With high temperatures predicted all weekend, I think we can get after Lewis Hamilton a little bit, despite him topping practice times yesterday afternoon.

Whilst there is little doubt that Lewis has dominated the last two races, I think the weather may have been a contributing factor in both successes. Obviously, the Ferrari pit-lane debacle at Silverstone essentially gifted Hamilton the British Grand Prix, but there was no denying Lewis a top-drawer performance at Hockenheim, in overcast conditions. In both races, I think the Ferrari may not have been shown to best effect, as I think their car needs high ambient and track temperatures, in order to get the best out of its tyres. They didn’t get those types of conditions in either of the last two races, but seem pretty sure to get them in Budapest, where the super-soft seems to be the tyre of choice for the weekend.

I think this works in Ferrari’s favour two ways. Firstly, it should allow them to extract the most from their own car (which I refuse to believe has suddenly dropped 4/10ths off the McLaren pace, and secondly, the McLaren (or Lewis’ driving of the car, at least) is very hard on its rear-tyres – particularly the soft ones which will be the dominant selection in the given conditions (‘soft’ and ‘supersoft’ the likely mix that will be adopted). Add in the nature of the Hungaroring’s tight, twisting circuit to the equation, and the McLaren’s could find themselves in a spot of trouble with tyre management during the race.

All that said, the McLaren is clearly very quick around here (traditionally been a good venue for the team) and there is obviously every chance that Hamilton can land the silver car on Pole today. That being the case, I’ve decided to play in the Quali/Win markets, and have backed the Lewis/Kimi double at an average of just over 11/1, with a small saver on Kimi/Kimi at around the same price. I’ve also laid Hamilton in the Win market at 1.95, and will look to go in again (harder) if he nails Pole this afternoon.

I’ve also laid Nick Heidfeld in the Points market at 1.68. Quick Nick has been complaining about tyre graining throughout practice, and does not appear comfortable with the handling of the car, despite finishing ahead of Kubica in second practice yesterday. Though the track confirmation and anticipated temperatures should help Nick overcome his problems with getting heat into the tyres for Qualifying, I get the feeling that the BMW has just been starting to fall back into the clutches of Toyota, Red Bull and the Renaults over the last two or three races, and I can see him starting from a disadvantageous position on Sunday. I’ve therefore also laid a small piece at 1.42 for him to miss out on the Top 10 Quali positions.

The markets are still forming in advance of Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix so I’ve been scouting around on oddschecker for some early value.

Safety Car

According to my records we have only seen one Safety Car in Hungary in the last ten years (in 2006). On that occasion morning drizzle at the track saw the drivers racing on wet tyres. With the long range forecast (weather.com) predicting a dry weekend, I am surprised to see SkyBet go 5/6 either way on the Safety Car being deployed.

Lap of First Retirement

A spate of first lap retirements at the start of this season has seen this market shift downwards. For Sunday’s race Bet365 are offering the following odds:

Lap of First Retirement
Under 1.5 Laps @ 4/7
Over 1.5 Laps @ 5/4

Following Hockenheim, the average number of laps completed before the first of retirement in 2008 is seven. In the last ten years at the Hungaroring only three races have seen a retirement in the first two laps and on average 8.5 laps have been completed before the first driver begins the walk back to the pits. Have Bet365 got their prices wrong?

Honda

Jenson Button recorded his first (and so far only) win around here in a Honda and generally this is a circuit where the Japanese team have gone well. Since 2004 the team (both in the final year of BAR and as the factory outfit) have managed to place six cars in the points from eight attempts.

The Budapest circuit requires the cars to be set up with a significant amount of downforce and it is in this trim that we have probably seen the Honda to its best effect this season – sixth in Monaco and seventh in Canada – discounting the wet race at Silverstone.

Extrabet make both Honda drivers 5/1 shots to record a points-paying finish, or of course 5/2 coupled.

It is back to the full complement of ten-year data for this weekend’s data sheet as we return to a familiar spot on the Formula 1 calendar.  Can you spot anything in here which would warrant taking a position?

Title: Hungarian Grand Prix Data Sheet | Format: PDF | Filesize: 83.3kb

Hamilton’s blinding pole-position lap yesterday should have been the sole headline-generator from the weekend so far; but plenty is being made too of the struggles that Kimi Raikkonen is again having with the Hockenheimring circuit. With the markets being comprehensively shaken up after qualifying, I think that there are opportunities for money to be made from the Finn.

