FORMULA 1 THREAD 2014

Japanese Grand Prix

Not really a big writeup required except for the weather.  Rain is very possible, and everyone thinks that rain will throw the race into craziness...which it could...but not up front.  Mercedes are better in wet conditions than every other car and it's not close.  So rain actually helps them.

Few plays to get us started...Going to make sure I don't bet on the same guy twice in different bets.  Bottas and his flat tyre with 4 turns left last race took me from my best race ever to barely profitable.  Not going to get burned by that again.

Massa -190 top 6
Alonso -145 over Vettel
Button -250 top 10

Also going to put a little bit on Rosberg to win +105.  I think his car is just a little bit better than Hamilton's, and he's going to be extra motivated to get a win after last races debacle.  I'll wait closer to the start of the race to see if anything else jumps out.

Crazy rumors starting to swirl as soon as Vettel announced he's leaving.  Here's what I'm reading...

Tough race to call. I'll be playing Hamilton +125 to win or staying away. Hamilton to podium -350 is a ML parlay stuffer if looking to reduce a chalky NFL ML favorite or two.

If the track is wet...be very careful betting against the Red Bull cars.  Just read where they qualified bad, but it was because they are running the wet setups and preparing for a race in the rain.  Didn't see that before I bet Alonso over Vettel

Hamilton is down to -260 top 3.  Clepto, that's a great price to throw in a parlay.  

Adding a bit to Bottas top 6

Lost a unit this morning missing the Massa bet by one position, and Alonso's trouble.  I've been unlucky the last few races by placing bets on guys who end up with unforeseen mechanical issues/flat tyres.  It tends to even out over the course of the season, but it's tough when you go through a bad stretch.

That being said, me losing a unit on betting F1 is nothing compared to what Bianchi and the Ferrari family is going through right now.  I know it was a racing incident, and these guys sign up for it, but I'm going to be critical of a lot of people for a minute.

The sponsors had a chance to move the time of the race so the conditions wouldn't be as bad, and they kept it the same to guarantee fans could get there.  Which is really dumb because the fans were there all day.  Nobody was going to miss that race by moving it back a few hours.

F1 should never have been a position where they let sponsors dictate when a race should be run in bad conditions.

I have no idea why that tractor came out there while the race was still going on.  They should've waited til the end.  Put the caution flag out in that section and wait 6 laps.  I don't know if the caution flag was out in that area or not, but there were so many things that could've been done and should've been done so that an accident like that would've never happened.

A racing incident is one thing, but there's something that feels different about this one seeing as how it could've been avoided on multiple levels.  I feel awful for Bianchi and his family and all his friends in F1 and Ferrari...I really hope he recovers, and hopefully F1 and everyone involved learns something from this accident to prevent future serious accidents.  Lot of people need to go over what happened today and see how they had a hand in it.

Give your loved one a hug today, and if you lose a couple units today just remember...it could be worse.

That's my opinion on this matter.

Great race by Hamilton, and Vettel.  That was a good podium finish, and Red Bull clearly had a great handle on the wet setups.  But these Mercedes this year are truly in a league of their own.  Very impressive. 

RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX

I'm very excited to watch this race, as it's the very first Russian Grand Prix.  I was pretty impressed to see how Russian doesn't want to let their Olympic venues go to waste like other countries have done (Hello Greece), and this track is one of those additions.  It goes around some of the Sochi facilities, and apparently it will be opened all year for testing.  They also will have a driving school out of this venue.

Couple of interesting fun facts I learned doing research on this race:

1.  Putin actually loves F1 racing, is very excited to have the race and even got to drive an F1 car in 2010 .
2.  This course cost about $330 million to make.  However, the shocking thing is that the Abu Dhabi track cost $1.3 BILLION.  That's not a typo.
3.  Even though it's not on city streets, the design is very similar to that of a street course.  Lots of 90 degree turns.

Ok, so on to the betting.  Hamilton clearly the favorite, but -275 is unreal.  Too much to lay in my opinion.  Mercedes have had some trouble at times with mechanical and braking issues so I'm not going to lay that much with a win.

The juice the books are laying on these bets is getting pretty bad.  If you want to take Kyvat to finish in the top 10 you need to lay -300...it's a joke. 

So I'm going to start doing something that I notice some of the successful MMA bettors do, and that's use parlays to help minimize some of this big juice.

So my first bet is my first ever Formula 1 parlay.

Kyvat -210 over Vergne with Hamilton -290 over Rosberg.  This lets us bet 1 unit to win 1.

Also, I'm going to take Bottas -150 top 3, and Ricciardo -300 top 6. 

I may have some more plays if they release more plays before the race, but I'm gonna be pretty conservative here with the new track, and some of the inconsistency of the drivers I like to support. 

So am I getting good value if I can get Lewis -130 to win the race right now?

Uuuummmmm....where is that?!?

The answer is yes, and you should take it immediately.

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