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Apologies! I inserted the wrong table for 3rd practice in the last post – if you take a look now it should make far more sense!!
A one-off post on the current F1 markets
3 Comments Published by John on Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 11:42 AM.
To the casual fan (and even some of the hardcore ones) I think F1 practice sessions are the most miss-understood aspect of the race weekend (yep – even more than KERS).
Whatever message board or live blog you read it’s often the same thing – “wow, Williams look quick this weekend”, “Ferrari have made improvements” or “Lewis for the WDC!” because they topped the time sheets. For the casual fan I suppose it doesn’t matter as it adds to the entertainment, but if you really want to know what’s going on you need to delve a little deeper than thinking the man at the top of the timesheet will win the race. OK, some of them may be joking about with such comments but a large number are serious and I have the evidence to back it up.
The first obvious fact that seems to get forgotten is these are ‘practice’ sessions. That means you try out different things to see what does/doesn’t work. The other important thing is teams work in different ways, so while one may be testing for a low fuel qualy run, another will be testing long run race pace. If you have followed F1 for even a short while these things should be obvious to you – so why do the odds move so much as a result of practice and why do the bookies offer ridiculous odds on certain drivers to top a session when they have a realistic chance? There are loads of examples but here are two from the last race weekend in Spain (race 5) to illustrate my point.
When to dip your toe’s in the water?
Here is a very simple table showing the positions at the end of the timed first practice sessions so far this season.
To be honest there’s not much you can ascertain from this. From what I can tell this is the session were new parts are tested (no other in season testing is allowed) so the times vary as the way the teams ‘attack’ the session varies depending on what they are testing. The only thin can you tell is Vettel for example, normally ends up in the middle of the pack. So in all practice sessions the thing to do is compare previous with current, team mate v team mate and relative pace.
Here is the table for 2nd Practice.
This session it a bit more consistent as teams change focus to the current weekend and completing race simulations. Looking at just these times is pointless because it would appear Alonso had a massive step forward in races 4 and 5. This is misleading because Renault seem to have changed tact and Alonso spends most of the sessions at the bottom before doing a lowish run at the end – before we was probably running around on a fuel level between the two – still it’s enough for his price to come in and allow a trade if you are quick enough. Vettel comes to life a bit more in this session (in fact both Red Bull’s do) but never topping the sheets.
And finally P3…
Those expecting to get into qualy 3 will practice their runs with their race starting fuel. Those trying to get into q3 will be testing low fuel runs. Take a look at Button. In race 4 he was much further down the grid than normal. Again this is miss-leading. I suspect they used the same fuel loads in race 4 as they had in the previous 3 but because the grid is so close they ended up way down it (yet only 0.4 seconds off the leaders pace). If you listened to Ross Brawn after qualy he noted they needed to spend more time testing low fuel to make sure they get into q3 or they would be caught out like some of the other big guns – hence the reason both Brawns were back up the order in race 5.
Again Vettel is consistently in the middle of the pack but always qualifies near the front of the grid. So if you think Vettel will get pole, at what time do you place your bets?
Ideally you would think placing them early on would be good – in Spain he was trading at around 6 prior to the race weekend, which is a massive price really considering his qualy record so far this season. If people understood the practice sessions, then there should be no reason for his price to drift, it should stay constant or if anything, come in should he end up near the top of the time sheets. But that’s not what happens! This is Vettel’s price on Betfair leading up to the qualifying session.
Why, after starting at quite a favourable price anyway, does the price drift out to a whopping great 12? We know that Vettel has ‘performed’ (we should really say ‘practiced’) similarly to what he has in past practice sessions. Yet he always goes on to qualify in the top 3, usually getting a fuel adjusted pole position.
The price drifted slightly on the Friday night to 7’s but after 3rd practice there was a massive drift – I can only assume this is because he finished a lowly 16th at the end of the session.
Here is the same graph 10 minutes later into the qualy session, after Vettel topped the times on a flying lap and showed his true pace.
If you are an outright bettor then value is your god. You may have thought 6 was a good price but with a bit of research you could have waited and got much more – this is not a one off example! If you are a trader then this is a beauty – especially considering the fact he qualified 2nd anyway.
So am I missing something? Was there some news I missed that caused the price to drift ( I read almost every site and RSS feed going and couldn’t find a thing.) Maybe all those who thought they were getting a good price at 6 got cold feet and wanted to trade out of their position as the markets went against them, pushing the price out further – a perfect example of how knowing your market can help you play it rather than be played by it.
