2024 Saudi Arabian GP Raceday Update – JP
2024 Saudi Arabian GP Raceday Update
Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2024 Saudi Arabian GP Raceday update. We landed a nice winner in qualifying with our Tsunoda match bet, hopefully more of the same to come this evening.
2024 Saudi Arabian GP Raceday
What is going on off the track is more interesting than what’s happening on the track. The Red Bull saga took another turn last night with Helmut Marko leaving the paddock having been implicated for the leak of information regarding the Christian Horner investigation. Verstappen then stepped up and effectively said that if Marko goes, I go too.
Will Verstappen become Mad Max and walk away from a championship winning car? And follow Marko to where exactly? Visa RB? Whatever is going to happen, he will be driving for Red Bull this evening and starts from pole position.
Max To Get On With It
Verstappen has been very good at getting on with the job at hand and not yet let off track matters affect him on track. He is helped by the fact that he is in the best car. Leading from the front, with a comfortable lead, means he is less likely to make a mistake.
Verstappen was a comfortable 0.319 clear of Leclerc in the Ferrari, with Red Bull teammate Perez 0.335 behind in third. We are on Perez e/w at 13.00 and that looks OK. He started fifth last weekend and finished second. Leclerc had brake problems last weekend, so we didn’t get to see what his real race pace could be. Like the rest, Leclerc will need Verstappen to have a problem or a crash.
Team by Team
Red Bull
Another 1-2 finish will be the target and their long run pace looked very good on Thursday.
Ferrari
It was all very dramatic at Ferrari yesterday. Sainz was sent off to hospital to have his appendix removed and up stepped 18 year old Oliver Bearman to take his place.
Bearman had a one hour session to get the feel of the car, he knew the track after putting his F2 car on pole, and he just missed out on Q3 in qualifying. A points finish is his target and he has the car to do it.
He did make a few mistakes in qualifying and he may find driving these big cars a potential problem in the middle of the pack. Collisions are common on this track and Bearman will need to be careful he doesn’t go for an F2 car sized gap. Leclerc is 1.50 to finish on the podium, Bearman 2.00 to finish in the points.
Aston Martin
Alonso maxed out his performance to qualify fourth, while Stroll is about where the car should be, tenth. Alonso started sixth last week and came home ninth. His car is not up there with Ferrari and Red Bull, but it is all very close between Aston, McLaren and Mercedes.
Alonso has track position and the race simulations say that Aston Martin are only around a tenth of a second off the long run pace of McLaren. Will he be able to hang on? It will be hard but not impossible. Stroll is very quick off the line, but he needs to be careful at the first chicane.
McLaren
Still lacking one lap pace, too slow on the straights. But, their long run pace should allow them both to bother Alonso, however, passing him is another thing.
Mercedes
the car was bouncing too much for Hamilton to have any confidence and this is a confidence track. Russell has been faster all weekend and he is well set to continue his record of beating Hamilton in Jeddah. Russell is just more comfortable with the car right now.
Their long run pace was very much the same as Ferrari and McLaren, better than Aston Martin, but not by much. It is hard to see them making much progress and they are where they deserve to be. A fast starting Stroll could make things more difficult for them.
Visa RB
Tsunoda crashed the top teams party by reaching Q3. He was helped by Ferrari having to field a replacement driver of course, but he certainly put Ricciardo in his box. It will be hard for Tsunoda to stay in the top 10 as their long run pace wasn’t great. He has two faster cars behind him and he may have to settle for another eleventh place.
Williams
A good effort from Albon means he starts in twelfth, one better than in Bahrain. He dropped back in Bahrain and their long run pace looked decent, but not enough to make the top 10 on merit. Sargeant is on the back row as usual.
Haas
Our outside bet for the top 10, Kevin Magnussen starts thirteenth and the Haas does have good race pace, unlike last year. They look like the fastest of the second division cars. KMAG did move up the order in Bahrain and on merit.
His problem is that there is a clear separation between the top five teams, and the bottom five. It is likely he will need some attrition ahead of him, and there should be some attrition on a track like this. Fingers crossed.
Stake F1
Continue to be disappointing. Zhou had a big smash in FP3 and the team just didn’t have enough time to get him out for a timed lap in Q1. He wouldn’t have made Q2 anyway.
