2018 Singapore Grand Prix

[BillyHills]

Singapore GP

Round 15 of the F1 Championship moves to Singapore and the dramatic Marina Bay Circuit. Last time out we saw Lewis Hamilton extend his lead in the Championship to 30pts and is now a best priced 8/15 with Hills to win another title. Sebastian Vettel is 13/8 with Corals and if he is to win he needs to start closing the gap pretty soon!

The Marina Bay Circuit always produces some kind of drama and is 100% in Safety Car appearances since 2008. You wont get rich betting that we have another one as its a 1/9 shot generally.
Last year we lost Vettel, Verstappen and Raikkonen on the first lap which let Hamilton in from 5th on the grid. Normally you need to be on the front row around here as its pretty difficult to overtake.

Mercedes have struggled around here overall, their victories have come when the car has been head and shoulders quicker than anyone else. That is not the case now as both Ferrari and Red Bull look to have a stronger package this time round.

Early betting suggests Vettel may be one this week but hasn't he been in this position in the last two races and failed to take advantage?
I just dont trust Vettel when he's under pressure these days and i'm more inclined to follow Red Bull if they show enough during practice. 
Ricciardo has been taking grid penalties like they have gone out of fashion so as to be ready for this race and we know that Verstappen loves to go racing around here. Red Bull are 2/1 to win the race at the moment, its 4/1 Verstappen and 5/1 Ricciardo individually so the 2/1 is just the best way to go.

Obviously we are going to have incidents and the retirements average is just over 5 during the last 10 years, one of the highest of the year. The prices are very tight with under 15.5  a 4/6 shot, i'll see nearer the time but I might gamble on the overs for some value.

Stats

 

[BillyHills]

Bet365 prices

[real55555]

Hi Billy, thanks for the informative write up.  

Never discount rain in the tropical region, and based on weather forecast, rain is expected on sunday few hours before the start of the race, so it can be a start on a damp track. Having said that, weather forecast in this region is rarely accurate. 

These are the kind of races which I like the most for live betting. So the strategy will always to back the second placed or third placed car should there be favourable odds (3.00 and above)during in-race betting depending on the pit stop situation and gap.  Anything can happen because of safety car. Not a lot of run off area, no room for error, and no chance for retrieval of debris means safety car is almost a certainty, and this means no leading driver is guaranteed the win. Having said that, this track is notoriously difficult to overtake, but who can rule out the Red Bull duos who have nothing to lose, as well as Vettel I'd dare to say if Hamilton is in front of him. He has to start taking risks to close the 30 pt gap.

I agree with you the red bull looks good value to snatch the win this weekend, but the favourite is still Vettel. But like you said, he has not capitalise on winning the past 2 races despite being in the front row as well as having the fastest car at the moment. 

 

 

[BillyHills]

Hope you are right with the weather, the latter part of the Singapore GP can be a bit boring when all of the cars have settled down and then overtaking is problematic. Back markers can also add to the trouble of course.

I agree with your strategy and often it is worth looking for something of value against the guy in front, especially on circuits such as this. I dont bet in running but I can see how it could work.

I was thinking about the Safety Car percentage, it does look a certainty at 1/9 but that is the same price for Vettel to finish in the points? Vettel has to safely complete 61 laps, avoid trouble early on and hope the car stays reliable. With a Safety Car we have 20 drivers on our side and a mistake by any of then could easily lead to a stoppage. Its interesting when you think about it.

Cheers mate

[real55555]

Billy, if you enjoy watching F1, you should seriously look at in-running for f1. It is the exact dream of bettors if you know how the sport works in terms of the value the markets offer. A lot of my friends like the winnings but they are not interested in f1 so they cannot sit in front of the tv for 1.5 - 2 hours and they cannot understand pit window, undercut and overcut strategy, how backmarkers affect the pit window and strategy, how teammates are utilized (e.g. bottas and kimi ) etc. When you put all this into the equation that is when you find value during pit windows. This year has been the better year for in-running because ferrari and mercedes are so evenly matched which means more possibility of the second placed car gaining the lead. 

 

With regards to your comment about the safety car, one market that I am interested would be drivers head to head market. I'll probably go for the underdog for markets such as stroll vs sirotkin, hulkenberg vs sainz, grosjean vs magnussen, drivers who are on the same level with each other but it all comes down to form and luck. A racing incident has the same chance of wiping out the favourite as well as the underdog, so the value definitely lies in the underdog in such accident packed circuit. 

