Bahrain Grand Prix odds, picks: Can Ferrari get another fast start to a season?
The 2023 Formula 1 season is set to start this weekend in Bahrain. Red Bull driver Max Verstappen is favored to win his third straight championship, but hope is a prevalent emotion at the start of every season.
Preseason testing showed good things for Aston Martin and concerns for Mercedes and McLaren. However, preseason testing isn’t a level playing field as far as comparisons go. This weekend’s race at the Bahrain International Circuit will tell everyone a lot more about what to expect in 2023.
Last year, Charles Leclerc won from pole position and his Ferrari teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. finished second after starting third. Both Red Bull cars retired while Mercedes was well off the lead pace despite finishing third and fourth. Ferrari’s success teased that there could be a huge shakeup at the top of the grid, but instead Red Bull and Verstappen eventually ran away with both titles. So while Bahrain will provide a lot more information about what this season could look like, it could also be misleading.
Verstappen has never won in Bahrain. Of the current grid, Lewis Hamilton has five wins in Bahrain, followed by Fernando Alonso (3), Leclerc’s win last year and Sergio Perez who won at this track during the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix when F1 doubled up in Bahrain.
Bahrain Grand Prix odds
Verstappen remains a clear favorite to win the race, but the gap is smaller for qualifying. Verstappen is even money to win pole position while Leclerc is 2-to-1 to take the top spot in qualifying. Sainz is 6-to-1 to take pole, ahead of Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez (10-to-1). That may not be a reflection of what to expect this year, but rather mostly due to what we saw last season. Ferrari won 12 of the 22 poles last year while Red Bull won eight. Leclerc had a 9-7 edge on Verstappen as far as pole positions.
The expected pace of the cars is a mix of what we saw in testing and last year’s performance. Based solely on the odds, there appears to be an informal ranking of the cars that looks like this:
1. Red Bull
2. Ferrari
3. Mercedes
4. Aston Martin
t-5. Alpine/Alfa Romeo
7. McLaren
8. Haas
9. AlphaTauri
10. Williams
Will that be how it plays out this year? Our F1 crew previewed the Bahrain Grand Prix and made predictions for the race.
Since preseason testing, Max Verstappen has become a bigger favorite in the betting odds to win the championship, Charles Leclerc’s stock has moved up and Lewis Hamilton and George Russell have dropped. Do you agree with those trends?
Madeline Coleman: Even with the caveats that surround testing results, it feels inevitable that Verstappen and Red Bull will dominate. Leclerc even said during Thursday’s press conference that it seemed like Red Bull is “a bit in front” compared to Ferrari. However, I’m not entirely convinced that the championships will be runaways like last season depending on how Ferrari’s engine reliability was addressed and how its strategy pans out.
Jeff Gluck: Red Bull’s pace looked ominous for the rest of the field in testing, which surely comes as a disappointment to anyone who thought the offseason would give other teams a chance to catch up. It wasn’t like people thought Red Bull would suddenly have a Mercedes-like dropoff in performance, but there at least seemed like an opportunity to have a multi-team championship battle. And now? Yikes. Of course, it’s just testing – and that’s why we still can’t fairly evaluate this year’s Mercedes car, for example. We’ll all know soon enough though.
Jordan Bianchi: Any faint hope that Red Bull may have slipped over the offseason while another team closed the gap was put firmly to bed with how preseason testing unfolded. Maybe something unforeseen arises that changes this notion, but the likelihood is that Red Bull again dominates with Verstappen cruising to a third consecutive world title.
Luke Smith: Completely. We may not have seen the full hand of the front running teams through testing, but the fashion in which Red Bull completed the three days of running in Bahrain – quick, consistent, and with no reliability issues – has only strengthened its favorite tag going into the weekend. Mercedes also seems to remain on the back foot, so there’ll be work for them to do.
Leclerc won last year in Bahrain from pole position. How surprised would you be to see him pull off that feat again this year?
Coleman: I’d be surprised but not shocked. Formula One is a sport where anything can happen, and we saw this last year when both Red Bull drivers didn’t finish the Bahrain Grand Prix. Mechanical problems do happen, and there is the factor of human error. It’s a given that the teams didn’t show all of their cards during testing, but as Jeff mentioned, there was an ominous feel to Red Bull’s pace.
Gluck: Fairly surprised, just because Verstappen already has that unbeatable aura again. If Verstappen doesn’t have some sort of mechanical problem, he should win. So that means Leclerc running away with the race would be quite the intriguing start to the season and immediately raise questions about whether Red Bull is untouchable after all.
Bianchi: Any team other than Red Bull winning Sunday would be a surprise. A lot would have to go wrong to not see Verstappen or Pérez on the top, and whole lot would need to go in the favor of Ferrari and/or Mercedes. And this is a scenario that just doesn’t feel likely.
Smith: Pole may be well be within reach. The Ferrari car was great over a single lap last year – Leclerc had more poles than any other driver – and it won’t have lost that strength overnight. But it’s the long stints in the race and tire degradation that hurt Ferrari the most as it tried to keep up with Red Bull, and that does not appear to have changed based on testing.
Fernando Alonso is 16-to-1 to win in Bahrain, ahead of Russell (18-to-1). Are you a believer in Alonso as a regular podium contender this year?
Coleman: It feels far fetched that an Aston Martin and a Mercedes are on equal footing, regardless of Alonso’s pedigree. He is a two-time world champion, but Aston Martin finished seventh in the constructors’ standings in 2022. Mercedes, meanwhile, was 460 points ahead of them despite the car troubles they experienced. That would be a huge swing. Let’s remember that Lando Norris was the only driver outside of the top three teams who was on the podium last year as well. That being said, I could see Alonso being on the podium a few times this season based on preseason testing. It depends on how the car continues to be developed throughout the year.
Gluck: You’d think Alonso’s odds are leaning heavily off how good Aston Martin’s car looked in testing. If the team has truly improved that much, then maybe they can make a run for fifth in the constructors’ championship (I’m assuming Lance Stroll won’t be able to keep pace with Alonso, so that rules them out from fourth). Even so, can Alonso really be a regular face on the podium? He’s going to have to beat at least four drivers from the three top teams each race or hope they have trouble, so I’m a little skeptical for now.
Bianchi: From this perspective it’s perplexing that Alonso in an Aston Martin has better odds of winning than Russell in a Mercedes. Has Aston Martin really found that much speed and has Mercedes fallen that far where they’re now on equal footing? Such a big swing feels a bit farfetched. Nonetheless, seeing Alonso on the podium on a somewhat regular basis doesn’t seem like a big reach – provided the 41-year-old’s talents haven’t slipped and Aston Martin actually delivers on the promise it showed during offseason testing.
Smith: Regular podiums may be a stretch, but Aston Martin definitely looks to be in the mix for the top three this weekend. Alonso seems to be in peak condition and was bullish going into the new season about the project Aston Martin is building. Although he said in preseason it would take a few races for him to be at one with the car and the team as he finds his feet, the signs from testing were encouraging. If you’re looking for a long-shot bet, Alonso’s your man this weekend.
Prediction time: What do you think will be the podium in Bahrain?
Coleman: Verstappen, Leclerc, Sainz
Gluck: Verstappen, Leclerc, Pérez
Bianchi: Verstappen, Pérez, Leclerc
Smith: Verstappen, Pérez, Alonso
