Formula 1 – Belgium GP – Pre-Race Write up (Running Total $1164)
Another great weekend for Formula 1 with a back to back weekend after Valencia and we’re at Spa this weekend for a more traditional race at one of the surviving old circuits. Spa is a long and high average speed track with some great sweeping corners and the drivers either love it or hate it.
The weather looks to be cold and rainy, it’s a misty cool track traditionally – the weather forecast seems to be rain over Friday and Saturday and then clearing Saturday which means a possible wet qualifying. If we look back over this year, Red Bull have enjoyed cooler conditions and have done well in the wet, whilst Brawn like the hotter temperatures, but Brawn have apparently fixed their cold tyre problems for the next races. This paints a fairly clear picture for us – but it is more complicated than that with the betting as we must include Lewis Hamilton and McLaren in the calculations for a winner as the KERS system will no doubt be useful, and Ferrari have been handy here in the past.
As always we will review the early practice sessions before locking in our bets, but at the moment our preferences are towards Mark Webber for the win at $4.8 (I’d prefer longer odds frankly) over someone like Vettel at $4 who is having engine problems and won’t be able to get the most out of his car. We will await the Brawn performance before looking too closely at Barrichello or Button who are at $14 and $11 respectively and could offer value.
More updates throughout the F1 weekend…
Formula 1 Update – Running Total $1164
A really great weekend for us where the form wasn’t all that clear. Barrichello really stormed the track just when he needed to, and even if McLaren hadn’t stuffed around with Hamilton’s tyres I think he still would’ve made it. Congrats to Rubens – and we end up +$394 for the weekend from one winning $50 bet – bringing up our tally since only the British GP to $1164 – hope you have made the most of it!
We do it all again in around 3 days time as the Formula 1 circus moves to Spa in Belgium – they’ve predicted rain for the weekend so who knows what will happen – but you’ll find tips and analysis here!
European F1 Race Update – LIVE Bet
With Barrichello looking set for the win we should lay Barrichello from our original great price at $9.8 – he’s into $1.13. Therefore it costs just $26 to offset our original investment of $50 so we’ll make sure we collect something from the weekend by laying off a collect of $200 if Barrichello doesn’t win. (Take the easy mone when you can, one mistake or one bit of bad luck might cost us the potential win of $440 – our potential collect is now $414 if he wins, $150 if he places second or worse!)
European F1 – Pre-Race update
Well, we were close with our bets but overall the thoughts we had on the race look to be playing out. Red Bull have fallen in a hole and Webber will be fighting to get a point this weekend rather than fighting for a win – how quickly things change! Our pick for the race win (but not qualifying) Lewis Hamilton stormed to the front, his teammate Kovalainen was behind by a slim margin. Our Qualy pick Button never really put things together on his lap and his Brawn GP teammate Barrichello drove a great lap to stick it up to third with fuel on board.
The Race
The race itself will be interesting with the post qualifying race fuel weights released showing Hamilton to pit around Lap 16, Kovalainen Lap 17, and Barrichello Lap 20. If the race goes to plan Barrichello will get the jump on the two ahead of him and hope to pull away. Hamilton needs to put on around .5s a lap to get away, and his teammate Kova can do a job by holding Barrichello up – but Kova is fighting for his race seat at McLaren and surely has no interest in holding up someone to let his teammate win.
Therefore – the money for Hamilton is too short at $1.57. If you’d taken the good word here and put on small wager on him at $4 you’d be able to lay that off and sit pretty. The more interesting possibilities are Kova ($11) and Barrichello ($9.8). With it all said, I prefer Barrichello at $9.8 on Betfair and I thoroughly expect you’ll be able to get far better odds on him as the chance for him to win gets better – he should get away from the start quite well being on the sticky side of the track and skip into at least second on the pit stops. Beyond that – who knows. Paying subscribers will get the live or in-play tips by SMS – expect the early chance to lay and leave a little bit riding on him if he comes in under around $4. $50 on at $9.8.
European GP – Pre-Qualifying Update
Just a little update on the showings so far. The hot temperatures look to have brought the Brawns right back into play. Barrichello was a lot happier with the car and Button was relieved to have a more successful showing on the track. The Red Bulls didn’t show a lot of pace as they ran their program of lots of laps and lots of data to work out their setup for Saturday Qualifying and the race on Sunday.
The bets we showed an interest in have become better odds, with Lewis Hamilton to win now at $4 and Webber/Hamilton (Qual/Win) now nicely out to $25. That’d be worth a bet – but I’m far more confident Brawn GP will attempt to stick their cars at the front of the grid and hope that the KERS cars can’t get by. This is more likely to be an off weekend for Red Bull where they consolidate for points, not the win.