[BillyHills]

Well against all odds Lewis Hamilton produces the lap of the year to snatch pole and put a totally different light on the race. Hamilton is now the 5/6 favourite with bet365.
Its virtually a 3-car race with Vettel and Verstappen in opposition and 25/1 bar. I'm still not convinced Mercedes is the car to be on around here so don't see any value in Hamilton. My first gut feeling was for Red Bull as discussed before so I must row in with Max, he's generally 100/30 and 3/1 in places so the value is to back Red Bull at 3/1 (from 2/1) and we get a token free bet on Ricciardo.

As far as the classified drivers market is concerned i'm going to go with the value and back the overs at 11/10 with bet365. I think if we avoid a pile up on the first lap then we are in with a good chance. The 90% cut off for bets this week is 55 laps so we avoid any of those teams who retire late on to save engines.

My sporting bet this week is going to be on Lance Stroll NOT to finish the race at 2/1 with bet365. He doesn't fare well on street like circuits having retired in Canada, finished last in Monte Carlo and miles behind in Australia. he did well last time out at Monza but that is a quick short lap, this ie very technical compared. The Williams team have been struggling all week and while he could just 'tootle' round at the back of the pack I think he may get a bit ambitious and he will either hit the wall, another car or simply give up late on.

Red Bull 3/1 bet365
Over 15.5 11/10 bet365
Stroll not to finish 21/ bet365

 

[real55555]

I love your view on Stroll. Stroll does not look comfortable in tight and twisty track, especially street circuits like Singapore and Monaco. In fact I don't rate the two Williams driver in this race. Sirotkin was saying after the qualifying that he is trying to survive in the Williams during qualifying on this track. The other driver I'd see not finishing is Vandoorne, who has been hitting the walls quite regularly in this race.

On race winner, I think the Red Bulls will be a strong contender in this race. We know they are good in circuits with a lot of corners, and without a long straight that exposes their weakness of power deficiency to the Mercs and Ferraris. The Red Bulls have also showed very strong long run pace in FP2. Max has nothing to lose, he will definitely go for it in the first corner if he gets a sniff, while Lewis will likely be wary of collision and back off. He can afford to finish 2nd or 3rd with his margin over Vettel in the championship. So I think the Red Bulls are in for a strong race if their engine problem doesn't strike them again.

[real55555]

An uneventful race, with very few overtaking options and only the Grosjean and Perez incidents provided the highlight point. In running betting doesn't yield any winning outcomes as Hamilton basically led from the start till the end but things could've been interesting had Vettel not held up behind Perez, or the tyres went down the hill (as experts said it'll be tight on a one stopper for drivers starting on the hypers). Have got a few bets on Vettel at the start after he pitted for the undercut strategy as well as a few bets on Daniel as he ran very long in his first stint, so anytime after he pitted if there is a safety car and if any of the front runners have to pit again due to tyre issues, he'd be well placed to steal the win as he has made his stop. Got Daniel at x41 and x51 at one time. 

Maybe we can look into races where overtaking on track is extremely difficult, and a one stop strategy is on the borderline in terms of tyre degradation (so teams have to nurse their tyres throughout the race, resulting in poor lap times), then we can look at the fastest lap market for mid-tier teams who started outside the top 10 (normally they'd start on harder tyres so they can run longer as starting on the softer compounds would not help a lot in overtaking due to track characteristics, and switch to the softer compounds in the second stint to aid their overtaking over cars who are on older and harder tyres). I've bet on Ricciardo, Alonso and Magnussen for the fastest lap and very lucky to have Magnussen as the winner at x101.

Reason being if Ric stays 6th, most likely he will have a very big gap to the 7th placed car for him to have a free pitstop to the ultras or hypers and hope for a safety car or just hope someone's tyres to drop off. 

For Alonso, we've seen if he has a bad race, he just doesn't care anymore, he will just switch to softer tyres and try to get the fastest lap.

For Magnussen, the only thing is because the Haas is a top10 car in the field, and starting last means he is most likely to start on the softs before switching to hypers or ultras. But if I'm not mistaken he put on new sets of hypers in the last few laps since he was going to finish last anyway. 

Nevertheless, I am surprised as to how much the front runners are nursing their tyres to the extend the Mclaren and Haas' fastest lap is a sizeable margin to the fastest laps of the top 3 teams.