The F1 Times gambling contest between Ryan Wood (Editor) and Daniel Chalmers (Feature Editor) heads to the 17th round in New Delhi for the Indian GP.
Both men have a budget of £5 to spend on a maximum of 3 different bets relating to the upcoming event. The deadline for these bets to be placed is before the start of the first Friday practise session.
At the end of the season the winner will be the person who has made the most profit, or made the lowest loss.
Here are the results from last time.
Ryan Wood
Bet 1 – Mark Webber to qualify on pole position – £2.00 at 11/2 – Won £13.00
Bet 2 – Lewis Hamilton to win the Korean GP – £3.00 at 3/1
Daniel Chalmers
Bet 1 – Kimi Raikkonen to win the Korean GP – £3.00 at 14/1
Bet 2 – Romain Grosjean to qualify on pole – 50p each way at 33/1
Bet 3 – Grosjean to finish on the podium £1.00 at 11/2
Daniel taking a chance on Lotus didn’t work out. Although the upgrade certainly did deliver an improvement for the team, it wasn’t really anywhere near enough to challenge the might of Red Bull for race victory. However as with Mercedes in Singapore it was worth a try. You can always catch the bookies out when you know that a big upgrade is on the way.
Ryan placed a very sensible bet on Webber to get pole position. If Sebastian Vettel didn’t get it hooked up in qualifying, there was a good chance Mark would be the one to benefit, given Red Bull’s form at the moment. That is exactly what happened and Ryan won £13.00 as a result.
After sixteen races £80.00 has been spent by both men. Ryan now has £61.74 worth of profit, whilst Daniel has £33.40 worth of losses. Therefore there is a difference of £95.14 between the two gamblers.
Ryan Wood |
Daniel Chalmers |
Yet again we go to another of F1’s brand new circuits. F1 will be visiting India for the second time after a very successful debut for the circuit last year.
At last year’s event the drivers all raved about the circuit with its elevation changes, long straights and a mix of medium to high speed corners. In terms of average speed it’s now one of the quickest tracks on the F1 calendar.
Sector one is pretty similar to Korea with straights connected together by slow corners. From then on it’s a series of medium speed corners and a couple of higher speed corners thrown in too.
Although it’s nowhere near as exciting as F1’s classic tracks, it’s certainly more interesting than a few of the other modern tracks on the calendar.
Warm weather is expected this weekend so that will be welcome news to all those teams who prefer those sort of conditions to get their tyres working.
Round 17 India
Ryan Wood
Bet 1 – Lewis Hamilton to win Indian GP – £5.00 at 6/1
I’m putting all my eggs in one basket this weekend. Whilst McLaren haven’t exactly been on the lead pace at the previous two GP’s, they’ve got two large upgrades this weekend which should see them improve and quite possibly challenge Red Bull.
Whilst I believe victory will go to Sebastian Vettel, his odds were a pretty useless 1/1. Hamilton’s odds were by far the most tempting and I think he’s due some luck after three reliability issues in three races.
Daniel Chalmers
Bet 1 – Fernando Alonso to win the Indian GP – £5.00 at 5/1
I think both McLaren and Ferrari will give Red Bull a much sterner test this weekend. Although Red Bull has looked untouchable of late, it wouldn’t take a huge gain over Red Bull development wise to catch up. McLaren and Ferrari are just two or three tenths behind the Milton Keynes squad rather than a second. That’s an assailable gap.
Alonso seems very determined and confident that he can have a strong weekend. When he really needs a result he very often gets it. The man is made of steel.
I think Ferrari will be very strong this weekend. In Korea the word was that Massa had some upgrades on the car, which Alonso didn’t. That would probably explain why Felipe was actually faster than Alonso in the race.
Therefore imagine where Alonso will end up when he gets his hands on the upgrades. A Red Bull style exhaust is one of the upgrades that has been rumoured that Massa was running. Maybe this is why Alonso is feeling in a confident mood. The team also very recently conducted a productive straight line test.
I also think this is a circuit that should suit Ferrari anyway, particularly the middle section with medium to high speed corners.
I could be talking a lot of rubbish here but if Massa has indeed been trying upgrades for Alonso then it looks like they were working, and therefore could put Alonso’s title charge back on track in India.