Monaco 2014 (Round 6) - F1 Prediction League

F1 continues the momentum of the European season and heads into its most famous race weekend of the year, Monaco!

I'm excited - the thought of these torque-heavy monsters speeding through the streets of Monaco will create plenty of action - anything could happen! It's a big unknown but we could see a lot of crashes and perhaps a certain Red Bull close on the tails of the all-dominant Mercedes.

The Mercedes extended their lead in both pace terms and points in Spain. This now means, and I'll re-iterate later, that Mercedes are banned as a Constructors pick. They exceeded the 100 points gap needed and have also won five races in a row. This is not necessarily a permanent thing depending on if others close but I'll keep you updated.

Similarly with Hamilton showing the level of dominance in terms of getting results, he's already 33 points ahead in the qualifying championship (so only needs 17 points before he gets banned) plus he's won four in a row (five wins needed to be banned). A lights to flag victory for Hamilton this weekend could mean he's banned from both qualifying and race. Rosberg is very likely to be banned from the race too if he has over a 50 point gap to third place in the Drivers Championship.

As always here is a re-cap of the current standings:

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Random

Thanks to Michael and Sangan for their help in creating this random and taking part in the random discussion.
  
This time the random involves two separate elements.

As is often the case, the winner of the random will be the player who scores the most points overall. When players are equal on points ties will be decided on the closest overall time prediction in random 2. 

Random 1: The Unique Place Called Monaco

As Monaco represents such a different challenge to any other circuit for both driver and car, predict whether the three following drivers will beat their average practice (1, 2 and 3), qualifying and race positions.

Alonso - 4.5 (Practice), 6.5 (Qualifying), 5.5 (Race)
Bottas - 9.5, 7.5, 6.5
Kobayashi - 18.5, 18.5, 15.5

2 points will be scored for a correct answer. No points are scored if a driver retires in the race.

Random 2: Qualifying High Is What Matters

Order the following group of 4 from fastest to slowest in qualifying (this is based on qualifying position before penalties):

Group A

Button

Grosjean

Massa

Raikkonen

Group B

Kvyat

Magnussen

Maldonado

Perez

The tie-break category is the time difference between the fastest and slowest car in the  last session the whole group competed in e.g. if Perez gets knocked out in Q1 then this session would be used for Group B. If someone doesn't set a qualifying time then the next slowest driver will be used etc.

This prediction should be for both groups. 

3 points will be scored for a correct placing for each driver in both Group A and Group B. If your choice is 1 away from the actual result you'll score 2 points, 2 away 1 point etc.

Example:

Eric Boullier predicts - Button, Grosjean, Raikkonen, Massa and the actual order is Raikkonen, Grosjean, Massa, Button then EB scores: 1 for Raikkonen, 3 for Grosjean, 2 for Massa and 0 for Button.

Overall 18 points are available for random 1 and 24 points for random 2. Good luck!

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Feel free to post picks in the following format:

Qualifying: 
Race: 
Constructors: [Not Mercedes as they are banned]
Random:
Random 1
Alonso - H/L, H/L, H/L
Bottas - 
Kobayashi - 

Random 2
Group A - 1, 2, 3, 4
Group B - 1, 2, 3, 4

Time difference
A -
B -

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Last year qualifying decided the race - Rosberg pipped Hamilton and Vettel to pole and then controlled from there. A similar thing is likely to happen again given the importance of track position especially between teammates.

A flashback to the prediction league last year shows a Dragan (Lotus) win followed by both Ferrari drivers. Montezemolo has demanded a repeat from his drivers Joe and Rajaram to get their campaign kick-started.

Remember First Practice is Thursday, Not Friday. Picks are due before FP1 so hopefully everyone does remember. 

Good luck all!