It’s one of those races which comes around ever now and then were you could either win or loose a fortune. It’s easy for me to say now, but when he pitted and put more fuel in I would have backed Lewis. I don’t know what the odds were but I would imagine they were favourable. However he was lucky no safety car came out during his long stint otherwise he would not have won…he was also lucky with the slow puncture.

Hamilton’s luck was my luck too in terms of the experiment. Not a massive win but +£20.50 is still a profit.

Qualy was a shocker and I still cannot believe Massa managed to get pole. I’m sure that surprised a few people.

Race win was the big winner with Hamilton bringing the car home but Kubica who finished 2^nd was included in my book. Nick Heidfeld once again looked poor and maybe his longer odds were justified.

Fastest lap also gave a return with Kimi topping the times. Heikki also got the 2^nd fastest so again I had covered the top two.

I never got matched on Button for points which was lucky, but I placed the £2 on ‘other’ in the qualy/race market just in case of a fully wet messed up race which anyone could win.

I won’t include this ‘experiment’ in my normal trading accounts. Instead I will use the £70 as a test fund for which ever sport I decide to trade (thanks for the suggestions).

When I get them sorted out I will post some Monaco pictures.

Still nothing available at the bookies so I decided to stick with Betfair and take some of what was on offer. Lewis’s odds are actually quite good and Heidfeld’s are much longer than I expected (although that depends on whether he ‘turns up’ for this one).

I have allowed myself £50 to place on outright bets just as a mini experiment. I want to stress this is not normally what I would do and the stakes are much different. Here is how my book looks….

Qualy Winner

Lewis +£22

Heidfeld +£48

Kubica +10

Webber +183

Anyone else -£17

Race Winner

Lewis +£35

Heidfeld +£100

Kubica +£11

Anyone else -£20

Points Finish

Button +£10 (or -£2 if not)

Fastest Lap

Lewis, Kovalainen or Kimi +£4.50

Anyone else -£10

Total stake = £49.00

I’m not fully matched on some of these but at the prices requested I should be before the start of qualy.

Fingers crosses and see you in a weeks time.

As I don’t need to worry about getting matched on trades I can use this as an opportunity to give you an insight into how I would be looking to trade this race. To start with I would research the race over the last few years to see what generally happened – ie is it a Ferrari track? Does the pole sitter normally win? Who has out performed the car running here? All those sorts of things. I then take a look at the media side of things to get an impression of what the general expectation of the ‘experts’ and journalists are.

Remember, I’m not really trying to pick a winner – just someone who will do better than the general expectation, if they win it just makes things easier!

Everyone knows Monaco is slightly different to most races, and although you will here ‘anything can happen’ spoken a few times it’s mostly the usual suspects at the front (I doubt we will see a Force India on the podium for example!)

Ignoring Ferrari, McLaren and BMW the best the drivers to look out for will be Webber, Alonso and Rosberg. All 3 should make it to Q3 and Webber should qualify high up the order. As for Alonso, there is the potential for pole if he runs light – keep an eye on practice to see what times/fuel runs he does – this is risky one to trade though.

Whoever sets pole should go on to win (unless it’s not one of the big 3) meaning the qualy/race market may prove a better choice. Most of the talk has been about how much Mclaren beat Ferrari there last year. It has proved a tricky track for Ferrari in the past and with the weather forecasts showing cooler temperatures and possible rain (NOOO!!! Please don’t rain -I want a nice sunny holiday!) they may once again struggle to get their tyres up to temperature. This will hamper them in qualy.

On the flipside, although it looked like McLaren whooped Ferrari last year they really only beat Massa who’s useless on street tracks. Kimi crashed in qualy and was never going to do much from the middle of the grid. It would have been much closer in a ‘fair’ battle. Also, and more importantly, Mclaren appear to be struggling for traction out of corners so how much did traction control help them win last year? The softer tyres used at Monaco may help them with traction so keep an eye on this in practice.

I would expect the race to pan out much like Australia did this year – without the Ferrari mistakes. In other words McLaren have s light edge with Ferrari’s heels being clipped by BMW. Of the two BMW’s Nick has as better track record around here but I’m not sure he actually turned up at the last couple of races so it will be close between the two.

Keep and eye on Button. He likes this place and last years dog of a car managed to qualified 10^th so he will be hoping for more.

