2024 F1 Championship Odds: Constructors And Drivers (Antepost) Titles Up For Grabs?
The F1 season coming back after its Summer Break this week in the Netherlands, and there’s a lot of discourse about the state of the championships. Max Verstappen is a large favorite for Antepost winner, also known as the Drivers’ Championship, while Red Bull holds a tenuous lead in F1 odds for the Constructors Championship. But with so much having taken place in the first half of 2024, are these vulnerable favorites? Let’s analyze 2024 F1 Championship odds.
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F1 Championship odds: Constructors Championship
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Teams
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McLaren
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Red Bull
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Mercedes
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Ferrari
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McLaren being the favourites in the team championship despite trailing Red Bull by 42 points makes complete sense. Well-sourced reporting suggested that Sergio Perez was out at Red Bull before F1 owner Liberty Media intervened. With Checo having not placed on the podium since China, Red Bull are running this championship one-handed. While Max Verstappen is still an elite driver, you can’t win the Constructors with the fourth-best driver pairing on the grid.
As currently constituted, McLaren, Mercedes, and Ferrari all are likelier to put two drivers ahead of Perez. The likeliest outcome of any race without a DNF at the front is Perez finishing 8th, at best. When Max was reliably finishing first, where Checo finished was irrelevant. Now, it’s a real problem. Since Adrian Newey left Red Bull in May, the Red Bull has fallen off a cliff. From the fastest car in the first five races, it’s now arguably behind both McLaren and Mercedes.
As great of a driver as Verstappen is, Red Bull do not have the car to lead at the front anymore.
Can Mercedes Play Spoiler?
The only case for Red Bull retaining the Constructors title is if you’re extremely optimistic about Mercedes. Winners of three of the last four races, Mercedes have the most talented driver lineup in the sport. Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are out driving a Mercedes car that shouldn’t be at the front. If they continue to take a slower car to the front, they will deprive McLaren of needed points. If McLaren are unable to win races despite their status as the fastest car, they might lose too many points to Mercedes to bridge the gap.
That said, Mercedes will still help McLaren cash F1 Championship odds. Every time a Mercedes beats Max, it increases the value of a McLaren win. If Max is consistently coming first or second, McLaren will be hard-pressed to win the Constructors title. If he’s routinely coming in 5th, where he finished in Hungary and where he crossed the line in Belgium, Red Bull are screwed.
And at this point, I have more faith in Mercedes’ development than Newey-less Red Bull’s.
Here, Max’s 78-point lead looks more secure, but I’m still not sure. This F1 season still has 10 races after the Summer Break, plus three sprints. More importantly, the Red Bull looks to be the third fastest car. The results since Miami have shown an increasing, undrivable, and slow Red Bull, but we deluded ourselves into thinking it was competitive because of driver mistakes from the other teams.
In Max We Trust?
With the benefit of hindsight, Max’s wins in Imola, Montreal, and Spain look increasingly impressive. In none of those races did Red Bull have the fastest car. In all three, however, Max avoided the mistakes that plagued Lando Norris and George Russell. Now that Mercedes are actually at the front and Oscar Piastri has healed from his broken rib, there’s actual competition at the front. (Oh, and Lando Norris still exists, I guess.)
The thing is, Max would not be the favorite in a championship fight against almost any other elite driver. If Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Charles Leclerc, or Fernando Alonso had the car advantage Lando Norris has had since Miami, this title fight would be easily favoring them. Norris’ spectacular inability to win with the fastest car has created this state. Max winning the Drivers Championship while Red Bull loses the Constructors wouldn’t be unprecedented. In fact, in 2021, Red Bull failed to beat Mercedes, while Max won the individual championship (in controversial) fashion on the final lap.
That said, outside of 2021, Drivers and Constructors splits are rare. More to the point, Max has had the third fastest car in race trim at all different types of tracks now. The Red Bull struggled in the slow corners of Hungary, Max got caught by Lando at the fast track of Austria, and Mercedes showed more latent race pace in Belgium than Red Bull did. After Monaco, Red Bull tried to pass off their bad results as a circuit-dependent problem. Now, it seems like they struggle for race pace no matter the track.
Time To Shine For Lando Norris (Lando Norris (McLaren) +145 on FanDuel)?
I am not a believer in Lando Norris. I love to indulge his failures as much as anyone else. But he is the lead driver in the clearly fastest car. Red Bull has lost its head of Aerodynamics and the only person who can fix the car to make it even remotely drivable for Max and the car has taken a turn for the worst. Red Bull are also rife with infighting, as Team Principal Christian Horner fights with head of the Red Bull Driver Program, Helmut Marko, for power. Horner’s place in the team is also still in some question after sexual harassment allegations earlier this year led to Jos Verstappen, Max’s Dad, to publicly call for Horner to consider his position.
Lando will never see another opportunity like this again. In 2025, Mercedes will likely have caught up to McLaren in the development race, and George Russell has already beaten Lando in F2 in 2018. This is his chance. If he is ever going to be a World Champion it has to be now, when he has the fastest car while Max languishes closer to Ferrari in 4th. Admittedly, I don’t know if Lando is that guy. But I know he has the car to do it. So, I have to bet Lando at his current price.
Best of luck navigating F1 Championship odds!
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