The Race Win

This would seem optimistic given Hamilton’s dominance of testing, Friday practice and qualifying. However three questions have been churning around my mind since the end of yesterday’s session:

1. What are the respective fuel loads of the two main championship rivals?
2. How much more competitive over longer runs is the Ferrari over the McLaren?
3. When was the last time you could back Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari at 12/1?

Now the realist in me looks at the fact that Kimi is likely to spend the first few laps of the race in a Trulli-train and it would appear that the root-cause of his problems have been set-up related – which of course will not have been solved in the overnight parc-fermé conditions. However I think that there is the likelihood that Raikkonen will trade lower than 12/1 in-running and that is where I am looking to capitalise.

Kimi admitted after qualifying that the car felt better on lowfuel. By taking a punt that he is running longer than the cars in front of him (Trulli/Alonso almost certainly and hopefully some or all of others) a situation should arise where Kimi is yet to stop, much closer to the front than sixth and lapping at good speed (as the car set-up comes to him). That should cause enough confusion in the market to trade out for a profit.

The Fastest Lap

I flagged this one up earlier in the week, but after yesterday’s session the price has drifted out to 13/8 with some major bookies. Six on the bounce, two on the trot here in Mannheim - I still think that this is a cracking bet. Looking at the six fastest laps that he has set so far this season, they have all come right at the end of stints before a fuel stop or the race finished. Following on from the logic above, hopefully around Lap 20ish, Kimi will have a light car, a clear track and will be pushing towards his first stop. I am on.

First Retirement

Ok, following all the positivity above, here is a counter angle, a hedge and a speculative punt. PaddyPower and Bet365 both make Kimi Raikkonen the joint-least likely driver to retire from the race first at 33/1. Kimi has raced an F1 car around Hockenheim five times; he has retired from four of those races and been the first (or joint first) retirement on no less than three occasions. The Finn has had his application called in to question before when things are not going his way and with the possibility for Trulli-train frustration early on in the race (or the alternative of Kamikaze moves in the first few laps) 33/1 has to be worth a punt.

A slightly abridged data sheet this week, taking into account that the German GP isn’t always held at Hockenheim these days and that the track layout was significantly modified after 2001.  Early thoughts are that it is no surprise to see the majority of bookmakers odds-on about a Kimi fastest lap.

Title: German Grand Prix Data Sheet | Format: PDF | Filesize: 80.4kb

Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso lie next to each other, eighth and ninth in the championship respectively, with just two points separating them. Whilst the season has been the most consistent in memory for the Australian, it has been one of frustration for the Spaniard. Regardless it is likely that these two Renault-powered drivers will be fighting for the same bit of tarmac in today’s race.

My observations from qualifying would be that the two, whilst relatively closely matched, achieved their respective grid positions on different fuels loads. Once Mark Webber had placed third in Q2 and it was apparent that some of the principals were struggling, I believe that Red Bull identified the opportunity for a glory run. Knowing their driver’s strength over a single flying lap and conscious that this was a home race, I think that they dropped the fuel out. With provisional pole and only one driver left out on the track it very nearly worked.

Reading between the lines in his post-race comments, I think that Webber is realistic about the situation:

“Five percent of the job is done, but we’ve got a long race ahead of us tomorrow and we’re expecting to have some trouble keeping the Ferraris and McLarens behind us. But, we’re happy for now - this has been coming for a while, we’ve shown good consistency this year and the team’s done a good job.”

Fernando Alonso is no stranger this season to the glory run, with attempts in his two “home” races in Spain and Renault’s France. However following strong performances in the practice sessions and a solid sixth spot on the grid, I can’t see any reason to believe that this his position here is artificial:

“It was a difficult qualifying session with changeable track conditions, wind and rain, but we have done our maximum and so overall it’s a satisfying result for the team. If the race tomorrow takes place in normal conditions, we can hope to have a strong finish. If it rains, the race will be open and anything can happen. I must now prepare for that and will give my all once again to achieve a good result.”

Despite all of the above, the two are significantly different prices to achieve their goals in the race. This makes me want to oppose Webber with Alonso in some way. The most obvious would be a head-to-head match bet but the only place I have seen this priced up is with AdmiralBet (if I don’t drink enough milk…) where they make Webber a 1/2 shot and Alonso 6/4.

A better option would appear to be Bet365’s best of the rest market: a straight race for the flag with the exclusion of Ferrari, McLaren and BMW. This market is headed by Webber:

2.25 Mark Webber
3.75 Fernando Alonso
9.00 Sebastian Vettel
11.0 David Coulthard
11.0 Nelsinho Piquet

Whilst the potential for changeable conditions makes any bet a calculated risk, it is my believe that Fernando Alonso is the driver best-equipped in the field to handle the rain and I have backed him in the above market. His record at Silverstone is top class, with a first and two seconds in recent years. Webber on the other hand, who is clearly his main rival, has scored just one world championship point in his career here in Northamptonshire.

