San Remo: Grand Final Preview

Before finals night begins there's time for one last look over the field and see how the pre-song prediction is faring.

Marco Mengoni enters the night as the clear front-runner and I am of course sticking with the previous call that he is the one. Having been in the lead all week and winning covers night is not just a sign of strength but also consistency in his support base. The three components of Press, Demoscopic jury and televote all love the guy, as does the Ariston. I'd give ‘Due Vite’ an 8/10 but in the classic San Remo mould and as a vehicle for Marco that is enough and his stats are consistently strong if not at the top. It's not a done deal but would be a mini shock if he falters at the last.

Part of the reason for his strong lead in the odds is that there's no single challenger anyone can agree with. Ultimo begins the evening closest in theory but is lagging with the press jury. I was expecting Ultimo to improve over the week from his slow start but his recovery towards the top of the televote is impressive and not really backed up on the other metrics- his core support base has done a lot of work to push him back into this

I'm a bit annoyed at myself for ignoring Mr.Rain pre song from the long odds but I don't genuinely think he can win this. Progress over the week has stalled and he's yet to establish a televote victory which would surely be necessary. The press jury almost certainly has him last in the superfinal which will be very hard to recover from.

Lazza is the other main chaser and the one I feel poses the strongest threat at this stage. I said he may need his best work yet to be a challenger and in deploying Dardust has managed to get that. It's been a very calculated tilt overall by Lazza with his covers night performance and searching out his mother in the audience- accessories to help gather votes. He enters with the strongest chart performances and high top 5 stats across every metric coupled with the second most jury support behind Mengoni. Crucially, Madame may be out of the way in the superfinal clearing up a large demographic for him with the most youthful and only high energy entry.

The last superfinal spot is hard to call. It could be the previously mentioned Madame (my personal favourite from the 28), the consistent Tananai, or hard to dismiss Giorgia. Rosa Chemical has been floating around 7th, whilst Elodie, Colapesce E Dimartino and Coma_Cose have all been higher but are slipping. I go with 0 certainty for Giorgia just above Tananai to match my pre-song top 5 and to have a female in there.

The final Prediction is therefore:

1. Marco Mengoni

2. Lazza

3. Ultimo

4. Mr. Rain

5. Giorgia