Hello and welcome to TMR Game Week 9.
This post accepts entries for these races:
– Australian Grand Prix (F1);
– St Petersburg (IndyCar);
– California Speedway, Fontana (NASCAR Cup);
Housekeeping
Thinking of joining in? If you place your first entry during the first 10 weeks of the game you will receive 80% of the lowest player’s score from any weeks you missed. That brings you into contention whilst applying a small penalty for lateness, the rest is up to you!
Each week you pick 10 entries with a maximum of 7 from a single championship. This is the first week of the season featuring more than one race, what will your strategy be, how will you split your picks between races? Remember for sportscars races to pick the car not the driver.
See this page for the game rules.
Email reminders will be sent on Thursdays or Fridays by either myself or Sebastian. Please leave a valid email address in the comment form. If you do not wish to receive reminders please let us know, otherwise we’ll assume we’re okay to send them. Also let us know (privately if you prefer) if you would like to use a different address to the one you use here.
The deadline for entries is Saturday morning at 6am GMT / 2am ET (there’s a 4hr difference during the offset DST change).
Scores
Here is a reminder of the current score table. Since the last round Gavin has kindly produced some further analysis on his blog. Alongside Sebastian’s figures we now have many ways of showing results patterns, which should hopefully aid our picking!
Top Tens
| Week 8 | Sprint Cup | MotoGP | ILMC/ALMS | |
| Points | Bristol | Losail | Sebring | |
| 1 | 50 | #18 Kyle Busch | #27 Casey Stoner | #10 ORECA Peugeot |
| 2 | 40 | #99 Carl Edwards | #1 Jorge Lorenzo | #01 Highcroft HPD |
| 3 | 35 | #48 Jimmie Johnson | #26 Dani Pedrosa | #8 Peugeot |
| 4 | 32 | #17 Matt Kenseth | #4 Andrea Dovizioso | #2 Audi |
| 5 | 30 | #27 Paul Menard | #58 Marcus Simoncelli | #1 Audi |
| 6 | 28 | #29 Kevin Harvick | #11 Ben Spies | #016 Dyson Lola |
| 7 | 26 | #22 Kurt Busch | #46 Valentino Rossi | #12 Rebellion Lola |
| 8 | 24 | #16 Greg Biffle | #5 Colin Edwards | #7 Peugeot |
| 9 | 22 | #4 Kasey Kahne | #69 Nicky Hayden | #036 Genoa ORECA |
| 10 | 20 | #39 Ryan Newman | #7 Hiroshi Aoyama | #56 BMW |
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A great upset by the ORECA and Highcroft teams!
Scores This Week
| Player | Sprint Cup | MotoGP | ILMC / ALMS | Week 8 |
| Ryan | 59 | 183 | 117 | 359 |
| Jay | 63 | 151 | 141 | 355 |
| Felipe Gana | 91 | 90 | 171 | 352 |
| Dylanpt24 | 134 | 144 | 67 | 345 |
| Mike Rice | 104 | 118 | 121 | 343 |
| RubberGoat | 41 | 90 | 211 | 342 |
| Maverick | 35 | 183 | 121 | 339 |
| Pat W | 0 | 151 | 187 | 338 |
| Sebastian X | 50 | 185 | 97 | 332 |
| The Speedgeek | 26 | 185 | 121 | 332 |
| The Crooked Cap | 86 | 179 | 62 | 327 |
| Sean | 51 | 151 | 121 | 323 |
| James | 100 | 125 | 67 | 292 |
| Startledbunny | 52 | 101 | 121 | 274 |
| No Entry Received: | ||||
| Jackie | 219 |
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Congratulations to Ryan, Jay and Felipe for the podium result this week! These three did well to pull away from quite a tight midfield here.
Do take a look at Sebastian’s break-down of the scores per driver/team. The #7 Peugeot let down several people, and Sebastian and James were unlucky with the Muscle Milk AMR retirement dropping it out of the TMRG points positions.
I didn’t receive an entry from Jackie so she’s been awarded 80% of Startledbunny’s score.
