F1 German Grand Prix 20th July

[rolf]

Weather forecast shows high probability of rain on Sunday and lesser chances for FP1+2 on Friday and FP3+quali on Saturday. This is a medium downforce circuit with a few straights but no high speed corners. Instead, slower corners such as the stadium section and long, heavy braking zones. Under dry conditions I would normally expect Ferrari to do well here because they are now very good on these types of circuits and are no longer vulberable to McLaren. However, throw in the mix of likely rain for Sunday and anything could happen. I will refrain from betting until tomorrow or Friday as the forecasts will be more accurate the closer we get.

[rolf]

Re: F1 German Grand Prix 20th July Most weather reports have a dry race on Sunday and more rain on Saturday. It's still too close to call at this moment and anyone's guess what the weather will be like. http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=Hockenheim http://weather.weatherbug.co.uk/Germany/Hockenheim-weather/local-forecast/7-day-forecast.html?zcode=z6286&lang_id=en-gb http://weather.msn.com/tenday.aspx?wealocations=wc:8206099&q=Hockenheim%2c+DEU+forecast:tenday http://www.accuweather.com/world-index-forecast.asp?partner=accuweather&locCode=EUR%7CDE%7CGM001%7CHOCKENHEIM%7C&u=1 http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/GMXX1608_c.html The concensus looks like Sunday will possibly be dry and Saturday will probably be intermittent showers (not unlike here in the UK at the moment). Will it affect the qualifying? That is difficult to tell right now. However, I will go out on a limb and think that Sunday will be dry. The last few races have shown some freak results due to weather and other conditions but Ferrari still look the best in race trim, setting the best times on the long runs in the dry. Even if they lose out in qualifying, they should still qualify within the top 4, if not the top 6. In the race, they have to be fancied. btw I just noticed that the smart money confirms this. On betfair the winning car odds for Ferrari are 1.78, greater than 50% chance which I believe is correct. One thing to note is that the safety car odds on betfair are currently around 2.0 for Yes vs 1.6 for No. If rain looks more likely on Sunday, it will be interesting to see how these odds change. The only value I can see at the moment is for the fastest lap. I normally don't think much of past form but if you look at Kimi in years gone by he is a master of extracting the fastest lap out of the car. Sure, he could use the Michelins better than the Bridgestones but he often goes for the fastest lap of the race for fun, even on the last lap. Betfair has him at the best price of 2.22 for the fastest lap. Personally I think the chances of him getting it are way over 50% so see this as value. £5 on Kimi for fastest lap. Also, looking at the overall winner, Stan James and Bet365 have Kimi and Lewis on just shy or equal to 3. They also have Massa close behind. Whereas Betfair has Massa way out at 4.9 which I simply don't understand. Perhaps there are simply too many Lewis lovers on Betfair who are driving the price down. Yes, Massa has had tough times of late but to say that he only has a 20% chance of winning is ludicrous. If the weather is dry then he has an excellent chance of winning the race, and perhaps even in the wet too. I see this as too good value so another £5 on Massa for the win on Betfair. If the odds realign themselves I could even lay out before the race if I wanted to but I probably won't. FP1 starts tomorrow at 9am UK time. You can get the live stream here: http://www.itv-f1.com/VideoLive.aspx Don't forget the live timing here: :ok http://www.formula1.com/services/live_timing/live_timing_popup.html