Motorsport Musings Ramblings of a racing enthusiast…

F1 Betting Tomfoolery – Part IV

The BBC iPlayer is a rather fine service isn’t it? Call me slow to cotton on perhaps, but I used it for the first time recently to watch the Malaysian Grand Prix, which I missed as I was preoccupied at Silverstone with the first round of the Superleague Formula.

Rather baffling though, I found myself having to inconveniently pause the action part way through the race to download another whacking great big file. Due to the race being held on Jesus Resurrection Day and religious folk celebrating such occasion, the BBC took the puzzling decision to split coverage of the race between BBC1 and BB2.

That I can understand. You don’t mess with religion. But why they neglected to patch the two together before plonking it online was a rather large oversight.

More annoyingly though was not having live timing at my disposal. I found that I was lost without it as relying solely on Jonathan Legard to paint a picture as to what was going on just didn’t work. He’s had a fair amount of stick over the past year bless him. But let’s be fair, he is shockingly awful at pinpointing as to what is actually going on. Stevie Wonder on a dark night could probably do a better job.

BBC gripes aside, I thought it was a half-decent race mostly due to the Ferraris and McLarens being mired in the pack, after some shockingly bad weather predictions in qualifying.

Jenson Button lined up 17th on the grid and gambled on an early tyre change. In clear air he eventually gained several places, but, on worn tyres, was unable to fend off Felipe Massa. Frustratingly, he came home seventh - one position short of rewarding me with my sixth-place bet on him. Dagnabit.

Thankfully my Red Bull-related bets fared much better. Going into the race things weren’t quite so promising. With Mark Webber taking pole by a massive 1.3s and team-mate Sebastian Vettel lining up third; I needed the roles to be reversed, and as luck would have it, that is exactly what happened.

When the lights went out Vettel darted up the inside of Turn 1 and left Webber to follow his gearbox for the remainder of the afternoon. The pair dominated the race and scored a one-two for the Milton Keynes-based squad. The end result bumping up my betting coffers rather handsomely.

Unlike that ridiculous Barrichello-Buemi-de la Rosa-Vettel-Rosberg-Kubica accumulated gamble I placed. All over before the race actually began thanks to de la Rosa’s engine conking out on the way to the grid. Pfft. Anyway, swiftly moving on...

Red Bull in a (non) China shock?

I like Tonio Liuzzi. I firmly believe he’s a good driver and that fate hasn’t been too kind to him in the past. In fact, I would go so far to say he’s a much better driver than Adrian Sutil. He’s scored points in the first couple of races this season and would have done the same in Malyasia were it not for a throttle issue on the 12th lap. So I’ve put £3.63 on him to return to his points scoring ways this weekend at odds of 11/5 (3.20).

Still on a points theme, I’ve placed £2.00 on Vitaly Petrov to do the same at odds of 47/20 (3.35).

Renault has pleasantly surprised me so far this season. Under new management they’ve emerged as the team most likely to challenge the top four runners. Well, Robert Kubica does at least. But the car is clearly sound, and well, the odds of Kubica scoring points are so pitiful, I thought I would take a punt on Petrov instead.

Towards the front of the grid I predict Red Bull will be a dominant force once again this weekend. The Red Bull RB6 is clearly the fastest car in F1 at the moment and with the Shanghai circuit being a heavily aero-dependent, it should result in another strong display by the Milton Keynes-based squad.

So a fiver on a Red Bull win at 4/5 (1.80) followed by an appearance on the podium by Mark Webber at odds of 9/10 (1.90) looks particularly appealing. I can see Webber coming out all guns blazing this weekend, seeking revenge after what happened in Malaysia. He’ll probably win it, but I’d sooner cover my bases in case that red mist descends again, a lá Australia.

And last bet: Lewis Hamilton to beat Fernando Alonso in the race. Those long straights look very McLaren-friendly with its F-Duct gizmo. So £4.00 at odds of 17/20 (1.85) on him to defeat his former team-mate seems fairly reasonable.

This week's bets