Belgian GP Odds: Can Max Verstappen Get Back To Winning?
We have reached engine penalty season in F1 at the final race before the summer break. With championship leader Max Verstappen taking a 10-place grid drop this weekend, the top of the F1 odds board will be more exciting than usual. The 2024 Belgian Grand Prix odds reflect the drama of last week.
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Formula 1: 2024 Belgian Grand Prix Odds
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F1 Betting Guide
In the last two years, Max has taken grid penalties and managed to be back in the lead by Lap 15. This year, that task will be significantly harder. With a 10-place grid drop coming, Max will start somewhere between 11th and 15th in all likelihood. Whether he can get onto the podium is the more interesting matter.
McLaren should win the race, which should be a 1-2 like in Hungary. The straight line speed won’t be great, but the McLaren has been the fastest car now everywhere. Even if it’s slightly slower than Max’s Red Bull, the time they’ll gain while Max slices through the upper midfield and Ferraris will be enough that Max should be only able to finish third, at best.
That podium battle should be between Verstappen, Hamilton, and Russell then. Mercedes has an upgrade package coming this week, while the Red Bull upgrade brought in Hungary should work better at Spa. On paper, Max should be able to get on the podium, but I’m going to bet George.
The trouble for Max is that, in all likelihood, he will need to overtake at least two cars specializing in straight-line speed. Nico Hulkenberg and Alex Albon both have a decent shot of qualifying ahead of Max’s eventual starting spot. More importantly, their exceptional straight-line speed will be hellacious to try and overtake. Albon managed points here in 2022 by holding up a train of faster cars behind him with that straight-line speed. Having more latent pace doesn’t matter if you can’t overtake, and Max could struggle behind two cars that are excellent at defense. And for Albon, a former teammate of Verstappen’s, holding him up in significantly worse machinery would also be a personal point of pride.
Best Of The Rest
In what could be Checo Perez’s final race in a Red Bull, the pressure is on Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda. With Perez having performance clauses that could see him booted at the summer break, it’s incumbent on the two Visa Cash App RB drivers to make a big swing to justify that change. Ricciardo complained massively last weekend about strategy decisions that doomed his race, which could open the door to preferential treatment this weekend. Ricciardo’s points at a track where he won in 2014 is a bet worth making.
Zhou Guanyu for Last Classified Driver is also worth a bet. For reasons past understanding, Zhou doesn’t get the criticism that Logan Sargeant does despite being meaningfully slower and more consistently bad. With Williams likely okay this weekend, Zhou should be at the back of the pack.
Belgian GP odds Qualifying
Before we get into which cars should go well around Spa – the longest circuit on the calendar – it’s key to know how betting markets will work. Qualifying bets will be graded based on the finish on the road. If Max finishes first and ends up 11th after his penalty, he’ll still be graded as the Qualifying winner. For the purposes of Qualifying bets, it only matters where Max (and any others who might take grid drops) finish on the road. Penalties do not affect Qualifying bets.
Max should, in theory, get (pre-penalty) pole here easily. Max dunked 8 tenths on everyone in 2023 and 6 tenths of a second in 2022. The Red Bull’s elite straight-line speed and strength at fast, low downforce tracks make Spa a perfect match. Even with the McLaren being faster than the Red Bull right now, the circuit-specific characteristics should make this a Max pole.
The McLarens have the fastest car, and Oscar Piastri did come within 12 milliseconds of the pole in the Sprint Qualifying pole in 2023. It should be Max and the McLarens in the top 3. Any other result would be a failure. Lando Norris was tracking for a potential pole position here in 2021 before a Q3 crash left him hospitalized.
That 2021 session raises the only threat to the established order, which is that Saturday currently projects to be wet. George Russell put his backmarker Williams on the front row in 2021 in the wet, and the Mercedes has been better in the wet. Lower track temperature plays into the Mercedes’ hands, and at the wet Silverstone FP3, the Mercedes looked strongest. I don’t think that should put George or Lewis into that Top 3, but they’re the only cars that could spoil the party, sorry Ferrari.
F1 Qualifying Prop Bets
One of the rationales/excuses for Lewis Hamilton’s struggles in qualifying is that he is taking too much out of his tires in the first two sectors of his hot laps, ruining them towards the end of the lap. At the longest track on the calendar, if that happens again, Lewis will have half a lap left. George over Lewis in Qualifying is my favorite bet of the weekend.
Pierre Gasly took a sprint podium in Spa in 2023 and has a misty fresh engine after taking penalties at both Silverstone and Hungary. He’s been unable to finish the last two weeks and got screwed over by a bad Alpine strategy in Q1. A buy-low opportunity on Gasly is an exciting prospect, either in matchups against the Aston Martins or in a longshot Q3 appearance bet.
Aston Martin’s straight-line speed, or lack thereof, is “like a different category,” according to Lance Stroll. At a track where you’re flat out for so much of the lap, the Astons will be about as useful as using a croissant as a dildo. I’ll be looking to attack both Lance and Fernando Alonso in qualifying matchups against Haas and Williams cars.
Williams’ one useful characteristic is straight-line speed. There are lots of straights at Spa. Alex Albon to make Q3 and Logan Sargeant to make Q2 are auto-bets for me,
Best of luck with Belgian Grand Prix odds!