Leaderboard
| Pos | Pre | +/- | Name | Prior | Wk 8 | Total | + |
| 1 | 2 | 1 | Sebastian X | 591 | 332 | 923 | |
| 2 | 1 | -1 | James | 623 | 292 | 915 | 8 |
| 3 | 5 | 2 | Pat W | 570 | 338 | 908 | 7 |
| 4 | 4 | 0 | Sean | 582 | 323 | 905 | 3 |
| = | 6 | 1 | Dylanpt24 | 560 | 345 | 905 | 0 |
| 6 | 7 | 1 | Ryan | 535 | 359 | 894 | 11 |
| 7 | 9 | 2 | Jay | 511 | 355 | 866 | 28 |
| 8 | 3 | -5 | Startledbunny | 590 | 274 | 864 | 2 |
| 9 | 10 | 1 | RubberGoat | 499 | 342 | 841 | 23 |
| 10 | 11 | 1 | Felipe Gana | 475 | 352 | 827 | 14 |
| 11 | 12 | 1 | The Speedgeek | 467 | 332 | 799 | 28 |
| 12 | 13 | 1 | The Crooked Cap | 450 | 327 | 777 | 22 |
| 13 | 14 | 1 | Maverick | 437 | 339 | 776 | 1 |
| 14 | 8 | -6 | Jackie | 516 | 219 | 735 | 41 |
| 15 | 15 | 0 | Mike Rice | 341 | 343 | 684 | 51 |
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Sebastian takes the lead! I have a feeling this’ll be fought out between Sebastian and James although I am not far behind, I’m pleased to say. I’m very happy to jump two places into third. Dylan joins Sean to tie for 4th position. (I’ll only break a tie in the final week and then maybe only for the winner, apart from that I’ll treat them as a golf score).
Ryan and Jay’s good week sees them jump positions. Startledbunny’s near-last place sees him fall 5 places into the pack. Jackie’s 80% scores means six positions are lost. Mike’s 4th place score this week sees him get close to striking distance of the main field.
An interesting week!
Upcoming Races
Formula 1 (F1): Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne
The uncertainty over the new Pirelli tyres and the potential for 4 stops per car may make life difficult for the teams and drivers in this opening round, at what is usually a very green track. What’s more, there’s the threat of rain! Red Bull and Ferrari seem to be in charge in testing but McLaren and Mercedes will have revised cars, and Renault could pose a threat. www.f1.com
IZOD IndyCar Series (ICS): Grand Prix of St Petersburg, St Pete, Florida
The first round of this year’s IndyCar Series is at the part-airport runway, part-street track in Florida. Much like Albert Park this race has been known to throw a surprise result so it may not be an automatic choice to pick a Penske or Ganassi frontrunner, though they are sure to feature. Will Power has paced the field in pre-season testing on road courses, but the series doesn’t test on the different beasts of street tracks for obvious reasons. The addition of past winner Graham Rahal to a second Ganassi team may make him an interesting choice. www.indycar.com
NASCAR Sprint Cup (NSC): Auto Club 400, Auto Club Speedway (California Speedway), Fontana
A fast 2-mile oval which has been known to host some pretty boring NASCAR races… and that may be saying something. I’m going to assume this’ll be between Johnson (or rather Hendrick) and Kyle Busch, but I think I’ve already hit the maximum amount of NASCAR I can watch in a season. Maybe I’ll dip in again later in the year… when FOX have finished. www.nascar.com
Good luck!
I Watch Too Much Racing 
I’d like to credit your preview for my picking the ORECA. Cheers Pat!
Formula 1
– Fernando Alonso
– Sebastien Vettel
– Mark Webber
– Felipe Massa
– Jenson Button
– Lewis Hamilton
– Nico Rosberg
NASCAR
– Kyle Busch
– Jimmie Johnson
– Matt Kenseth
…and I’m going to hope that a spanner doesn’t get thrown too badly into the works!
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Formula 1 (F1):
Fernando Alonso
Felipe Massa
Sebastian Vettel
Mark Webber
IZOD IndyCar Series (ICS):
Helio Castroneves
Scott Dixon
Will Power
NASCAR Sprint Cup (NSC):
Jimmie Johnson
Kyle Busch
Tony Stewart
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Pat, sorry to be that guy (new guy shows up, registers an error call in second week)…as I add up what I thought were my scores, I come up with 345, not 343…could you let me know what you find in this (more work, I know). Sorry, I’ve just got a lot of ground to try to make up. Every point will help!
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F1:
Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton, Webber
IICS:
Power, Helio, Franchitti
NASCAR:
Jimmie “ol’ 5-time” Johnson, Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards
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Since there’s such a huge gap to make up, a revision (already) to my picks:
F1: Vettel, Alonso, Webber, Massa, Hamilton, Rosberg
IICS: Power, Helio, Dario, Briscoe
Skip the Cup race…although I think the previous picks will fare well.
