Spanish Grand Prix: Barcelona Round-Up

"You feel the support from everyone and it helped." ...Fernando Alonso.

During the opening ten laps or so, the in-play betting had Vettel priced as the slight favourite over Alonso for victory at the Spanish Grand Prix.  However, once the strategies began to emerge it soon became clear that Alonso had the edge, and in fact in the end it proved to a reasonably comfortable victory for Fernando, with Vettel eventually slipping back to 4th place, and Kimi Raikkonen proving to be Alonso's closest challenger.

Before the race I split my tips into two categories, 'Playing It Safe/Shorter Priced Bets' and 'Taking A Risk/Longer Priced Bets', and on the basis of Spain the results would suggest that it's wiser to stay away from the long-shots and stick to drivers from the group of favourites.  Five of my six 'Playing It Safe' tips were winning bets, recording an overall return of 263 points from a 100 point initial outlay.

Here's the detailed report on how my tips got on...

Post-Qualifying Tips:

Playing It Safe/Shorter Priced Bets:

Race Winner:
20 points on Fernando Alonso at 5.0 - WIN 100 points
The Circuit de Catalunya had never previously hosted a Grand Prix where the winner had started from fifth on the grid, but modern formula 1 with its DRS, KERS and 'racey' tyres allowed Fernando Alonso's brilliance to earn the victory that the home fans were hoping for.

Podium:
10 points on Kimi Raikkonen at 1.57 - WIN 16 points
Kimi continued his impressive consistent run of form to record his fourth podium of the season.

Top Six:
20 points on Lewis Hamilton at 1.33 - LOSS
Ironically, the only tip in this category which failed to come off was the shortest price of the lot, with Lewis Hamilton suffering badly with his tyres and ultimately failing to even make the points.

Lap 1 Retirements:
20 points on Lap 1 Retirements - None at 1.53 - WIN 31 points

Winning Margin:
20 points on Winning Margin - Greater Than 6 Seconds at 1.8 - WIN 36 points

Highest Scoring Team:
20 points on Ferrari at 4.0 - WIN 80 points

Making an overall return of 263 points and therefore an overall profit of 163 points.





As already mentioned, my post-qualifying 'Taking A Risk' tips didn't fare so well...

Taking A Risk/Longer Priced Bets:

Race Winner:
20 points on Lewis Hamilton at 6.0 - LOSS

Top Six:
10 points on Daniel Ricciardo at 15.0 - LOSS

Race Leader After 1st Lap:
10 points on Kimi Raikkonen at 23.0 - LOSS
For the fifth successive Grand Prix, the leader at the end of the first lap was the driver who started on pole.

Fastest Lap:
20 points on Seastion Vettel at 3.25 - LOSS
The fastest lap was claimed by Esteban Gutierrez who was available before the race weekend began at a massive 100/1 for fastest lap!

Match Bets:
20 point accumulator on:
Di Resta V Perez - Di Resta at 2.0 (Y)
Ricciardo V Vergne - Ricciardo at 1.8 (Y)  ... WIN 72 points

Match Bets:
20 point accumulator on:
Alonso V Vettel - Alonso at 2.1 (Y)
Hamilton V Rosberg - Hamilton at 1.8 (N)  ... LOSS





Here's how my pre-qualifying tips got on...

Pre-Qualifying Tips:

Playing It Safe/Shorter Priced Bets:

Race Winner:
20 points on Sebastian Vettel at 3.0 - LOSS

Podium Finish:
20 points on Kimi Raikkonen at 1.67 - WIN 33 points
In general you would have to conclude that it was wiser to wait until after things had shaken out after qualifying before placing your bets, but Kimi Raikkonen for a podium was one bet where a marginally better price was available earlier in the week.

Top Six Finish:
20 points on Lewis Hamilton at 1.57 - LOSS

Qualifying Winning Margin:
20 points on Qualifying Winning Margin - 0.15 Seconds Or More at 1.73 - WIN 35 points
Once again pole position was achieved by a margin of over 0.15 seconds and that seems to be the trend this season as we're yet to see a front row separated by less than a quarter of a second.

Safety Car:
20 points on Safety Car - No at 1.53 - WIN 31 points
As David Coulthard pointed our during the Grand Prix, you would hope FIA safety car driver Bernd Maylander isn't paid by the lap, as the safety car has yet to be called into action during 2013.  Bear in mind, however, that next up is street circuit Monaco where the lack of run off areas could mean Bernd Maylander finally gets to see some action.

Taking A Risk/Longer Priced Bets:

Race Winner:
10 points eachway (20 points in total) on Mark Webber at 11.0 - LOSS

Podium Finish:
20 points on Lewis Hamilton at 3.6 - LOSS

To Finish In The Points (Top Ten Finish):
20 points on Nico Hulkenberg at 2.75 - LOSS

Qualifying Winning Team: 
20 points on Mercedes at 4.0 - WIN 80 points
After Q1, Nico Rosberg was available at odds of 19.0 for pole and this proved to be an exceptional bet as Nico went on to make it a hat-trick of pole positions for Mercedes.  Now if they could only maintain that pace during the race...

Not To Be Classified:
20 points on Nico Rosberg at 5.5 - LOSS


Once again I'll be going over the form guide statistics in the run-up to Monaco, and then making a few predictions on how I see things unfolding.


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Odds were current at time of publication but are subject to change.