F1 has made a big mistake in starting the 2027 calendar with a sprint race
Formula 1's 2027 season-opener will be a sprint in Bahrain. Does the decision devalue the one weekend when fans most want a clean answer?
Some of you may remember that a couple of weeks ago my esteemed colleague Rob Widdows, wrote a blog about his predictions for the 2009 Grand prix season.

Well, I decided that it’s all very well making predictions but what are the odds of any of these happening? I annoyingly agree with almost every point Rob made, but others have different views and I decided that the only way to sort it – apart from waiting for a year – was to find out the odds of everything happening.
So here you go, Rob did say that he wasn’t taking any bets but Blue Square are apparently…

Robert Kubica to win the 2009 Drivers’ Championship: 6/1
McLaren to win the 2009 Constructors’ Championship: 15/8
The BMW F1.09 will win in Melbourne: 3/1
Giancarlo Fisichella will retire at the end of 2009: 10/3
Jarno Truilli will retire at the end of 2009: 7/2
Kimi Raikkonen will retire at the end of 2009: 11/4
Toyota will stop participating in Formula 1 at the end of 2009: 10/3
KERS will be stopped at the end of the season: 5/1
Williams will score over 50 points in the season: 2/3
Fernando Alonso will move to Ferrari in 2010: 11/4
Sir Fred Goodwin will be the next FIA president: 12/1

And a couple of others that I couldn’t resist while I was there…
Sebastien Loeb will win every rally this season: 7/1
Valentino Rossi to win the 2009 Championship: evens
James Toseland to win the 2009 Championship: 80/1

One of the most surprising ones? Loeb winning every rally this season at only 7/1. It appears that we aren’t the only ones that think the Frenchman is nigh on invincible.
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