Analysis of 2010 WDC and WCC Odds

[dave kumar]

Here's an alternative plot of the drivers points. The idea is to show each driver relative to the leader after each round. It is a ratio so if you are the leader and you have 60 points you will have a ratio of 60:60 ie. 1. Everybody else will have a score > 1 as they have less points.

The final thing I did was take the log of these ratios. The ratio seems to make all the leaders look very close together so taking the log shows up the differences of the leaders better at the expense of bunching up those trailing the field.

All drivers who have scored points in championship order



The gradient indicates how well each driver is keeping pace with the championship leaders. As we can see Button's and Rosberg's steep downward gradient reflects his rapid ascent in the table. Alonso and Hamilton are steadier but in opposite directions (one falling away, one homing in). Vetel is all over the place.

And for a direct comparison with WB's WDC Odds, just the selection of drivers that WB has been tracking




Interestingly it seems the WDC Points and Odds follow each other more closely than I would have thought. The Points graph is a bit more extreme (especially for Vettel) but seems to follow the same trend for all the drivers except Kubica, who looks like he is underpriced by the bookies at this stage in the season.

Thanks to WB for the data
Oh and apologies for the rubbish graphics - is there a freely available package that can do a better job than Excel? ie easily be able to set colours for each data set!

[WhiteBlue]

And off we go to another round of review how drivers and teams scored in the championship and how this was perceived to their chances.



First we look at the changes in the driver table from China to Spain. Obviously a big jump for Webber which should show up in his perceived chances but also good points for Schumacher which starts to lift him away from the back markers of point scorers. Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton fall back from second and third to fifth and sixth.



In the constructors table there was quite a neat falling staircase picture of teams after China. Although the order has not changed we see a significant structural change at the front. In terms of results there are three top teams which are separated by very few points. The other five points scoring teams remain in the falling staircase formation.



Looking at the regional odds one notes that the there are bigger differences than before. Schumacher looks bad in Spain and Hamilton does better in the UK than elsewhere.



In the world odds series we see significant change for Webber, Schumacher and Massa. With his pole position and win in Spain Webber dramatically improves and moves ahead of Massa and Rosberg. The punters clearly have gained confidence in him. Massa does the reverse and goes to the back of the field which is helped by Schumi making good progress after his death spiral of four races. Due to his lowly ninth position in the driver standing there is still less confidence in him than before the catastrophe in China. Hamilton remains fairly stable compared to Massa who has a similar standing in the results. The betting public clearly perceives his lack of results to come from rather bad luck than from lack of performance.



In the car odds Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes have to take a massive hit compared to Red Bull which reflects the lightning qualifying pace the Bulls have shown in the dry. Mercedes have clearly fallen behind in both the constructors standing and the expectations. They cannot really claim a top team status any more. Merc drivers have been taken out of the next picture.



Finally we come to the car corrected driver odds. Merc drivers do not figure in this graph as their relative car odds are so out of relation compared to the top teams that it distorts the picture. I only look at the six top team drivers therefore. Most obvious Alonso takes the top spot from Vettel which I see as a reward for his race results with an inferior car. Webber can improve his position due to his good performance in both qualifying and race in Spain. And this concludes the analysis for today.

[dave kumar]

Here's an alternative plot of the drivers points again. The idea is to show each driver relative to the leader after each round.

All drivers who have scored points in championship order


The gradient indicates how well each driver is keeping pace with the championship leaders. We can clearly see the Red Bull's erratic point scoring. Kubica is still keeping in touch with more consistent scoring and M.Schumacher reverses his recent decline.

And for a direct comparison with WB's WDC Odds, just the selection of drivers that WB has been tracking



Again I think there is a strong similarity between the odds and the points standings. It would suggest the odds are more reactive than predictive. However Button is still unfancied despite retaining the lead in the WDC, and Massa seems to have been written off far too quickly by the betting community. Is this a case of the odds taking in to account more information than the championship standings or is it bias?

