Formula 1 is a great sport to bet on, it does not really work in the way the bookmakers think it does. Bookies as we call them in England (unless you are posh enough to have a Turf Accountant) tend to study form, betting trends, and past results but that really is not how motor racing works. They never look at speed traps for example and this is how the odds for a Force India pole position at the Belgian Grand Prix in 2009 sat at 250/1 before Free Practice. I was pretty skint at the time so opted not to put some of my last few quid in the world on result I thought was a certainty. Big mistake.
The bookies do not understand Formula 1 on the whole focussed on form and fleet street headlines they overlook testing almost entirely, additionally during the season they over look a lot of the details, update packages, tyre strategies and speed traps. In 2009 Force India had built a super low drag car, it did not have a lot of downforce so was not exactly great at most tracks, in the run up to the Belgian Grand Prix it had failed to score a single point. The mass media was not even talking about Force India, but Racecar Engineering was, in print and online we had repeatedly highlighted the fact that the VJM02 was consistently the fastest thing in a straight line at every track, and that it would be hugely competitive at Spa and Monza. It was. To give you an example of how at sea the bookies are with Formula 1 one UK online bookmaker is offering 40/1 on Kimi Raikkonen to win the Aus...