Formula One 
/ Jack Houghton / 05 May 2011 / Leave a Comment 
Jack reckons he's found the value for Istanbul race
"Vettel should be around a [3.1] shot to win qualifying for Turkey. Currently available at the much shorter [1.68], he looks like a driver to oppose."
Jack Houghton might not be the world's leading authority on F1 but when it comes to writing about betting we reckon he's at the front of the grid. Here, our man explains how you can proft from Sunday's race in Turkey.
I'll be honest. I know very little about F1.
Sure, I watch most races. Actually, when I say "watch", I mean I have them on in the background. But my mind is usually elsewhere. F1 plays a similar role in my life to the Shipping Forecast. The rhythmic rise-and-fall is soothing and I like the exotic sounding names. When needed, it helps me drop-off. But I haven't the first clue what it's all about and can't imagine there's anyone out there who really knows any different.
It was a little concerning then when I remembered that, in a moment of overconfidence, I'd persuaded the editors at betting.betfair to let me conduct a statistical review of F1 in time for the Turkish Grand Prix. But I shouldn't have worried, because, when you get stuck into the data, it's actually quite fascinating.
On the rare occasions I have read previews of Grand Prix, or listened to commentators predicting the likely result, there seems to be a complex array of factors they draw upon, including whether or not a certain car, car setup, or driver is suited to a particular track. I'd often wondered whether the complexity was necessary, or whether, as with other sports I have looked at, there were more straightforward ways to determine value bets.
I set out to focus on three markets - Overall Qualifying, Fastest Lap and Winner - aiming to find the most reliable indicators of which drivers would be most likely to pick up each honour.
Overall Qualifying
It would make sense that to predict the driver to win pole, you should simply look at who has won it previously. After all, if a driver and team have been successful in a very particular context before, they are surely more likely to be able to be so again.
That's not what the data says. In fact, looking back over the last 200 Grand Prix, drivers only win back-to-back poles around 30 per cent of the time. That figure did creep up in 2010, but otherwise has remained fairly constant in every other year analysed, and in the block of years since 2006, when the current system for qualifying was adopted.
Doing some more complicated analysis, it makes little difference how many previous poles a driver has won as to whether they will repeat the feat.
According to the data I have looked at then, Vettel should be around a [3.1] shot to win qualifying for Turkey. Currently available at the much shorter [1.68], he looks like a driver to oppose.
When trying to predict who will be on pole, it turns out, you're slightly better off looking at various combinations of who has won recent Grand Prix. On this basis, I would expect Hamilton, the winner in China, to be much shorter than the currently available [7.4].
Winner
As an only partially engaged watcher of F1, I'd been led to believe that the driver on pole enjoyed a significant advantage over other drivers. And they do - going on to win just under half of Grand Prix. This figure remains constant in nearly every year, and in different blocks of years. It seems that no matter how often they tinker with the rules, the driver on pole still wins just slightly under 50 per cent of races.
It's slightly surprising then that Vettel is as short as [2.36] to win in Turkey when it is far from guaranteed that he will win pole. And as the winner of the previous Grand Prix, Hamilton should be much shorter than [4.6] to win again.
Fastest Lap
The market on who will set the fastest lap time in Turkey is naturally light at this stage. It's worth noting though that the winner of Overall Qualification only stands a 26 per cent chance [3.84] of going on to drive the fastest lap in the race. And the eventual winner in Turkey is only 35 per cent likely [2.8] to have driven the fastest lap on route to victory.
When watching on Sunday this could open up some in-play opportunities - with the fastest lap much more likely coming from a driver further back in the race.
Recommended Bets
LAY Vettel in Overall Qualification market at [1.68].
BACK Hamilton in Overall Qualification market at [7.4].
LAY Vettel in Winner market at [2.36].
BACK Hamilton in Winner market at [4.6].
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