F1 2025 Betting Odds (Undercutters Ep5 transcript)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the fifth Undercutters podcast, hosted by me, Morris. Thank you all for listening. It’s been a bit of a pleasant surprise but for mysterious the last podcast had more German than British listeners. Guten Tag to any of you who are listening now, and, of course, to anyone from around the world.

Today we’re going to assess the F1 betting market. I want to stress that this is a sporting and not a sports betting podcast, so no tips are going to be offered today. So you might be wondering why we’re looking at the F1 betting odds. The reason is that bookies have a vested financial interest in making accurate forecasts and a good deal of experience and expertise in predicting how things will go. It’s their business, after all. So it makes sense to check their F1 2025 predictions and title odds to see how they think things will turn out.

However, this does not make them psychic. Betting markets can and do make mistakes. Perez was 61 to win the Sakhir Grand Prix about four, five years ago now, and he did. The F1 betting market had Button as long as 71 to take the title in 2009 and that happened as well. The numbers we see when looking at F1 betting odds are not just a reflection of the money a bettor stands to make when wagering. They also indicate the confidence or lack thereof in an outcome. If you have two boxers with odds around evens we can infer from that that people think the fight will be close and could go either way. If you have two boxers and one has odds of 11, then he’s seen as very likely to lose.

If you happen to be into betting and want tips then I will continue to offer them at morrisf1.blogspot.com and at MorrisF1 on Twitter. I’ve offered F1 betting tips since 2009, which is one of the reasons this idea occurred to me. I do not plan on offering any tips during any of the podcasts simply because there’s a relatively long turn around time and odds change very rapidly. I tend to make bets quite shortly before qualifying or the race so there’s not really enough time to record a podcast, edit it, check things, release it, and then Podbean’s very quick (because that’s where things are hosted) but for other outlets it can be delayed by 10, 15 minutes and that can make the difference.

Last season I backed Verstappen to win in Brazil at 15, but even just typing it by the time I’d done that and posted the odds had fallen to 13. And, for those wondering, I prefer decimal to fractional odds. Thirteen is 12/1 in old money.

F1 2025 Betting Odds 03m:00s

So the bookie that I’m going to be using for the odds is Ladbrokes. I don’t have any kind of affiliation or official relationship with them but I do have an account there and I’ve bet there for quite a long time now. So, before I say who the favourites are I thought it’d be interesting to just take a moment and think to yourself who do you think the favourite is for the driver championship and for the constructors’.

If you think Max Verstappen and McLaren then you agree with me. But Max Verstappen is not the favourite. The favourite according to Ladbrokes is Lando Norris, who has odds of 3.Verstappen is second favourite with 3.5. Charles Leclerc is next with 5, and Hamilton has odds of 7.

So there’s a very interesting thing here, which is Norris favourite, narrowly over Verstappen, but when you look at the constructors’ odds the McLaren team are favourite with odds of 2.1. Ferrari have odds of 2.2, and Red Bull’s odds are 6. So red Bull is a fairly distant third favourite but their lead driver is nearly the favourite to win the drivers’ title. So you can tease out some interesting information from this. Ladbrokes clearly take the view that Verstappen is very credible title contender but his team mate, Liam Lawson, is going to be lagging behind. And if you, this is borne out if look at the driver’s odds, Lawson’s odds of winning the title are 51. Which makes him joint worst of the drivers for top teams alongside Kimi Antonelli.

By contrast if you look at Norris’ team mate Piastri, who I didn’t quite get to before, his odds are 10 which is quite a bit longer than Norris on 3. In fact you might argue that Piastri’s value at those odds, but they’re fairly close together. Certainly a lot more than either Russell and Antonelli or Verstappen and Lawson. But if you look at Ferrari, very narrowly second favourite for the constructors’, Leclerc is just barely shorter, 5 to 7, than Hamilton. This actually backs up my view that Leclerc will beat Hamilton this year, but it also means that the market view, or Ladbrokes’ view, is that Ferrari are going to have an incredibly tight battle. The battle between Norris and Piastri will be competitive but mostly Norris, and that Verstappen and Russell will easily beat their team mates.