Whatever the reason, whatever the driver, there seems to be consistent trends up and down the grid from Thursday to Pre-Qualy. For another example check out Lewis Hamilton’s graph on this weekends Overall Qualy Winner market (in to 7’s from 22) – this has happened on the last 3 races, all because he’s been near the top of P1.
The stop loss function (available on most Betfair applications) has become my best friend over the last few months. There’s a simple strategy that can be applied if you do a small bit of research into the markets. All it takes is one team to change their practice format and everything changes. Vettel’s price would shoot downwards should he secure 1st in any practice session. The stop loss function (available on most Betfair applications) has become my best friend over the last few months. There’s a simple strategy that can be applied if you do a small bit of research into the markets.
If you don’t follow F1 that much and don’t really understand the point I’m trying to get across then let’s compare this to a football market. Cristiano Ronaldo is 2.75 to score a goal in the Champions League final. You watch him before kick off practicing some free kicks – he takes 3 and misses 3. It looks like he’s not on form today and the price of him scoring drifts out to 5.00 ! Within the first 5 minutes of the game, Man Utd get a free kick. Ronaldo takes it and hits the post with a cracking effort. His price to score comes back down to 2.75. Would this scenario not be lunacy !!!! Just because he missed 3 free kicks doesn’t mean he will put it over the bar from 6 yards and why would coming close to scoring give him more of a chance to score in the remaining 85 minutes. This is what’s happening with the F1 markets and I’m loving it !!
Bookies not paying attention or mislead punters again?
As for the outright bets on who will top each practice session (again a bit like betting on how many practice free kicks Ronaldo will score in the warm-up), you can actually get some really good value bets.
If Massa has finished 4,4,6,2 in the previous 3rd qualifying sessions then were do you reckon he could end up given the Ferrari has a major upgrade? That’s right – 1st and at odds of 20/1 it was a steal.
So why did the bookies offer such silly odds? Was it because they don’t pay attention and offer odds on what is quite frankly a ridiculous market (I often wonder who many Williams mechanics are betting fans and send Nico out on low fuel to earn themselves a few extra quid!). Or is it because the average punter in this kind of market doesn’t really pay much attention. What do the bookies care if they pay out the odd 20/1 to a few customers when most of the punters are backing Button at 6/1 – even though he’s only topped 2 out of 15 practice sessions -do the math and tell me if there’s value in that bet.
Whatever message board or live blog you read it’s often the same thing – “wow, Williams look quick this weekend”, “Ferrari have made improvements” or “Lewis for the WDC!” because they topped the time sheets. For the casual fan I suppose it doesn’t matter as it adds to the entertainment, but if you really want to know what’s going on you need to delve a little deeper than thinking the man at the top of the timesheet will win the race. OK, some of them may be joking about with such comments but a large number are serious and I have the evidence to back it up.
The first obvious fact that seems to get forgotten is these are ‘practice’ sessions. That means you try out different things to see what does/doesn’t work. The other important thing is teams work in different ways, so while one may be testing for a low fuel qualy run, another will be testing long run race pace. If you have followed F1 for even a short while these things should be obvious to you – so why do the odds move so much as a result of practice and why do the bookies offer ridiculous odds on certain drivers to top a session when they have a realistic chance? There are loads of examples but here are two from the last race weekend in Spain (race 5) to illustrate my point.
When to dip your toe’s in the water?
Here is a very simple table showing the positions at the end of the timed first practice sessions so far this season.
To be honest there’s not much you can ascertain from this. From what I can tell this is the session were new parts are tested (no other in season testing is allowed) so the times vary as the way the teams ‘attack’ the session varies depending on what they are testing. The only thin can you tell is Vettel for example, normally ends up in the middle of the pack. So in all practice sessions the thing to do is compare previous with current, team mate v team mate and relative pace.
Here is the table for 2nd Practice.
This session it a bit more consistent as teams change focus to the current weekend and completing race simulations. Looking at just these times is pointless because it would appear Alonso had a massive step forward in races 4 and 5. This is misleading because Renault seem to have changed tact and Alonso spends most of the sessions at the bottom before doing a lowish run at the end – before we was probably running around on a fuel level between the two – still it’s enough for his price to come in and allow a trade if you are quick enough. Vettel comes to life a bit more in this session (in fact both Red Bull’s do) but never topping the sheets.
And finally P3…
Those expecting to get into qualy 3 will practice their runs with their race starting fuel. Those trying to get into q3 will be testing low fuel runs. Take a look at Button. In race 4 he was much further down the grid than normal. Again this is miss-leading. I suspect they used the same fuel loads in race 4 as they had in the previous 3 but because the grid is so close they ended up way down it (yet only 0.4 seconds off the leaders pace). If you listened to Ross Brawn after qualy he noted they needed to spend more time testing low fuel to make sure they get into q3 or they would be caught out like some of the other big guns – hence the reason both Brawns were back up the order in race 5.