To sum up this is what I would be looking for initially:

Lay Massa pole – anything less than 4.25

Back Hamilton qualy/race - 6.5+

Back small stake on Kubica qualy/race – 35+

Back small stake on Heidfeld pole - 20+

Back very small stake on Webber pole - 100+

Back Button points finish - 6+

Back Rosberg points finish – 2.5+

Back Kovalainen Fastest lap – 10+

Back Kimi fastest lap – 3+

I wouldn’t go ahead with all of these – for starters some of the odds may not be within my range so I will just leave them. I’d also be careful not to get to heavily involved with bets that would have a knock on effect and cause other positions to go against me.

That’s how I would start my week and this would be continuously reviewed. If it starts to look like Ferrari may be quick I would exit most of these positions (even if it was for a small loss) and start all over again – going back to look at the stats and deciding what the correct odds for the Ferrari’s should be.

Hopefully there will be some bets available tomorrow before I leave……and hopefully it won’t rain. If the weather is bad then don’t place any bets before the race and just trade in-play – there will be some big money to be made there.

Someone at work today mentioned to me the odds on Watford going through to the Championship play-off final were somewhat favorable. I checked out Betfair and had to agree - although Watford are in stinking form a first half goal would surely move the odds of 12.5 and allow a nice little trade. So I entered with half the intended stake – I was then going to watch the first couple of minutes and maybe use the rest of the stake if I felt things looked good.

I did want to use the rest of the stake but when I went to submit it…..Betfair crashed!!!

It’s still down as I type this and as you can guess, Watford have scored and taken the lead. I could have traded out but now I’m left with an outright bet.

Your probably thinking – ‘but you may win that bet?’ - but I can almost guarantee you the way things are going lately Watford will not go on to score another and will most probably loose. Also, if I do win the bet it will be for half of the stake I originally intended. I feel like I can’t win either way.

To Betfair: SORT IT OUT.

Did I make the right or wrong choice? I knew Massa was most likely to get pole and race win and earlier in the week I was looking to get a good value bet on this but there was just nothing about. I could have just accepted what was on offer but instead I choose not to and go for Heikki exceeding everyone expectations.

As it turned out Massa did get pole and race win so in hindsight maybe I should have backed him – but if the odds aren’t good enough then I will stick by my beliefs of not putting money on the table. Heikki could have (and Mclaren think he would have) won the race if it was not for the poor start he had. My day was over from the first lap and became a mission to just recover losses instead of make profits.

It was a good race to trade as Massa and Lewis both took turns at being favourite to win meaning I did manage to get back to break-even point. I could have continued trading but decided to just leave it at that - my confidence would have took a battering if I’d have then made a loosing trade to put me back in the red.

Disappointing again as my belief in Heikki could have paid off on another day. The alarm bells should have rang earlier in the day however. Other than seeing a dog get run over the GP2 race also showed the car in 2^nd was very slow off the grid – don’t know if this was coincidence or because the grid slot was dirty but I should have taken note.

I don’t know what happened with Trulli, he had a poor race. The gamble on a first corner shunt paid of on Nakajima but reliability was generally good and most of the selections made it to the end.

Never mind hey! A break even weekend means its 2 wins, 1 draw and 2 losses for the season. May not sound spectacular but if you consider each win is roughly 4 times more than the two losses I’m still in a good position.

No trading for the next race for me………that’s because I’m going to Monaco!!!

I will probably have a few outright bets before I go so will post them some time this week.

I’ve been looking through the stats etc this morning and noticed a few things. Firstly I think Heikki has slightly more fuel (1 or 2 laps) more than Lewis which is why Hamilton was so annoyed by making the wrong tyre choice. Heikki is 2.2 to beat Lewis on Betfair (the market also turns in-play) so I’m going to back Heikki on this one. He has managed to out qualify Lewis before with more fuel on board and as long as he can keep it on track he should stay ahead of him as he’s looked slightly stronger all weekend.

The other thing is this first corner has seen some pile ups and collisions on the first lap. I think it’s probably worth laying some of the midfield runners on ‘will they finish’, who may get caught up in this kind of accident. Especially those running older engines and gearbox’s who may not make it to the end even if they do escape such mayhem.

