British Grand Prix Preview (After Quaifying) 2012

It’s fair to say that we’ve had more downs than ups going through each session of the British Grand Prix weekend, although the wet weather advice given through the preview has us in a strong position with Fernando Alonso (below) on pole in a bid to repeat his win in this last year, having shown more and more pace throughought Saturday before storming late onto take pole, meaning that we have 7/1 about the general 2/1 favourite.

In Alonso’s favour is that while he’s the winner of the only wet race run so far in the calendar, the team at Maranello have clearly improved the car to a level where they’ll be competitive on each and every weekend and they had the best of things in the dry yesterday, with both him and Massa finding the best part of a second early on in their flying laps. As said before, Alonso is in the lead of the Championship despite having struggled with the car so far thanks to sheer ability at the wheel and from the front he must have a first rate chance in a Ferrari that looks as fast as the best of thing, assuming he gets the luck he needs from the start.

Things had looked rosy for our other tip – Sergio Perez – midway through the qualifying before the red flag got to him, but the choice to overshoot his switch to Inters after the hour and a half break totally ruined his chances, when he overshoot in filthy conditions and broke his front wing, with the double blow of his time not being good enough for the pole shootout either. There are two instances of hope though for him.

With Hulkenberg demoted five-places for a gearbox change, Kobayashi pushed back five because he collided with Massa in Valencia, Vergne demoted 10 for his clash with Kovalainen in Valencia, he will start from 15^th instead of 17^th – seemingly small but helpful considering the 3 pointer going on him getting into the points.

Second is his great record of building on poor starts. This season he’s gone from 22^nd to eighth (Australia), ninth to second (Malaysia, notable in the wet), and fifteenth to third (Canada), so making up large amounts of ground (as we know is possible in the wet, where Sauber have looked decent this weekend with the rain at its hardest), is not beyond him and while he’s starting from an uncompromising position, a points finish is very achievable, and even with the podium looking out of reach he’s still one I’d be happy to have onside.

Those of particular interest tomorrow would be Pastor Maldonado – a long stint specialist who can succeed if the he keeps his car out of trouble for the 1^st hour of the race – and Romain Grosjean, who had been tipped for pole and looked good through Q2, only to beach his car. The performance of his team mate Kimi Raikkonen in sixth suggests he can make a bold bid and the 5/6 on a top six finish makes appeal.

UPDATE – Conditions have dried out notably, which makes Sebastian Vettel (in my belief the fastest man on the grid by some way) very appealing at 4/1 and he has to be worth a cover bet today to make the podium at least, with the 4/1 on a win really appealing as a small cover. Pastor Maldonaldo too looks big at 3/5 for a points finish.

Advice

2 pts Romain Grosjean Top Six finish (5/6 general) 

2 pts Sebastian Vettel (4/1 general), 2 pts Vettel podium (evs general) 


2 pts Pastor Maldonado points finish (3/5 Bwin)

1 pt Alonso/Vettel forecast (15/2 Paddy Power)