Again Vettel is consistently in the middle of the pack but always qualifies near the front of the grid. So if you think Vettel will get pole, at what time do you place your bets?
Ideally you would think placing them early on would be good – in Spain he was trading at around 6 prior to the race weekend, which is a massive price really considering his qualy record so far this season. If people understood the practice sessions, then there should be no reason for his price to drift, it should stay constant or if anything, come in should he end up near the top of the time sheets. But that’s not what happens! This is Vettel’s price on Betfair leading up to the qualifying session.
Why, after starting at quite a favourable price anyway, does the price drift out to a whopping great 12? We know that Vettel has ‘performed’ (we should really say ‘practiced’) similarly to what he has in past practice sessions. Yet he always goes on to qualify in the top 3, usually getting a fuel adjusted pole position.
The price drifted slightly on the Friday night to 7’s but after 3rd practice there was a massive drift – I can only assume this is because he finished a lowly 16th at the end of the session.
Here is the same graph 10 minutes later into the qualy session, after Vettel topped the times on a flying lap and showed his true pace.
If you are an outright bettor then value is your god. You may have thought 6 was a good price but with a bit of research you could have waited and got much more – this is not a one off example! If you are a trader then this is a beauty – especially considering the fact he qualified 2nd anyway.
So am I missing something? Was there some news I missed that caused the price to drift ( I read almost every site and RSS feed going and couldn’t find a thing.) Maybe all those who thought they were getting a good price at 6 got cold feet and wanted to trade out of their position as the markets went against them, pushing the price out further – a perfect example of how knowing your market can help you play it rather than be played by it.
Whatever the reason, whatever the driver, there seems to be consistent trends up and down the grid from Thursday to Pre-Qualy. For another example check out Lewis Hamilton’s graph on this weekends Overall Qualy Winner market (in to 7’s from 22) – this has happened on the last 3 races, all because he’s been near the top of P1.
The stop loss function (available on most Betfair applications) has become my best friend over the last few months. There’s a simple strategy that can be applied if you do a small bit of research into the markets. All it takes is one team to change their practice format and everything changes. Vettel’s price would shoot downwards should he secure 1st in any practice session. The stop loss function (available on most Betfair applications) has become my best friend over the last few months. There’s a simple strategy that can be applied if you do a small bit of research into the markets.
If you don’t follow F1 that much and don’t really understand the point I’m trying to get across then let’s compare this to a football market. Cristiano Ronaldo is 2.75 to score a goal in the Champions League final. You watch him before kick off practicing some free kicks – he takes 3 and misses 3. It looks like he’s not on form today and the price of him scoring drifts out to 5.00 ! Within the first 5 minutes of the game, Man Utd get a free kick. Ronaldo takes it and hits the post with a cracking effort. His price to score comes back down to 2.75. Would this scenario not be lunacy !!!! Just because he missed 3 free kicks doesn’t mean he will put it over the bar from 6 yards and why would coming close to scoring give him more of a chance to score in the remaining 85 minutes. This is what’s happening with the F1 markets and I’m loving it !!
Bookies not paying attention or mislead punters again?
As for the outright bets on who will top each practice session (again a bit like betting on how many practice free kicks Ronaldo will score in the warm-up), you can actually get some really good value bets.
If Massa has finished 4,4,6,2 in the previous 3rd qualifying sessions then were do you reckon he could end up given the Ferrari has a major upgrade? That’s right – 1st and at odds of 20/1 it was a steal.
So why did the bookies offer such silly odds? Was it because they don’t pay attention and offer odds on what is quite frankly a ridiculous market (I often wonder who many Williams mechanics are betting fans and send Nico out on low fuel to earn themselves a few extra quid!). Or is it because the average punter in this kind of market doesn’t really pay much attention. What do the bookies care if they pay out the odd 20/1 to a few customers when most of the punters are backing Button at 6/1 – even though he’s only topped 2 out of 15 practice sessions -do the math and tell me if there’s value in that bet.
In my last post I mentioned I was looking to upgrade the website and after spending hours designing and setting up the new site, there’s been a change in plan. While working on the new site a number of questions popped up as to what exactly the content was going to be, what I wanted to share and what I wanted to keep to myself! Also the big question - what was the purpose of my blog.
When I started this site one year ago the simple aim was to create a diary of trades to help with discipline. It worked because last year I was taking notes and documenting everything – not even half of it ended up on the blog. I could have done this myself with OneNote, but I also wanted the added pressure of having to post a loss for everyone to read. I learnt many lessons last year and will continue to learn many more in the future I’m sure.
