Predict the Chinese GP pole sitter and top five finishers to win great F1 prizes

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Who's your tip to win in China?

Enter our free predictions competition now to be in with a chance of winning tickets to next year’s British Grand Prix.

And we’ve got F1 DVDs and paintings to be win by whoever does the best predictions this weekend. See below for full details of prizes and how to enter.

The deadline to get your prediction in is the start of final practice tomorrow (Saturday)

The prizes

This year we’re giving away a pair of prizes every race weekend.

On top of that at the end of the year the top 12 finishers all get prizes – and whoever scores the highest overall will be going to the 2011 British Grand Prix. Here are the prizes in full:

Grand prize: Two grandstands tickets to the 2011 British Grand Prix

The person who scores the most points in the 2010 F1 Fanatic Predictions Championship will win grandstand tickets to the 2011 British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

This is the first time we’ve offered F1 race tickets as a prize at F1 Fanatic and I hope you all agree it’s a fitting reward for the F1 expert who can best predict who will be on top in 2010.

The grand prize winner will receive tickets to all three days of the 2011 British Grand Prix with reserved grandstand seating for the race.

Second place prize: An F1 painting of your choice

The second place finisher in the championship will win an F1 painting by Rob Ijbema.

You get to choose which F1 driver, present or past, will feature in the painting. Or you can pick one of the other motor racing paintings on Rob’s site Car-a-day.

Runners-up prizes: Autocourse 2010-2011

The ten players who finish in third to 12th positions in the championship will win a copy of the 2010-2011 edition of Autocourse.

The highly respected journal of Formula 1 and other major international four-wheeled racing series is published at the end of every season.

This year the publication marks its 60th anniversary edition.

NB. 2009 edition cover used for illustration

Race winners prize: The Lotus Story DVD Box Set

Duke Video are supplying the prize for the player who gets the highest score in each round.

With the Lotus name returning to F1 in 2010 what better prize than a DVD box set showing the history of this great team. This four-disc set “The Lotus Story” chronicles Lotus’s participation in F1 from the company’s beginning in 1948 up to its F1 withdrawal in 1994.

Duke are also offering a special promotion exclusive to all F1 Fanatic readers – whenever you order from them you can get 15% off using the promotional code F1Fanatic at the checkout.

Race runners-up prize: F1 race winner print

The second place finisher in each race will win a 40x35cm print of the race winner from Motorsport in Print.

How to enter

Entries will open in the week before every race. You have until the start of free practice three on Saturday to make your predictions.

You can post your predictions for the first race now below or wait until nearer the deadline. A reminder will be posted on the site after free practice two on Friday.

Each player may predict the pole sitter, the pole position lap time and the top five finishers in the race. See below for the rules in full.

Enter your pole position lap time prediction in the following format: MM:SS.ccc – e.g. for a lap of one minute, 25.386 seconds enter 01:25.386

Please try to pick an original and distinctive user name – something a bit more descriptive than just a first name. We had a lot of very similar entries last year!

View the F1 Fanatic Predictions Championship standings here

[motorracingleague entry=4]

Competition terms and conditions

1. Maximum one entry per household.
2. The competition is not open to employees, friends or family of F1 Fanatic, Silverstone Circuit, Duke Video, Motorsport in Print, Car-a-Day or Icon Publishing Ltd.
3. Predictions will open up to one week before the start of final practice on the Saturday of a Grand Prix weekend and will be promoted on the front page of F1 Fanatic before closing prior to the start of final practice.
4. In each round players are invited to predict (a) who will be on pole position and (b) what the top five finishers will be (five different drivers).
5. Players accumulate points in each round as follows:
a. Correctly naming the pole sitter: 2 points
b. Correctly naming one/two/three/four/five driver/s who finish in the top five: 1/2/3/5/8 points
c. Correctly predicting where one/two/three/four/five driver/s finish: 2/6/14/24/40 points
6. Whoever scores the most points over the 19 races from round one (Bahrain) to 19 (Abu Dhabi) wins the grand prize.
7. In the event of a tie on points the winner will be determined by who came closest to predicting the pole position time correctly. If that fails to produce a winner the editor will choose a means of deciding who has won.
8. Predictions must be entered using the form or e-mailled to competition@f1fanatic.co.uk
9. Once a prediction has been made it cannot be altered.
10. In the event of a dispute the editor’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
11. No cash alternative is offered for any of the prizes.
12. Grand Prix tickets: Children must be accompanied by an adult. Accommodation and transport to the venue not included. Event date TBC.
13. Players who have won prizes will be notified by email within seven days of each Grand Prix. Lotus DVDs and F1 paintings will be despatched within 28 days of that email being sent. Grand Prix tickets will be despatched once they are available. Autocourse books will be despatched once they are published.

