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Formula 1 has never been so unpredictable. Pastor Maldonado smashed it up in Spain with a thoroughly deserving race win, the first for Williams since 2004. The Williams has shown latent pace all season but can the Venezuelan follow his win in Spain with a win on the streets of Monaco? Nothing can be ruled out in this crazy season.

Monaco, as is tradition, held practice sessions one and two on Thursday but unfortunately, not a great deal of running took place from which to draw concrete conclusions. Inclement weather meant little serious running was possible in P2 while plenty of drivers did not put plenty of laps down in P1. From the running we have seen so far though Red Bull look to have taken a step back while Fernando Alonso, both McLarens, Nico Rosberg and Pastor Maldonado will all be challenging at the front. It is Lotus however who are accepted in the paddock as the team to beat this weekend.

In the final throws of P2 Kimi Raikkonen ran on intermediate tyres on the damp track and was two seconds faster than other drivers who were out there running at the same time. Raikkonen will obviously be the more popular of the two Lotus drivers, his flamboyant pace is a joy to behold, but we cannot rule out the chances of his teammate Romain Grosjean either. Raikkonen missed all of P1 while Grosjean spent valuable time on set-up, and came second fastest in both sessions. Both drivers have shown good qualifying pace this year and good race pace too. It is a matter of time till one of the Lotus gets a pole position, and similarly a matter of time till they win a race. The 5/1 available with Paddy Power for a Lotus pole position is way too big. Bet accordingly.

Should either Lotus get on pole we can definitely see them winning. Those cars are seriously quick and look to be well suited to this circuit too. Track position is absolutely crucial at Monaco, more so than any other track in Formula One, and both Raikkonen and Grosjean have experience of winning around here too. Raikkonen for McLaren in 2005 and Romain Grosjean in 2009 in GP2. 50/1 for Raikkonen and 66/1 for Grosjean getting the Pole, Win, Fastest Lap hat-trick are worth a small investment.

Felipe Massa must have been living in a nightmare for the past couple of seasons. It is not nice to see for any fan of F1 for a driver to fall off a cliff like Felipe has done. However with the signs of Ferrari’s improvement, Felipe has come to life this weekend. As Fernando Alonso is set to challenge at the front of the field, Massa has also shown signs of moving up through the field finally. His qualifying performances have not been stellar for some time now but he does have plenty of form for good qualifying here. Bwin have priced up a qualifying match bet between Massa and Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi with both drivers at 11/13 and Massa is the bet. Kobayashi was plenty slower than his teammate Sergio Perez in practice and with Kamui, you can never be sure what he will do. The walls are close in Monaco and we all know how fond Kamui is of them. Massa could certainly get into the top 10 shootout and I’m not sure the same can be said for Kobayashi this weekend. The Brazilian also has four top 5 finishes in his last five visits to the track. Odds against for a points finish this time around looks too big.

What a crazy qualifying session. What a crazy season. Lewis Hamilton blitzed the field yesterday to continue his fine Saturday showings but running out of fuel on the way back to the pitlane, not for the first time, has cost him at shot at the race win. He now starts last. The grid lines up with Pastor Maldonado in pole position from Fernando Alonso, with the Lotus pair of Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen behind them. That is somewhat annoying considering we flagged up both Lotus and indeed Williams as ones to watch.

Alonso and Raikkonen now head the market at 3/1 and both look plenty short enough to us. However the Lotus is probably the car to beat and if you are thinking of backing Kimi then surely the 7/1 on Romain Grosjean is enormous. He was, tyre adjusted, as quick as his Finnish teammate in Bahrain and should he get a good start, and he got a flyer in Bahrain, is going to be right in the mix. The Lotus is genuinely fast, comparable to any other in race trim, and Grosjean could have already challenged for a win in Australia this season but for a poor start. That said, the early season slow starts are now hopefully a thing of the past and Romain can streak past Alonso and Maldonado on his way to a maiden race victory.

With the grid so untidy, with championship contenders scattered through the field,plenty of opportunities for good each way bets have presented themselves. One such opportunity is not a championship contender but Sauber’s Sergio Perez. Perez starts the race from fifth on the grid, despite some uncertainty after an unsettled three sessions of practice, and the Mexican has form already this season at the head of the field. Tyres, so often the deciding factor in 2012 so far, are something of Perez’s speciality too. He can nurse them for what seems an age. This is going to stand him in good stead in today’s race. Additionally simply from a price point of view he appeals greatly at 33/1. Ahead of him Kimi Raikkonen is 100/30 favourite while two places back, Sebastian Vettel is only 6/1. The 33/1 about Perez with Stan James is screaming to be backed.

