2024 Chinese GP Outright Betting Preview – JP
2024 Chinese GP Betting Preview
Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2024 Chinese GP outright betting preview. Check it out below and keep an eye out for his Sprint race, qualifying and raceday updates throughout the weekend.
2024 Chinese GP Overview
Formula One returns to China for the first time since 2019. The Shanghai track is a purpose built Herman Tilke designed circuit. It is unusual in that it is dominated by two long straights, but also a lot of long duration, slow corners.
There is a very tight hairpin turn at the end of the longest straight which offers an overtaking opportunity. At the end of the start/finish straight there is the ‘never ending corner’. A four apex right, right, left, left combination which allows an early overtake for the smart drivers. The brakes take a bit of a pounding around this track.
The Shanghai circuit is very much a front limited circuit, as was Melbourne. The front tyres, the front left in particular, have to do a lot of work in the long corners. This would seem likely to bring Ferrari closer to Red Bull this weekend.
Sprint Race Weekend
This weekend will see the first Sprint race of the season. This has not been well received by some drivers. Formula 1 has not been to Shanghai since the introduction of the ground effect cars and the teams are low on relevant data. The teams will have just a one hour practice session before they have the qualifying for the Sprint race.
The Sprint race regulations are a bit different this year. The idea is to make two different events. The Sprint race is a standalone event. We have practice, Sprint qualifying on Friday, the Sprint race on Saturday, followed by race qualifying, with the Grand Prix on Sunday.
The Parc Ferme rules have also changed. Previously, the car’s set up was fixed from the Sprint qualifying on Friday. That was that for the race weekend. If a team had picked a poor set up, their weekend was ruined.
Now, teams are locked in from Sprint qualifying to the Sprint race but are then allowed to work on the cars for the regular qualifying as Grand Prix. They get two bites of the cherry and can salvage something for Sunday, if the first set up wasn’t working.
Resurfaced Track
Since the last race here, the track has been resurfaced and many of the larger bumps levelled. The circuit was built on marshy ground and it tends to sink in places, causing bumps and ripples. That can cause problems for these low riding ground effect cars. The track surface is expected to be very ‘green’ and evolution will be substantial.
How the new surface will affect tyre degradation is a bit of an unknown. Interestingly, Pirelli have selected their middle compounds, but they never sent any engineers to gather data on the new track surface. That does surprise me. The middle of the range compounds could be subject to some graining, just like we saw in Australia.
2024 Chinese GP: Team-by Team Outlook
Red Bull
Bounced back to winning ways in Japan. That track was always going to play to their strengths and it did. A front row lock out and 1-2 finish in the race. Throw in the point for fastest lap, and it was a perfect weekend for Red Bull.
The car is going to be competitive nearly everywhere, but this track may be a little less suited as was Suzuka. The Red Bull likes to go fast, so the long straights will suit it but the slower corners, not so much. Front limited tracks are not their favourite either, but this car is still going to be very competitive.
Verstappen has qualified on Pole Position for all four races so far, and with Ferrari now a better race car than qualifier, he looks a strong candidate to carry on getting Poles. Dominating races will not be so easy, but he remains a firm favourite for the win.
First Chinese Win For Max?
Verstappen has yet to win in China, but he has never been in a fully competitive car before. Perez has never raced for Red Bull in China and he has only three minor places under his belt.
Red Bull did win in 2018 with Daniel Riccardo at the wheel. That win was the result of a fortuitous safety car deployment which allowed the two Red Bulls to make a big gain and Ricciardo won the race, despite starting sixth.
Red Bull’s updates introduced in Japan are said to have worked, but only produced the expected marginal gains. With tyre graining a possibility this weekend, Red Bull are fearing a repeat of Melbourne. Not the brake fire that ended Verstappen’s race, but the graining that hurt Perez’ pace.
However, we should remember that Perez had qualified third, but had to start sixth due to a grid penalty. His floor was then affected by some rubbish he picked up quite early in the race.
It was a heavily compromised race for Red Bull and the result did flatter Ferrari. Ferrari had the graining problem under much better control, so there does seem to be a threat to Red Bull this weekend. However, that threat has to be kept in perspective.
Ferrari
Suzuka was a big test for Ferrari, and I’d say they passed, but they were comfortably short of Red Bull. The tyre degradation at Suzuka is high and Ferrari coped well with that. They are still not quite as kind on the rubber as Red Bull, but they now have race pace that is better than qualifying, the opposite of last year’s problem.
That they beat McLaren, who were the second best car in Japan last year, means that Ferrari have established themselves as Red Bull’s closest rivals. Ferrari have sacrificed a bit of one lap pace, but it is the race result that counts, so that was the right thing to do.
No Big Issues
With no big problems to fix, Ferrari are free to work on development, not something that could be said for the last few years. The teams only problem is that they now have two drivers who are neck and neck in the championship, and one is being dropped for 2025.
