2012 Formula One Season

[Root]

Another Formula 1 season is nearly upon us; pre-season testing has already begun, and the first race is less than four weeks away. That means it's time for another predictions competition - or two.

The rules are below. There are a couple of changes from last season, so please read them even if you've played before.

Objective

• To predict (pick) the top ten finishing drivers for each Grand Prix of the 2012 Formula 1 season as accurately as possible.

How to participate

• Visit the entry form at http://is.gd/f1entries and follow the instructions.
• There is only one entry form for the whole season now. You can enter picks for multiple races at once, if you wish. If you later change your mind, you can submit a new set of picks, and you will score points for the last one submitted before the deadline.
• Picks will not be carried over to other races at all this year. Instead, I suggest you submit a set of picks for the whole season, and then submit individual picks for each race. That way, if you ever forget to enter, your season-long picks will be used as a back-up.
• The competition is not limited to Tube Forum members, so feel free to invite friends to play and don't be surprised if you see some unfamiliar names in the standings.

Deadline for picks

• The deadline is the start of the first practice session on each weekend. That is a Friday for all races except Monaco, which starts on a Thursday. I'll be posting my usual reminders in this thread.
• The exact deadline times can be found on the Results tab of the results spreadsheet at http://is.gd/f1results. All the results will be added there for the whole season. There are also tabs for the overall standings, the scores in each round (after it is finished), the drivers' performances and how much they are being picked in this competition (formerly known as the popularity contest).

Scoring

• Points are scored after each race based on how well your picks match the actual race results. For each driver that you picked, you score points based on the difference between where the driver finished and where you predicted he'd finish:
  • Didn't finish in the top 10 - 0 points
  • Finished exactly where predicted - 25 points
  • Finished 1 place off from where predicted - 18 points
  • Finished 2 places off from where predicted - 15 points
  • Finished 3 places off from where predicted - 12 points
  • Finished 4 places off from where predicted - 10 points
  • Finished 5 places off from where predicted - 8 points
  • Finished 6 places off from where predicted - 6 points
  • Finished 7 places off from where predicted - 4 points
  • Finished 8 places off from where predicted - 2 points
  • Finished 9 places off from where predicted - 1 point
• For example, if you picked Alonso to come in 3rd and he did finish 3rd, you'd score 25 points, but if he finished 5th, you'd score 15 points. If he finished 11th, you'd score no points.
• Your total score for a race is the sum of the points scored for each driver in your pick.
• You are responsible for checking your own score for accuracy, though everything is automated this year, so there shouldn't be any mistakes.
• There is no championship prediction twist this year, or indeed any bonus points to be scored at all, but Neil (tubeguru) will be running a different kind of predictions game and has posted the details in a separate thread.
• At the end of the season, the winner will be the the person with the highest total number of points. In the event two or more players have the same number of points, the tie-breaking criteria will be the number of round victories, and then the highest single score across the whole season.

There may or may not be a prize. Please ask if you have any questions, or start predicting now if you don't

[Root]

Reminder: the deadline is Friday at 01:30, UK time. If it makes it any easier, just get them in by the end of Thursday

[tubeguru]

Entered.

Just something I noticed - was/is it not possible to have a check box for "all races", so we don't have to select all 20? Just asking.

[Root]

It would probably be possible, but it might take an hour of fiddling around with the code by me, and as it would only save about 30 seconds for each person who wants to tick all 20 boxes (it took me even less by pressing tab-space-tab-space-etc), it's not necessarily worth it. I'll definitely consider implementing it for future seasons though, if I'm still running the game.

PS: the deadline is (basically) today! Any last minute entries?

[tubeguru]

How many entries have you got? It would be nice if they could all enter my prediction thingy too. I don't know how many of them have ...

[Root]

12 people have entered so far, including me. At least three of them are not on this forum, though.

[tubeguru]

Six people have entered mine. Oh well. They'll be sorry when we get points and they don't!

[Root]

My sleep rhythm got severely messed up by sickness yesterday, so I happened to be up to watch the first practice session. It's never wise to read too much into anything that happens outside of qualifying and the race, but I think it's clear that the Ferraris are a real handful to drive. Fernando Alonso posted the fourth fastest time but nearly lost his car at the final turn, and Felipe Massa's session ended early as he spun and found a gravel trap. I'd be very surprised if they aren't behind Mercedes now.

I put the FP1 results into the predictions spreadsheet to make sure everything was working properly. I found at couple of minor bugs. For what it's worth, Sam would have won the round with 171 points - a pretty impressive score!

Now that the first deadline has passed, I can reveal some info about our predictions. Every single one of the 185 made so far, many of which were for the whole season and therefore count as 20, have Sebastian Vettel in first place. I wonder why that could be? If our combined predictions were accurate over the course of the season, Vettel would score a perfect 500 points, of course, with Jenson Button his nearest challenger on 338 points. Red Bull and McLaren lock out the top four, Kimi Räikkönen is expected to beat Michael Schumacher, a couple of people have predicted that Heikki Kovalainen will be the first driver from the "new" teams to score a point... you can see all of that information on the Picks tab here. I wonder how it matches up with the predictions made in your game, tubeguru, particularly the team head-to-heads?

[The Raven]

I'm glad that I'm not the only person who played it safe!

[Root]

How are we feeling about our predictions now? I'm certainly wishing I could make a few changes. I have Räikkönen sixth, Grosjean only ninth. But I don't mind too much, as I'm just glad to have some unpredictability back in F1 and a break from the Red Bull dominance!

[hopeful traveller]

I would just like to take this opportunity to say that the Radio 5 commentary on the BBC this morning was crap. [rant ends]

I've got Schumacher much further down and I had Raikkonen VERY high up. I honestly expected Seb Vettel to waltz it for a third year but everyone knows he's not brilliant at racecraft... so for him to do well from sixth will be hard, especially with both McLarens and Schumacher in front.

On the subject of Radio:

Having woken up at 5:50 in order to watch listen to the qualifying, James Allen promptly ruined it for me. For example, this morning, "As you can see....". I couldn't see anything but a BBC Radio 5 Live logo! Alonso's misdemeanours were blighted by James' inability to tell me what actually happened, cutting co-commentator Jaime Alguersuari ( ) off to shout out "NICO ROSBERG'S GONE FASTEST!" 2 minutes into Q3 is not my idea of a good commentator.

Does anyone actually have Sky Sports F1 here, and did anyone watch it today? If so, can you write a long email to my Dad nagging him to get it? Please!?

[Root]

[rant ends]

Is that so?

On the subject of Radio:

Having woken up at 5:50 in order to watch listen to the qualifying, James Allen promptly ruined it for me. For example, this morning, "As you can see....". I couldn't see anything but a BBC Radio 5 Live logo! Alonso's misdemeanours were blighted by James' inability to tell me what actually happened, cutting co-commentator Jaime Alguersuari ( ) off to shout out "NICO ROSBERG'S GONE FASTEST!" 2 minutes into Q3 is not my idea of a good commentator.

Just find a stream already.

[Steeevooo]

I blame David Cameron.

[palkanetoijala31]

i blame boris johnson.

[tubeguru]

Having just watched qualifying, if the rest of the season is like this then we're going to have a very close battle for the championship.

Looks like the loss of those off-throttle diffusers have caught Red Bull out a bit.