The F1 Predictions Game

F1 Predictions

Before going into any detail about Formula 1, I want to introduce you to a friendly bit of gambling between myself and my housemate - we call him Dave.

Prior to the season opener, we each secretly made some predictions. We predicted how the entire Championship table would finish at the end of the season, and this is what we each came out with;

These judgements were made based purely on gut feeling and pre-season testing. No races had occurred and no points had been scored. This season in particular is a tricky one to predict, what with there being loads of regulation changes and such.

Jackeline made some predictions of her own, though isn't taking part in the gambling side of things;

When the season is over, we will see how accurate our predictions are. For every position incorrect, we score 1 point - the lowest total wins. So, for instance, I predicted that Hamilton would win the title. If he does so, I score 0 points for that prediction but if he ends up in 2nd place, I score 1 point as I am incorrect by one position. Make sense? We go through each position at the end of the season, scoring points for each of the 22 drivers on the grid.

The man with the lowest total, wins the money! Yaaay! Money!

...you might well be looking at your computer with a little bit of confusion - and you'd be correct to do that. 'Joe you tit, where does this money magically appear from?!'

This is where the second part of this challenge comes in - the Team Mate Challenge.

For every single race, before qualifying, we each pick one member of each team to represent us so that we end up with 11 different drivers. To decide who picks first for each team, we flip a coin. We call this 'The Coin Flipping'.

Alternating turns, we guess the outcome of The Coin Flipping. (Red Bull, I pick heads or tails. Mercedes, Dave picks etc. all the way down to Marussia and Caterham). If you win the toss, you get to choose which of the two drivers in that team represent you, with the other driver going to your opponent.. If you lose the toss, you sacrifice that pick and your opponent gets to decide. It is handy to win the coin toss, if only to be able to pick Grosjean over Maldonado, Kobayashi over Ericsson or to stick your opponent with Sutil.

On race day, the field is full of 11 mini-races between teammates.

Whichever teammate comes out on top scores a point for either Dave or me.

As there are 11 teams, there will never be a draw - unless two team members happen to take eachother out of the race and retire at the same time. By the end of a race, you should have a notepad that looks something like this;

Whoever loses between Dave and myself has to whack £5 into the kitty. This builds up over the season, and by the end should have reached a total of £95. The person to claim this is the person who made the most accurate predictions at the start of the season!

Simple!

Thus far, I have added a whopping £15 into the kitty with Dave only having to surrender £5 on the opening race of the season - but it's early days yet.

 

#F1 #Predictions