I am quite happy with 11/4. Thanks to Jo for scouting out this value.

I’m inclined to tread a little warily this weekend. My gut instinct is that McLaren will put Lewis Hamilton on a Pole strategy tomorrow in an effort get the boy wonder some good publicity, following what has been a difficult couple of weeks for him, both on and off the track.

The silver car also went well in testing last week and is generally well-suited to the high-speed nature of the circuit (notwithstanding that I still think the Ferrari will prove faster). Earlier in the week, Hamilton was available at 7/2 with Skybet, which was a reasonably generous price in my opinion. However, that disappeared quickly and current quotes of around 9/4 are just a bit on the skinny side for me.

That being the case, I’ve decided to drop my stakes and play instead in the Quali/Win market. I’ve backed Hamilton/Massa at up to 14.5 and Hamilton/Raikkonen at up to 8.2. I can’t say I’m overjoyed at these prices, but it gives me a low-risk interest in the Quali market.

As the above bets would indicate, I can’t see anything other than a Ferrari win this weekend. Initially, I had planned lumping on Raikkonen at around 6/4, but having a look back at last year’s times, I can’t write Felipe Massa out of the equation. In 2007, the Brazilian qualified in 4th - some quarter of a second behind pole-sitter Hamilton and tenth-and-a-half behind Raikkonen. However, Felipe carried 4 laps more fuel to the grid than Hamilton and 2 laps more than Raikkonen, which would have dropped him nicely on Pole after fuel-correction. That said, Kimi did make a mistake in the final corner and could probably have knocked a couple of 10ths off his time.

Massa was never at the races last year, as a technical glitch meant that he started from the pitlane, but he put in a storming drive to finish the race in 5th place. Raikkonen drove a brilliantly measured race and jumped Alonso after the 2nd stops (having fuelled a full 6 laps longer). In short, this is a track which suits both Ferrari drivers, hence the decision to dutch the pair with Hamilton. My head thinks that Raikkonen is the most likely winner, but at current Win odds, Felipe is the value at 7/2 over Kimi’s general 6/4 - though I won’t be playing in the market.

I will however be playing in the Fastest Lap market and have backed Kimi at up to 6/4. The Ice Man has landed the odds in this market in the last two races (Canada and France) and I see no reason why he can’t repeat the feat at Silverstone this weekend. He had the Fastest Lap in the race last year: a full quarter-second quicker than Massa’s best effort and 6/10ths and a second quicker than Alonso and Hamilton respectively. The Finn has been effusive this week about how much he enjoys the circuit and I think there’s an opportunity to get odds of 11/8 (Bet365) about a 4/6 chance, with plenty of 6/5 also generally available.

The one man I wanted ‘get’ this weekend was Nick Heidfeld, but my bottle has gone a little. I have laid him at 1.47 (Q3) and 1.72 (Points), but for much smaller stakes than I had originally planned.

Heidfeld has toiled in Qualification recently (and was unsighted in France during the race) and I figured there was an opportunity to take him on at the wrong price in both the above markets. Nick’s problem has been getting heat into the tyres during a Quali hot-lap, but I confess the weather forecast has put me on the back foot. Will overcast conditions exacerbate the problem, or will it level the playing field? Will the fast nature of the track exacerbate the problem, or will it reduce it? The simple fact is that I don’t know the answer to either question, hence my reticence to really take the German on.

Speaking of those of a Teutonic persuasion, Coral’s have a market on “Top German Driver” for the race on Sunday. Heidfeld is predictably an 8/11 chance, however the 6/1 quoted about Timo Glock is the price that I like. The Toyota is probably the most improved car on the grid at this point of the season and though it has been travelling a lot better in Trulli’s hands than Glock’s, there have been signs in the last couple of races that Timo is starting to up his game a little. In a five-runner race - and with a doubt about the jolly - I think that a small investment is required. The danger might come from Vettel (7/1) rather than Rosberg (11/4), as the youngest driver on the grid is sure to be buoyed by the fact that a seat has come available in the main Red Bull team for next year and his name is probably already on it. Williams appear to have fallen behind in the development race and I’d be surprised if Nico troubled the Points this weekend.

Click the pdf icon for a summary of the historic data for forthcoming British Grand Prix. No safety car last year was unusual for Silverstone, with five in the previous four years. Is the even money at Betfair for it to be seen again too big? And who will come out on top in the race, Ferrari or McLaren?

