See if their F1 predictions have paid off and for the next season of Netflix’s Drive to Survive. Our friends over have alerted us to a special Drivers Championship 2023 betting line.
We’ll review these various betting lines and driver combinations available in this special Drivers Championship 2023 betting line and preview where things could be heading before making our pick. With this special betting line, our F1 predictions do not feature any teams specifically but combinations of drivers.
Drivers Championship 2023 Betting Odds
Before making our betting predictions, we need to review these special betting lines and explore how they work. However, let’s start with the betting lines and F1 odds first.
2023 Formula 1 Special Betting Line: Drivers Championship 2023 Forecast Odds:
Driver Combo (Place in Drivers’ Standings) | Odds |
---|---|
Hamilton (1) & Russell (2) | +600 |
Verstappen (1), Hamilton (2), Russell (3) | +600 |
Verstappen (1), Russell (2) | +650 |
Hamilton (1), Verstappen (2), Russell (3) | +700 |
Verstappen (1), Hamilton (2), Leclerc (3) | +750 |
Russell (1), Hamilton (2) | +1000 |
Hamilton (1), Verstappen (2) | +300 |
Verstappen (1), Hamilton (2) | +200 |
The first notable thing is that only four drivers from the top three teams are available in these combinations. Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz are absent from this list.
Pérez proved he excels on street circuits in 2022 while affirming the belief that no one can beat Max Verstappen in the same machinery. Carlos Sainz challenges Charles Leclerc but misses the relentless and consistent performances that separate World Champions from excellent Grand Prix drivers. Sainz is an excellent Grand Prix driver, deserving of his spot at the front of the grid, but not a World Champion-level driver yet.
Drivers Championship Analysis
You’ll also notice that Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc is only featured in one betting line and a third-place finish in the Drivers’ Championship. Ferrari’s performance fading as the 2022 season progressed, along with their strategic blunders, reliability issues, and switching of team principles from Ferrari-lifer Mattia Binotto to former Alfa Romero/Sauber boss Frédéric Vasseur resulted in a lack of belief from F1 fans and bookmakers alike in the Scuderia’s chances in 2023.
The third thing you’ll notice is that in this Drivers Championship 2023 betting forecast, you are betting on combinations of drivers and where they will finish at the end of the record-breaking 23-race season. The season could see a 24th Grand Prix added to replace the canceled Chinese Grand Prix.
Drivers Championship 2023 Betting Forecast Preview
Before we use these special Drivers Championship 2023 betting lines to make a pick, let’s look at the drivers and make our way too early predictions for 2023.
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell – Mercedes
Mercedes is the only team with two drivers in the betting lines and have two betting lines exclusively featuring Mercedes: Hamilton 1st & Russell 2nd (+600) and Russell 1st & Hamilton 2nd (+1000).
Russell has been touted as a future World Champion since his days in the junior karting ranks through his F2 Drivers’ Championship and F1 debut with Williams.
As an emergency replacement from Hamilton, Russell nearly won his Mercedes debut at the Sakhir Grand Prix in 2020 had it not been for Mercedes botching a double pit stop and a poorly timed puncture that followed. Russell demonstrated his high-end talent and pace, finishing in the top six 19 times in 2023, and beating Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton on pace during the São Paulo Grand Prix and Sprint Race.
Lewis Hamilton is the most successful Formula 1 driver of all time, a seven-time World Champion, and – when given competitive machinery – has continually ascended to new performance peaks. Despite losing the 2021 Drivers’ Championship in controversial and heart-breaking fashion, Hamilton’s skill and pace improved and matched Verstappen turn after turn throughout the season.
The flawed–from-the-outset W-13 stopped Hamilton’s chances of regaining the Drivers’ World Championship in 2022, but Mercedes and the W-14 should be vastly improved from the lessons learned in 2022. We expect Mercedes to start the season strong, attempting to bridge the performance gap to Red Bull to start the 2023 season.
Max Verstappen – Red Bull
Unless you want to go all-in on Mercedes, you will pick Max Verstappen as one of the top two or three finishers in the Drivers’ World Championship. The two-time reigning Drivers’ World Champion is coming off one of the most dominant seasons of all time, winning 15 of 22 Grand Prix. We’ve seen Max absolutely demolish the field during the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix, masterfully navigate wet conditions during the Japanese Grand Prix, and develop a tremendous feel for the 18” Pirelli tires throughout the 2022 season.
Verstappen should start the season with the best starting car, as the RB-19 is a continuation of the all-conquering RB-18, which was the best overall Formula 1 car by the end of the year. Reliability hasn’t been a concern for Red Bull, so any shortcomings Verstappen will have that could prevent him from being a three-time world champion are within his hands.
With the return of Mercedes to the front of the grid, we might see the return of Verstappen’s often self-inflicted DNFs that were entirely absent from his legendary 2022 Championship-winning season.
Charles Leclerc – Ferrari
After finishing second in the Drivers’ Championship standings in 2022, the only place you can bet on Leclerc finishing in these Drivers Championship 2023 betting lines is third, with a Verstappen-Hamilton 1-2 finish (+750).
This demotion is not an indictment on Leclerc as a potential Formula 1 World Championship-level driver but more an indictment of how far Ferrari has fallen during the 2022 season and the managerial issues at Marinello.
If Leclerc is going to finish third in the Drivers’ standings, he will have to best Russell more often than not in a potentially weaker car and hope that Ferrari has addressed the power unit reliability issues that plagued the Scuderia and customer teams throughout the 2022 season.
Leclerc will also need to take notes from World Champions Verstappen, Hamilton, and Fernando Alonso in being more assertive with the team regarding strategy. Leclerc could also consult Ferrari’s true chief strategist Carlos Sainz to give him the best shot of landing third.
Drivers Championship 2023 Betting Predictions
Now we turn to our Drivers Championship 2023 Betting Forecast predictions, and we will pick our three favored betting lines.
The first betting line we like for our F1 predictions is Verstappen-Hamilton-Russell at +600. George Russell really impressed us last season and we were convinced he was a race winner and potential World Champion before he was officially a Mercedes works team driver.
Verstappen and Hamilton are likely to engage in another exhausting, titanic battle at the front of the grid for the World Championship, and we really like the technical path Red Bull has taken. The RB-19 should be good enough to help Max hold off a charging Mercedes duo and escape 2023 with a third-straight Drivers’ World Championship.
Betting lines
The second betting line we like is a layup: Verstappen-Hamilton (+200 or +300). Depending on who you think will come out on top, it almost seems like a foregone conclusion that Verstappen and Hamilton will finish 1-2 in the Drivers’ standings in 2023. Whether you like Verstappen (+200) or Hamilton (+300) to finish first is your call, but either of these Verstappen-Hamilton betting lines is highly likely to happen.
The final betting line we like is Verstappen-Russell 1-2 (+650). While we think it’s likely Hamilton and Verstappen battling for the top two spots, you cannot count out George Russell as a World Championship threat the same way Valteri Bottas was as a Mercedes driver or how Serio Pérez has been as Red Bull’s second driver.
This could be the season that Russell takes another step forward. If Hamilton’s side of the garage struggles with reliability, pace, or increased DNFs, Russell could easily finish second behind Verstappen, with Hamilton a close third.
However, if we’re making one pick, we’re taking Verstappen-Hamilton-Russell at +600 as our Drivers Championship 2023 betting forecast pick.
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