Sainz had to miss a race, but he is just four points behind Leclerc, and is 2-1 up in qualifying. It would be a bit embarrassing if the driver getting dropped, were to carry on beating the Golden Boy.
Solid Record
Ferrari have a decent record in China. They have won four races, but none in the turbo hybrid era. That said, Vettel often raced well here, scoring four podiums. They should be looking for another come Sunday.
It is a track that looks to play to their strengths, and while beating Verstappen will be hard, finishing ahead of Perez is a realistic target. That said, Perez looks to be much happier in the Red Bull this year. His qualifying is still a bit of a weakness, but he’s had three second placed finishes and that fifth in Melbourne, which wasn’t entirely his fault.
The Ferrari is better and the team is performing better. No longer is the race strategy left to a bunch of clowns, and they have improved just about everywhere.
McLaren
If Ferrari passed their test at Suzuka, McLaren failed. The track should have shown their car at its best, and while Norris qualified in third place, they fell back, losing out to the Red Bulls and Ferraris.
They have the third best car, having finished second best to Red Bull by the end of 2023. They are waiting for an upgrade to address the car’s weakness in slow corners. It is not due until we go to Miami, so they could struggle on large parts of this lap. In Suzuka, the McLaren was as fast as the Red Bull through the esses but a lack of straight line speed made holding their position impossible.
With this weekend’s track featuring long straights and slow corners, it would seem ready to expose McLaren’s weaknesses. Norris has only raced here once and Piastri has never seen the track in the flesh before. Their two drivers could be under more pressure from Alonso and the two Mercedes, if Mercedes can find a sweet spot.
Mercedes
Their 2024 car looks to be another ‘Diva’. It can show flashes of good pace and get everyone’s hopes up, but any small change in conditions and it falls out of its sweet spot.
In Melbourne, Hamilton was saying that the car was the worst it had ever been, in Suzuka, it was great. Then it was crap again in qualifying and not much better in the race. The bottom line is that they are just one point ahead of customer team Aston Martin, and thirty five behind another customer team, McLaren. At least they are still better than Williams.
It is a poor show and it is hard to see how they can turn another poor car around. Hamilton has four wins here in the turbo hybrid era, Russell has only raced here once, for Williams in 2019.
The car’s rather draggy nature, similar to McLaren, could be punished on the long straights here.
Aston Martin
Even with a driver line up handicapped by having Lance Stroll in it, Aston Martin are just one point behind the once mighty Mercedes. The Aston is not in the same group as the podium scoring teams, but they can hope to challenge Mercedes for fourth place in the Constructor’s table.
Alonso has signed a new long term contract with the team. His choices were limited to be honest. Red Bull and Ferrari were not interested, and he wasn’t interested in moving to a Mercedes team in decline. He burnt his bridges with McLaren and any other team would have been a step backwards.
Alonso was happy with the extensive upgrades on the car in Japan and he is having a consistent season so far. Three top 6 finishes in his first four races (he got a post-race penalty in Melbourne) and while fifth or sixth looks the very limit of the car’s abilities, he may be helped if Mercedes have an off weekend, and McLaren find the track not suitable for the characteristics of their car.
Visa RB
The best of the second division teams, but they are already twenty six behind Aston Martin in fifth, and only three ahead of Haas.
Yuki Tsunoda has scored all seven of their points and this weekend may be Ricciardo’s last in the team if rumours are to be believed. Certainly, his performances do not warrant a place in an F1 car. It would be interesting to see how good the car is, if the team had a top flight driver sitting in it.
Tsunoda has never driven here before while Ricciardo won here in 2018, back when he was a decent driver.
Haas
Still in the hunt for a point in most races, but in reality, needing attrition from the faster cars ahead to do that. Magnussen is struggling a bit in qualifying.
The car has reasonable race pace and as they have a stronger driver line up than Visa RB, they can still hope to be in the race for sixth place in the constructors table. Their car was very fast on the straights in previous races and the layout of this track should be better for them than Suzuka.
The Japanese track was expected to be the worst one on the calendar for Haas, and they still got Hulkenberg home in eleventh place.
Haas say that they will be bringing an upgrade for the car this weekend, despite there being a sprint race and with just the one practice session. The long range weather forecast suggests that FP1 may well be wet, which would further complicate things. I guess the team have chosen this track to bring upgrades, as it is one which will suit their car.
Williams
It is a case of sod’s law, that when a team is low on spare parts, their cars become crash magnets. Williams had already said that they would not have a new chassis to replace the one damaged in Melbourne ready in time for this weekend.
Sergeant was forced to use a heavier, repaired one in Japan. He crashed that. In practice. Albon then crashed in the race. The team are now spending time and resources on fixing broken cars. During the flyway races, that is doubly difficult.
