The Form Guide After Monaco: Part 2 - Podium Finish

Formula 1 Betting By Numbers

In my last post I analysed the most profitable formula 1 bets in the Winning Driver market and this time it's the turn of the Podium Finish betting market.

Once again I've produced two charts, with the first showing the usual 'Betting Profit' returns based on a standard £1 bet on the same driver for a podium at each Grand Prix of 2013...

Standard 'Betting Profit' Chart For A Podium Finish:

Podium Finish	Profit*	Winning Bet
Romain Grosjean	6.00	1
Kimi Raikkonen	2.42	4
Mark Webber	0.75	2
Sebastian Vettel	0.11	4
Lewis Hamilton	0.00	2

Fernando Alonso	-0.83	3
Felipe Massa	-1.00	1

Nico Rosberg

-3.80

1

Rest Of The Field

-6.00

0

* As a reminder, the 'Profit' column shows the amount of profit you would have made if you'd placed a £1 bet on the same driver at every Grand Prix this season.  Please note, even in the few days before first practise, the odds can sometimes vary slightly, so I've generally tried to take the odds a few days before each Grand Prix as soon as the market opened on SkyBet.

The Form Guide After Spain: Part 1 - Winning Driver / Podium Finish

Formula 1 Betting By Numbers

After Bahrain, to help me cope with the three week gap until Spain, I compiled a few charts which analysed the most profitable formula 1 bets, and also the safest bets, so far this season.

Once again in the build up to Monaco I've analysed the statistics to produce the latest 'Betting Profit' charts, starting first of all with the charts for the Winning Driver and Podium Finish markets.

Fernando Alonso's victory in front of his home crowd at Spain means we've still only had three winners so far this season...

Spanish Grand Prix: Bet In Play Odds

The bet in play odds for the top drivers during the Spanish Grand Prix.

Usually when I have a bet on formula 1, I generally prefer to wait until after qualifying as by this stage of the weekend the form of the various teams is starting to emerge and it's therefore possible to make a more educated guess as to how things will turn out.  It's quite rare therefore that I'll have a bet before qualifying and even rarer again that I'll ever bother with 'bet in play'.

However, just for a change, during the Spanish Grand Prix I monitored the 'bet in play' odds every few laps to see how the bookies resasessed their opinion of the potential winner as the Grand Prix progressed.  This is a graph of the odds:

The Spanish Grand Prix: Barcelona Pre-Qualifying Tips

Formula 1 Tips For The Spanish Grand Prix

Yesterday I rounded up the most profitable bets and also the safest bets so far this season in four of the most popular formula 1 betting markets.  Formula 1 wouldn't be as fun if you reduced it to nothing more than a list of statistics though, so as usual I'm going to be making a set of pre and post qualifying tips for the Spanish Grand Prix and then see how I get on compared to the form guide.

To do things slightly different this time out, first of all I'm going to highlight my favourite 'safe' bets and then follow this with a selection of 'risky' bets.  Then as the season progresses I should be able to analyse whether it's generally better to go for short priced favourites or longer priced outsiders.  Obviously there's no such thing as a totally safe bet and all bets have an element of risk attached, so more appropriate names might perhaps be 'Shorter Priced Bets' and 'Longer Priced Bets'.

Anyway, here are my pre-qualifying predictions for the Spanish Grand Prix split into two categories...

Spanish Grand Prix - The Top Bets By The Form Guide

Formula 1 Betting By Numbers

Before each Grand Prix I usually make a set of predictions before and after qualifying and then compare which set of tips perform best.  However, as we had a three week gap between Bahrain and Spain, I also decided to analyse the performance of the drivers so far this season to see which drivers have been the most profitable bets, and also the safest bets, in some of the most popular betting markets.

You can find the full results in my previous posts over the last week but to summarise, going on the statistics from the first four Grand Prix of the season, the best bets so far have been...

The Form Guide After Bahrain - Part 1: Winning Driver / Podium Finish

Formula 1 Betting By Numbers

As the formula 1 calendar has a three week gap between Bahrain and Spain, I thought I would make use of the time to analyse the season so far from a betting point of view and compare which drivers have been the most profitable bets in each of the most popular betting markets.

I've therefore looked at the pre-qualifying odds offered by SkyBet at each Grand Prix of the season and then compiled a few charts showing which drivers would have returned the biggest profit in various markets if you'd bet on them at every race.

As we've only had three different race winners so far, the Winning Driver chart is fairly straight forward:

Which Formula 1 Driver Is The Most Popular In His Home Country?

How popular are formula 1 drivers in their own countries based on number of Google searches?

In my previous post, The 2012 Formula 1 Google Champion, I compiled a list of the formula 1 drivers who took part in the 2012 formula 1 championship ranked in order of who gets the most searches on Google.  You can check out the results here:

The 2012 Formula 1 Google Champion!

To quickly recap, the figures were based on the average number of worldwide searches per month on Google for each driver.  To investigate things further I decided to also look up the number of Google searches that each driver gets in their home country and see what effect that had on the rankings.  However, countries like Finland obviously have a smaller population than the likes of Germany, Spain and the UK, so the figures wouldn’t really mean much if I simply left things like that.

To ensure a level playing field, I therefore then adjusted the figures to produce the number of annual Google searches per 1,000 of the population in each driver’s home country.

Here are the results:

The United States Grand Prix: Austin Post-Qualifying Tips

Formula 1 Tips For The United States Grand Prix

Every Grand Prix weekend I give myself 100 points and place a few hypothetical bets using the odds available from SkyBet.com and see how I do.  In general I always like to wait until after qualifying before placing my bets, so to test whether that's the best strategy or not, I place a selection of tips before and after qualifying and see which set of tips do best.

