PopePalpatine's Motorsport Betting Log

No luck this morning. Strangely, Betway didn't re-open betting on the 2nd race after the end of the 1st one.

€1 e/w on Nelson Piquet @12/1 (1/4 odds for the top 3) on Betway in the Formula E Santiago ePrix, which starts in just over 10 minutes.

He'll start 5th, but the two guys ahead of him had accidents in the top 5 shootout in qualifying, I think they might be a bit rattled. Plus, he's the series' inaugural champ, that has to count for something, right?

€2 e/w on Jari-Matti Latvala @11/2 (1/3 odds for 2nd) to win Rally Sweden with Bet365. Latvala won last year's running of the event ahead of market favourite (and now his teammate at Toyota) Ott Tanak, and also picked up his maiden WRC win in the 2008 rally. Be quick, the betting market closes at 6am when the shakedown starts.

€4 on Jean-Eric Vergne to win the Mexico City ePrix @10/3 with SkyBet.

Vergne leads the drivers' standings in his Renault-powered Techeetah, and finished 2nd behind a dominant di Grassi in last year's Mexico City ePrix. Di Grassi (10/1, B365 & Ladbrokes) has been suffering an awful run of poor reliability, and he also has to serve a 10-place grid penalty for changing an inverter. Sam Bird, another one of the favourites for today @11/2 (B365), also has to pay the same penalty for changing his gearbox.

I think Edoardo Mortara is a decent dark horse @33/1 (Ladbrokes/B365/Sky, 1/5 odds for a podium finish), so I'll stick €1.50 each way on him. He's adapted wonderfully to Formula E and was 2nd in practice earlier today, and could have won the season opener in Hong Kong if it weren't for a spin in the dying stages of the race.

€3 on Sebastian Ogier to win Rally Mexico @4/1 with Betsafe.

In my (very humbled) opinion, his record here speaks for itself. He made some costly mistakes in Sweden and in last year's Rally Mexico, but as the record holder for stage wins (and reigning WRC champion since 2013!) there I still think he's value @4/1.

€5 on Alexander Rossi @EVENS to win that race with Bet365 to cover.

Here comes Ogier to save the day! It could be worse...like Racing Post's picks worse.

€093.39
+€12.00
======
€105.39

Buemi's out of the running after hitting the walls, he was 10/1 with Lads before the markets closed at 7pm.

My first actual risk of the season - €10 on Charles Leclerc & Pierre Gasly to beat their teammates over the season @3.36 with Betway.

€105.39
- €50.00 (<16.5 finishers bet)
- €18.00 (>16.5 finishers bet)
- €10.00 (teammate H2H double)
======
€027.39 to play with for the rest of the weekend

Those are value picks IMHO, and I'd much rather tie up a tenner in two H2H bets than €20 on Hamilton to bring home the same amount of winnings.

Gasly has much more single-seater experience than Hartley to give him the edge in their battle, while Leclerc is probably the hottest young prospect to enter F1 since...well, judging by F2/GP2 title-winning seasons, Vandoorne, but Vandoorne doesn't have a teammate whose sponsors bought out the team.

Here's a heads-up for those interested in trends - Hamilton is @1.8 with Coral/Lads to take pole this weekend. He's taken pole in Australia every year since 2014, but has only converted that to a win once. In 2014 he retired, he won in 2015, Rosberg fought him off in 2016, and Vettel got the jump on him in 2017.

Bottas could be one to watch out for, there's a chance he could be better prepared this season. He was drafted in December 2016 to fill in for the suddenly-departed Rosberg, so some commentators have blamed his solid rear gunner status on a lack of experience with Mercedes, having previously driven Williamses which were designed for low drag. However, he didn't fare too well around here during his Williams days, only outqualifying a teammate once - that being the infamous Maldonado - and was 0-3 in qualifying against Felipe Massa.

Speaking of Betsafe, they're offering 3.70 for that Leclerc/Gasly double I posted.

They also offer 6.14 odds for that double combined with Raikkonen to beat Alonso, so I'll have €3.39 on that to take my bankroll down to a nice, round €20.

I've just upped my bet on Hamilton, as a wet qualifying session looks likely on Saturday.

TBH, I don't know where to look for value besides there. Red Bull looked strong in testing, but then the problem there is picking between Ricciardo and Max to put in a podium combo bet with Lewis, and that's before I factor in Vettel or the differences between the Catalunya Circuit and Albert Park that could throw the Mercs off.

Final bets for quali:
€4 on Sainz to reach Q3 @2.0 with Bwin.
€3 on Ocon in that same market @2.5 with the same bookie.
€2 on Max to finish in the top 3 in the third practice session @2.0, again with Bwin.
€2 on Max & Lewis to qualify on the front row @4.5 with Bwin.
€1 each on two tricast bets for qualifying of Lewis/Max/Vettel (@13) & Max/Lewis/Vettel (@19) with Sky in the Request-A-Bet section. Bwin offer 3.2 for those three to fill the top 3 in any order.

Kimi hasn't finished on the podium in Australia during the Hybrid Era. Granted, in 2014 he had a crapbox, and he retired in the next two years.

On the other hand, Ferrari reportedly had worryingly high fuel consumption in testing, and Australia is one of the more heavy fuel consumption tracks. Red Bull have opted for an unorthodox tyre strategy by using the middle of the three compounds in Q2, rather than the softest like the other teams which made it into Q3, so that adds an extra bit of intrigue to their threat to Kimi's champagne sesh hopes. I'll have €4 on him not to finish on the podium @2.15 with Bwin.

Speaking of unorthodox strategies, I think it's worth putting €2.50 on Ocon to score points @3.1 with Paddy. Sure, he starts 14th, right ahead of the penalised Bottas, but it's worth a shot considering he scored his first F1 point here last year after starting 13th.

On top of that, factoring in the possibility of Red Bull pulling off a strategic masterstroke, I'll have €1.50 e/w on Max to win @9/1 (1/5 odds for a podium finish) with Willy.

One last long shot - the last time (2016) Vettel started third in Australia behind a pole-sitting Hamilton, he ended up leading the 1st lap. He's 9/1 with Willy to do the same tomorrow morning, so I'll have €1 on that. A word of warning - the last race this happened was last year's Japanese GP, and Lewis was able to hang on.

That leaves €9.30 in the bankroll, so feck it, I'll use it to arb in the Head-To-Head market. Kimi is @3.25 with Lads to beat Seb tomorrow, and Bwin offer 1.6 for the other way around. I'll put €6.27 on Seb with Bwin and €3.03 on Kimi with Lads.

€4 on Jari-Matti Latvala to finish on the podium in this weekend's Tour de Corse @4.0 with Betsafe. They also offer 16.0 for him to win, so I'll stick €1 on that.

888 offer 4.5 for Ogier to win, and as the reigning champion since 2013, he's worth putting €5 on IMHO. He won the 2016 running of this event, and also won the 2010 and 2012 Alsace rallies, which were also on tarmac. He dragged the then-privateer M-Sport Fiesta to 2nd here last year...behind Latvala.