Austria 2014 (Round 8) - F1 Prediction League

Austria promises to be an interesting race. For one, it's nice to return to an old track especially as there were a number of entertaining races at the old A1 ring. Unfortunately the event is still heavily linked with the Ferrari team order debacle in 2002. The debate was even more intense as Schumacher, with four wins out of five, was already in a commanding position in the championship. The decision was made by Todt which had wide ranging repercussions including a ban of team orders for eight years. Schumacher was so embarrassed by the situation that he gifted Barrichello a win at Indianapolis later in the year.

Despite this I'm looking forward to the race, safe in the knowledge that Mercedes won't give similar team orders. I feel like the Red Bull Ring will offer up another tense battle in the race for the championship. 

For those of who you never watched/don't remember, here is a video of the pole lap from the last race here in 2003. It's a fairly high speed circuit with plenty of aggressive corners, really showing off the power/noise and downforce performance of the early 2000 cars.

Due to my slowness in posting the results thread (apologies, things will get back to normal now that I've returned from holiday - see link for results thread), I should congratulate Keba, Dragan and Joe for their places on the podium.

Canada was a great race and Ricciardo's victory was very popular throughout the paddock. Red Bull were ultimately strong but were pushed hard by both Williams and the Force India cars. Hopefully we'll see similar battles this weekend throughout the field. Also will we see Rosberg win a third race in a row? 

Just to confirm Mercedes are still banned (Hamilton and Rosberg still eligible). However the increasing dominance of Mercedes and Red Bull has led me towards a unique idea for random.

Here is the current championship standings:

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Random

Thanks to Michael for his help in creating this random.
  
This time the random is similar to the usual qualifying, race and constructors picks. However for each you must make two picks (in addition to your usual picks). Given the dominance of the Mercedes and Red Bull packages Hamilton, Rosberg, Mercedes, Ricciardo, Vettel and Red Bull are all banned.

So you must choose two drivers for qualifying and two drivers for race. These can be repeated between category e.g. you could choose Hulkenberg in both qualifying and race. The driver you feel has the best chance of winning without Mercedes and Red Bull should be placed first as this will affect the amount of points you score. The same is true for the two constructors picks you make. See the scoring table below.

The player with the highest overall point score will win the random. 

Tie-break

Of the four drivers who have raced at the Spielberg track in F1 - Raikkonen, Button, Alonso and Massa - which driver will gain the most positions from their starting position? How many places? If a tie still exists after this, time of posting will be the decider. 

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Feel free to post picks in the following format:

Qualifying: 
Race: 
Constructors: [Not Mercedes as they are banned]
Random:
Qualifying
Driver 1 -
Driver 2 -
Race
Driver 1 -
Driver 2 -
Constructors
Team 1 -
Team 2 -
Driver to gain most places and quantity: Raikkonen/Button/Alonso/Massa

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Last time the race was held in Austria Ferrari and McLaren were both in the running for the World Championship (along with Williams). F1 has changed significantly since then with the emergence of Red Bull and the Mercedes team (obviously both were in F1 under different names, Jaguar and BAR respectively). 

Both Ferrari and McLaren have stated their commitment to bringing new parts to the car in Austria. Will this be enough to see them challenge for an unlikely podium?

As always picks are due before Free Practice 1 (Friday 20th June 09:00 GMT). See you soon!

Canada 2014 Results and Championship Standings (7/19)

Thanks for everyone's patience. I've been away so haven't been able to give the prediction league the full attention it deserves - things will be back on track from now on. However I'll keep this one short so I can get the Austria thread up and running!

Suffice to say, well done to Daniel Ricciardo! He had some luck along the way but maximised his performance during the race. Vettel's not used to this situation but fair play that he genuinely seemed happy for his teammate.

In the prediction league it's really heating up at the top. We have another new leader (4 different championship leaders in as many races). The excellent Lotus constructors team of Sangan and Dragan continue to perform well.

Big congratulations to Keba who scored their first win so far. This is an excellent reward for impressive consistency (13 points scores out of 14 races). Dragan and Joe also finished on the podium, their ninth and fifth podiums respectively.

Canada 2014 (Round 7) - F1 Prediction League

Welcome to Canada - one of the strongholds of Lewis Hamilton. The Brit is odds on favourite to take the pole and the victory here so Rosberg must aim to spring a surprise as a victory in Canada will be a major blow to Hamilton's championship credentials.

There promises to be a lot of excitement throughout the field as well as a different looking grid. Canada is a very different circuit to Spain or Monaco so expect to see a different pecking order to either of these races.

Mercedes are obviously still banned for Constructors but any other team is an option. I would love to make this a longer post but I'm heading abroad for a week in a couple of hours, expect the results thread on Tuesday/Wednesday. After this everything will get back to normal!

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

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Random

Thanks to Michael, Nat and Joe for their help in creating this random.
  
This time the random involves a number of random questions:

How many cars will finish on the same lap as the race winner?
Correct – 3 points
1-3 away – 2 points
4-6 away – 1 point

Will both Force India drivers score points? Yes/No (2 points for correct answer)

Which driver will beat their teammate in the most sessions throughout the weekend?* (Raikkonen/Chilton/Maldonado/Ericsson) (3 points for best guess, 2 points for 2nd etc.)

Which driver will beat their teammate in the most sessions throughout the weekend?*
(Ricciardo/Bottas/Kvyat/Rosberg) (3 points for best guess, 2 points for 2nd etc.)

Will there be a safety car? Yes/No (2 points for correct answer)

Pole qualifying margin over/under 0.2 seconds? Over/Under (2 points for correct answer)

Winning margin over/under 7 seconds? Over/Under (2 points for correct answer)

The tie-break question is what will be the time difference between the fastest Mercedes driver and the fastest non-Mercedes driver in qualifying?

Good luck!

* Note: there are six opportunities to score points - practice 1, practice 2, practice 3, qualifying, race finish and fastest lap. Points will be scored for qualifying, race and fastest lap if a teammate DNS, DNF, DNQ or DSQ however this is not true for practice e.g. if the selected driver's teammate sets no laps then a point is not scored.

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Feel free to post picks in the following format:

Qualifying: 
Race: 
Constructors: [Not Mercedes as they are banned]
Random:
Cars on same lap as race winner - 0-21
FI drivers both in points - Yes/No
Teammate A - Raikkonen/Chilton/Maldonado/Ericsson
Teammate B - Ricciardo/Bottas/Kvyat/Rosberg
Safety Car - Yes/No
Pole Margin - Over/Under 0.2 seconds
Race Margin - Over/Under 7 seconds
Tie-break - X seconds

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Last year Vettel swept home to take an easy victory, at that point his third of the season. Alonso charged through the field to finish second while Hamilton had to settle for third - although 54 seconds up the road from his teammate. Unfortunately after this race Vettel also went on to capture 10 of the next 12 race victories.

A flashback to the prediction league last year shows a MetalGatherer win (they'd dearly like to repeat this to make it consecutive wins, both in 2014 and at the Canada venue). Kim and Wander were also on the podium last year.

Good luck all!

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.