F1Punter

The prices are just being updated following Free Practice 3 and unsurprisingly there is not a huge amount of support for either Webber or Vettel in the Pole Position market after their respective fifteenth and sixteenth place finishes. For me though, this conveniently overlooks the fact that neither car was running at the end of the session on a fully rubbered-in track on the super soft tyres; conditions under which nearly every other driver was posting their session-best times.

The reason for this was simply to allow the team replace a €5 rubber boot on the driveshafts of both cars and there is no reason to believe that either car will not be fit for Qualifying. Webber has been flitting around the top five fastest cars all weekend prior to this point and Vettel was not far behind him in Free Practice 2. The Aussie ran strongly here in China last year, whilst Vettel has already showed in his short career that he can get good results at the Shanghai Circuit.

With a suspicion that the Red Bull will prove better over a single lap than in the race, I feel that there has to be a chance that the team will drop the fuel out of at least one of the cars and go for pole position. As I type Mark Webber can be backed at 40/1 and Sebastian Vettel at 20/1, both with SportingBet, to top the Q3 time sheet. I’m happy to Dutch the two and take my chance.

There are no tasty prices being offered yet for the pair just to make Q3, but I’ll be keeping my eye on Oddschecker in the run up to the session. There is definitely potential for a banker saver bet there.