Keeping the website running and making posts takes up more time than you would think. It’s got to the point where I’m wondering if the time and effort put into the website is beneficial. I’m now happy with my discipline and commitment to trading after the experiences of last year so the main aims of the site are now not so important. So what is important?
Creating the blog helped me ‘move up’ a level with my trading and I feel its time to take things a step further. I tried expanding into the football markets and this is something I’m still investigating but I feel there are better opportunities out there. I work full time and all my trading and website updates are done in my spare time. I’m also in the process of developing some bots to work with the Betfair API that’s taking up a lot of my time.
My main aim now is to increase my returns whilst remembering all the lessons I’ve learnt. I need more time to do this and as I can’t reduce the hours I work something has to give.
So, if you hadn’t already guessed it, this is the end of my blog. I want to say thank you to everyone who’s read and commented on the site - you were unknowingly helping me improve my trading!
The coming F1 season will be interesting. With new cars on slicks and modified rule changes (some of which have not been well publicised) means if I carried on with the blog I wouldn’t want to share much – there will be lots of interesting ‘oddities’ which I’d prefer to keep to myself and reap the rewards. I also wanted to avoid the ‘I done this’ kind of post meaning it would make it very hard to construct a post with any meaningful content as there wouldn’t be much left to say.
Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss anything as it’s good to hear from people. I will try and be more active on the various F1 forums and betting blogs so that I don’t feel out of touch with things.
All the best with your trading and enjoy the 2009 season,
John.
When I started this site one year ago the simple aim was to create a diary of trades to help with discipline. It worked because last year I was taking notes and documenting everything – not even half of it ended up on the blog. I could have done this myself with OneNote, but I also wanted the added pressure of having to post a loss for everyone to read. I learnt many lessons last year and will continue to learn many more in the future I’m sure.
Keeping the website running and making posts takes up more time than you would think. It’s got to the point where I’m wondering if the time and effort put into the website is beneficial. I’m now happy with my discipline and commitment to trading after the experiences of last year so the main aims of the site are now not so important. So what is important?
Creating the blog helped me ‘move up’ a level with my trading and I feel its time to take things a step further. I tried expanding into the football markets and this is something I’m still investigating but I feel there are better opportunities out there. I work full time and all my trading and website updates are done in my spare time. I’m also in the process of developing some bots to work with the Betfair API that’s taking up a lot of my time.
My main aim now is to increase my returns whilst remembering all the lessons I’ve learnt. I need more time to do this and as I can’t reduce the hours I work something has to give.
So, if you hadn’t already guessed it, this is the end of my blog. I want to say thank you to everyone who’s read and commented on the site - you were unknowingly helping me improve my trading!
The coming F1 season will be interesting. With new cars on slicks and modified rule changes (some of which have not been well publicised) means if I carried on with the blog I wouldn’t want to share much – there will be lots of interesting ‘oddities’ which I’d prefer to keep to myself and reap the rewards. I also wanted to avoid the ‘I done this’ kind of post meaning it would make it very hard to construct a post with any meaningful content as there wouldn’t be much left to say.
Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss anything as it’s good to hear from people. I will try and be more active on the various F1 forums and betting blogs so that I don’t feel out of touch with things.
All the best with your trading and enjoy the 2009 season,
John.
I’m hoping to do an upgrade to my site over the next week (I want to move away from Blogger so I get more control over the whole site). Therefore you may find the site is either down or looks odd. Those reading on RSS may also find there feeds no longer work although I’m hoping I can keep it going.
See you all in a week (or more….).
See you all in a week (or more….).
I’m back from Vegas - with a gambling profit – but as it was all down to luck I’m not going to go into that! If you haven’t been and it’s something you’ve thought about doing then just go, you won’t be disappointed.
Here are a couple of video’s I took from my mobile. I have no idea who the ‘men’ dancing like women in the first video are???
Here are a couple of video’s I took from my mobile. I have no idea who the ‘men’ dancing like women in the first video are???
The first race of 2009 in Melbourne is at the end of March but for me the season starts now. With the first of the 2009 cars unveiled today the research work is under way.
Ferrari have made a decent website to promote the new car which can be found here http://f60.ferrariworld.com/ , it also has a 360% view of the car.
With all the new rule changes and the first sighting of the BMW car in testing I was expecting the cars to look a bit ugly this year, but I actually like this Ferrari.
