Friday practice for the Italian Grand Prix has finished and that means it’s time for the latest round of the F1 Fanatic Predictions Championship.
Enter your predictions for pole sitter and the top three of the podium and you could be in with a chance of winning a prize – even if you haven’t played yet this year.
The prizes
First place prize
- An original F1 painting by Rob Ijbema
- Five F1 DVDs from Duke Video: “Formula One 1970: The uncrowned champion”, “Formula Villeneuve: A tribute to Gilles Villeneuve”, “The World’s Greatest F1 Cars”, “Champion: Hill” and “Nine Days in Summer”
- ?é?ú60 to spend on F1 merchandise at Onpole.com
3x Runners-up prizes
- Copies of “Lotus Goes Turbo” DVDs from Duke Video
- ?é?ú30 to spend on F1 merchandise at Onpole.com
Here’s how the game works:
1. Predictions have to be made before the beginning of final practice on Saturday.
2. Only one set of predictions per person.
3. You have to predict (a) Who will be on pole position and (b) What the top three finishers (three different drivers) will be.
4. Players score:
a. ten points for correctly guessing the pole sitter
b. ten points for naming one of the top three in their correct position, 25 for naming two of the top three and 50 for naming the whole top three correctly
c. five points for correctly naming any other driver in the top three (but not in the correct position)
5. Predictions must be entered as described below and either posted in a comment below or emailled to competition-at-f1fanatic.co.uk
6. Whoever scores the most points over the 15 races from round three (China) to 17 (Abu Dhabi) wins the grand prize.
7. In the event of a tie the winner will be determined by who picked to most race winners correctly, then second places finishers and so on.
8. In the event of a dispute the editor’s decision is final.
mp4-19b
11th September 2009, 14:42
Wow! This new plugin is really cool! thanx to Ian
Tommyb
11th September 2009, 14:44
Did the username mistakes get sorted from the spa predictions?
Tommyb
11th September 2009, 14:58
Ah I can see it has now thanks
Chalky
11th September 2009, 14:48
New plugin looked great, so for once I’ll try my luck and drop in a random choice. Why follow the crowd? :)
Tommyb
11th September 2009, 14:56
Badoer for the win?
Chalky
11th September 2009, 14:59
I had the choice of Massa on that list too!
ajokay
11th September 2009, 15:04
I’m sorry, but this race is going to be so difficult to predict. Almost impossible.
DomPrez
11th September 2009, 18:14
I have to agree, i participate in several different fantasy leaugs and my predictions for all of them are completly scattered.
Patrickl
11th September 2009, 21:38
I think so too. We really need saturdays FP to have some info to base this on.
Pole is always much of a lottery with the different fuel levels and all.
graham228221
11th September 2009, 15:06
the obvious polesitter isn’t a choice, where’s Liuzzi?
Arun Srini
11th September 2009, 15:37
Keith, where is Liuzzi? Also plz remove Massa.
IDR
11th September 2009, 15:52
Felipe Massa has been part of previous estimations.
Don’t expect such sophistication for a “free of charge” program.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
11th September 2009, 15:58
Have added him, sorry about that!
ianhaycox
11th September 2009, 15:22
Bah, looks like the only way to get ahead, is to go out on a limb. I couldn’t choose my first predictions as the points leaders beat me to it.
Here goes nothing. HAM ALO SUT HAM I’ve only put my prediction in a comment, cos if I get 60 points some might think there is magic code in the plugin – ‘if player=ian then maxpoints’ :-)
Bigbadderboom
11th September 2009, 17:31
Wheres mp4 and his conspiracy theories gone, F1fanatic have their own in house conspiracy now.
Sush Meerkat
11th September 2009, 15:33
it said my entry could not be submitted because of duplicate entry “Sush Meerkat-12”
Someone tried to mess up Becken’s prediction last time round I recall, by impersonating him.
anyway, my prediction is as follower;
Sush Meerkat
11th September 2009, 15:35
Sush Meerkat
SUTIL
ALONSO
HAMILTON
Räikkönen
mp4-19b
11th September 2009, 16:03
Could you please explain why you choose Alonso for the win? Is there any rationale behind it?
Ads21
11th September 2009, 17:19
I think he has a shot at pole. He may fancy a glory run at monza on the weekend his Ferrari drive is confirmed and he has Kers which is apparently a massive boost in quali in monza. have to say I dont see him having the pace to win tho this weekend.
Sush Meerkat
11th September 2009, 21:44
what was your choice?, and why are you asking me my rationale?, are you saying i’m mad?.
Alonso because when it comes to pressure and Alonso he normally puts it together, such as monza 2007, the fact that Pat Symonds can come up with a crazy strategy coupled with the improved Aero of the Renault with KERS and you got yourself a wildcard.
Also of note, for several races at the start of was putting Sutil on the podium for a laugh, and losing points in the process, I’m in the top ten still, even though I was screwing up on purpose.
Tommyb
11th September 2009, 22:00
Grosjean will cause a safety car for him
Damon
11th September 2009, 17:03
The authenticity of a voter should be verified by his e-mail address.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
15th September 2009, 20:30
Sush I don’t know why you got that error message but your prediction was included.
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
15th September 2009, 20:42
I don’t know why you got the error message Sush but your prediction was added by the system.
IDR
11th September 2009, 15:36
I don’t know who have done this new way for making the predictions, but Keith, you should give him the 1rst. place Prize of this competition!
Great job, here!
gazzap
11th September 2009, 15:45
Normally missing liuzzi wouldn’t be the end of the world but those Force Indias are bloody fast at Monza. he could get a podium.
