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:

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.

The Spanish Grand Prix: Barcelona Post Qualifying Tips

"The car on one lap pace is not as quick as the others, but on long run pace it's as quick as the others, or even better." ...Fernando Alonso

At one stage during Q1, Nico Rosberg was as long as 18/1 to get pole.  Even after Hamilton's excellent late Q2 lap showed that Mercedes once again had impressive qualifying pace, Rosberg was still priced quite generously.

However, despite their dominant qualifying performance it remains to be seen whether Mercedes have yet got on top of their tyre management issues.  During practise, Nico Rosberg showed improved long run consistency, but the improvement may not be enough for Mercedes to yet match the race pace of Red Bull, Ferrari and Lotus.  Despite starting from the front row of the grid, the bookies therefore price Rosberg and Hamilton behind Vettel, Alonso and Raikkonen.

Once again I've grouped my post-qualifying predictions for the Spanish Grand Prix into two categories based on the element of risk attached.  However, of course there's no such thing as a 'safe' bet so the amount of risk is purely relative...

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...