The odds on a driver winning is a reflection of both the driver’s ability and the car. And you can see this if you look at Fernando Alonso. His odds are 67, if you look at Carlos Sainz: 151. In a Williams, that’s probably too short but it’s still half that of Albon who has odds of 301. I think an interesting thing, just going back to the driver predictions of the last episode again, Oliver Bearman has odds of 251 whereas Esteban Ocon, both of them are driving for Haas in F1 2025, has odds of 300/1, which is a little bit longer. Which I’m a bit surprise, although that does back up my view that Bearman has a decent shot of beating Ocon so we’ll see if that comes off.

Just for fun those with the longest odds are Gabriel Bortoleto at 1000/1, which is fair enough because he’s a new driver in a Sauber. And they were not good last year. And… take a moment and think who else has odds of 1,001. Because there’s only one other driver with odds that long.

Yep. Lance Stroll. Just a reminder, Fernando Alonso’s odds: 67. Lance Stroll’s: 1,001. So, can’t say that’s undeserved but it’s pretty brutal for Stroll junior.

So, returning to the top end of things. The market view is clearly that Norris will beat Piastri because for McLaren and Ferrari beating your team mate is not a guarantee. If Hamilton beat Leclerc it would not be astonishing, it would be impressive yes, but it wouldn’t be unbelievable kind of news. If Piastri beat Norris that would be a surprise but there were moments last year, especially in the middle of the season, when the Aussie looked faster, to be honest, and he’s very good at passing. Leclerc in Azerbaijan and Norris in Monza stand out. If he can produce that form over the course of a season then Norris is going to have a problem without even having to leave the garage.

Verstappen is unlikely to face that difficulty. The odds on Lawson are long, and rightly so. Verstappen has annihilated pretty much every team mate since Ricciardo, and to win the drivers’ title first of all you have to beat your team mate. If Charles Leclerc had a different team mate, a much much weaker team mate, let’s say… I don’t know, Lance Stroll (in a weird world), Leclerc’s odds would be shorter because he wouldn’t have to worry about: can he beat Hamilton? Not hugely shorter, he’d probably still be third favourite, but a little bit closer. The fact that Norris is favourite with Verstappen having a clear number one status and Piastri being Norris’ team mate suggests people really do back him. It is also possible this is a British thing because Ladbrokes is a British bookmaker and people like backing a home favourite. That being said, Hamilton is longer than Leclerc, so it’s not guaranteed by any stretch.

Something else that we can pick out from looking at the odds is that Ladbrokes clearly do not expect things to pick up exactly where they left off last season. Last season, from about Miami onwards was fantastic. Any given race you could have Mercedes or Ferrari or McLaren or Verstappen in with a shot of winning. And the order kept on changing, it was great. But when you look at the odds on Russell at 15 and you see Red Bull at 6 and Mercedes at 13 for the constructors’ it’s pretty clear that this is not expected to be the case by Ladbrokes, anyway. They think it’s going to be a fantastic title battle between McLaren and Ferrari, and at the sharp end it does look, from their odds, that things are going to be very close between Norris and Verstappen, with the Ferraris and maybe Piastri and Russell sometimes getting involved. Now, that would still be fantastic, it wouldn’t quite be as good as last season. But just because a season is really really close doesn’t mean the next one will be.

Remembering 2012 and 2013 10m41s

The example that I’d think to would be 2012, which I think had seven different winners in the first seven races. And there was an amazing title battle between Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso. However, in 2013 Vettel won that by quite a lot. Just pulling up the numbers on that: in 2012 Vettel beat Alonso by 3 points, and in 2013 Vettel beat Alonso, who was runner up then again, by 155 points. Now, I’m not expecting things to be that bad, I don’t think we’ll be back to Verstappen processions or anything like that, like in 2023 but I do expect this to be a slightly more conventional season when it comes to a battle between probably Norris, Verstappen, Leclerc. The market does lack confidence in Mercedes, which I find kind of interesting because towards the end of the season they were highly competitive at a number of circuits so maybe they know something I don’t. I’m a little bit surprised their odds are quite so long.