As I’ve mentioned already, the Valencia track is suited to a flying KERS start and the long straight will pay dividends for McLaren. Button/Hamilton is at $24 – that’s worth an early small bet – we’ll look to lay it off where possible should it start to come in. The only spanner in the works might come from Fernando Alonso who might look to plonk his Renault F1 car on pole and then hope for a safety car or incident to win. Seems unlikely – and the $2.60 odds for ‘Any Other Combination’ for the Qual/Win double is rubbish odds for that possibility.
Betting isn’t easy here – there’s too many unknowns and the odds aren’t favourable enough at this stage to start having a lash on a straight winner. We’ll put $20 on the Button/Hamilton double (to win $460) – let’s take the smart money now and see if we can profit later! More updates after Qualifying – and see the Betfair banner below to take advantage of the odds available.
European Grand Prix – Formula One Returns!
We’ve had a four week summer break from the F1 – your correspondent needed to catch up on sleep too with the races stretching into the early monday mornings!
The wrap:
The four week break has had plenty of interesting happenings – poor old Felipe Massa is on the mend but won’t be back in a car this year we feel after seeing the damage done to him. Michael Schumacher was set to sensationally return to the fore as a 40 year old (non-virgin) but couldn’t recover from a nasty neck injury suffered on a motorbike back in February. They say landing directly on your head does tend to leave a mark. Evergreen Luca Badoer comes in to replace Massa. Amazingly, you can still bet on Schumacher not to win a race on Betfair at $1.04. A 4% investment return beats the banks at the moment!
Nelsin Piquet was booted from the Renault team, leaving in an acrimonious split with the team, bagging everyone left and right, including big Flavio (the man can pull a fine woman, I’ll concede that). Piquet was most upset that his teammate Alonso was given preferential service – but fair dinkum, Fernando has managed to win two world championships, while Piquet in his 18 races managed to spin 243 times with zero wins, zero poles, and now zero racing drives. Another newbie Roman Grosjean joins Jamie Alguersuari as another new comer to the sport.
The race and our bets:
It’s really hotted up on the racing circuit as the gap between the former front runners Brawn GP and the rest is now gone. Red Bull were ahead for a while too, but they look to have come back to the pack – while McLaren who didn’t think they’d even get a podium are now favourites to win at Valencia this weekend.
We really need to watch first practice to find out where things have gone over the weeks off. It will pay to examine the fortunes of the teams over the last running of the Valencia track. Last year Ferrari and McLaren were up the front, while Red Bull had their worst race of the season. While I don’t really see Ferrari back in front, McLaren will be the early pick and we’ll be watching them closely. Their KERS system will really help at Valencia including the inevitable charge of a +80 horsepower F1 car streaming past the others like they are standing still off the start link.
All eyes will be on the Brawn GP cars early on to see if they have gotten back their beast of a car they had in the early parts of the season. Red Bull will hope to be in the points but I can’t see them winning as they have not been able to get the most out of the car on the slow tracks like Monaco and Monza.
The best markets are available through Betfair and we will be looking to back and lay what we can find to be the best bets where we can – but early markets aren’t looking particularly flash. Given our dismay at the Red Bull offerings that have been written off by all reports for the win, it’s interesting to note they are favourites to win in the ‘Winning Car’ market. I can’t see it – but there’s not much of a market around so you can’t lay them at a decent price. Best bet early might be the $3.8 available for Lewis Hamilton winning (’Winning Car’ is safer but Kovaleinen won’t beat Lewis in a straight fight) but that’s pretty short.
I also suspect the KERS cars to not qualify first but to do well in the race – so there’s a chance to back say Webber/Hamilton for the Qual/Win double at $8 – but again I’d prefer better odds.
Updates after we see some action on track – don’t forget subscribers get the tips earlier (so they get the best odds!) and in more detail while the Managed Fund puts on the sports bets that we back ourselves!
Welcome to TopPunter!
Welcome – you’ve found a site where you’ll meet a team of punters dedicated to having a bet on sports and racing to win.
Here you’ll find a selection all of our tips, bets, previews and wrap-ups on sport that we’re betting on for free. We also offer a number of premium punting services dedicated to helping you make money.
By far the most popular and successful service we offer is the super Australian Horse Ratings offered on the 4 metropolitan Saturday races. We have used these ratings ourselves for years to win and we’ve found demand so popular that we’ve had to get online to share!
How Can You Get On Board?
You can subscribe free and get a full month of the Weekend Ratings, all the best bets, and to see exactly what we’re betting on – an essential guide for the Spring Carnival and the Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate and the Melbourne Cup!
We also offer a successful Managed Fund for punters who want to make sure they get the best odds by having us bet for you. There’s no hassle, and you’ll get all the bets we place sent to you via email or SMS.
If you would like to subscribe and receive one FREE month please email brad@toppunter.net or register using the link on the HOME page, and if you have any questions regarding the Website, Weekend Ratings, Subscriptions, Managed Fund or anything else please don’t hesitate to email us or find us on Twitter.
