[Official] The 2018 Predictions Contest is now on!

[Born Racer]

Welcome to the Formula 1 Predictions Contest.

Every Grand Prix, you can make a series of predictions that could make you the winning predictor of that round or indeed lead to you becoming the Predictions Contest Champion of 2018.

The rules are largely the same as last year. Please read below. Changes are highlighted in bold.

All predictions must be in before the start of qualifying. The start is considered to be the start of Q1. There is a gentlemen's and ladies' agreement that you are allowed one late entry in the season up to a maximum of two hours after the Q1 start time. Please only do this if you have not seen the qualifying results.

Here are how points awarded for your predictions.

A driver in the top 10 more than 5 places out of his finishing position: 1 point per driver

A driver in the top 10, 5 places out of finishing position: 3 points

A driver in the top 10, 4 places out of finishing position: 5 points

A driver in the top 10, 3 places out of finishing position: 7 points

A driver in the top 10, 2 places out of finishing position: 9 points

A driver in the top 10, 1 place out of finishing position: 11 points

A driver in the top 10 in his exact finishing position (except winner): 13 points

The winning driver: 15 points

The finishing positions relate to the official classification after any penalties or disqualifications have been handed out. If this occurs after 11pm UK time on Sunday night when results are normally calculated, this will affect the results later, as and when it occurs.


3rd in qualifying: 1 point

2nd in qualifying: 2 points

Pole position: 3 points

The predictions for qualifying must be exact to get the points.

The qualifying points relate to the fastest three drivers in qualifying regardless of any grid penalties carried over from before qualifying.

However, a disqualification from qualifying or a grid penalty due to a breach of the regulations during the qualifying session will be taken into account in my scoring, regardless of what the breach of the regulations is.


Fastest lap (driver): 2 points

Fastest pit stop (team): 2 points

Weather prediction: 2 points

Your choices are 'dry', 'mixed' or 'wet'.

'Dry' means that no intermediate or wet tyres are used by anyone during the race.

'Mixed' means that either
* both dry tyres and intermediate tyres are used,
* dry tyres, intermediate tyres and wet tyres are used,
* or both dry tyres and wet tyres are used.

'Wet' means that no dry tyres are used by anyone during the race.

Driver of the day award as voted for on formula1.com: 2 points

Highest-polling driver of the Grand Prix award as voted for on Ten-Tenths: 2 points

Highest-polling team of the Grand Prix award as voted for on Ten-Tenths: 2 points

Highest-polling rate the Grand Prix score out of ten as voted for on Ten-Tenths: 2 points

Regarding the Ten-Tenths votes (Driver of the Grand Prix, Team of the Grand Prix and Rate the Grand Prix), there is a poll after each Grand Prix which Ten-Tenths users vote on. This is your chance to predict what other members of the forum will vote for!

The Rate the Grand Prix score is from 1-10 and you will find it on the main Formula 1 forum.

The winning votes will be taken to be the winning votes as they stand at 23:00 GMT or BST (Greenwich Mean Time or British Summer Time - whichever is being used) on the Sunday evening following the Grand Prix, which means that the results of the round will not be released until then (the polls themselves, incidentally, will be available for longer).

This year, your own votes in the polls will not be included in the adding up of poll scores for the purposes of the competition. For example, if Ricciardo and Hamilton tie for the Driver of the Grand Prix poll with 13 votes each, but 4 Predictions Contest competitors voted for Ricciardo and 3 for Hamilton, this means that for the purposes of the Predictions Contest, Hamilton has won the poll and 2 points are only awarded for a prediction for him.

If there are multiple votes tying for the highest score in the polls, points will be awarded for all which are tying.

Finally, in the event of a tie for a round win, the winner will be decided on countback. If a competitor has predicted the Grand Prix winner correctly and the other has not, the winning predictor will be the one who predicted the Grand Prix winner correctly. If those are the same, we look at 2nd place. If a predictor predicted 2nd place correctly and the other did not, the one who predicted it correctly will be awarded the win and so on right down through the top ten.

If that does not decided the win, countback will continue down the qualifying positions from 1st to 3rd and subsequently from the other predictions in the order in which they are presented below when you predict. If all of this still does not result in a winner, the winner will be the ones who predicted first. If predictions have been edited in your post, the earliest predictions of the two predictors will count.

In the event of a tie for a championship win, the overall winner will be the one with the most round wins. If that does not decide it, it will be the one with the most 2nd places, 3rd places, etc. If that does not decide it, we will look at who had the most poles predicted correctly over the season, the most 2nd places in qualifying, etc, right down the list of predictions as they appear below.

Please write your predictions in the appropriate thread as follows:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Qualifying
1.
2.
3.

Fastest lap:
Fastest pit stop:
Weather:
formula1.com Driver of the Day:
Driver of the Grand Prix:
Team of the Grand Prix:
Rate the Grand Prix:

Have fun predicting, everyone! Here's to another enthralling season. I hope lots of you will join in.