Brazilian GP – Preview. The end of the F1 road for Schumacher, Michelin and Cosworth at Interlagos, and the last drives for Alonso at Renault and Raikkonen at McLaren. There is also the small matter of the Drivers and Constructors titles to be decided. Alonso and Renault hold a big advantage for both titles, but nothing can be taken for granted. Schumacher must win with Alonso failing to score, a scenario which occurred just 3 races ago. It is unlikely, but far from impossible and Renault are rightly quite nervous about this race. To maximise Alonso’s cars reliability the team have opted not to give him the new E-spec engine, just as a precaution (Fisichella will race with the new unit). This move neatly sums up Renaults approach for this race, safety first, take no unnecessary risks and make sure they don’t let Ferrari score ten more points than they do. Alonso won his first title here last season and despite qualifying on pole position, he was never going to put up a fight when Montoya put a move on him. He cruised round to a comfortable 3rd place and won his prize. Surely a very similar approach will adopted again. Fisichella on the other hand has the new upgraded engine and would like to end the year by beating his more illustrious team mate and putting down a marker for 2007. The only thing stopping him is a palpable lack of talent compared to the likes of Schumacher and Raikkonen who he will need to beat if he wants to win. Schumacher has no option but the go all out attack and he has a new tweaked up engine to maximise his speed. However, there is a lingering worry in the Ferrari camp that their engine has become the weakest link in the package. Massa had an enforced engine change in China and of course Schumacher’s let go when under pressure in Japan. Just a coincidence? Perhaps, but both problems where related to the same part of the engine and with Schumacher planning to run at maximum revs for more of the race than usual, any flaw could be exposed in dramatic fashion. One great advantage that Ferrari has over Renault is the qualifying performance of the Bridgestone tyres. The gap between Michelin and Bridgestone in the Japanese GP was next to nothing, but in qualifying, it was massive. Michelin were left stunned and it is hard to see that they could have closed that sort of gap in 2 weeks. It is the French companies last GP and they want to go out on a high, but I find it hard to believe that a Michelin shod car will be on pole come Sunday. In which case we have to think that there are only four possible pole sitters. M. Schumacher, Massa, Trulli and R. Schumacher. The Ferrari is a much faster car than the Toyota, so unless Toyota go for a ridiculously low fuel load in qualifying, it really should be a Ferrari on pole. Schumacher is a tempting 11/8 in a place but perhaps the value lies in his team mate Massa. This is his home race and perhaps Ferrari will give him the chance for a popular pole position by running a little lighter than Schumacher. Massa has scored 2 poles in the last 4 GP’s so he will believe he can do it again. He will probably have to let Schumacher past at some stage (but if Alonso is running in the points on the last lap would he be told to let the German past? Perhaps Schumacher might gift the win to him for a change? ), but he is free to beat him in qualifying and has done so in 3 of the last 5 qualifying sessions 2 points Massa to get pole position @ 4/1 generally available. won 8 points Another Brazilian worth an interest in qualifying is Barrichello. He has put in some great efforts in qualifying for his home race, including two pole positions for Ferrari, 3rd place in Stewart Ford and 2nd in a Jordan. He loves the track and looks value to out qualify his team mate on Saturday. Button has been scoring the bulk of the teams points but the H2H score in qualifying is very close, 9-8 in Buttons favour. I support Barrichello to pull out a special lap for the home fans on Saturday and make the final seasonal H2H score 9-9. 4 points Barrichello to out qualify Button @ 5/4 with Skybet won 5 points In the race itself, we might just get a surprise result, as has been the case so often at this track. If we assume that Alonso will be playing it conservatively, Fisichella not really good enough and the Ferrari engines looking suspect, here is a glimmer of hope for McLaren to avoid a winless season. The team scored a 1-2 here last year and Raikkonen is a track specialist having been 2nd for the last three years. The car is not a match for Ferrari and Renault, but is not that far off and is certainly in a position to let Raikkonen win if the Ferrari’s have problems and Alonso is not pushing. 2 points e/w Raikkonen to win the Brazilian GP @ 12/1 with Boylesports, SportingOdds. lost 4 points There is a very close battle between Toyota and BMW for 5th place, just 1 point separates them and both cars are capable of a top 8 finish. Toyota may just hold the advantage thanks to the qualifying performance of the Bridgestone tyres. They can realistically expect to qualify on the 2nd or 3rd rows on a lowish fuel load and use track position to keep all but the top 3 teams at bay. Ralf Schumacher has a decent record in Brazil with 6 top 8 finishes and he looks decent value to make it 7. 5 points R. Schumacher to finish in the points @ 6/5 with Extrabet. lost 5 points |
|
|
Betting Previews
|
|
|