Yours Faithfully
The TopPunter Management Team
F1 Wrapup (Running Tally: $770)
A real corker of a race this weekend with plenty of action during the first stint. As expected the first corner caused plenty of dramas, but Lewis Hamilton was able to use his KERS off the start and streak away to win the Hungary GP. Our bets didn’t come through as Vettel very unluckily copped a knock to the front left that finished his race. Live subscribers got the message to lay off Webber while he was in second as the Red Bull pace wasn’t hot but the Betfair odds were well under our original bet at $4.9 giving us plenty of room to lay our bet off. No official bet changes though so we note down a loss for this weekend.
Overall, both the drivers championship and the constructors championships have come alive as McLaren and Ferrari are back in the game and Brawn GP have not performed at all, unable to match their earlier performances. Red Bull has a car that is good on all circuits and so will continue to reel the championship leaders back in should they continue to underperform.
McLaren and Ferrari are so far out of the points that they won’t have an effect on the championship from this point on – if you want easy money lay them off (most betting banks will not be anywhere near the size required to take advantage). The real issue is how the Brawn GP car will compare to the Red Bull in the upcoming races.
For the punters, looks like the easy money has dried up that we have enjoyed so successfully earlier on in the season now that every car and his dog has a chance of winning. The summer break starts now which lasts four weeks and interestingly enough all F1 teams have agreed to shut up shop for two weeks so we won’t see too many changes as we go to Valencia for the next F1 race which is a first for the street circuit track.
F1 – Race Update (Running Total (+$870)
A chaotic qualifying this weekend. Thoughts are with Felipe Massa after a particularly nasty crash and incident where a 800gm spring fell off a Brawn car and whacked him in the head – not good at 300k’s an hour – he’s a tough Brazilian nut and good to hear he is recovering.
Qualifying form went out the window with the collapse of live timing and yellow flags being waves meaning lots of drivers couldn’t get a lap together. As noted in the update, we were wise to lay off our bets on Button as the weather did not suit the car and the chaos on track meant he couldn’t get a lap together and ended up 8th. There was a lot of potential to lay him further so that you’d make money by backing him not to get on pole however he wasn’t short enough to make that worthwhile for most betting banks.
Our other bet on Barrichello came in to around $12 which you could have used to lay him off – however – we were riding it out with the premium subscribers until his car failed in Q2 so we’ll cop that one.
Loss for Qualifying $-30.
The Race
With Fernando Alonso on pole, the Red Bull cars occupying 2nd and 3rd, and Lewis Hamilton and the McLaren KERS car on 4th we can expect the first corner and race beyond to be exciting. As we’ve noted, overtaking is next to impossible. Renault have short fueled Alonso to give him the best chance of getting maximum points. A win for Alonso looks unlikely – you can currently lay him at $7.4 which is an expensive option – to win $10 you need to risk $64. Alonso has himself ruled out a win so I’d suggest loading up on that if your betting bank can handle it – but we won’t count it as an official bet.
The win will be between Hamilton, Vettel and Webber. If Hamilton can grab the lead (as expected) on the first lap he will look to get away down the road, but it’s much more likely that the Red Bulls will get stuck behind him and will overtake him during the pit stops, as Hamilton is a few kg’s of fuel lighter and not quick enough to get away. Therefore it comes down to Vettel and Webber. Vettel had been outdone by his teammate Webber all weekend until the final qualifying where Webber made a small mistake in his flying lap and was relegated behind Vettel despite being 3kg’s of fuel lighter.
Bets
Difficult to bet here – a Red Bull victory is the most likely event, but the market for a Red Bull car to win is only $1.56! That’s just too short. Vettel is at $2.52 is an ok price, but Webber at $4.9 is nice odds. $50 on Vettel at $2.52 and $30 on Webber at $4.9. Premium subscribers will get text messages during the race if there is anything to take advantage of but we won’t count any live bets to the overall tally.
Formula 1 – Update before Qualifying – Weather report! (Running Total (+$900))
The weather has taken a turn overnight at Hungary and it’s a lot colder than what was expected for the race and with a few spots of rain around. Practice 3 is about to start and we’ll look at the weather before qualifying for actually changing our bets – but be warned – if it’s colder than Brawn expected they don’t have much chance or being on pole. Therefore our bets on Button and Barrichello will be in strife.
Consider laying off the bets where you can – Barrichello has gone out further than our original bet due to people making more of practice than they should, but Button has come in a little to $4.2 to lay and if you take that right now the following comes out:
$100 on him to win at $4.7 = $370 profit, use that profit to lay him at a liability of $320 to get back your $100 and still win $50 if he manages to get up. As always punters it’s up to you but that will be our tactic if the weather stays cool and rainy – the game will have really turned back towards Red Bull for this one!
« Previous Page — Next Page »