Bottas starts sixteenth, just as he did in Bahrain. Zhou made up six places in Bahrain thanks to the team making very good strategy calls, but their long run pace on Thursday was worse even than Alpine.
Alpine
They looked to have made some progress in practice, but when the fuel came out and the real pace exposed, they were quicker only than a driver who didn’t set a time, and Logan Sargeant. It is grim for Alpine.
There is one factor which could yet mean that this race could be interesting. Safety cars. In the three races here, all have featured at least one safety car and we have had red flags. Clearing up debris is enough to require a safety car and it does take a long time to get going again.
The first race here featured one safety car, four virtual safety cars and two red flags. That said, the first three on the grid, were the three who finished on the podium.
The race strategists for the back markers will be thinking, start on the hards and just keep running until the safety car comes out.
RaceDay Bets
Our two ante post best are still live chances, which is good, but they can still go tits up.
A lot of eyes are on how Bearman gets on. Given that he is in the second fastest car on the grid, a points finish should be a formality. Not crashing should be his priority, if he does that, the car should deliver the result.
He is only 18 years old and will be nervous, but as Toto Wolff said yesterday, these young drivers are very well prepared these days. They are fit and well coached in all departments. It is not like Ferrari have put an Uber driver in the car.
A half decent race driver should get a Ferrari home in the points. I wouldn’t go mad on him, the track is a difficult one, but he is worth backing. For the very ambitious/greedy punter, Bearman is 11.00 to finish in the top 6. That would be a big result, but he has the car, and he could get lucky with a safety car, but I will be more cautious.
2024 Saudi Arabian GP Raceday Tip: 1 point Oliver Bearman to finish in the points @ 2.00 with Skybet, Betvictor
With no driver really out of position, except Bearman perhaps, the markets are all a bit predictable and value is thin on the ground.
2024 Saudi Arabian GP Raceday Group Betting
Ladbrokes are doing good work with a nice range of markets, and there is plenty of interesting opportunities.
Group 1
This a group of five featuring the two McLarens, the two Mercedes and Alonso. It is Alonso who starts ahead of the rest and might that be enough? He did drop back in Bahrain and his race pace is around a tenth off the others in the group, but he has track position, at the start at least.
We saw in the first race that the cars are struggling following the car in front. Get too close and the tyres can go off. George Russell said after qualifying that while their car is quick in straight line, it is tricky to follow.
Russell Fav
Russell is the 2.60 favourite, despite starting behind Alonso and the two McLarens. That seems short to me. The Mercedes is not behaving itself which is a worry. The McLaren hasn’t shown great pace so far and Hamilton starts at the back of the group and he isn’t happy in the car.
Alonso is the outsider in the betting for this group. Yes, the car’s race pace is not the best, but track position is worth much gold. He has been competitive all week and while some of that was down to low fuel sponsor pleasers, he is a canny operator.
2024 Saudi Arabian GP Raceday Tip: 1 point Fernando Alonso to win Group 1 @ 7.00 with Ladbrokes
Match Betting
The odds are not huge, but I do fancy Norris to finish ahead of Hamilton. The McLaren just looks an easier car to drive and when Hamilton says he lacks confidence in the car with an unstable rear end, we should listen. It was one of the problems with the car last year and it seems to have reared its ugly head again.
Hamilton said that they tried every setup change they could think of, but nothing worked. Driving around a very fast circuit with a lack of confidence in what your car will do when you turn the wheel can’t be much fun.
2024 Saudi Arabian GP Raceday Tip: 2 points Lando Norris to beat Lewis Hamilton @ 1.60 with Ladbrokes
We are on Magnussen to finish in the points and I don’t like backing a driver more than once as it seems to put a curse upon them. However, Magnussen keeps cropping up in nice looking bets. I could back him in quite a few, but I’ll try to be cautious.
KMAG looks reasonable value to beat Ricciardo at 2.25, he is 3.10 to beat Albon, and that looks more like a coin toss. He is 2.60 to beat his teammate and the two Alpines in Ladbrokes Group 3. All very backable. I’ll go with the biggest odds.
The Haas long run pace was a huge weakness last year, but they have spent a lot of time working on that. It was good in Bahrain and on Thursday they worked hard on it again. That long pace put the Haas a tiny traction quicker than Williams and this bet could just be about who gets the best start, but there is no way Magnussen should be that price to beat Albon.
