Italy: pre-race

Rosberg’s car was fixed in time for qualifying, so he suffers no grid penalty.

In Q1 Caterham and Marussia, as expected, left proceedings. Slightly less expected was the double departure of Lotus. That car is shocking this year. Reportedly, they’ve stopped developing it and are focusing on 2015’s car instead. Perhaps wise, but it can’t be too much fun being a driver there this year.

In Q2 neither Sauber went any further, and we also lost Raikkonen, Vergne and Hulkenberg. Kvyat qualified 11th but due to the penalty mentioned in the pre-qualifying piece he’ll be set back 10 places and start 21st.

Q3 was quite interesting. There were reasonable margins between the top four, who were Hamilton, Rosberg, Bottas and Massa. Hamilton’s pole lap was very impressive. However, behind them it was much tighter, with six-tenths covering 5th-10th. The two McLarens had a good day, with Magnussen ahead of Button, and both ahead of 7th-placed Alonso. Red Bull cannot be happy with 8th and 9th (Vettel ahead of Ricciardo) and Perez was 10th.

Interesting to note Mercedes-powered cars filled the top six slots, but Force India were some way adrift. Good news for McLaren in the Constructors’.

There is a small chance of light rain tomorrow. I do not expect it to happen and if it does I don’t anticipate a significant impact. The only shock event that’s easy to foresee (if that isn’t too oxymoronic) would be a very bad crash, probably at the start, bringing out the safety car.

The Williams is a match for the Mercedes on race pace and perhaps even faster. However, it’s hard to pass at Monza (counter-intuitively, pole-sitters have a better chance of winning in Monza than Monaco). To win Williams will need a great start, or for Mercedes to have reliability/driver problems. The start’s critical for the Mercedes drivers, and for Red Bull. The Red Bull has strong race pace but starts very far back and is some way off the pace on the straights, and will find it hard to make up ground. I expect the podium to be entirely Mercedes/Williams.

I don’t think McLaren will go forwards. The car seems improved but it’s a step back from the Mercedes/Williams.

Strategy shouldn’t play much of a role as both the hard and medium last a long while and one stop is expected by just about everyone.

Quite hard to think of a cunning potential bet, to be honest, so I just perused the markets on Ladbrokes to see what appeared. These were:

Maldonado/Grosjean not to be classified, 2.2, Ladbrokes
Rosberg to win, 3.75 (4.4 Betfair)
Race leader after lap 1, Rosberg 4.5

The Lotus drivers have awful reliability, and Maldonado very occasionally collides with others. To be honest, I’m seriously tempted to back them not to be classified at just over evens.

The Rosberg to win and lead lap 1 bets are almost the same thing. Barring reliability issues, if he leapt ahead of Hamilton early on then I think he’s likely to stay there (cf Hamilton doing that to Rosberg at Bahrain). Against this is that Hamilton generally seems to start better, and both men will be trying their utmost not to make contact.

Hmm. Very tempted by Rosberg, but I think not. Hamilton tends to start better and Monza’s hard for overtaking. [If I had gone for it, I would’ve gone for Rosberg to win with Betfair at 4.4, hedged at around 2.5].

Instead, I’ve decided to split a stake and, with equal halves, back Maldonado and Grosjean not to be classified. Their Lotus seems horrendously unreliable and hard to drive.

So that’s:
Maldonado not to be classified, 2.2 (Ladbrokes)
Grosjean not to be classified, 2.2 (Ladbrokes)

Counts as a single tip, however it goes, as I’m splitting one stake evenly between the two. If either one comes off it’s green.

I think it could be very tight at the front. It’s also possible this could be the most boring race for a little while as overtaking’s so hard. On the other hand, the same’s true of Hungary, and that was rather entertaining.

Morris Dancer

Comments

  1. Anonymous8 September 2014 at 09:38

    Very enjoyable race. Have to say, Morris, you're going to have to revise your view of Monza being a race free of overtakingl!!

    Ricciardo was wonderful to watch, especially when he made Vettel look like a rookie (I know, tyres, but still...).

    Anorak from PB

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thaddeus8 September 2014 at 17:28

    Cheers for the comment, Mr. Anorak.

    There was rather more than I expected, it must be said.

    Ricciardo's very good. May be a title contender next year. I'll try and remember to check his odds and those of Bottas as well.

    ReplyDelete

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