F1 Betting Strategy

Betting on Formula 1 (F1) auto racing can be both entertaining and profitable if you know what you’re doing. Don’t know what you’re doing, or just looking to improve? You’re in the right spot! Our team of betting experts has compiled their top list of F1 betting tips and strategies to help you crush the books. Some of these tips may seem like common sense, while some may seem a bit more complex. Basically, we’ve got something here for everyone, regardless of where you are in your F1 betting journey.

If you take these tips and couple them with your own research, you’ll be well on your way to making some money betting on F1. In fact, if you’re sharp enough, you could find yourself becoming a professional bettor. Our best advice is to take your time. Read through these tips, couple them with your own thoughts and research, and come up with an effective betting strategy. There’s also no need to come out firing with huge bets. Start with small bets until you prove your system works, and then step on the gas pedal when the time is right.

Bet Multiple Drivers in the Same Race

When most people think about betting on F1 races, they think about betting on either who is going to win the race or who is going to win the season championship. If you ask most people who they are betting, they’re going to give you one name. If you’ve ever asked someone who they were betting and they gave you more than one name, you were probably talking to someone who understands sports betting fairly well.

You see, thanks to the generous payout odds on individuals in F1, you have the luxury of betting on multiple drivers and still turning a profit as long as one of the ones you chose wins. Let’s take a look at what we’re talking about. Say you want to place an F1 futures bet and you think that Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen both have a shot at winning. Who should you bet?

You should bet both of them! Here are the actual odds of these two winning the season-long championship from an upcoming season.

What happens if you bet $100 on each of these drivers and one of them wins? If you bet $100 on both, you’d be in for $200. If Vettel wins, you will get $300 in profit. $300 – $200 = $100 in profit. If Max wins, you will get $400 in profit. $400 – $200 = $200 in profit. As long as one of your drivers wins, you’re going to walk away with some profit.

This works with any bet that allows you to select an individual driver, because the payouts are going to be better than even money. You will have to be careful with F1 because there are times that you’ll have a driver who is so dominant that if you bet them, you won’t be able to bet other drivers. You can use that driver, though, to minimize losses when they win.

For example, along with the same odds above, Lewis Hamilton is at +150. If you bet him and another driver and he wins, you’ll get $150 in profit, but will have placed $200 in total bets, meaning you’d be taking a loss. But let’s say you think Max has a good shot, but you’re really not sure. You could just bet on Max, and if you’re wrong, you will lose the $100. If you bet on Max and Lewis, though, you’d still get a profit of $200 if Max won, or you’d only lose $50 if Lewis won the championship. It can be a bit of an insurance policy. Of course, if neither of them were to win, you’d lose the full $200.

Before you go out betting every driver under the sun, there are a few things that you need to be aware of. First, unlike some other auto racing organizations, F1 has a history of having one overly dominant driver. This can drive down the odds on that driver while driving up the payout odds on all other drivers. This is great when one of those other drivers wins, but you must realize that the higher payouts are because it’s less likely that they’re going to win.

You also need to realize that you’re going to be limiting your potential profit by betting multiple drivers. If you only placed one bet and won, it would be more difficult to win, but you wouldn’t have to subtract out any other losses from other bets. In addition, you need to realize that you may have to adjust your bet size to stay in line with your bankroll budget.

Remember as well that you don’t have to bet the same amount on each driver. If you want to limit your risk, you can bet more on the driver that’s the bigger favorite and place a smaller wager on the driver that is the long shot. It’s all up to you. What we’re trying to say is that you need to make sure you’re aware of and comfortable with the total amount risked and make sure that you can still turn a profit or a minimal loss if any of your projected outcomes happen.

Understanding Circuit History

All F1 circuits are not created equally. In fact, comparative to some other popular racing organizations, their circuits are probably the ones with the most differences. This means that you need to understand how each driver has historically fared at each individual circuit or type of circuit to get a better plan of how they will perform.

For example, if a driver does amazing at circuits with lots of hairpin turns and a lot of need for maneuvering, does that mean they will do well at a circuit with a lot of high-speed straightaways? The answer is that they may or they may not. The important conclusion to draw is that every track is different, and certain skill sets will do better at different tracks.

Yes, it’s important to know which driver is on a hot streak. Yes, there are some drivers that could drive like champs if you stuck them in the middle of the woods with a go-kart. The point is, though, that you can find edges if you find drivers that have historically fared well at certain circuits. Finding this information is as easy as researching race results from the past few years. You can take it a step further and look at race footage to see how they navigate certain situations, but that is all up to how much you want to research.

You can even break this down even further and see how they fared under certain weather conditions, under certain starting grid positions, and under any other conditions that may or may not be the same for upcoming races. The more homework you do, the better your chances are of finding an edge.

Weighing in Team Dynamics

Racing has always been an individual sport, but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t working together. Within F1 racing, each driver drives on a team with another driver. While each driver is technically out for themselves, they usually work together with their teammate to try to help each other out. This could mean drafting, or passing along track information, race setups, faster lines, and anything else they can do to assist.

What does this have to do with betting? The answer is that a driver with a strong teammate is always going to have an advantage over a driver who is stuck with a dud of a teammate. If a driver has a great teammate who runs strong, they’re going to have someone to draft with and someone to help them get whatever edge they need to make it to the finish in the front. Sure, both drivers will start driving for themselves late in the race, but the ability to get there in a great position can a lot of times be attributed to the help of a solid teammate.

If they have a dud teammate, though, they aren’t going to have that drafting partner up front, won’t be getting much in the way of helpful information, and will be at a disadvantage to all of the other teams that have someone strong to run with. This shouldn’t be a huge part of your betting strategy for F1, but it needs to be weighed in. We recommend using this when you’re close on a bet and not sure which direction to go. Use the strength of the driver’s teammate to push you over the edge one way or the other. With margins of victory so close in the sport, you’re probably going to have a lot of close situations where you need something to help you “break the tie.”

Qualifying Times

The fastest car in qualifying will be the fastest car on race day, right? Bzzzzz! Wrong. It’s very possible that race conditions will change between qualifying and the actual race. Changes in temperature, precipitation, cloud cover, humidity, and more will have a strong effect on the cars. If a team isn’t able to adjust appropriately, the fast car from qualifying is going to struggle within the race.

The reason you need to be aware of this with betting is so you don’t put all of your eggs in the qualifying basket. Bettors have a tendency to want to bet the fastest qualifier and leave it at that. The problems with this are that, as we mentioned, conditions can change, and qualifying laps are run without traffic or anyone else in their way. This means we don’t know how well the cars will fare in dirty air. They may do just fine, but don’t automatically assume that because a car qualified fast, it’s going to keep that up on race day.

You should pay attention to the cars that get top grid spots on tracks where passing is tougher (like Monaco). These tracks will be very challenging for the drivers in the back to execute enough passes to get all the way to the front of the field. On some courses where passing is easier, this won’t play as big of a role, though the fewer cars they have to pass, the better.

The Wrap-Up

In a sport sometimes decided by seconds, it’s important that you search for any information or conclusions that can give you an edge. The tips and strategies we’ve provided for you above should serve as a strong starting point, but should not be the end-all for making your F1 picks. Take the tips and strategies that we’ve given you and work to couple those with your own research. With some hard work and a sharp mind, you should be able to develop a winning betting strategy.

Remember, always be looking for value, and when you find a great spot, go for it. Being a professional F1 bettor is not easy; otherwise, everyone and their brothers would be doing it. That being said, it is beatable with the right skill set and work ethic. Take your time, mind your bankroll manners, and you should be well on your way to finding success with your Formula 1 bets.