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Rosberg’s German GP miseries make Hamilton worthy Q3 fav

| 16.07.2014

In the end, the stars aligned for Lewis Hamilton to win his home Grand Prix for the second time despite conceding five places on the grid to his main rival for the drivers’ championship through a colossal error of judgement in Q3.

Fortunately for the Brit and his world championship aspirations, the combination of a flying start and an enforced retirement to Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg in-race, saw Hamilton close the gap to just four points overall.

And looking ahead to one of his favourite races in the calendar next up, the German Grand Prix in Hockenheim, the former McLaren driver is now in great shape to take pole position for the fifth time this season at odds of 8/15.

After claiming four of the first five poles of the 2014 season, it’s been no surprise to see the Brit regularly priced up as the odds-on favourite to beat Rosberg to front of the grid.

However, since outgunning his Mercedes colleague in Spanish qualifying, the Stevenage native has embarked on an error-strewn run of Q3 sessions where he’s failed to take a single pole, while Rosberg has levelled the scores at four each for the season.

Clearly, therefore, the value in recent Q3 markets has been with backing Rosberg (link), but heading to his home Grand Prix an extremely underwhelming record is enough to suggest swerving his 7/4 price this time around.

It must be noted that since the dissolution of the European Grand Prix at Nurburg in 2007, this race has alternated between the Nurburgring and its classic home in Hockenheim, where the 2014 edition is to be held.

Whereas Hamilton has claimed both pole and a race victory at either circuit since the switch, Rosberg’s best grid position at either track remains sixth – while four other times he’s qualified below tenth.

Meanwhile, 2013 race winner Sebastian Vettel is the best of the outsiders at 25/1, qualifying second at Silverstone last time out and starting from second twice and pole once in the last four years in Germany.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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Author

Christian Crowther

Give Christian a sport with anything remotely spherical in it and he’ll happily while away the hours watching it on the box. However, he’d much prefer writing about, playing or betting on golf, football, cricket, tennis, snooker.... you get the picture.