European Grand Prix – Preview. As the spy story continues to rumble on in the background, the actual racing moves to the Nurburgring in the Eiffel Mountains. The weather forecast for this area is always hard to call as it has its own micro-climate, much like Spa. Most forecasts say it will be cloudy but dry, but then you have the BBC saying it will be cloudless and hot! If we do get a lot of cloud, then there has to be a fair chance of rain. As usual with these will it, won’t rain races, it is best to keep the best modest at this stage and hold fire till Sunday. This is a ‘home race’ for McLaren Mercedes who will have a small army of guests in their very own grandstand, but you have to wonder if the Anglo-German team is being undermined by the spy story and Ferraris selective leaking of stories via the Italian press? It is an old Ferrari tactic, to politically undermine the opposition mid-season and divert the enemies resources away for the job in hand. Whether it be Michelin’s tyres or Renaults Mass Dampers, they always find something off the track with which to use to their advantage. The FIA have summoned McLaren to a hearing next week and this must be a serious and unwelcome distraction. Another worry for McLaren is that they have a dreadful record on this track. In the last 5 seasons they have scored just 11 points, pathetic when compared to Ferrari’s tally of 70! Now that McLaren have establish a good level of reliability, they really should be able to improve on that, but on current form they have to find around 0.5 seconds a lap just to match Ferrari. The lap of the Nurburgring is almost identical in distance to Silverstone, but it is around 15 seconds a lap slower and the slower nature of the track will blunt Ferraris advantage to a degree, but they must come here as firm favourites. Raikkonen is on a roll, is hoping for a third win in a row and is the 2/1 favourite. Winning three in a row is not easy, especially in a competitive season and with a competitive team mate. Massa was the star driver for me at Silverstone and but for that engine stall on the grid, he would have be challenging for the win. He had two more laps of fuel than Raikkonen and when that was taken into account his pace in comparison to Raikkonen was nearly identical as it was in the race were he was handicapped by being in traffic for the whole race. There is little to separate the two drivers and my preference goes to Massa as he just might still have the edge in qualifying and the price is bigger. 3 points Massa to win the European GP @ 11/4 with Hills and Boylesports (3/1 on Betfair). Lost 3 points Within the McLaren team, the bookies have decided that Hamilton is on the slide. That little error at his first pit-stop at Silverstone had the hacks rushing out with some drivel along the lines that he blew his chances of a win. The fact was he didn’t have the car to win and that was compounded by the set up he choose for the car, which was wrong, in fact the set up choice was the biggest mistake of his season so far, and he still finished third. Hardly a disaster and he remains 12 points clear in the Championship. Hamilton has been extremely strong on this track in both F3 and GP2 winning all three races and I expect that he will back to full speed this weekend and Alonso will have to be at his very best to beat him, wet or dry. Alonso has been very impressive round here as well so we should see a great scrap between the pair, but it may well be for 3rd place. Due to a lack of any interesting odds and the iffy weather forecast, I shall leave any further betting to later in the weekend. Next Update 30 minutes before qualifying on Saturday. |
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Betting Previews
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