The race handicap bet doesn’t appeal to me today. The last races have seen a big gap between runners and there’s nobody who stands out as a great buy. I have instead backed Trulli in a best of the rest market (which does not include BMW) at 7.00. Betfair have scrapped their ‘Winner w/o big 4’ market because including BMW doesn’t make it worth while. Hopefully they will realise a best of the rest market with selected runners is far better. Seeing as Trulli is on engine 2 and gearbox 4 and starting middle-ish of the pack I included him in the not to finish selections just to cover liability.

Just a quick update before I head outside for a bbq!.....Managed to profit from qualy today but should really have won a lot more than I did. Heikki’s odds came down to 5 at which point I tried to green up but only got half matched as Massa just nudged in front.

Lewis let me down by choosing the wrong tyre compound and should really have got pole so lost the whole stake on that one. Again I could have got out and probably should have done when his odds traded around 3.5 in Q2 – I got greedy and wanted to wait and see.

I won on the P3 bet also so end the day with a nice return and in a good position for tomorrow because of my lay of Kimi for race win.

First thoughts tomorrow are Massa will win but it’s hard to tell how much fuel Mclaren have. As I already have a lay of Kimi I will probably wait until the first round of stops then take some action.

Hope Heikki can do well too as a back bet of him early in the week @ 40 could come in!...and it may be just what Lewis needs to wake him up a bit and stop him making cocky, over-optimistic choices such as thinking he could set pole on harder tyres ;-)

This may seem like a strange move to make given the dominance of Ferrari at the top of the time sheets but I scratched my back bet of Massa for pole. I did it first thing this morning when I realised Ferrari were struggling to get heat into their tyres and set good times so I decided on a change of strategy.

There's no doubt Ferrari have the quickest car this weekend but it only appears to be quick after 3 or 4 laps - the same applies to the BMW's. McLaren on the other hand are able to set a fast lap out of the box and then slowly loose pace. This is only because of the weather today and things may change for tomorrow (should be slightly warmer) but todays data could mean a Mclaren pole sitter. In this circumstance they really need to get ahead of the others to stop them pulling away.

I already had a small back of Heikki @ 29 for pole (massive price) so during P1 I backed Lewis at 9.8. Lewis has shortened to 7.2 whereas Heikki is around the mid 20's. I actually think Heikki has looked faster than Lewis so far and if Mclaren want to control the race they could light fuel him. I will see how 3rd practice goes and may decide to get out of these positions if I think I'm wrong.

Also done the usual small stakes outright bet on P3 for some midfield runners to top the session (I also included the BMW's this time).

I have also taken a couple of other small positions with the mind to add to them if needed. The last race weekend I had no plan other than to act upon what was happening and I ended up loosing on the Saturday. I would prefer to have some positions which I should be able to take small losses on or leave to run as long as possible for a winning trade, than not be on anything at all.

I will probably regret it!

A month ago, if you had asked me who to back at Turkey, I would have said Massa without a doubt. Now the time has come and I’m not so sure. Massa is great at this track but there are other things to consider now. His team mate Kimi is in the grove and looks unstoppable at the moment – he was just behind Massa last year at Turkey and now he’s found the cars sweet spot could find himself just ahead. I think McLaren were taken buy surprise in Spain buy some of the lowish fuel runs and ended up further down the grid than they expected – can they really afford to be caught out again? Kubica is on form during qualifying and what’s to stop Renault doing another lower fuel attempt?

If Massa does get pole he will be odds on for the race. Therefore I think this race the qualy/race winner market probably offers better value than the qualy winner market.

Kovy has recovered from his shunt and comes to a track were he was ‘best of the rest’ in the Renault last year. So far his season has been a case of playing it safe but at some point he needs to stand up and be counted. It’s fair to say he won’t be winning the WDC this year so at some point he will become a nuisance to Ferrari if McLaren choose to use him the right way.

Without any real predictions possible I will again play it be ear during the race weekend. I hope someone other than a Ferrari gets pole simply from the point of view it will make the race more exiting and give better opportunities to trade.

It’s sad to see Super Aguri leave this week and Davidson must be gutted. Hopefully he can find a drive somewhere else and Sato too. Sato has a bad reputation for his recklessness but he’s a quick driver and provided some good entertainment in his F1 time.

Thanks for the e-mails about my last post, I am still making a decision but have an idea in mind now which I will look into later.