Australian Grand Prix Odds 11m53s

Looking at the Australian race, the first Grand Prix of the year, currently there’s only a winner market up. But the favourite for that is Verstappen, not Norris. Which I think is kind of interesting. It might be that the thinking is Verstappen will, or Red Bull rather, will have a very good car to start with but lose out in development, or maybe just McLaren will be really good at development because that’s become a recent habit of theirs.

Norris is second favourite and Leclerc third. So that’s Verstappen on 3.5, Norris on 4, Leclerc on 4.5 for the win. Hamilton and Piastri are both under 10 as well. But by the time you get to George Russell the odds on him winning are 13. Lawson’s 26, and Antonelli 34. So clearly there’s a view that Mercedes are going to be way off the pace to start with. And then not really in contention for the constructors’ at all. I don’t know if I entirely agree with that. They were clearly the fourth-placed team over the course of the season but the latter half was pretty good. Hamilton put up in some vintage performances, Russell was very good as well, he was a bit unlucky with what happened in Spa because that was a fantastic result with the top three, on-track anyway, being within 2s of each other.

But, yeah, I’m pretty surprised to see that Verstappen is favourite for the first win but Norris is favourite for the title. Don’t know if I entirely agree with the thinking there. And the gaps, well, the gaps for the winner market in Australia are very tight, 3.5 to 4.5 covers Verstappen, Norris, and Leclerc. So that’s pretty much a three horse race. Whereas there’s a little bit more of a gap when it comes to the drivers’ championship. I don’t know if that’s down to lack of confidence in Ferrari development or a feeling that Hamilton will take points away from Leclerc where Ferrari is better, which can be a problem.

F1 2025 Midfield Odds 14m:12s

So, I’ve largely focused on the sharp end, who’s going to win the title, who’s going to win the first race but one of the nice things about being a neutral in Formula 1 is that the midfield is a great race and it’s a lot easier to appreciate when you’re not cheering for one team or another.

First of all, just looking at the constructors’ again, Aston Martin are clearly 5th in a No Man’s Land all of their own. They have odds of 51. That’s below the 13 of Mercedes and above the 251 of Alpine and Haas. Aston Martin and Alpine had opposite trajectories last year. Aston Martin started off strong, again, best of the rest, and then developed badly. Going to cover this a little bit later in a news section at the end.

Alpine, on the other hand, had a really really bad car for almost the entire year and then developed amazingly in about the last four races. They were helped by Brazil being nuts. However, Gasly also put in some great performances late on. So I don’t know if Alpine should be that long as far as the odds go.

Behind them both Alpine and Haas are on 251, there’s VCARB, which I think is known as Racing Bulls now, and Williams at 500/1, and bottom of all is Sauber on 751 to win the constructors’. Which makes sense because their car was far and away the worst over the course of the whole season. They do have a nice driver lineup. I think it’s proof that life isn’t fair that we live in a world where Pastor Maldonado has won a race and Nico Hulkenberg doesn’t even have a podium when he clearly is good enough to deserve quite a few of those. Gabriel Bortoleto, on paper at least, looks like a very good rookie. So this season probably going to be more of a punishment beating for Sauber but next year, 2026, when they become the Audi works team, maybe they can hit the ground running. If they can, Hulkenberg and Bortoleto is a decent pairing.

It is interesting also to note that Williams are 500/1, and joint second worst odds, despite having a very good driver lineup. Albon, we will see how he does against Carlos Sainz. I’m expecting Sainz to beat him and if we quickly just look up at the odds that’s backed up: 151 for Sainz, 301 for Albon. But that’s a very good lineup and if Williams can improve the car a bit and, hopefully they don’t have to spend all their money replacing parts because of crashes, I can see them beating the likes of Tsunoda and Hadjar. On pace I think they, together, are better than Gasly and Doohan as well. I suspect the Alpine might be quite good. But we’ll see, we’re not even at testing yet, so just a feeling I’ve got.