Don’t miss a single round of the F1 Fanatic Predictions Championship. Subscribe to F1 Fanatic using RSS, email or Twitter: Click here for more information.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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48 comments on “Predict the Chinese GP pole sitter and top five finishers to win great F1 prizes”

  1. I see Sutil in the top 5 a lot but not much Kubica…

    Anyways Keith could you give a note to the one who comes near the predict qualifier time just for fun ofcourse?

  2. Is there any way of seeing the predictions already made?

    1. You can after you’ve made your prediction.

      1. Okay, thanks very much. Will do.

  3. Kubica was actually rated higher in the predictons than Sutil at the moment that you posted that. Twice as many votes for P3 and P4 and 3 times as many for P5.

  4. I missed the last race after 2 poor showings… not much chance of F1F Prediction Championship glory for me. :(

    1. As all the teams and drivers like to say regularly….
      It’s a long season.

    2. Anything can happen in Formula 1, and it usually does!

    3. you didn’t watch it??!!!

  5. Interesting… I did some stats, to check the collective “wisdom” of the F1Fanatic readers, and I took under consideration all responses from people who have posted predictions before my prediction, including mine… So…

    F1Fanatic readers (so far), think that (on average) the starting grid will look like that:

    1. Sebastian Vettel (avg score 2.19)
    2. Lewis Hamilton (avg score 2.45)
    3. Fernando Alonso (avg score 3.91)
    4. Jenson Button (avg score 4.12)
    5. Mark Webber (avg score 4.38)
    6. Felippe Massa (avg score 4.53)
    7. Michael Schumacher (avg score 4.58)
    8. Nico Rosberg (avg score 4.74)
    9. Robert Kubica (avg score 5.33)

    Also, the average pole position (excluding “wet” lap times and some crazy ones) seems to be

    1:34.458

    that is, about 8 tenths faster than the fastest Friday lap time (Hamilton).

    Let’s see if the collective F1Fanatics wisdom is indeed correct…

    1. HounslowBusGarage
      16th April 2010, 12:10

      . . . Looks as though only 8 people are predicting wet qualifying so far.

    2. Wow. Average pole position time was just 1 tenths off down to the thousands. 1′34.558.

  6. Missing last weekends predictions really did nothing as they would have been wrong anyway so hope I can get some points now.

  7. Mark Hitchcock
    16th April 2010, 11:32

    oops, messed up my prediction. Meant to put Vettel in first not Alonso!

    1. I messed up mine too… left Vettel out of the top 5. Oh well, it’s not like I can do much worse than I’ve done so far.

      1. Well the RBR seems fragile Maciek so you never know, it might just work out ;)

  8. Can someone very calculating who has put the pole time in or under the 1:34.8 tell me how you think they will be able to find that much time for qualifying. I am interested. Thanks.

    1. Last year’s pole was 1:36.1, with fuel on board?

    2. Fastest time in FP2 2009: 1:35.679
      Fastest time in Qualifying 2009: 1:35.130

      Subtract 0.549 from 1:35.217 and you end up with 1:34.668

      1. Also, check the differences between this year’s FP2 times and the Q3 times. They can gain massive amounts of time.

  9. Keith… changed pc and had all the info saved on the browsers; the “Predictor” says I’m entering a different e-mail account and I just can’t remember which one I used in the previous occasions. Can you help me with this?

  10. Keith,

    I don’t seem to be able to get to enter my predictions on the page. Can you please enter the following for me>

    Pole: Vet 1:33:900

    1st: VET
    2nd: WEB
    3rd: ROS
    4th: BUT
    5th: KUB

    Thanks

    1. Problem solved right after I sent the message. All OK now
      Thanks

  11. Keith: Is there a chance that I can change my pole prediction? I meant to choose Seb. Vettel, but by accident I ended up picking Seb. Buemi…

  12. Went for different order than previous predictions, will see how it pans out.

    Can’t be worse than previous weeks though, despite getting winner correct one week, my best is still about 5 points :|

  13. Keith i cant get it to work for some reason, prediction is…

    Vettel
    Vettel
    HAmilton
    Webber
    Schumcher
    Kubica

    Thanks!

  14. It does make me smile at the sheer amount of people that put Hamilton on for pole and race winner each race!

    I wonder if they’re going to be disappointed? Again?

