Spain 2014 (Round 5) - F1 Prediction League

Welcome to the Spanish GP - round 5 of the 2014 F1 season!  After a three week break, teams will be hoping their substantial upgrade packages work which will see them climb the grid.

This is a pivotal weekend in many respects both in F1 and the prediction league. If Mercedes retain their dominance the Constructors Championship looks increasingly out of the reach for Red Bull and Ferrari, who both desperately need to start closing the gap.  Not to mention that a lead of 100 points in the Constructors Championship means Mercedes will be banned as a Constructors option, meaning that 'Soft Drinks' company may get a few more picks.

This weekend looks like the first all-dry weekend all season and will be fascinating. The million dollar question is whether any team can make a significant step forward - Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, Force India or Lotus? They're all in the hunt if they can find a good set-up for the weekend.

Reflecting the likelihood of Mercedes dominance a more complicated random has again been devised to keep things interesting.  

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

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Random

Thanks to Nat for his help in creating this random and taking part in the random discussion.
  
This time the random involves three 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 random 2 points prediction.

Random 1: The Flying Spaniard
How many places will Alonso gain/lose on the opening lap compared to his starting position?

You guess the number, and then are awarded points based on how close you are e.g.
Spot on: 5 points
1 away: 4 points
2 away: 3 points
3 away: 2 points
4 away: 1 point
5 or more away: 0 points

Random 2: The Mighty Update Package
Predict whether a team will score more, the same or less points than that team's average over the four races so far. You must then predict the amount of points they will score with both cars in Spain.

The rounded average points so far over the four races are:

Mercedes 39 points

Red Bull 14 points

Force India 14 points

Ferrari 13 points

McLaren 11 points

Williams 9 points

Toro Rosso 2 points

Lotus 0 points

Sauber 0 points 

A point will be scored for making the right more/same/less option pick. An additional point will be scored if your point prediction is within two points of the correct pick.

There are only two rules:

• You have to predict a points score which reflects the more, same or less points pick you originally made. For example you cannot pick Mercedes higher and pick 37 points as 37 points is lower than their average. If you pick the same option e.g. Sauber, you have no option but to pick the point option listed above, in this case 0 points.
• You must pick a possible points score so 32, 34, 36, 38, 39, 41 and 42 are not options.

Random 3: Super Sector Select
For qualifying, pick one driver for each sector. The aim is to score the lowest overall time using the best sector from the picked drivers from Q1, Q2 or Q3. 

The only rules are that you cannot repeat a driver and you can only use one driver from each team. So you cannot pick: Hamilton, Hamilton, Alonso or Rosberg, Vettel, Ricciardo as they respectively break the two rules above.

Points will be scored based on a scale of 0-10. The best player will score 10 points, the second best player will score 9 points etc. In the event of a tie, both players will score the same amount of points.

For example if position 1 scores 1:24.000, position 2 scores 1:24.000 and position 3 scores 1:24.192. The players who are in P1 and P2 will both score 10 points. P3 will score 8 points.

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Feel free to post picks in the following format:

Qualifying: 
Race: 
Constructors:
Random:
Flying Spaniard:
The Mighty Upgrade Package:
Mercedes - H/S/L X points

Red Bull - H/S/L X points

Force India - H/S/L X points

Ferrari - H/S/L X points

McLaren - H/S/L X points

Williams - H/S/L X points

Toro Rosso - H/S/L X points

Lotus - H/S/L X points

Sauber - H/S/L X points

Super Sector Select:

Sector 1:

Sector 2:

Sector 3:

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Last year Alonso won a race dominated by tyre wear - which was both his last win and Massa's last podium. Only Kimi was able to stay within half a minute. This year they're teammates.

A flashback to the prediction league last year shows the Sauber Constructors team (Kiszol and I) claiming a first and only 1-2 for a constructors team since the start. Sangan also featured on the podium. Interestingly last year's podium are now all separated by one point in the 2014 Drivers Championship.

I think I speak for everyone when I say the random category will be extremely decisive this week so good luck!

As always let me know if you have any questions about the above.