EWO Racing tops Spa Predictions

EWO Racing topped the 12th round of the Castrol EDGE Grand Prix Predictor with a bumper 100 point haul.

Underpinning the squad’s success was the decision to back Jenson Button, rather than team-mate Lewis Hamilton, as the man to hand McLaren victory.

Backing the 2009 world champion not only to win but also to take pole position proved remarkably prescient, with the Briton’s strategy gamble paying off on style in qualifying.

It was the first time Button has captured pole as a McLaren driver.

That grid slot also proved crucial in the race as it allowed Button to evade the first corner melee which accounted for Hamilton, championship leader Fernando Alonso and Romain Grosjean, who was handed a one-race ban afterward.

With the order therefore slightly upset, it seemed EWO Racing’s podium tip of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen might not be realised.

Raikkonen however fought his way back after being demoted by Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg early on, while Vettel’s one stop strategy proved perfect and allowed him to jump Raikkonen for second late on.

The upshot was a tally of 30 points for perfectly predicting the finishing order of the top three, added to the individual scores for each driver.

A healthy tally of 65 was then boosted by perfect shouts of Mark Webber to finish sixth and Paul di Resta to grab the final point in 10th.

Backing Michael Schumacher to capture eighth also returned five points, taking EWO Racing’s total to a game-topping 100.

Despite the seemingly unpredictable nature of the race, particularly after a mixed qualifying and the first corner carnage, 94 teams managed to predict the podium perfectly.

Among them was Hausrose F1, which topped the German entries in the Predictor with an impressive 95 points.

The Dutch league was also won courtesy of a perfect podium shout, which helped Il Cavallino Rampnate to 90 points.

That was outdone by the Polish winner Team 18 however, as a perfect podium was married to correct predictions of Felipe Massa to finish fifth and Mark Webber sixth.

That produced another 100 point haul, and an impressive prediction accuracy of 52 per cent – equalling that of EWO Racing.