Motorsport Musings Ramblings of a racing enthusiast…

F1 Betting Tomfo… Game Over

Renault must surely be confident of retaining Robert Kubica’s services for next season, especially after their strong showing in the Monaco Grand Prix, where the Pole finished in third place.

It was Kubica’s second podium of the season, and one he took in emphatic style, outpacing both McLarens, Ferraris and Mercedes on what was Renault’s most-competitive showing of 2010.

On the streets of Monaco, Kubica was simply stunning – the star of the weekend. Pushing to the very limit and expertly treading the thin-line between success and disaster.

In the fourth-fastest car (at best), he only just missed out on pole to Mark Webber, and his chance of victory disappeared when Sebastian Vettel slipped past on the run to the first corner. Kubica held on to third for the rest of the race, chasing the Red Bulls all the way to the chequered flag.

Hindsight, being the wonderful thing that it so often is, makes me wonder quite why I only put £6.27 on him finishing in the top six, with odds of 4/5. My answer would probably be because Monaco is often a complete lottery, as we saw when Fernando Alonso crashed heavily on Saturday morning and threw away any chance of victory he had.

Shortly after placing that bet, I then stumbled upon a rather startling fact regarding Jarno Trulli.

The Italian had never been out-qualified by any of his team-mates at Monaco since he joined motor racing's elite in 1997. Note the past tense in the last sentence, because Heikki Kovalainen had the better of him around the street circuit this year.

For his dues, Trulli was on the back foot after losing track time on Thursday with an engine problem, so had to make the best of final practice to find an ideal set-up for qualifying. He ended up just a tenth behind Kovalainen, so not a complete pasting, but enough to see my betting kitty £5.00 lighter.

Jumping the Shark

Get your hankies ready, as there will be no further betting-related antics on this here website.

I have decided to cash in my chips while the going was good, and well frankly, I think there's a more interesting way of discussing F1 than simply plucking a (Red Bull) driver out of thin-air and taking a punt on their success prior to each race.

I began with £10.00 and finished with £31.27 in my pocket after six grands prix. Not the sort of thing that is likely to descend generations and become folklore, but enough to buy me lots of sweets and fizzy-pop. So that’ll do me nicely.

Expect some sort of regular F1-related replacement here shortly. Maybe.