There’s a lot you can learn from the car launches and press releases around this time. It kind of sets the picture and makes it easier to follow what happens through testing. I should (hopefully) have a good idea of what to expect before we get to Melbourne from following the pre-season action, but it is only half the picture and until the cars set-off for the first lap nobody really knows what to expect.
The reason I do all the research work is because it gives me the confidence to take a position. I need to have a plan – I can’t just place a ‘bet’ without having an idea as to how I’m going to play that ‘bet’. At the end of the day the research may not have any validity – it may be completely worthless in terms of it’s accuracy etc – but if it allows me to form an entry/exit strategy then I’m all for it.
Ferrari have made a decent website to promote the new car which can be found here http://f60.ferrariworld.com/ , it also has a 360% view of the car.
With all the new rule changes and the first sighting of the BMW car in testing I was expecting the cars to look a bit ugly this year, but I actually like this Ferrari.
There’s a lot you can learn from the car launches and press releases around this time. It kind of sets the picture and makes it easier to follow what happens through testing. I should (hopefully) have a good idea of what to expect before we get to Melbourne from following the pre-season action, but it is only half the picture and until the cars set-off for the first lap nobody really knows what to expect.
The reason I do all the research work is because it gives me the confidence to take a position. I need to have a plan – I can’t just place a ‘bet’ without having an idea as to how I’m going to play that ‘bet’. At the end of the day the research may not have any validity – it may be completely worthless in terms of it’s accuracy etc – but if it allows me to form an entry/exit strategy then I’m all for it.
Thought I'd put in another appearance before people think I've done a runner and left the blog for dead. There's a lot going on at the moment and with no F1 it makes sense for the blog to take a back seat for a month or so.
My application is coming on nicely but I don't think I will get it finished before the F1 season starts which is a shame. Most of my spare time (of which there is little) has been spent on this and it's why I currently have over 1000 RSS feeds about F1 to catch up on! If you don't use an RSS feeder you should. They allow you to catch every piece of news and you never miss anything as they sit there until you get a chance to read them.
I have decided to stop posting in the football section as there's not much I can say about it. I will bring the attention back to F1 and post only about this. It's strange because although this site is mainly about F1, most of the traffic from search engines is form those looking to bet on football. My website stats allow me to look at the key words and phrases people have used when coming to my site…..
I wonder if those looking for 'lay the draw' have found what their looking for yet?
Thanks to all of those who link to my site. My stats allow me to tell who the most referrals have come from - some of you must be getting a massive amount of visitors! Anyway, I've updated the link section and I'm happy to add anyone else's link if you want me to.
I'm thinking of doing things differently with the blog next year. For it to be worth updating it has to give me some benefit. The purpose for starting this was for discipline - making a loss is no fun, but posting about it afterwards is worse! The blog keeps me on my toes from that perspective but it takes up a lot of time and I need it to benefit me more. I'm thinking of tying in my research with some kind of pre-race weekend factsheet - something along those lines. If anyone has any ideas then drop me an e-mail. I also want to move away from blogger but being on a windows server and only know visual basic I'm struggling to find a solution.
Before I go, here is a clip I took from my phone at the Race of Champions of Lewis in his McLaren - the picture quality is poor but the sound is great.
My application is coming on nicely but I don't think I will get it finished before the F1 season starts which is a shame. Most of my spare time (of which there is little) has been spent on this and it's why I currently have over 1000 RSS feeds about F1 to catch up on! If you don't use an RSS feeder you should. They allow you to catch every piece of news and you never miss anything as they sit there until you get a chance to read them.
I have decided to stop posting in the football section as there's not much I can say about it. I will bring the attention back to F1 and post only about this. It's strange because although this site is mainly about F1, most of the traffic from search engines is form those looking to bet on football. My website stats allow me to look at the key words and phrases people have used when coming to my site…..
I wonder if those looking for 'lay the draw' have found what their looking for yet?
Thanks to all of those who link to my site. My stats allow me to tell who the most referrals have come from - some of you must be getting a massive amount of visitors! Anyway, I've updated the link section and I'm happy to add anyone else's link if you want me to.
I'm thinking of doing things differently with the blog next year. For it to be worth updating it has to give me some benefit. The purpose for starting this was for discipline - making a loss is no fun, but posting about it afterwards is worse! The blog keeps me on my toes from that perspective but it takes up a lot of time and I need it to benefit me more. I'm thinking of tying in my research with some kind of pre-race weekend factsheet - something along those lines. If anyone has any ideas then drop me an e-mail. I also want to move away from blogger but being on a windows server and only know visual basic I'm struggling to find a solution.
Before I go, here is a clip I took from my phone at the Race of Champions of Lewis in his McLaren - the picture quality is poor but the sound is great.