    1. I’ve gone for Vettel pole every race until now, I’m hoping the Red Bull’s advantage has been nerfed and Hamilton looked handy in practice.

      1. Mark Hitchcock
        16th April 2010, 23:00

        Yeah I was tempted to put Hamilton as well. Considering that Mclaren know they’ve been qualifying poorly you’d hope they’ll improve.

        Obviously I backed up that assertion by picking Vettel for pole :P

    2. It’s the logical choice when he has set the fastest time overall on day one of the weekend, sure some fans might pick him because they like him but a lot of people will be looking at the times.
      Other than that you are going purely on hunch, previous circuit form can only give you so much of a guide at this point.

      If we could predict after practice 3 then I would go purely on that, but we can’t so it’s down to times on day one for me.

  15. What crazy race are we up to if “F1ManiacPredictions!” wins…

    for the rest, I hope my prediction will help me to gain some places in the championship

  16. F1ManiacPredictions!:

    01:25.026

    SEN
    CHA
    LIU
    DEL
    GLO
    KOB

    Blimey.

    1. God help us all…

  17. Why did Mclaren go back to those ugly black wheels instead of thr beautiful silver ones they showed at the new car presentation ?

  18. Hey man, I already missed it last time, and I just didn’t manage to make the prediction on the thingy up there… I hope you can include this, even though it’s a looooong shot.

    Vettel: 01:33.938

    Nico Rosberg
    Fernando Alonso
    Lewis Hamilton
    Felipe Massa
    Jenson Button

    1. Also, just for the record, cause I already lost it once because of this; the thingy says I still have 4 hours to do it.

  19. From weather forecasts, Sunday will be a mad day. Sadly, I must leave home 7.40am for work.

  20. José Baudaier
    17th April 2010, 2:34

    Now that’s funny. Yesterday I posted my predicion, but now I can’t find it in the table. And on top of that I can’t post a predicion anymore.
    Can you help me out Keith?

    1. José Baudaier
      17th April 2010, 2:38

      Well, looks like my prediction is the nameless one. That or some nameless guy posted the exact same prediction I did.

      Keith, can you fix this? Or at least note that the nameless prediction is mine?

      1. Can you email me with a description of the problem please? Thanks.

  21. I’m going to go put $50 on Nico Rosberg. This could be the weekend.

  22. I think I missed the predictions by 3 minutes…only cause I had to restart my computer…..oh well….

  23. I missed the deadline by minutes!

    Can I still enter?? please!

  24. how are the points calculated for this Keith?
    do we only get points for a rigth answer, or small amout of points for being close?

  25. DaveG 01:34.559 <— Could you be any closer without getting it right XD

  26. The median pole time (time that was predicted most often) was around 1:34.8. Not far off the actual time. 70% of the predictions where within 1 second of the actual pole time.

    A lot of people where really close to the pole time prediction. The five closest ones were:
    Player Diff
    DaveG 0,001
    Barry Turner 0,002
    RCole 0,003
    mash -0,003
    HounslowBusGarage -0,003

    The predictions for pole where of course between Vettel and Hamilton:
    Pole Perc Number
    VET 46,14% 448
    HAM 42,22% 410
    BUT 3,30% 32

    Amazingly Webber got only 18 “votes” for pole.

    For the race win we have the following predictions:
    P1 Perc Number
    HAM 43,77% 425
    VET 34,81% 338
    ALO 5,66% 55

    If it’s going to be a weather influenced race, a lot could happen, but I doubt Hamilton will win a dry race from P6.

    Again Webber gets only 23 votes while he has been almost as fast as Vettel all weekend/season and is driving the fastest car of the field. The guy has some serious image issues :)

    I gave the predictions F1 style scores again and added all those up. For instance a prediction with HAM to finish on P1 and ALO on P2 would give HAM 25 points and ALO 18 points.

    The resulting top 10 scores from 971 predictions are:

    Driver Score
    HAM 17801
    VET 16257
    BUT 9844
    ALO 8799
    ROS 8399
    WEB 5818
    MAS 4677
    SCH 3453
    KUB 1710
    SUT 448

    That actually looks pretty accurate as a prediction for the grid. Just swap Hamilton and Webber and your pretty close.

  27. I’ve mentioned this before… is it just on my machine??

    It seems to show the Bahrain predictions when you try to go back and see what you predicted.

  28. Wow. Someone predicted 08:45.888 SUT SEN ALG KOV BUT DIG

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