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Mike if you see Sebastian’s figures linked above, they agree with my calculations.
http://effjuan.wordpress.com/tmrg-2011-week-eight/
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Right. Sorry, I went wrong with the points for the #7 Peugeot by two. My apologies. Thanks.
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Strange week. It is normally avoiding bad scores that gives good results, but players that had all ten picks finish top-eight finished second, fifth, seventh, eighth, and tenth. I picked the Audi cars and the Muscle Milk Lola-Aston Martin because I thought they were most likely to have clean runs, whereas Highcroft and Peugeot had new unproved cars, and Oreca and Rebellion did not have great reliability records…oops!
Indycar:
Will Power
Dario Franchitti
Justin Wilson
Ryan Briscoe
Formula One:
Sebastian Vettel
Mark Webber
Fernando Alonso
Jenson Button
NASCAR:
Jimmie Johnson
Matt Kenseth
Difficult choice; I had four definites and about twelve maybes.
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Sorry Mike, it looks like I was wrong on the total score though, I’ve revised it now.
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F1
Sebastian Vettel
Mark Webber
Fernando Alonso
Lewis Hamilton
INDYCAR
Scott Dixon
Dario Franchitti
Will Power
NASCAR
Tony Stewart
Kurt Busch
Carl Edwards
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Oooh I did alright with my ALMS and MotoGP picks eh?
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Right… so my picks:
F1:
– Alonso
– Vettel
– Hamilton
– Heidfeld
– Button
– Webber
INDYCAR:
– Dixon
– Power
– Franchitti
– Briscoe
Can’t be bothered with picking Montoya this week as NASCAR is a bit too random!
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Here we go:
IndyCar
Will Power
Dario Franchitti
Ryan Briscoe
Scott Dixon
Formula 1
Sebastian Vettel
Mark Webber
Fernando Alonso
Michael Schumacher
Nick Heidfeld
NASCAR
Jimmie Johnson
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F1
Fernando Alonso
Sebastian Vettel
Sergio Perez
Mark Webber
Michael Schumacher
Nascar
Jimmie Johnson
Indycar
Ryan Briscoe
Scott Dixon
Will Power
Dario Franchitti
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F1: Alonso, Button, Hamilton, Vettel, Webber
IndyCar: Dixon, Franchitti, Power
Cup: Edwards, Johnson
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F1:
Fernando Alonso
Sebastien Vettel
Mark Webber
NASCAR:
Kyle Busch
Carl Edwards
Greg Biffle
Indycar:
Will Power
Simona De Silvestro
Sebastien Bourdais
Justin Wilson
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Dylan, come on…we don’t get bonus points for beatin’ the odds, do we? Although it won’t surprise me at all to see Seabass or JWil near the front. Simona (I think) will suffer since Mike Cannon departed for KV to work with TK. I hope I’m wrong, but that’s my gut hunch.
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Interesting week afoot…
F1:
Sebastian Vettel
Mark Webber
Nico Rosberg
Michael Schumacher
Fernando Alonso
IndyCar:
Will Power
Ryan Briscoe
Graham Rahal
NASCAR Cup:
Greg Biffle
Carl Edwards
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Pat can I change my F1 drivers list to exclude Perez and Schumacher and I’ll have the McLaren boys, Hamilton and Button instead (the little sandbaggers!)
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F1
– Vettel
– Webber
– Alonso
– Button
IndyCar
– Wilson
– Power
– Franchitti
– Rahal
Cup
– Kyle Busch
– Jimmie Johnson
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*Does little dance*
Formula 1: Vettel, Webber, Alonso, Button, Rosberg,
IndyCar: Dixon, Franchitti, Rahal, Hunter-Reay, Bourdais.
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F1: Button, Webber, Vettel, Alonso
IndyCar: Power, Hunter-Reay, Franchitti
NASCAR: Kyle Busch, Johnson, Edwards
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I’m going to make a change which could be inspired or could be a huge mistake.
I’m going to pick Conway instead of Rahal.
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F1
Sebastian Vettel
Fernando Alonso
Mark Webber
Lewi sHamilton
Indycar
Will Power
Dario Franchitti
Helio Castroneves
Mike Conway (I’m feeling lucky….)
NASCAR
Jimmie Johnson
Carl Edwards
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Pat, in my picks for this week, please remove Felipe Massa and replace him with Jenson Button. Thanks!
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Okay…did I miss the memo about Petrov? Anyone? Anyone?
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