2024 F1 Odds & Season Preview: Who’s Next After Max Verstappen & Red Bull?

With the Formula One season starting this week, intrigue’s abound after Lewis Hamilton announced this would be his last season at Mercedes before heading to Ferrari. With Red Bull dominating 2023 and three teams fighting for the title of main challenger, 2024 F1 odds may be quite open. Even if Max Verstappen does dominate, handicapping Formula 1 odds at the best betting sites will be fascinating.

Caesars Sportsbook also has a ton of intriguing season-long race win prop bets, giving bettors more ways to be invested in drivers they think will find the winner’s circle. My thoughts on those win totals are below.

2024 F1 Odds: AntePost Winner without Max Verstappen

Here are the top-four favorites at BetMGM to be the championship-winning driver in 2024 F1 odds without Max Verstappen, as the market that includes him makes Verstappen an unexciting -600 favorite. All other choices are +1000 or longer.

Who is No. 2?

McLaren, Mercedes, and Ferrari all have ambitions but also huge question marks. Mercedes has only won one race since the start of this set of regulations in 2022 and ended the 2023 season arguably in fourth on raw pace.

McLaren racked up tons of podiums and second places in 2023, but Mercedes did the same thing in 2022 and struggled mightily in 2023.

Ferrari might be the strongest challenger, if only because they finally designed a car around Charles Leclerc, who ended 2023 with three pole positions in the last five races. With Charles (seemingly) winning the internal war at Ferrari over the imminent departure of Carlos Sainz, Leclerc seems likely to be our best hope of a non-Verstappen champion in 2024 F1 odds.

2024 F1 Odds: Team Championship Without Red Bull

Here are the top-four automakers in the odds to capture the 2024 Constructors Championship without Red Bull. The market that includes Red Bull makes it a -650 favorite, making these odds far more interesting. All others not listed are 100-1 or longer.

Race Win Odds

Caesars’ season long race win odds provide a lot of value, with bettors able to back or fade drivers without having to predict individually which races they could win.

Max Verstappen (Red Bull): O/U 14.5 Wins

Max won 19 races in a 22-race season last year, and has won twice at one of the tracks coming back onto the calendar this year. That said, the 14.5 isn’t as unreasonably low as it seems.

Max finished every race last year, a rare feat that’s by no means guaranteed again. With Ferrari now back developing their car towards Leclerc, Max will likely start significantly fewer races in pole position this year. All signals point to McLaren and Mercedes being slightly closer this year.

The biggest threat to Max might be from Sergio Perez, in all honesty. Not that Perez will win enough to cost Max, but if Perez continues to struggle, a midseason Daniel Ricciardo promotion to the main RB team could cost Max some wins.

Sergio Perez (Red Bull): O/U 2.5 Wins

Checo has 5 wins in three seasons in Red Bull, and three of those required Max to crash out of the race, Max starting 15th on the grid due to mechanical failures in Quali, or Checo intentionally crashing in Monaco two years ago. He has had either the fastest or co-fastest car on the grid for 3 seasons and has never won more than 2 races in a season. He has a better chance of finishing the season in the Visa Cash App RB team than he does with 3+ wins.

Charles Leclerc (Ferrari): O/U 1.5 Wins

Charles wasn’t able to get a race win last year, but despite Ferrari developing the car away from his driving style, he still drove admirably. 5 pole positions and 6 podiums show how well the Monegasque drove, and why he’s the driver Ferrari extended. After Ferrari introduced an update to shift the car back to Charles’s driving style in Suzuka, Leclerc had three pole positions and three podiums, including two second-place finishes to end the season.

With Ferrari seemingly close enough to Red Bull to fight for wins on certain tracks, Charles will be the one who turns opportunities into wins. Trusting the driver who won two of the first three races in 2022 and who could have won a second race in Vegas if not for an untimely safety car is a solid bet, and one I’ve made.

Carlos Sainz (Ferrari): O/U 1.5 Wins

Sainz gets a lot of credit for being the only non-Red Bull winner in 2023, but in reality he’s a mid-tier driver. There’s a reason Ferrari extended Leclerc’s contract while letting Sainz go for 2025. His victory in Singapore came before Ferrari decided to ditch his preferred car concept and pivot back to a Leclerc-preferred concept. After the update before the 2023 Japanese GP, Charles outqualified Carlos in every single race.

Ferrari might have half a dozen chances to win races this year. Most of those will inevitably be Leclerc’s. Sainz might get one race win, but the chances he gets two are only slightly better than him driving for Ferrari in 2025.

George Russell (Mercedes): O/U 1.5 Wins

It seems unlikely that both Mercedes will be able to hit this number. Even if the car is faster, Mercedes has a steeper hill to climb to truly fight for the front. That said, George Russell is the Merc driver I’m trusting. Russell is the only Mercedes driver to win under these regulations and one of only three drivers ever to beat Lewis over a full season. George had a down season last year but still tied Lewis in qualifying performance over the course of the season.

With George entering his prime and Lewis on the wrong side of the aging curve, George will likely inherit the lion’s share of the winning opportunities at Mercedes this season. Throw in the fact that Lewis is leaving at season’s end and George is the future, and you’d expect any in-season upgrades to cater to George.

Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes): O/U 1.5 Wins

The short answer is that Lewis, while still great, is overvalued because he’s a big name. He has fumbled opportunities to win his first race with bad starts and bad qualifyings, he crashed into his teammate in Qatar when he had his best chance at a win in 2023, and he’s getting older.

Lewis is an icon of the sport, and his decision to move to Ferrari is a huge business story. It’s just not really true to pretend that Lewis, who hasn’t won since 2021, is still the same driver he was. He’s priced above George because of name recognition, not because of actual current-day talent. He’s not the best driver at Mercedes for the F1 2024 season.

Lando Norris (McLaren): O/U 1.5 Wins

The king of hypothetical success, Lando Norris needs to actually win a singular race before we start contemplating him winning two.

Lando, who lost his first race win in a fit of petulance by refusing to listen to his team and staying out in the Russian rain in 2021, lacks the killer instinct drivers need. Daniel Ricciardo won a race in 2021 as Norris’ teammate, while Oscar Piastri won a sprint race last year. Until Lando actually shows up when the lights are bright, fade him. Unlike Piastri, he doesn’t have a pedigree as a championship winner from the junior Formula circuits.

Oscar Piastri (McLaren): O/U 0.5 Wins

Unlike his McLaren teammate, Piastri doesn’t have a reputation for choking when the moment gets too big. Piastri was slightly slower on race days than Lando at the end of last season, but as a rookie that’s to be expected. The lower number makes this worth a bet, as does the fact that Piastri didn’t choke when given an opportunity to win a race last year. It was a sprint, but the point stands.

Best of luck betting Formula One odds!

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