Twitter's Reaction To Red Bull's Threat To Quit Formula 1

How the twittersphere responded to Helmut Marko's quit threat...

A sneak peak at an early prototype of Red Bull's car for 2016.

It's been a while since I last updated the F1Tips Blog, but I thought I would feature a round-up of the reaction on twitter to the recent quote from Helmut Marko stating that Red Bull 'could contemplate an F1 exit.'

Just in case you've been living under a rock recently, this is what Helmut Marko (advisor to Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz) has said:

“We will evaluate the situation again as every year and look into costs and revenues.  If we are totally dissatisfied we could contemplate an F1 exit.  The danger is there that Mr Mateschitz loses his passion for F1.”

I generally try to show a balanced point of view when posting on this blog, but I have to say that if you search the #F1 streams on twitter, you'll struggle to find too many positive tweets about Red Bull at the moment.

Anyway, here's a sample of how people have reacted to Red Bull's threat to quit F1...

1) "Have Red Bull given up on the F1 season already? The once innovative brand that everyone aspired to sulks because others are better #babies" @SOCWatts

2) "I don't like this tactic, but when you own 2 #F1 teams, people have to listen to this sort of threat." @glenn_autosport

The Italian Grand Prix: Monza Post-Qualifying Tips

"They didn't put out the last radio message, when I said thank you to Felipe and thank you to the team." ...Fernando Alonso

Yesterday I made my pre-qualifying tips for the Italian Grand Prix and now that the starting grid has been decided I'm going to follow things up with another set of predictions.

The latest weather forecast is predicting, "An increasing chance of heavy showers this weekend in Monza for the Formula 1 racing."  However, I got caught out at Spa by a forecast of showers which never came, so once again the wisest strategy is probably to wait until closer to the start of the Grand Prix before finalising your bets.

Anyway, here are my post-qualifying tips for the Italian Grand Prix...

Shorter Priced Bets:

Double Points Finish:
20 points on Red Bull at 1.4 (Paddy Power)
This is a fairly short priced bet to be tipping, but given that Red Bull have recorded a double points finish at nine out of eleven Grand Prix so far in 2013, the odds of 1.4 on offer from Paddy power just seem rather generous.

The Monaco Grand Prix: Post-Qualifying Tips

"We know that race pace has been our weakness.  We'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out if this will be enough.” ...Nico Rosberg

After the end of P3, I was feeling reasonably satisfied with how my tips were looking.  However, the rain at the start of Q1 served as a reminder of the unpredictable nature of formula 1 and it looked initially like qualifying might potentially throw up a few surprises.

In the end though, it was more or less business as usual with Nico Rosberg claiming his third consecutive pole and team-mate Lewis Hamilton lining up behind him to make it another front row lock out for Mercedes.

Last time out at Spain it was my post qualifying tips which recorded the best performance so I'm under pressure to repeat that form...

Playing It Safe/Shorter Priced Bets:

Winning Driver:
20 points on Sebastian Vettel at 5.0 (Bet365 enhanced odds)
Each of the last four Monaco Grand Prix have been won by the driver who started on pole, so you can understand why the bookies have Nico Rosberg as the favourite.  However, Fernando Alonso showed at the Spanish Grand Prix that modern formula 1 doesn't necessarily follow the trend of the history books.  Monaco is a different matter again of course, but Sebastian Vettel was only a tenth of a second off Nico Rosberg's pole lap time so I'm therefore sticking with my pre-weekend prediction of Sebastian Vettel for the victory.