It’s that time of the year again, we are back with some Formula 1 best bets ahead of the opening race in the 2022 season.
Can Max Verstappen defend his crown for the first time in his career or will Lewis Hamilton enact some revenge for the way he lost the championship last season?
Let’s take a look at some of the betting odds available for Sunday’s race.
Sunday, March 20, 2022 – 10:00 AM EDT at Bahrain International Circuit
It’s the start of a brand new Formula 1 season and there are a lot of changes to talk about. Let’s start off with driver changes and transfers. Finish driver Kimi Raikkonen has retired, his seat was filled by fellow countryman Valtteri Bottas.
Bottas’s departure from Mercedes has paved the way for George Russell to step into that seat. Alex Albon has returned to Formula1 after taking Russell’s absent seat at Williams and finally Nikita Mazepin will no longer be able to drive for Haas due to him being Russian and at the current moment, all their athletes are banned from most sports.
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Meanwhile, Kevin Magnussen makes a return to Formula1 following a year away from the limelight.
Guanyu Zhou steps up from Formula 2 as Bottas’s teammate at Alfa Romeo due to the departure of Antonio Giovinazzi. Zhou is set to become the first Chinese driver in Formula 1.
Now let’s get the new rules out of the way before we get stuck into our best bets ahead of this season’s opening race. The changes include the following: 18-inch low profile tire, over-wheel winglets, a front nose re-design, and rear wing rolled tips. This is hopefully going to make the races a lot more competitive and exciting for the viewer.
*All Odds Available with BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
It’s the start of a new season and although we haven’t got much to base our plays on other than last season, which is at least 30/40% irrelevant in terms of this season’s cars and speeds. We can look at this year’s preseason tests and Charles Leclerc managed to get the 2nd fastest time on the 3rd day of testing, which is usually when the teams are giving it their all.
Of course, it is horses for courses and the Ferrari hasn’t really suited the Bahrain circuit in recent years, but they did pull off a string of wins a few years back. At odds of +100 for Leclerc to finish 1st, 2nd, or 3rd we consider this to be one of the best value bets this weekend.
Formula 1 Pick: Charles Leclerc Podium Finish (+100) at BetOnline
We admit last season we were premature on this team. Pierre Gasly was a perfect fit and we thought the young rookie Yuki Tsunoda would have been ready last season, it proved that it took a lot longer for him to handle himself in the F1 class.
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With that being said towards the end of last season his results massively improved and we believe one of the stable bets of the season will be both of the team’s drivers to finish inside the top 10. At +235, there is some nice value right now because towards the end of the season this bet might be coming in around +100 in most races.
Formula 1 Pick: Alfa Tauri Both Top 10 Finish (+235) at The Best Online Sportsbooks
It goes without saying, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. For those who remembered us cleaning up almost weekly with Haas both cars to be classified NO back in the 2020 season, you will be glad to hear that bet is back in full swing now that we have one of the drivers of that deadly duo, with Kevin Magnussen behind the wheel again.
The 29-year-old Danish driver did not finish in 6 races that season, which was amongst the highest of all the F1 drivers that year. His teammate also failed to finish in 7 races that year. This year the Haas team is made up of Magnussen and the former F1 World Champion Michael Schumacher’s son, Mick Schumacher.
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Mick only failed to finish three races last season but we do believe he should see a slightly higher percentage this year. It looks to be a lot more of a competitive field this year and Haas failed to have both drivers finish this race last year.
Formula 1 Pick: Team Haas with Both Cars Classified – No (+125) at BetOnline
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.