You can find my pre-qualifying tips here:
The United States Grand Prix: Austin Pre-Qualifying Tips

And here are my post-qualifying tips...

To Finish On The Podium:
10 points on Fernando Alonso at 3.5
If Vettel wins the race then Alonso needs to finish at least 4th to take the championship battle to the final round of the season in Brazil next week, so you can guarantee that Fernando will be giving it his all to make up as many places as possible.  Alonso had a disappointing qualifying session but that's been the story of his last few Grand Prix weekends and it hasn't stopped him from making the podium in 5 of the last 6 races.  One of Fernando's strengths is that he consistently makes up places during the race, so even starting from 8th on the grid he can't be written off.

Top Six Finish:
15 points on Kimi Raikkonen at odds of 1.33
Kimi has been the model of consistency in this market, notching 11 top six finishes from the last 12 Grand Prix.  On the back of his brilliant drive at Abu Dhabi I'm therefore going to go for a cagey bet on Kimi Raikkonen to record yet another top six finish.

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: Yas Marina Round-Up

Once again my post-qualifying tips outperformed my pre-qualifying tips

In general I always like to wait until after qualifying before placing my bets, so to test whether that's the best strategy or not, every Grand Prix weekend I give myself 100 points and then place a few hypothetical bets both before and after qualifying using the odds available from SkyBet.com.  I then analyse their performance and see which set of tips do best.

Once again my post-qualifying tips outperformed my pre-qualifying tips, making a modest profit for the second week running, so the way things are developing it’s looking like after qualifying is definitely the best time to place your formula 1 bets…

Post-Qualifying Tips:

Lap 1 Leader:

10 points on Mark Webber at 6.0 - LOSS

Webber made a very poor start and wasted his strong qualifying, so this bet was already looking doomed by the first corner.

To Finish On The Podium:

20 points on Kimi Raikkonen at 2.63 – WIN 53 points

With the benefit of hindsight, I was too conservative with this bet but nevertheless Kimi justified his pre-race confidence with a strong controlled performance.  He made an excellent getaway from the grid which meant he was perfectly placed to capitalise when Lewis suffered more mechanical woes.

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: Yas Marina Post-Qualifying Tips

Formula 1 Tips For The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Every Grand Prix weekend I give myself 100 points and place a few hypothetical bets using the odds available from SkyBet.com and see how I do.  In general I always like to wait until after qualifying before placing my bets, so to test whether that's the best strategy or not, I place a selection of tips before and after qualifying and see which set of tips do best.

You can find my pre-qualifying tips here:

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: Yas Marina Pre-Qualifying Tips

And here are my post-qualifying tips... 

Lap 1 Leader:
10 points on Mark Webber at 6.0
Lewis Hamilton's starts haven't been that great in recent races, so although Mark Webber admittedly hasn't always been an amazing starter himself, odds of 6.0 look a little generous and therefore I'm going to go for a small punt on Mark Webber in the Lap 1 Leader market.

To Finish On The Podium:
20 points on Kimi Raikkonen at 2.63
Kimi was talking up his chances of a strong race in his post-qualifying interviews and seems confident that he has the pace to fight the Red Bulls (meaning Mark Webber now that Vettel is starting from the pit-lane).  There's no escaping the fact that the Lotus' lack of straight-line speed has meant that Kimi hasn't been a great over-taker this season, but nevertheless starting from fourth a podium finish looks within Kimi's capabilities.

Indian Grand Prix: New Delhi Round-Up

Post-qualifying bets perform best once again...

In general I always like to wait until after qualifying before placing my bets, so to test whether that's the best strategy or not, every Grand Prix weekend I give myself 100 points and then place a few hypothetical bets both before and after qualifying using the odds available from SkyBet.com.  I then analyse their performance and see which set of tips do best.

My pre-qualifying tips were a washout this weekend, but my post-qualifying tips returned a slight overall profit…

To Win Outright: 
15 points on Lewis Hamilton at 8.0 - LOSS
Sebastian Vettel justified his extremely short of odds of 1.4 with a very comfortable victory.

To Finish In The Points (Top Ten Finish): 
20 points on Bruno Senna at 3.0 – WIN 60 points
Like he has done on several occasions previously this season, Bruno Senna once again just sneaked into the lower end of the points scoring positions.

The Korean Grand Prix: Yeongam Post-Qualifying Tips

Formula 1 Tips For The Korean Grand Prix

Every Grand Prix weekend I give myself 100 points and place a few hypothetical bets using the odds available from OLBG.com and see how I do.  In general I always like to wait until after qualifying before placing my bets, so to test whether that's the best strategy or not, I place a selection of tips before and after qualifying and see which set of tips do best.  You can find my pre-qualifying tips here:

The Korean Grand Prix: Yeongam Pre-Qualifying Tips

And here are my post-qualifying tips...

To Win Outright:

25 points on Mark Webber at 4.33

Mark Webber has had a poor spell by his standards recently but he tends to race strongly when he starts from the front row of the grid.  Of course, there’s the potential matter of team orders to consider but Mark is still in with a mathematical shout at the championship and given that he hasn’t taken too kindly to team orders in the past, I’m therefore going to risk 25 points on Webber to win outright at 4.33.

To Finish On The Podium:

20 points on Kimi Raikkonen at 5.5

You would have to say that with Webber, Vettel, Hamilton and Alonso starting on the front two rows of the grid, you would probably expect the podium to most likely come from those four drivers.  However, with the driver’s championship balanced the way it is we may see some very competitive opening laps so if there are any incidents then Kimi Raikkonen is well placed starting from fifth to take advantage if any of the front four encounter problems.  He wasn’t too far away from the front row pace during qualifying and therefore given the short odds available on the front four, I’m going to go for a small bet on Kimi for a podium at odds of 5.5.