I didn’t post yesterday because there wasn’t much to say about my trading – basically I didn’t really do any. It was a really tough one to call and not wanting to take too much risk I ended up leaving my positions as qualy went in play. I had been trading the odds on Kimi and Heikki during Friday and Saturday morning to get some nice ‘free bets’ on them should they be lighter than the title contenders. I could have greened them for a small profit but it would have been really small - I felt leaving them as free bets was the better choice but of course Massa stormed to pole and now I know better. Still nothing lost on qualy so I’m only down because of the P1 bet on Lewis (which he just missed out on).

As for today, we have an odds on favourite in Massa. If you followed my blog this year you will know I don’t like odds on favourites this season because of the safety car risk.

In a dry race with ‘normal’ safety car rules then 1.7 for Massa is a fair price. Today is expected to be wet and we have ‘silly’ safety car rules so is 1.7 really representative?

I have taken a lay position on Massa for race win with the following exit strategies -

• If it’s dry at the start of the race exit for a small loss. Its worth a lay in the wet but in the dry the odds start to become true – take a small loss before it gets bigger!
• If it’s wet then his odds won’t come down much lower than 1.5 should he lead into the first corner. (if they do it may be worth laying again!). It really depends on how much rain there is as to what happens next. I would expect the odds to vary quite a bit if it’s raining so it should give plenty of opportunity to get out at some point. If he still leads after the 1st pit stops then I will gradually exit the position over time. A Safety car could come at any point so I don’t want to exit early in the race, however I don’t want to leave it so late that I take almost a complete loss.
• Anything else will be in my favour. Depending on what happens I will either slowly exit the position if he’s not leading or leave as an outright if he ends up way down the order.

The start to this race is crucial and I can already feel the tension from my room in the UK 7 hours before the race! I can’t imagine what Massa and Lewis must be feeling.

Lets hope for a nice clean fair fight and congratulations to whoever ends up as the 2008 World Drivers Champion.