Nirupam
11th September 2009, 15:54
Keith,
Not being able to post prediction!
My prediction:
Nirupam
Sut
Alo
Rai
Ham
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
15th September 2009, 20:43
Nirupam, like Sush, your predictions were also included. I think this is because both of you had predictions amended earlier on, we’ll take a look at the problem.
DMW
11th September 2009, 16:31
Only a few people give poor KOV a shot. He’s got four-tenths under his thumb and great team behind him. This is probably his best chance at one more victory he will have in his F1 career. I’m afraid he will be replaced by his usual weak-willed Sunday doppelgaener on race day, but I hope not. To me, him fading to second is the best a betting supporter should hope for.
Patrickl
11th September 2009, 21:31
In FP2 Kovalainen set his time in a qualy simulation of a few laps. Hamilton set his time during a 10 lap race simulation.
Raikkonen even set his fastest lap in a 13 lap race simulation. By far the fastest race pace shown of the lot.
David
11th September 2009, 16:48
I strongly believe in Hamilton.
Jess
11th September 2009, 17:20
I am gonna go for Fissi just for the fun of it.
Bigbadderboom
11th September 2009, 17:33
Keith, can you draw a global prediction from the table, ie a cumalitive total of the predictions, would be interesting to see.
Patrickl
11th September 2009, 21:47
I counted the predictions (with 211 registered) and took the top 3 from each:
Pole
HAM 52%
SUT 21%
ALO 10%
P1
HAM 56%
RAI 9%
ALO 8%
P2
RAI 34%
HAM 14%
SUT 14%
P3
RAI 20%
SUT 18%
ALO 12%
Of all names mentioned these 3 are mentioned most often (in any position)
HAM 78%
RAI 63%
SUT 39%
These 3 predictions for the podium are most common:
P1 P2 P3 No
HAM RAI KOV 16
HAM RAI SUT 15
HAM RAI ALO 11
ianhaycox
11th September 2009, 23:27
Interesting to see the statistics of predictions and the spread. I think I’ll add that to the TODO list of enhancements if that’s OK.
Not sure if it should be available before the deadline or as an option. Food for thought.
Becken
12th September 2009, 3:13
Wow, good job Patrick! Congrats!
ILoveVettel
12th September 2009, 4:56
Ian, it loks great…
Perhaps you could add the email validation against name so that duplicacy does not occur…
ianhaycox
12th September 2009, 7:42
You’re right, as Damon above also pointed out, I will add a simple check such that if a user has predicted in a previous round the email address should match.
It could cause extra problems, preventing someone entering if they have forgotten which email address they used before. If they enter from the same computer and haven’t cleared their cookies then it will get ‘pre-filled’ in the form. So hopefully it shouldn’t be a problem.
There is an option in the plugin to require all predictors to be registered, then it doesn’t ask for a username or email. However, like Keith, I often click away when asked to register, so as always it’s a balance between openness and security.
Patrickl
13th September 2009, 10:10
Since you are showing the predictions already, I don’t think it matters if you show the statistics before the deadline. It’s pretty easy to do the statistics yourself.
Just copy and paste the predictions list in Excel and you can easily produce the statistics.
Maybe the predictions shouldn’t be shown before the deadline?
Damon
12th September 2009, 14:32
Wow, excellent!
It looks like 52% of us have already scored 10pts with Hamilton’s pole!
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
12th September 2009, 14:41
Nice job Patrick!
Nik
11th September 2009, 17:34
Kinda surprised no-one else picked HAM, HAM-ALO-HEI!
DomPrez
11th September 2009, 18:23
the proble with predicting this GP is the start. we have new cars on the grid waiting to deploy KERS, so Kimi’s usual less then stellar quali’s will not be enough this time around. and we could see alonso, hop up a few slots. i see the KERS cars being fueled longer into the race and redbulls/brawns/f.indias going light. all 4 toyota power plants will be negligable this race. and STRs will just be spread out by at leaste 5 cars.
Paige Michael-Shetley
11th September 2009, 18:40
Pole: Ham
Win: Ham
2nd: Kov
3rd: Rai
It’s going to be a McLaren weekend. They’re quickest, and Hamilton is very confident.
John H
11th September 2009, 19:11
I’m going Alonso for the win.
It’s got to that stage of the season (the ‘predictions silly season’ if you will) where longshot point hauls are required!
HounslowBusGarage
11th September 2009, 21:18
Very impressed with this version of the prediction software. Great job from Keith and Ian!
Ian, are you throwing it into an Access db and then writing a query against it? Or is it MySQL?
I’m also amazed at the number of us who predict HAM for pole . . . hope we’re all right!
ianhaycox
11th September 2009, 21:33
Yep, it’s PHP front end and MySQL backend.
The actual prediction form + a bit of Javascript was the easy bit. It’s all the backend admin functions to create races, drivers, scoring etc that took the work.
Wesley
11th September 2009, 23:32
Thanks for sorting our prediction post problem Ian!
EGC
11th September 2009, 21:23
Nobody choosing Button for win? :-)
Patrickl
11th September 2009, 21:53
So far 7 people picked Button for the win.
EGC
11th September 2009, 22:14
:-) and 17 Alonso!!!
Bufff..difficult for Monza :-)
Ino
12th September 2009, 9:58
Keith, I can’t seem to be able to use the plugin.
With 3 mins left, here are my predictions:
Ino
Sutil
Hamilton
Sutil
Raikkonen