Monaco 2014 Results and Championship Standings (6/19)

First off, apologies for the delay in posting the results - I always aim to get the results out fairly quickly which I obviously didn't do this time.

All I can say is wow! Monaco qualifying was one of the most explosive issues we've seen in a long time. Many are convinced that Rosberg would never 'cheat' and that his error was genuine. Others have pointed out the odd steering inputs and the context of the situation as proof of Rosberg's guilt.

Regardless of how, it was important for Rosberg to break Hamilton's momentum here and he certainly did. Had he lost pole and almost certainly the race, he'd be running into the Canada, Austria, Britain leg with his teammate lining up to win eight in a row. Now Nico has seized back the championship lead and got inside his teammates head. 

The Monaco weekend always creates surprises - and this seemed to confuse most of the title contenders with the top three all not scoring points and having consecutive point streaks of 9 (current longest streak), 8 and 7 races ended.

Others throughout the field read the situation far better with MetalGatherer and Juan Medina excelling in particular. Well done to both especially as this is Juan Medina's third race. Congratulations. Another victory takes MetalGatherer's win count to 3 from 21 (third in the all-time list).

After De Montezemolo's insistence that Ferrari bring their season back on track, Joe took a podium for the Prancing Horse, capturing the fourth of his prediction league career. One thing is clear that Ferrari are still not happy with seventh in the Constructors Championship (see below).

The top four in the championship still remain exceedingly close although a new leader has emerged! Plus the top four is now a top five/six.


Championship Standings

Constructors Championship

Read on for more detail.

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!

Spain (Round 5) - Results and Championship Standings

I'm going to be unavailable for the next week or so; for the time being I want to post the results but won't be writing my usual write up until I can.

Congratulations to anyone who did well (Nat and Michael in particular) and apologies for the lack up of write-up. Hopefully everyone is happy with the format. Let me know if you have any questions - the random was quite complicated and multi-layered.

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.

China 2014 Results and Championship Standings (4/19)

After the excitement of the Bahrain race, this race wasn't quite as fun. Still there were some incredible performances (Alonso and Ricciardo) and some tension between Vettel and the Red Bull team which helped to create interest. 

Hamilton's third win in a row solidifies his position as the championship favourite although Rosberg still holds the points advantage. Spain will be fairly pivotal - Rosberg was very strong there last year comparatively so he'll hope that he can produce a strong performance like in Bahrain but this time take a second win of the season.

In the prediction league Ross Brawn has accepted a place at Marussia as Team Principal. He made a very vocal and bullish speech on race day, claiming the minimum target for the team this season was 3rd in the Constructors Championship. Marussia will have an uphill battle given their lack of preparation for the season however some interesting innovations seem to have helped. Adrian Newey was caught breaking into the teams garage with his notebook after the race causing Marussia to sue Red Bull - another incident in a long list of court cases Red Bull have lined up. 

McLaren to take Formula 1 rival Red Bull to court over Dan Fallows

Red Bull made to pay for Formula 1 appeal hearing costs

Ross Brawn publically stated Marussia's number one driver Nat was an "exciting talent - back stronger than ever after a bout of rallying" - and that he planned to give him full support in his quest for points. He did temper expectations in general and warned against expecting big things from Scott, stating he was "lucky and overrated".

Despite initial positively the Marussia team is lacking funds with a 1 Euro budget for salaries each race, all of which has been given to Nat. One leading engineer in the team has emphasised that both drivers could bag up to 5 extra Euros should they win though so there was reason for optimism!

Big congratulations to Dragan (on his record equalling 8th podium - equal with current championship leader Kiszol) and Rose31 on their first podium after only 4 races in the prediction league. Dragan's performance has lifted Lotus even further ahead securing a 27 point lead going into the European season. 

At the top of the Drivers Championship there is a huge clustering between four players (with Dragan close behind). With the increased competitiveness of the Red Bulls and potential bans for Mercedes and their drivers things could get very interesting (I'll keep you informed).

On to the results and the standings...

Championship Standings

Constructors Championship

Read on for more detail.

China 2014 (Round 4) - F1 Prediction League

Two weeks after an incredible Bahrain race and we're arriving into China for round 4 of the F1 prediction league 2014!

Big changes at the top with Stefano Domenicali leaving Ferrari and Bob Bell leaving Mercedes. Meanwhile McLaren are in the background poaching staff everywhere. Did someone mention a possible Ross Brawn Ferrari return too?

Who would have thought that Ferrari dominated China just a year ago. The change in Pirelli tyres and the RB resurgence put an end to that and Ferrari have really struggled since.

China is the last round before substantial upgrades/changes will be brought to Europe. This could be Mercedes' last race with a clear advantage with the pursuing group looking to close that gap. I however feel Mercedes are almost uncatchable this year. Unless a team can gain 1-2 seconds over a very short space of time, this championship looks like it's heading to the Brackley based team.

As always here is a re-cap from the standings:
 

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Random

Thanks to Kiszol, Michael and Sangan for their help in creating this random and taking part in the random discussion.
  
Random contains five distinct questions. The emphasis is mainly on risk vs. rewards. The choice of what to pick is entirely you're own but if you fail and pick an incorrect answer you'll obviously come away with 0 points.

