mostly hot and humid, with the sun perhaps making an appearance at some point. There are however, risks of yet more rain during the latter stages of the race – hopefully not to the same extent as last year.

With this in mind, I have gone with a Vettel to win at odds of 7/4 (2.75). Yes ok, he lost it in last year’s Malaysian Grand Prix when the track resembled a swimming pool, but think Shanghai last year and Monza the year before – you see?

Red Bull’s poster boy will be eager to clinch his first victory of the season and avoid risk of falling out of world championship contention. He has the fastest car on the grid and is perhaps the fastest driver out there, but reliability problems have dogged his season thus far.

So third time lucky for Herr Vettel? I think so. I also believe team-mate Mark Webber will fare much better in Malaysia than he did in Australia, when a red mist seemed to have descended in front of everyone’s favourite straightforward driver. A top three finish for the Aussie at odds of 3/2 (2.5) represents very good value.

Elsewhere, I predict that with its two long straights, McLaren will reap the benefits of its F-Duct system, which should come into its element in Sepang. I’m not overly confident that either of their drivers will win the race (the high-speed bends are Red Bull territory for example), but Jenson Button in the top six seems a dead cert, and with odds of 1/2 (1.50), well, you would bet your house on it.

And lastly, I have gone with a Barrichello-Buemi-de la Rosa-Vettel-Rosberg-Kubica accumulated gamble on each of them beating their respective team-mates in the race, at tantalising odds of 39/5 (8.80). A long shot perhaps, but if that predicted rain does appear, you wouldn’t bet against experience prevailing in the end, would you?

This week's bets