Formula One / David Croft / 07 March 2008 /

If there's one man worth listening to for Formula One betting, it's the BBC's F1 correspondent David Croft - here are his views on the different Betfair F1 markets...

So the testing is over and the freight has been packed and shipped to Melbourne. The new Formula 1 season is almost here and for the next few days everybody is on a level playing field. Until qualifying in the early hours of Saturday 15th March nobody can be totally sure who has the advantage, who has eked out a crucial few tenths of a second of extra pace, who has come up with a revolutionary idea or three with which to win a championship.

That means that as punters now is the time to put our money where our mouth is as waiting for the first race to finish might just be too late.

For those who haven't kept up to date with the sport over the winter, here's a brief summary.....

1. Lewis Hamilton is confident enough in his car that he's expecting to give Kimi Raikkonen a run for his money.

2. Felipe Massa is glad that Fernando Alonso has now moved to Renault and therefore thinks the title is a three-way battle between himself, Kimi and Lewis

3. Fernando meanwhile doesn't believe Renault are in a position to challenge for a podium straightaway whilst Williams are being cautious despite an excellent series of tests.

4. The Ferrari President has stated he thinks this season will be boring and Kimi Raikkonen says he hasn't got a clue who has emerged from the testing as favourites.

So let's give Kimi a clue - and I don't believe for a minute that he scratching his head on this one - by turning to the pages of the current Autosport magazine who very helpfully have compiled a guide to the performances of the teams and drivers
during the winter.

Their figures - taken as a percentage of the fastest time on days when more than one team has been present - show Kimi Raikkonen out in front from Heikki Kovalainen, Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton.

Nothing unusual in that except you'd expect Lewis Hamilton to be ahead of his teammate. Those that see this as a clue to how the season might pan out at Mclaren should head to Betfair's 2008 season match bets where you can back Hamilton at [1.28] to finish the season ahead of Kovalainen. Staying with the Special Bets for 2008 I do think that Felipe Massa has an excellent chance of picking up 4 race wins over the season. Betfair's market has him at [1.7] to win more than 3.5 and remember he won three out of 17 last year, had technical problems in Melbourne, was never allowed to win in Brazil and there's also one more race this year so I'm going to put a request to get that bet matched at evens.

As for the Constructors Championship, look no further than the front two in the market. It's universally recognized that either Ferrari or Mclaren will win this and after all the distractions Mclaren had last season, Ferrari rightly start as favourites. They also have a more experienced driver line up which should become more apparent as the season goes on, Hamilton and Kovalainen have only 34 Grand Prix between them. Ferrari are starting their first season without Jean Todt at the helm in many years but even allowing for the departure of their long serving team principal, this should be their championship to lose, back them at [1.59] - a short price but a safe bet.

And the drivers' title? Well the last three individuals to win this have all successfully defending it the following season. Kimi Raikkonen is priced at [2.54] with Betfair to continue the trend with his teammate at [6.6]. Now Felipe Massa may struggle just a touch now that they've removed the traction control he's been relying on to keep the car on the tarmac but given the fact that the Brazilian put in some imperious performances in 2007 and suffered some hard luck when it came to reliability, that might be an unrealistic reflection of his chances. Likewise Heikki Kovalianen at [15.5]. I'm not saying you can back either with 100% confidence but for a smaller stake, they might just present us punters with a decent reward for the long season ahead.

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