2022 Australian GP Raceday Update – James Punt
2022 Australian GP Raceday Update
It is now time for James Punt’s 2022 Australian GP Raceday Update. He has already penned an outright betting preview, check that out by clicking here.
Raceday Preview
There were some surprises in qualifying, but thankfully Leclerc on pole wasn’t one of them.
The Ferrari has looked well balanced and its performance in the final sector is the difference between them and Red Bull. Better traction and acceleration out of the final corner allowed Leclerc to win pole position by 0.286 seconds.
Teammate Carlos Sainz had the qualifying session from hell. Before going for his final Q3 run, his car wouldn’t start. The time taken to get it fired up meant he had no time for a warm-up lap and his flying lap was never going to work. His first Q3 run had been ruined by the red flag caused by Alonso crashing out. He will start from ninth in a car with top 3 pace.
Leclerc has the two Red Bulls behind him (if Perez doesn’t get a penalty for not slowing under a yellow flag) and on the limited long run pace we saw on Friday, there is nothing between them.
McLaren Finding Mojo
Fourth on the grid in Lando Norris. The McLaren has found its mojo, at least on pacey tracks of which this is now one. The two Mercedes of Hamilton and Russell qualified fifth and sixth but still a second off the pace, so this is not a sign of any great progress.
Home favourite, Daniel Ricciardo ended up seventh and he looked pleased, if a little surprised. Ocon was a disappointing eighth. The Alpine was in the mix for a front row with Alonso, but a hydraulic problem locked his gearbox and threw him into the wall when he had just set the best middle sector. He ended up tenth.
2022 Australian GP Raceday Update: Team by Team
Ferrari have the pace to win, but while the car is well balanced and fast, it is porpoising (or Kangerooing?) really badly and it will be physically hard work over a race distance. Leclerc has the two Red Bulls on his tail, and they have the advantage of three DRS zones. There were four, but one was removed for ‘safety’ reasons. That is one less part of the lap where Leclerc won’t be getting attacked by a DRS enabled Red Bull, but it is in a part of the track were the porpoising is at its worst for the Ferrari.
Leclerc is now the 2.00 favourite, but our 2 pointer on Sainz to finish on the podium is now a 3.75 chance. His car has the pace to get through the slower cars in-front but by the time he does, the front three will have cleared off. He needs luck but he could get it with a well timed yellow flag. Leclerc was summoned to appear before the stewards for driving an excessively slow in-lap during qualifying. That sort of offence usually results in a reprimand but he kept his pole position.
Closely Matched
Red Bull are evenly matched, or even a little ahead, on race pace with Ferrari, and we could see another cat and mouse race with the two leaders swapping places until we get to the final lap. The two Red Bulls will be heartened by the fact that the pole sitter has only won one of the six races here in the turbo hybrid era. The others were won by the driver starting second (x3) or third (x2). Neither driver has felt comfortable with the car this weekend and they are losing time to Ferrari in the corners.
McLaren have Norris starting on the second row. It is fair to say that they didn’t expect to be so far up but they have been helped by Sainz woes and the disappointing pace of Alfa Romeo and Haas. It is now a fast enough track to show the strengths of the McLaren, not a lot of slow corners and plenty of fast sections.
They have one of the cars least affected by porpoising, so they have that bit more downforce as a result. It is likely they have maxed out their performance in qualifying, but it will be interesting to see how they get on against the Mercedes drivers they have sandwiched between Norris and Ricciardo.
Mercedes Where They Should Be
Mercedes qualified fifth and sixth, and that is where they should be. However, they lost out to a McLaren for a second-row spot and Alonso was on course to out qualify them as well. They are a midfield team at the moment and still do not understand their car. The porpoising is very bad here and both drivers are going to have an uncomfortable race.
Hamilton says he thinks he can finish on the podium, but I don’t see how, without a slice of luck. They will have to deal with the McLarens and very possibly, the Ferrari of Sainz coming through the pack. They have improved on their qualifying spots in the first two races but not massively and they had a lot of luck in Bahrain.
Ocon is now the lead Alpine, starting eighth with Alonso in tenth. Alonso was fourth fastest in FP2 and FP3 and clearly the car goes well here. However, it does look to be a very fragile car. If it doesn’t breakdown, Alonso and Ocon have the pace to move up the order, but it is a big if.
Lack Pace
The Alpha Tauri’s of Gasly and Tsunoda start eleventh and thirteenth respectively. They have not been showing any great pace all weekend and they are hard to fancy, especially as their reliability has been poor.
