2023 Formula One betting preview: Max Verstappen, Red Bull favored for repeat championships

The start of the 2023 Formula One season is less than two weeks away. The driver lineups and the calendar are set and we’ve seen the new car liveries. What will happen on the track this year?

Red Bull is coming off a dominant season, culminating in the first constructors’ championship for Christian Horner’s team since 2013. Max Verstappen cruised to his second straight drivers’ championship as well. With similar regulations from last season, more of the same is expected in the betting markets.

Verstappen is heavily favored to make it three titles in a row with -140 odds on BetMGM. Red Bull is also the favorite for a repeat, but is only getting even money odds.

2023 F1 calendar

The ever-growing F1 calendar has one more race than last year, up to 23 from 22. Qatar is back for a second grand prix after debuting in 2021. Las Vegas is set for an anticipated debut. Meanwhile, the French Grand Prix is no longer on the calendar.

The first three races (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Australia) are the same as last year. Azerbaijan moves forward to April from June. That removes a logistically difficult Azerbaijan-Montreal doubleheader. Canada is still awkwardly in the middle of the European portion of the schedule, but there are at least two weeks are on both sides of the race.

Las Vegas follows the Americas tripleheader of Austin, Mexico City and São Paulo and will be the season’s penultimate race. That means Vegas could be an irrelevant race at the season’s end but also a championship decider.

For other changes, Jordan Bianchi has more on the rule changes and driver moves for this season.

Drivers’ championship odds

Verstappen is favored, but a bounce-back is expected from Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton is second in the odds at +333, even ahead of Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc. Hamilton did not win a race and finished sixth last season, 68 points behind Leclerc. Leclerc is +500 and George Russell, Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate, is +800.

These odds show more confidence in Mercedes this year after the German manufacturer was well off the top two teams for much of 2022.

Constructors’ championship odds

Mercedes’ expected improvement is reflected in the constructors’ odds as well. If these odds are accurate, we could be looking at a legit title race this season.

The Athletic’s Madeline Coleman, Luke Smith, Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi made predictions and discussed the major storylines to watch in 2023.

The betting odds have Max Verstappen as a less than even money favorite (-140 or 5-to-7). Is that justified? Do you see another easy championship for him this year?

Luke Smith: The favorite? Yes. An easy championship? No. Red Bull nailed the new regulations last year, but the winter has given time for rivals to catch up. Verstappen is at the top of his game, and just keeps getting better. The advantage he and Red Bull carved out by the end of last season will be hard to overcome over the winter.

Madeline Coleman: Verstappen being dubbed the favorite heading into 2023 is justified given the heights he reached in 2022, but as Luke pointed out, this year’s title chase won’t be an easy one. Red Bull had less aerodynamic testing time during the winter not just because they won the constructors’ championship but also because of the budget cap punishment.

Jeff Gluck: I’m so glad Luke and Madeline are around now; actual F1 experts! But yes, I don’t see how anyone but Verstappen could be the favorite after the season he just had. That said, something is going to be very wrong if Red Bull cruises to another easy-looking championship. Surely, he’ll have more of a challenge this time. It might not be to the degree of drama we saw in 2021, but it’ll be closer to that than the blowout we saw in 2022.

Jordan Bianchi: When you pair a world class driver like Verstappen, who at age 25 only keeps improving, with an elite team like Red Bull that’s a combination that going to be quite difficult to topple. But when taking into account that Mercedes still needs to demonstrate 1) it has completely sorted out the issues with its car and 2) also needs to close a sizeable performance gap to Red Bull, while Ferrari has to prove it’s capable of not imploding, Red Bull is clearly the overwhelming favorite with no other team even close.

Who can challenge Verstappen? Is it just Ferrari and Mercedes or can another team be a surprise contender?

Smith: The dominance of F1’s ‘big three’ – they scored 65 of a possible 66 podiums last year – means there’ll be no surprise contender. Ferrari has worked hard over the winter on fixing its engine reliability, its core weakness last year. I’d look to Charles Leclerc as being Verstappen’s main rival.

Coleman: As much as fans would probably enjoy seeing a surprise contender, the ‘big three’ were lightyears ahead of the rest of the pack last season with the gap between third place Mercedes and fourth place Alpine being 342 points. If Ferrari is able to address its engine reliability issues, I’d expect Charles Leclerc to be Verstappen’s main rival. For those wondering about Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes has a lot of ground to make up after 2022. They’ve made noticeable tweaks but opted to keep the same sidepod design.

Gluck: It’s hard to imagine any team emerging to become a season-long contender. And it’s also difficult to trust Ferrari to have the sort of mistake-free run it would take to win a championship. So I’ll take a slightly different approach from Luke and Madeline and go with one of the Mercedes drivers to finish second in points. That said, I don’t know which one to pick after George Russell outscored Lewis Hamilton last season – but Hamilton remains the GOAT, in my mind.

Bianchi: If Ferrari can stay out of its own way Leclerc is best positioned to push Verstappen. But that’s a very big “if” after Ferrari threw away an abundance of points last year due to reliability woes and strategic blunders. Giving Ferrari the benefit of the doubt that they can resolve both these issues likely gives Leclerc a greater number of points, which should be enough to easily finish second in the championship.

Give us one mid-pack driver and one mid-pack team you expect to have a good season this year.

Smith: Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin. Alonso is the oldest driver on the grid, going into his 20th F1 season, yet he remains at the top of his game. He’s joined an Aston Martin team for this year that is investing heavily to get to the top. This year could be the first big step forward in that process.

Coleman: My mid-pack driver and team are different—Lando Norris and Alpine. Norris was the only driver outside of the “big three” teams to record a podium finish last season and managed to score 122 of McLaren’s 159 points. He made it known that last season’s car was a difficult one, revealing in August that he had to “learn a new way of driving” and adapt. Meanwhile, Alpine has a new driver lineup with Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, and the team seems confident it has addressed its reliability issues, identifying one of the major issues was connected to the water pump.

Gluck: I’m going with Norris here. With Daniel Ricciardo out of the picture and McLaren replacing him with rookie Oscar Piastri, Norris is now the senior driver and should be able to feel more comfortable in a leadership role. McLaren will rebound from last year’s disappointment and have improved performance, and Norris will benefit.

Bianchi: The obvious choice from this perspective is Norris and McLaren. Norris is a talent and with a good car is capable of scoring multiple wins. The challenge is for McLaren to give Norris the car, and the belief here is that the team will bounce back nicely after an underwhelming 2022 season.

Prediction time: What’s your predicted top three in the driver standings and top three in the constructor standings?

Smith:

Drivers’ championship:
1. Max Verstappen
2. Charles Leclerc
3. Carlos Sainz

Constructors’ championship:
1. Red Bull
2. Ferrari
3. Mercedes

Coleman: 

Drivers’ championship:
1. Max Verstappen
2. Charles Leclerc
3. Carlos Sainz

Constructors’ championship:
1. Ferrari
2. Red Bull
3. Mercedes

Gluck:

Drivers’ championship:
1. Max Verstappen
2. Lewis Hamilton
3. Charles Leclerc

Constructors’ championship:
1. Red Bull
2. Mercedes
3. Ferrari

Bianchi:

Drivers’ championship:
1. Max Verstappen
2. Charles Leclerc
3. Carlos Sainz

Constructors’ championship:
1. Red Bull
2. Mercedes
3. Ferrari