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The arrival of Drive to Survive changed the face of Formula 1 forever. It brought in a massive wave of new fans who tuned into the sport and created insane viewing figures. F1 started being a big event in different countries and finally had more universal appeal.
From here, the betting world went F1-crazy!
Formula 1 betting has risen during the same period that Drive to Survive has been out, yet we think it could do with a lot of tinkering. Betting on races is easy and there are some interesting markets to dive into, though we’d like to propose a few changes to make things even better as the sport continues to grow.
A wider array of live bets
Live betting is traditionally the best way to get incredible odds on all sports bets. You’ll see a good chunk of betting sites without GamStop in the UK on NonGamStopOdds.com that let you place live bets during F1 races. This is excellent – our issue is that you don’t have many markets to dip into.
Many of the pre-race markets disappear and we feel there could be more depth to the live betting Formula 1 options. After all, a race can change in a matter of seconds. If you’re an avid F1 fan and can spot things that others can’t, you may easily be able to predict a disaster moments before it happens.
Especially as you have broadcasters like Sky Sports giving access to every driver’s on-board perspective. You could watch one driver and see they’re struggling a bit for grip, so putting a live bet on them to crash would seem super smart – especially if they bung it in the wall minutes later. This also leads to the idea of time-related live bets; what if you could bet on there being a yellow flag in the next 5 laps?! There’s so much untapped potential for live bets and it’s something that could easily change.
Deeper bets for pit stop strategies
What’s one of the most influential parts of a Grand Prix? The pit stop strategies!
We’ve had two massive examples in the 2024 season where alternative strategies have won races for drivers. There was Ferrari outsmarting McLaren with an unprecedented one-stop in Monza to get Leclerc his second win of the season and Mercedes doing a similar thing with George Russel in Belgium (though he was disqualified after the race and lost his victory).
Both examples showed races that were decided by pit stops – so why don’t we have any good betting markets for this!? Imagine if betting sites let us bet on the number of stops a driver might have in a race. Or, you could get more detailed than this and try to predict the exact tyre compounds they use.
Being able to bet on individual driver strategies opens a fresh new market – but we can kind of see why bookies don’t like this. Strategies tend to be easy to predict based on what typically happens at a track. For example, Monaco is slow-paced so we know a one-stop strategy is almost guaranteed. It’s also easier to predict this after a race has started. So, maybe this isn’t a great live betting option, but it could make a decent pre-race event.
Each-way bets like horse racing
Formula 1 racing is nothing like horse racing but the main goal of both sports is the same; people race around a track and try to win. If you can’t win, you want to finish as high up in the standings as possible.
All sportsbooks let you bet on the race winner in F1 and most also let you bet on a driver to finish in the top 3 or 10. However, you don’t find the popular each-way bet that’s prominent in horse racing.
This type of bet is designed for races as you bet on a horse to win or finish in the top four runners. It’s a unique bet as half of your money goes on them winning while the other half is on them placing in the top four. You get one set of odds for the each-way bet and will win depending on what happens. If your runner is first, you win the bet and get all of your stake back. If they don’t win but finish in the top four, you only get half of your stake back.
You can quite easily see how this bet would be great in F1. Why it’s not introduced is beyond my understanding so how about some bookmakers give it a go!?
Bets related to tyre compounds
We mentioned tyre compounds earlier and I think they represent a fun way to bet on F1 races. You can do what was previously noted and predict specific tyre compounds for different drivers in a race.
Or, you can get even more technical and bet on which tyre compounds will be assigned to the Soft, Medium or Hard categories. Pirelli makes the tyres for every Grand Prix and Autosport says there are six in total – C0 to C5. The higher the number, the softer the tyre compound. But here’s the thing; every race will only use three tyre compounds and Pirelli assigns them at the start of the weekend. It could mean one race uses C0-C2 while another has C1-C3.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could bet on which three tyre compounds will be chosen before a race weekend? It’s a fun little idea but I guess bookmakers would struggle to work out the odds for this.
Driver handicap betting
The final thing to discuss is driver handicap betting. This would mean you bet on drivers with a time handicap given to them. E.g. Lando Norris to win the Dutch Grand Prix with a 20-second handicap. It means your bet would win if he wins by more than this – which, funnily enough, he did in 2024.
It’s such a simple way to add more to your F1 predictions, especially when it looks like someone will win by a mile. This is also an amazing live bet to place – a driver could be in the lead and they’re fairly sure to win, so being able to slap a handicap on them at least makes the race more interesting.
From my perspective, a lot can be done to improve Formula 1 betting. It’s nowhere near the level that this motorsport deserves, especially considering how popular it is. Maybe we’ll see these changes soon – who knows, stranger things have happened in motorsports!