The winner of the random will be the player who scores the most points overall. Tie-breaks will be decided on the highest lowest round (which scored points) and continue up until a winner is decided. The second tie-break is decided on posting time (the earlier the better).

Just to illustrate the above. If one player scores 1, 2, 3, 5, 0 and another scores 2, 3, 3, 2, 1 then the second player wins. The 0 is discounted from the analysis, then we look at the highest lowest round 1 v 1, tie. Move on, 2 v 2. Tie, move on. 3 v 2. Player 2 wins. This is to stop players from picking too conservatively and to remove the element of perhaps one extremely lucky pick giving a complete edge to a player (e.g. Chilton being third after a safety car).
 

Q1: Name a driver who will finish at least one lap in the top 3 positions in the race.
A:
Hamilton / Rosberg - 1 point
Vettel - 2 points
Ricciardo / Alonso - 3 points
Hulkenberg / Raikkonen / Button / Perez / Bottas / Massa - 4 points
Magnussen - 5 points

Vergne / Kvyat - 6 points
Sutil / Gutierrez / Maldonado / Grosjean - 7 points
Chilton / Bianchi / Ericsson / Kobayashi - 10 points

Q2: Name a team which qualifies at least one car in the top eight positions (an extra bonus point will be given if both drivers qualify top eight, two extra bonus points if both drivers qualify top six (excluding Mercedes)).
A:
Mercedes: 1 point
Red Bull: 2 points
Force India/Ferrari/Williams: 3 points
McLaren: 4 points
Toro Rosso: 6 points
Sauber/Lotus: 7 points
Caterham/Marussia: 10 points

Q3: Which driver will qualify the most positions in front of his own teammate? (Penalties do not count - result based on provisional grid before penalties. A team with a disqualified driver counts as 0 points regardless of which driver is disqualified. Tie-breaks decided by highest position).
Best answer - 5 points
2nd, 3rd - 4 points
4th, 5th - 3 points
6th, 7th, 8th - 2 points
9th, 10th, 11th - 1 point
Driver picked out-qualified - 0 points

Q4: Pick one Driver A (e.g. Sutil) to beat their Driver B (e.g. Maldonado) in the race.  A retirement in your pairing results in 0 points being scored. I've used a random generator to generate 12 random options - I've assigned points to each of these options. A bonus point goes to the result which has the greatest margin of victory/lowest margin of defeat (based on time, not position).

Sutil - Maldonado 1 point
Bottas - Massa 1 point
Massa - Räikkönen 2 points
Button - Vettel 3 points
Magnussen - Vettel 4 points
Vergne - Bottas 4 points
Vergne - Button 5 points
Kvyat - Ricciardo 5 points
Grosjean - Hulkenberg 6 points
Bottas - Hamilton 7 points
Bianchi - Button 8 points
Ericsson - Ricciardo 8 points

Q5: Predict the finishing position of Kimi Räikkönen in the race.

Correct: 4 points
One away: 3 points
Two away: 2 points
Within three: 1 point
Outside: 0 points
Kimi retires/isn't classified: 0 points

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Feel free to post picks in the following format:

Qualifying: 
Race: 
Constructors:
Random:
Q1 -
Q2 -
Q3 -
Q4 -
Q5 -

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Alonso will be hoping that lightning strikes again. So will a charger by the name of ediglo, hoping to repeat the form which took him to an unprecedented debut win. I for one will be supporting this (this has nothing to do with us being teammates... Vamos Williams!... I mean may the best team win).

Good luck everyone!

Bahrain 2014 Results and Championship Standings (3/19)

Wow! What a race. So many different battles all throughout the field. Namely the Mercedes' of Rosberg and Hamilton who tussled back and forth - changing positions almost double digits number of times. I also enjoyed the battles of the Williams, Force India and Red Bull drivers, especially a very talented four time world champion meeting his match on the day. Very rare to see the Red Bull team asking Vettel to obey team orders (even temporarily).

"Daniel is faster than you. Do not hold him up"
- Guillaume 'Rocky' Rocquelin, Vettel's engineer

Overall that was one of the most entertaining races in a while so hopefully we can have more of those this year. Mercedes should really be congratulated on letting their drivers fight eachother to the bitter end. However despite all of the excitment, perhaps we could do without a certain driver flipping other cars over though.

Onto the prediction league, its been a long journey to that first win but heartily congratulations to Michael (the winner of the 'Mark Webber' bad luck award last year, soon to be renamed the 'Daniel Ricciardo award' if Malaysia was anything to go by). I have no doubt in my mind that Michael is able to launch a full scale championship assault after finishing in the top 5 last year.

MetalGatherer also jumped on the podium for the second time in the last three races (three top four finishes). Sangan narrowly missed out on the podium, after claiming they were going to achieve a 19 podium streak however fantastic performances this year (three top four finishes as well) see Sangan level on points with Kiszol at the head of the table.

Finally well done to everyone else. I'm pretty confident that this was the highest scoring race of all-time, last year the field scored a maximum of 239 points at Korea however a massive 311 points was scored in the race. Part of this is due to the change in the random points, part of this due to a small increase in competitors. Regardless this was easily the highest average score in PL history. Fantastic.

On to the results and the standings...

Championship Standings

Constructors Championship

  

Read on for more detail.