Albon’s car was flown back to Williams factory in the UK to be repaired. Like Sergeant’s car, it will now be a bit heavier after those repairs.
Upgrades Trashed
The upgraded parts that Williams brough to Japan have been trashed and the cars will have to go back to older parts while they wait for the factory to manufacture replacements.
The car is OK, just about good enough to allow Albon to be in a position to score a point if everything went well and we get some attrition. The problem is, Williams tends to be the attrition.
Albon says that this race offers Williams a better chance to score points, as it is a bit of an unknown quantity. If they can find a good set up quickly, they could leapfrog a couple of teams, but I guess that applies to everyone.
Stake F1
Zhou Guanyu finally gets a chance to race ‘at home’. China’s first F1 driver driving in the Chinese GP is historic. Historic but likely to be rather fruitless.
He has failed to reach Q2 in any qualifying session so far and his eleventh place in Bahrain remains the best result for the team in 2024. Zhou has never raced here before in F1, Bottas had a couple of second places when at Mercedes.
The team are still working on a fix for their wheel nut removal problems. They were better in Japan, although Zhou was out on lap 20 and didn’t do his two stops. Bottas had a four second at stationary period which still cost him time, but there was none of the 50 second stops.
Alpine
Still bringing up the rear, lapped in all four races so far.
Pole Position Record and Attrition
The pole position driver has won four of the last six races here, the other two were won from sixth and second. The attrition rate in the turbo hybrid era has seen an average of exactly two retirements per race. Two of the last four saw no DNFs, and two have seen exactly two. The outlier was five in 2017.
The Weather Forecast
Friday morning is set to be wet with drizzly conditions with a generous helping of air pollution, (although some forecasters have the rain coming Friday evening/Saturday morning, but we are a couple of days away right now).
Friday morning will be the only free practice session and a wet track is not what the engineers will want. We can also throw in the fact that we have a resurfaced track. If the resurfacing were done recently, it could still be very oily and the rainwater will sit on top of the tarmac and create a skid pan. As a data gathering exercise, it would be a waste of time.
The threat of rainfall drops to 25% for Saturday and Sunday, but we are still a few days out and things can change. It will be largely cloudy/smoggy for the weekend with temperatures around 21 degrees for all three days.
2024 Chinese GP: Summary
It looks like we have something approaching a perfect storm of uncertainty for this weekend. The first Sprint race weekend of the season, potentially poor weather conditions for the only free practice session and a resurfaced track which hasn’t been used by F1 cars since 2019.
Pirelli are coming here with tyres which they hope will work well, but they haven’t surveyed the new track surface.
That can offer up opportunities for something strange to happen, or it might not really change anything. It is not ideal for trying to figure out any ante post bets.
Max The Fav
Max Verstappen is the 1.30 favourite to win, too short given the cocktail of unknowns, but he should still be the strong favourite. The Red Bull produces a lot of downforce, efficient downforce, and that is always going to be a potent weapon.
The in-form Carlos Sainz is good in tricky, low grip situations and the track layout looks to be Ferrari friendly. Charles Leclerc has been working on the simulator, trying to find a way to bring the tyres up to temperature for his qualifying laps.
The fact that this year’s Ferrari has better tyre degradation characteristics means that it is harder to get them working over a qualifying lap. Clearly, Leclerc is struggling with that fact. Could Sainz be the man to come out on top if we do get a bit of a strange one?
Or maybe the arch opportunist, Fernado Alonso? He is as big as 126.00 to win this weekend with one firm. But sadly it is a firm that only bet to pennies and a win only market.
Play It Safe
I am going to play it cautiously and stick to two ante post bets which look to have some reasonable value in them and wait and see what happens in Friday and Saturday’s Sprint race. The weather forecast should have settled down by then and we should know more about the track surface.
As usual with these Sprint race weekends, be very careful when placing any bets that you are placing them in the right market. It is easy to place a bet on what you think is the race, only to find that it is for the Sprint race, and vice versa.
With three top 6 finishes in his first four races, Alonso looks reasonable value to be in the mix for another top 6 at the 2024 Chinese GP.
2024 Chinese GP Tip: 1 point Fernado Alonso to finish in the top 6 in the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix @ 3.25 with Skybet
I was looking at backing Nico Hulkenberg to finish in the points. He is around 3.00 to do so, decent odds as he has done it twice already.
However, Livescorebet have their ‘without the big five teams markets’ and Hulkenberg is 8.00 to win that for the Sprint Race. He has won this market (for full Grand Prix) once already in 2024 and he has been second twice. Tsunoda has won it twice and is the 1.91 favourite.
On a track that should suit Haas nicely, hopefully Hulkenberg will be right there again and he is much better odds. He doesn’t even have to finish in the points to win.