Looking at who might win Formula B, or Formula 1.5, best of the rest, the odds are it’ll be Alonso, again, which makes sense because it usually is Fernando Alonso. His odds are 67. Sainz and Gasly are joint next on 151, which shows a lot of confidence in Sainz given that the Williams is expected to be the second worst car. Looking at the constructors’, anyway. Hulkenberg’s odds, though, are 501, which indicates the market thinks the Sauber will be a total dog, again. I hope that isn’t the case but I suspect it is going to be either worst or one of the worst cars, I don’t think they’re going to make a huge leap forward. Not yet anyway. In 2026, that might be different.

News on F1 18m:29s

Before we wrap things up I thought it would be sensible to have a quick news on F1 segment to cover anything that’s happened since the last podcast and probably to make this a regular thing going forward. F1 news is going to be fairly thin ahead of the F1 2025 season as we know the driver lineups and the F1 schedule. But there has been a little bit from Alpine and Aston Martin already.

At the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Alpine tossed Ocon overboard and replaced him with Jack Doohan. The Australian was last in qualifying and finished in 15th which didn’t exactly set the world alight. That’s why I said in the F1 2025 Driver Lineup Predictions episode that Gasly would comprehensively beat him this year. And there’s been some F1 news that adds a little bit more pressure to Doohan in 2025.

Franco Colapinto, the Argentine driver who drove for Williams after Logan Sargeant was let go midway through 2024, has been named as Alpine’s reserve driver. Colapinto’s start for Williams was very food and this prompted numerous teams to consider him for 2025. However, the Argentine then had many crashes which took the shine off and he found himself without a seat in the F1 2025 season. But he’s clearly talented and this applies plenty of pressure to Doohan, whose sole race in Abu Dhabi was not amazing.

People already comparing Colapinto and Doohan and many suspect the Argentine is being lined up for a mid-season replacement if the Aussie isn’t up to snuff.

There’s also a rumour floating around that Doohan’s contract only guarantees him six races, a quarter of the season. After which a replacement becomes viable.

I’d be surprised if we had quite as many drivers as the 2024 season, which managed to hit 24 despite only having 10 F1 teams but a change here or there is eminently possible

There’s just one more quick bit of news on F1 which is that Andy Cowell has become the new team principal of Aston Martin, with Mike Krack, outgoing team principal, becoming chief trackside officer. Krack’s new role will see him tasked with trying to get the best performance from the car at each track.

At the same time, Aston Martin is joined by Enrico Cardile, formerly of Ferrari, who becomes chief technical officer.

Aston Martin have been top of the midfield for a while, but while their early pace has been, typically, best of the rest their development has not been good over the course of a full F1 season. In 2023 Alonso scored eight podium results but six of these were in the first eight races. In 2024, Alonso scored almost half his points (that’s 33 of 70) in the first six races. They need a big step forward in the development race to be in with a shot come the F1 2026 season and its regulatory overhaul.

As a friend of mind observed elsewhere, Aston Martin have been using the Mercedes wind tunnel and this has seen a mismatch between results there and in the real world. However, Aston Martin have their own wind tunnel coming into being and this may lead to 2025 being better in development terms. If they can release upgrades that work effectively in the 2025 F1 season then this makes an Alonso 2026 title challenge all the more plausible.

If you want to know more about the technical aspects of how wind tunnels work then I can strongly recommend the video How Mercedes’ Wind Tunnel Mistake Ended Their F1 Dominance by the YouTube channel Driver61 which does a great job of explaining it.

Next episode I’ll be covering the F1 calendar and rule changes for Formula 1 in 2025. These are pretty minor compared to the overhaul for 2026 but there are differences worth knowing. And if you’re enjoying this podcast please do remember to leave a positive rating. Thank you all for listening.

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