Formula 1 Picks – 2015 Spanish Grand Prix

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Nico Rosberg

Is this the Winner?

Mercedes continued their dominance on Saturday’s qualification for the fifth successive session during the 2015 F1 World Championship but rather than seeing the title race leader Lewis Hamilton extend his pole positions for the season to five in a row it was Nico Rosberg who finished almost a quarter of a second faster than his team-mate this weekend. The 2014 pole position champion claimed his first pole position for this campaign as the F1 road show races on European shores for the first time, but can the German see of his team-mate and the fast charging Ferrari and Williams drivers to take his first win of the season too?

Online sportsbook Betfair.com do not believe so as they favour a victory for the German’s team-mate and current world champion Lewis Hamilton who starts alongside Rosberg on the front row of the grid. Here’s our Formula 1 picks on 2015 Spanish Grand Prix below.

Race Winner:

Although the bookmakers fancy Lewis Hamilton to usurp his Mercedes team-mate and secure another 25 point haul by taking the chequered flag and take his fourth victory in five races this season the statistics suggest that this will not be so easy for the Briton. The world champion may have won this race last time around, edging Rosberg by just over half a second across the line, but that was his first success in seven attempts and no-one has managed back to back victories on this track since Michael Schumacher completed a four victory haul between 2001 and 2004.

In fact the race has seen eight different winners in the last eight runnings of the event, while eight of the last ten races have seen the pole sitter emerge victorious crossing the line for the final time. Rosberg has both pole and has never won here before so he checks the boxes for both of the most recent statistics, plus his battling performance last time around in Bahrain shows that he has the spirit to return to winning ways as well, so our favourite to win the race is the German ahead of his team-mate who struggled throughout the day on Saturday.

Back Rosberg to win the 2015 Spanish Grand Prix at odds of 2.10 at Betfair.com.

Alternative Race Winner:

With fellow German Sebastian Vettel and Finn Valtteri Bottas sitting on the second row, ahead of the two rookies at Toro Rosso in Carlo Sainz Junior and Max Verstappen after stunning qualification performances, in their Ferrari and Williams cars far ahead of team-mates Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa in seventh and ninth it is they who will offer the biggest challenge to the two Silver Arrows cars out front. Should the battle get too heated between Rosberg and Hamilton then at odds of 10.00 and 81.00 they offer plenty of value as an each way bet for victory at a quarter odds to place in the top two places on the grid. With Monaco and Spa last year showing that both Hamilton and Rosberg will not want to give up anything to each other there is definitely the chance of either of these two snatching glory from the front row sitters.

With Vettel having won a race already this season and being the only driver to qualify within a second of the Mercedes duo we fancy him as our alternative race winner. 10.00 is a great price if both Mercedes drivers take each other out, but the each way part at odds of 3.25 for a top two placing is very tempting indeed so we’re backing Vettel to win each way in the Betfair Sportsbook too.

Top Six Finish:

With both Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa, who have taken three Spanish Grand Prix victories between them, sitting out of place in seventh and ninth on the grid there is value on a top six finish in this weekend’s race, especially on the Brazilian. Massa’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas showed what the car can do with a top four start and we feel that if Massa had not had issues and ran wide in turn three he’d have been right up there with his fellow Williams driver. Couple this with the Toro Rosso cars having had reliability issues this season as well as Sainz and Verstappen being very young and inexperienced we foresee the 2007 Spanish Grand Prix winner sneaking past them and into the top six come the chequered flag.

Our money is on Massa to take a top six place at odds of 1.90 with Betfair.