China: pre-race

I missed the first five minutes or so of qualifying. It turned out Maldonado starts last, because an oil leak on his car meant he could not set any laps at all. He had a 5 place grid penalty for ramming Gutierrez in Bahrain (too lenient, if you ask me). There was some dispute as to whether this will be carried on to the next race or not, so we'll have to wait and see.

Qualifying was wet throughout, slowly drifting from full wet to intermediate territory.
Q1 went largely as you would expect, and we lost the pointless teams, absent Maldonado and Gutierrez.

Q2 saw the slightly surprising departure of both McLarens, as well as Raikkonen, who was only 11th. In the Finn's defence, he has had limited running in practice, but it was still something of a surprise. We also lost Kvyat, Perez and Sutil.

Q3 was quite interesting. Hamilton was faster by miles than everyone else. Rosberg may have challenged, but fluffed one lap with a locked brake and a second by spinning at the final corner (many drivers made errors during qualifying on that corner, but he did it at his last chance to get pole and ended up 4th). Pressure may be telling, but you don't gain points or lose them in qualifying. The Red Bull team will be delighted to have Ricciardo and Vettel 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Alonso got 5th, which is reasonable, particularly as the Ferrari is probably (relatively) faster in the dry than the wet. Could be on for a podium. Massa and Bottas should be delighted with 6th and 7th, one of the stronger qualifying sessions for Williams, especially given they seem to lose more than most in wet conditions.

Hulkenberg was about average in 8th, Vergne's 9th was reasonable and Grosjean will probably be glad just to nab the final place in Q3, the first time the gremlin-ridden Lotus has reached the last part of qualifying this year.

It's important to consider a few things about qualifying. For a start, it was wet. Weather forecasts indicate the race will be dry. Not only that, the rain will have washed away the rubber laid down in practice, increasing degradation and making life trickier for Williams and Ferrari, I would suggest. It may help Force India, who tend to be a little kinder to their tyres. It remains to be seen whether degradation will be significant enough to cause some teams to require an extra pit stop, but it's something that ought to be considered.

The run down to the first corner is fairly short, but the first couple of corners are absolute buggers. This is because they're based on the Chinese character for making corners stupidly rather than on making corners that produce good racing. Expect much bunching up and places made/lost (the corners really are rubbish). It could provide an opportunity for a sly fox, such as Alonso, to take advantage of poor decision-making by others.

So, potential bets are:
Red Bull to top score
Alonso podium
Perez to get points

Perez's odds are too short at just 1.45, and he has two McLarens and Raikkonen in front of him.

Alonso's odds of 4.5 (at the time of betting) for a podium were a bit longer than I'd expected. He looked very good in the dry (which the race is likely to be) and I backed him for a podium, hedged at evens. Potential pitfalls are high degradation or Red Bull being good in the race, but in his favour is a habit of quick starts, fantastic racing and that Ferrari appear to have taken a step forward in performance.

I was intrigued by backing Red Bull to top score, given Mercedes' slightly creaky reliability (not very creaky, more an unoiled door hinge rather than a nonagenarian's knees) but as Ladbrokes didn't have the odds up three and a half hours after qualifying I grew bloody tired of waiting.

So, just the one tip: Alonso to get a podium at 4.5, hedged at evens (if 4.5 isn't up I'd accept 4 or higher).

The race is from 8am tomorrow. It's the last before a three week break which marks the end of the fly-away first part of the season and the start of the middle European portion of the calendar.

Morris Dancer

Comments

  1. I've given up listening to Radio 5's coverage of the race. Giedo van der Garde's command of the English language is positively awful ..... really surprising as usually the Dutch,bred on wall to wall British TV, can speak it like us natives.
    Is he really the best race commentator the Beeb can find?

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  2. Mr. Putney, probably the last time, but I was able to watch it on Sky.

    Seeing more live races has just rekindled my anger at the BBC's damned stupid and self-interested approach to F1 coverage.

    Race was a bit of a let-down after Bahrain, but happily green. Setting about writing the post-race piece shortly.

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  3. Two absolutely brilliant calls by you Morris - all the more so for being so finely judged. Well done!

    Going back to the awful BBC radio commentary, can anyone please explain why it is that since David Coulthard is constantly twittering online alongside the live radio commentary and is evidently there in person and is doubtless being well rewarded for such "efforts" by the BBC, that no one has had the good sense to suggest that he might turn his hand to actually commentating on the race - or is he simply too precious to lower himself from the elevated status of being a TV commentator?

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