Title: British Grand Prix Data Sheet | Format: PDF | Filesize: 85.9kb

I thought that I had spotted some value in the winning margin market. Bet365 are offering Evens that the winning margin in Sunday’s race will be greater than six seconds. The average winning margin around Magny-Cours in the last ten years is 9.97 seconds. In those ten races the winning margin has been greater than six seconds no less than eight times. Have Bet365 made a gaffe?

Possibly not, as the one thing that I am afraid of is a Ferrari one-two. Since Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa became teammates they have shared six one-two finishes; none of which have seen a gap between them of more than six seconds.

The only way I would get involved in this market now is if for any reason I thought that a one-two was unlikely – namely if it was raining (which slightly increases the average winning margin too).

This got me looking at the other markets and my eye was drawn to SkyBet’s ‘Without the Big Six’ market. This is an outright market that excludes Raikkonen, Massa, Hamilton, Kovalainen, Kubica and Heidfeld. Following his impressive qualifying session Fernando Alonso is an odd-on shot. Is this right?

Magny-Cours is of course a home race for Renault. How much pressure were they under to mask their performance in qualifying with a light fuel load? The logical comparison would be Fernando Alonso’s home grand prix in Spain. There, a stellar qualifying performance saw him qualify second on the grid, but his true race pace had him pegged in sixth and falling into the clutches of Mark Webber (+1.7 seconds) before his untimely engine failure.

Lets look at the seven races so far this season and who has won the race without the big six:

2 x Win – Mark Webber
2 x Win – Jarno Trulli
1 x Win – David Coulthard
1 x Win – Fernando Alonso
1 x Win – Nico Rosberg

Interestingly Red Bull have been best-of-the-rest in three out of the last four races. In Turkey where Fernando Alonso took this accolade it was again Mark Webber who followed him home. We have already got David Coulthard covered with a points finish, but at 13/2 Mark Webber must be worth a shot with each-way terms available for those that are inclined.

Elsewhere an uneventful start to the Canadian GP has seen the average lap of the first retirement in 2008 jump up to 2.86 laps. Magny-Cours is a circuit where another clean start is possible: the average lap for the first retirement in the last ten years is a mammoth 10.5 laps. Bet365 are offering 6/4 that the first retirement will come during the second lap or later. This looks a value price to me, but beware that the last three races here at Magny-Cours have seen early retirements.

Nelson Piquet Jnr. has failed to complete five out of the seven races this season. He raced at Magny-Cours four times in GP2 and didn’t trouble the chequered-flag twice. Despite this he can be laid at odds-on to be classified in Sunday’s main feature. Well I certainly wouldn’t be backer.

Finally, there is some 4/5 available on Betfair that we won’t see the Safety Car deployed. With one outing here in the last ten years that would appear to be value, but with the FIA speculating that there could be thunderstorms during race-day (they predicted heavy rain for Saturday that failed to materialise) I am happy to pass it over. If it is still available at 2pm local time and there is blue sky above Nevers then I may reassess.

Whatever you fancy for tomorrow, good luck! If you spot any value anywhere or simply have a strong inclination for an outcome then please post in the comments.

Fresh from his podium finish in Canada, David Coulthard can be backed at 9/4 to steer his Red Bull to some more world championship points this weekend. Given his record at the circuit and Red Bull’s steady progress throughout this season, that might just be worth a punt.

Here is a summary of Coulthard’s performance at the Nevers circuit over the last ten years:

1998 – Qualified third, finished sixth and set the fastest lap.
1999 – Qualified fourth, retired with electrical failure and set the fastest lap.
2000 – Qualified second, won the race and set the fastest lap.
2001 – Qualified third, finished fourth and set the fastest lap.
2002 – Qualified sixth, finished third and set the fastest lap.
2003 – Qualified fifth and finished fifth.
2004 – Qualified third and finished sixth.
2005 – Qualified fifteen, finished tenth and set the sixth fastest lap.
2006 – Qualified ninth and finished ninth.
2007 – Qualified sixteen and finished thirteenth.

One win, one podium, four points finishes and five fastest laps: David clearly knows his way around here. My only concern is the lack of pace since his switch to Red Bull, but Dietrich Mateschitz’s team look a different proposition these days, currently lying fourth in the Constructors race. Team boss Christian Horner has revealed that they are targeting sixth position here and with Coulthard outpacing his team mate in both Friday practice sessions I am happy to take Extrabet’s 9/4.