Sebastian Vettel admitted defeat in qualifying and instead chose to save a set of tyres for the race. We assumed some people may do this but not Vettel and as he is now further down the grid we are now looking to take the Red Bull on. The World Champion starts from 7th on the grid sandwiched between the Mercedes pair and he could easily end up behind both after the first corner. Kamui Kobayashi is then behind him and with young Kamui, anything can happen. In this season where anything can happen we are taking a punt of Vettel to DNF. Admittedly he had just one such finish last season, in Abu Dhabi, and had a mere three in 2010. Sebastian does not like DNF’s but, for the superstitious kind, his last two DNF’s did both come after winning the previous race. He crashed out in the opening corner of the 2008 Spanish Grand Prix following a spin from a midfield runner ahead of him and with the possibility of slipping back off the start line this time, chaos could ensue once more. It is something of punt but at 6/1 it is well worth a look.

Qualifying Preview

With four different winners of the opening four races this season punting has been tough in Formula One. Throw into the mix three different pole sitters and the puzzle becomes even more complex. The key component this season for a winning car has been tyres. Actually getting the tyres up to the optimum temperature at the right time has been a minefield for the teams. Nico Rosberg nailed it in the cooler Chinese conditions while Vettel was the boss in the warmer climes of Bahrain. The big question is, should we take Vettel’s win in Bahrain as the cue to get stuck back into the patented Vettel pole position bet? The world champion was on fire in the Middle East for sure and he is the one driver you sense could go on a streak of wins. Red Bull have had good race pace all season but qualifying has been their Achilles heel. If Vettel has cracked it then the rest of the field best watch out. The Red Bull testing program in Mugello last week was not too radical either and that is a good sign. It looked as though they were focusing on perfecting the package they have now got. The young German is 11/4 for pole position, a price we would have derided prior to Bahrain, but now he is in the groove it is just too tempting for the pole king to do it again.

McLaren locked out the front row of the grid for the opening two races of the season but have regressed since then, particularly with regards to their tyre management. Their cars seem to be spending a lot of time in the pit lane recently and both Hamilton and Button cut disconsolate figures in Bahrain, wondering how they have gone from domination to scrapping with the Red Bull, Mercedes, Lotus in only three races. Neither will sacrifice a set of the faster tyres in qualifying for the race either; that type of strategy does not sit comfortably with either driver. Put simply, nothing justifies backing them at the prices available.

Mercedes certainly still warrant respect in qualifying. They made a right horlicks of the whole thing in Bahrain, leaving Rosberg for a single flying lap at the end of Q3 which was a strange decision and cost him a shot at pole. Their DRS-enabled F-Duct is a potent weapon on Saturdays and even though the Catalan track is not ideally suited to take advantage of the system, it should be worth a few tenths for sure and given how tight it is at the front, that could be crucial. It must be remembered that Rosberg did blitz it in China and was the quickest in all practice sessions in Bahrain so it is definitely worth giving the Mercedes cars another chance in qualifying. At 8/1 he's worth an each-way bet.

Ferrari launched a newly redesigned car in last week's test and are hoping to make a step forward in Spain. Certainly they need to if Fernando Alonso is going to have any hopes of winning the Drivers Championship. Expectations are that the upgraded sidepods and exhausts are going to be worth at least 0.2 seconds a lap. That is not enough to trouble pole position for certain and may only be enough to drag the prancing horse to the front of the midfield battle. A watching brief would be advised for now.

Looking to Sunday and the race itself, 10 out of the last 11 pole sitters have gone on to win the race. The Circuit de Catalunya is a notoriously difficult place to overtake. Do not rule out a flamboyant drive through the field by anyone though; this season has been far too unpredictable to rule anything out. Additionally the two tyre compounds at this weekend’s race are said to be the soft and hard compounds and speed differential between the two is going to be vast. Any sets of soft tyres saved for the race could be crucial. With that in mind we can’t recommend anything for the race itself at this point but will be keeping more than a passing eye on the Saturday performances of Lotus, Sauber and Williams.