Bottas’ run of 103 races of reaching Q3 ended with his twelfth place in qualifying. He blamed the team’s decision to fit a smaller rear wing after the stewards had decided to remove the fourth DRS zone. He thinks it will be OK for the race, but it may have cost him a couple of tenths in qualifying.
The car looks to have enough pace to move up the order but he is another with reliability worries. The team fitted a new gearbox after FP2, another of the many niggly issues they have suffered ever since testing began. Zhou starts in fourteenth and he has improved on his starting positions in the first two races, finishing tenth and eleventh.
Haas Disappointing
The two Haas drivers start fifteenth and sixteenth, a very disappointing position after such a promising start to the season, for Magnussen at least. He has not been well this weekend which hasn’t helped but they look to be a second off the pace of the car in tenth. Our bet on Magnussen to finish top six is goosed.
The back two rows of the grid are filled by the two basket cases, Aston Martin and Williams. Vettel managed to land our qualifying match bet to beat Stroll, but ironically, it was only because of Stroll’s collision with Latifi which caused a red flag.
That gave his mechanics enough time to get his repaired car out for one run in Q1. Both the Astons crashed in FP3 but Vettel’s required more work to repair, and we got lucky there. Their car is very poor and Vettel’s best lap this weekend was on the scooter he commandeered after his car broke down in FP1. It is slow, unreliable, and hard to handle.
Williams will be running out of money very early in the season. It wasn’t his fault, or not mostly not his fault, but Latifi’s coming together with Stroll badly smashed his car up…again. Albon has shown better pace but after qualifying sixteenth, he was disqualified for not having enough fuel in his tank to pass scrutineering. He now starts nineteenth as Stroll also picked up a penalty for causing the collision with Latifi.
2022 Australian GP Race Day Bets
We have already backed Leclerc for the win, and he is into 2.00 from 2.75. He is not home and hosed and this could be another close race, but the Ferrari has looked the better car. Verstappen was good on the long runs, and he has the three DRS zones with which to try and keep Leclerc in range.
However, it is the Ferrari’s superior performance in the final sector which gives Leclerc the edge. With the preceding DRS zone having been disabled, Leclerc should be able to keep the Bulls at arm’s length and it will be hard for Verstappen to get the jump on the Ferrari on the final straight.
We have backed under 16.5 classified finishers so hopefully we will see more woes for Aston Martin and Williams. There are many cars with reliability question marks about them, which may be good for that bet, but makes backing many of the drivers in today’s race unwise.
Bottas Tempting
Bottas to finish in the points is tempting at 1.91. He was in the top 10 in all the practice sessions but removing that fourth DRS zone did throw them off balance. The Alfa Romeo has had a problem getting off the line and it is a problem for which there is no quick fix at the moment. Zhou has suffered from it in both opening two races, but he has recovered to finish 10th and 11th. Some of that was down to others demise, but he is a decent racer who likes to overtake. He is 3.75 to finish in the points which is tempting.
Lando Norris is starting fourth and the car really does look to have top 6 pace here. He was fastest in FP3 and 5th in FP1. Ricciardo was 6th in FP3 so Norris’ pace is no flash in the pan. It is not a given that the two Mercedes can get the better of him, but he may find Sainz harder to defy. He is generally a 1.57 shot to finish in the top six, but Unibet go 1.75 (and he is nearer 2.00 on the exchange).
2022 Australian GP Raceday Tips: 1 point Lando Norris to finish in the top 6 @ 1.75 with Unibet
Aston Martin are having a horrible weekend. The car is slow, it is unreliable and handling like Bambi on ice. I’ll have a small stake on either of them to be the first retirement.
2022 Australian GP Raceday Tips: 0.5 point Aston Martin to have the first car to retire @ 8.00 with Ladbrokes
We have only had two races so far, but the fastest lap in both went to Charles Leclerc. He has the fastest car again this weekend and he is the 2.88 favourite to make it three in a row. The Red Bull has the race pace to compete, but the Ferrari just looks the best car on this track.
2022 Australian GP Raceday Tips: 1 point Charles Leclerc to set the fastest lap @ 2.88 with Betfred
Down at Haas, Kevin Magnussen has been under the weather, and he was struggling with his muscle fitness before that. Mick Schumacher started the weekend very conservatively, for good reason. There is no spare chassis for him this weekend and the one thing he must have done was to stuff it into the wall and have to sit out another race. He has done just that and has been faster than Magnussen in FP3 and qualifying. He is still the outsider of the two despite having the better pace compared to a poorly KMAG.