Thanks to WB for the data

[WhiteBlue]

Time for an update of the tables and odds after the Monaco race:



In the drivers table Webber, Vettel go to the top. Kubica, Hamilton, Alonso and Massa make good progress. Alonso is still hottest in the WDC race with the Bulls. Sutil makes good progress in the mid field. Schumacher disappoints once again due to the penalty. Buemi joins the points table with one point.



The odds shows strong variations for Schumacher Webber and Rosberg depending on country. So it still makes sense to look at different countries and average the out in world odds.



The WDC world odds see significant change. Webber goes up tp P3 and Hamilton down to P4. Both changes are result driven. Hamilton and Webber may both be under rated in my view. Schumacher goes back to P8 and is probably also under rated as the potential is not reflected in his points standing.



In the WCC table Red Bull have jumped McLaren and Ferrari for the first time. Ferrari have denoted McLaren to third. Otherwise little change.



In the team or relative car odds McLaren have fallen back to joint position with Ferrari. The betters are convinced that McLaren have better potential than their points standing indicate. Mercedes fall pretty much off the scale and are rapidly caught by Renault. Unless something fundamentally changes with the Turkish upgrades Merc are done for 2010.



Our last graph - like always - is the driver potential if all cars were equal. Alonso keeps the lead there by consistently extracting more points than the car should get. Hamilton moves up from P3 to P2 which considers that the car is only third good now. Vettel looses big time as he is not getting maximum points from the best car. Webber makes little progress because he did not score enough in the first four races considering that he was in the best car.

[dave kumar]

Here's an alternative plot of the drivers points again. The idea is to show each driver relative to the leader after each round.

All drivers who have scored points in championship order

The gradient indicates how well each driver is keeping pace with the championship leaders.

And for a direct comparison with WB's WDC Odds, just the selection of drivers that WB has been tracking - is it too late to include Kubica in the odds tracker WB?



All I can say about this is that the bookies have not missed Webber's ascent in the points table. The odds seems to favour three or four drivers (Vettel, Alonso, Webber and Hamilton) where as the points are a lot closer than that with two groups of four, the top runners being Vettel, Alonso, Webber and Button and a group close behind of Rosberg, Hamilton, Massa and Kubica.

Button, Rosberg, Massa and Kubica's long odds relative to their points total point to a lack of faith that they can sustain this performance. Conversely Hamilton seems to be the one that the bookies fancy despite his position in the WDC.

So there does seem to be a predictive element to the odds, or at least it goes beyond the stats and may be influenced by the perception of the drivers.

[D'Leh]

I'm sure it has been written a couple of times in this thread: the odds are not really telling who will become WDC. The bookies change the odds so that they'll be the ones who profit in the end. People were betting on Hamilton and Alonso prior to the season. I mean actually putting money on them, not voting on a forum. So the bookies had to give them lower odds. Now people are betting on Red Bull. It appears nobody is putting bets on other teams anymore for WCC as the odds there show. The bookies are only covering their profit.

[WhiteBlue]

The odds simply reflect how much money gets put on a certain team or driver. Perhaps bookies anticipate that a little bit and they stay a little bit ahead of the market, but eventually they must pay out all bets and that will only work if they set the odds reciprocally inverse to the amount of money they have on the book.

The question is what makes the money flow to a certain bet? It is results without doubt but it is also expections based on indicators such as qualifying performance and proven ability to fight a championship campaign.

If Webber breaks a leg tomorrow or Newey dies in a plane crash the odds for Webber and Red Bull would massively change. Of course the Webber odds would change much faster. This is how the odds are reflecting the chances for the championship. They represent the opinions held by a large number of people.

[D'Leh]

The question is what makes the money flow to a certain bet? It is results without doubt but it is also expections based on indicators such as qualifying performance and proven ability to fight a championship campaign.

Well, first and foremost it's gambling. And the vast majority of gamblers are no professionals. That is why Senna's odds were better pre-season compared to Sutil's despite all the reasons you provided would make it completely retarded to gamble that way. Just saying.

But your charts are interesting anyways. It will be interesting when WDC and WCC are over to find out at which point gamblers and bookies started to back the right horse.

[WhiteBlue]

Turkey updates:



Webber, Button, Hamilton, Alonso and Vettel feature in the top of the driver's table. Massa, Rosberg and Kubica are falling back.



Hamilton and Webber get vastly different odds from country to country. Still incentive for world odds.



Alonso, Rosberg and Massa are the loosers in the world odds. Although Webber leads the drivers table, Vettel leads the odds and Hamilton's odds are still better than Webber's



McLaren and Red Bull are tied for the constructor table leadership. Ferrari loosing ground. Sauber score first point by Kobayashi.



McLaren's gain is Ferrari's loss.



Not much changed in the driver potential analysis. Alonso still looking good against his rather weak car.

[dave kumar]

The WDC Odds definitely make a distinction between a top five with a chance of the championship of Vettel, Hamilton, Webber, Button and Alonso and a second tier who are now considered outsiders, namely Rosberg, Massa, Kubica and Schumacher.

I think the odds are reflecting a pretty commonsense view that at the beginning of the season it was one of 4 teams, Mercedes, McLaren, Ferrari or Red Bull and now that has pretty much narrowed down to two teams with Alonso still considered to be too good to be written off just yet. I think the odds have been less volatile than the points and at the same time harsher at separating those in the running from those making up the numbers - the WCC standings still show that Rosberg, Massa and Kubica are in touch with the leading pack but the bookies have pretty much written them off as unable to sustain a title challenge.

Considering the season is less than half way through, now is probably a good time to bet on one of these outsiders, say Kubica if Renault have an amzing second half of the season - longer odds than Button for WC before the start of the 2009 season, anyone tempted?

[ringo]

any updates?

[WhiteBlue]

any updates?

I watched the football.

[WhiteBlue]

In the WDC Table both Hamilton and Button have made great progress. Webber, Vettel and Alonso have fallen back a bit against the leaders. Massa Kubica and Rosberg are loosing the contact with the contenders. Schumacher keeps his erratic form with another zero result.




Nothing really unusual in the national tables, just Hamilton getting weaker odds progressively from the UK over Germany to Spain.



In the odds Hamilton has displaced Vettel from P1. Vettel is still showing higher odds than the other contenders including Button and Webber who rank above him in the WDC table.



McLaren have clearly pulled away from Red Bull in the WCC table.



In the relative car odds McLaren naturally lead but the distance to Red Bull is minor and other bookies show the odds reversed. Mercedes still falling of the cliff. They may not get WCC odds any more soon.



In the car corrected odds nothing changes. Alonso is still shooting above his weight. He remains in the running for WDC but Ferrari probably not for long for WCC.

[Miguel]

This is probably blind fanboiism, but considering Ferrari have a very big update for Valencia, 7.1 for Alonso doesn't look too bad. I'd pick him before Button, even though the McLaren is very strong. Nevertheless, one would have to wait for Silverstone to be sure.

[paipa]

Alonso is still shooting above his weight. He remains in the running for WDC but Ferrari probably not for long for WCC.

I woulnd't really attribute this to Alonso shooting above his weight but rather to Massa underperforming so bad that he alone completely ruins Ferrari's chances for WCC.

Do you know about betfair btw? Their odds are the least distorted by driver popularity and profit optimizing since the odds are not dictated by the bookmaker but the gamblers themselves. They are agreeing on odds and play against each other in a for/against fashion. This way you can just invert the bet and lay odds to get a probability interval for drivers' WDC, and they are quite tight so there is very little overround.

Right now the favourite Hamilton is "sold" for 3.00 and "bought" for 3.05 so the bettors' market assesses his chances to be no less than 32.8% and no more than 33.3%.