F1 Odds Favour Lewis Hamilton At Silverstone This Weekend

Posted: July 4, 2018

Updated: July 4, 2018

It was supposed to be Mercedes day. We all expected it to be Mercedes day. The F1 odds made it clear the Austrian Grand Prix was there for the taking and all Lewis Hamilton had to do was finish to pull well ahead in the world championship. But that's not what happened and as we ready ourselves for the British Grand Prix this weekend does the result in Spielberg signpost that the days of automatically backing Mercedes in F1 at Bet365 are over and that this year all our expectations are wrong?

Will Mercedes have fixed their reliability issues before the British Grand Prix?

Can Max Verstappen beat those 13/2 odds and win two GP back to back?

Are the 10/1 F1 odds on Daniel Ricciardo at Bet365 entirely fair on the Aussie?

Who is going to come out victorious at the famous Silverstone circuit this weekend?

The Austrian Grand Prix really was going to be a bit of a walkover for Mercedes. They'd won there the last four years on the trot, their car is suited to the track, which lacks little inconveniences like corners, and in practice their “package” was showing a lot of promise. But expectations this season are always wrong. Monaco would be a crash fest, it wasn't, Canada would be exciting, it wasn't, Austria was going to be a Mercedes massacre, it just so wasn't. F1 odds might have tipped them but they were way out. Valtteri Bottas car let out a puff of smoke like a breath of rude Gallic indifference and put him out severely worrying Toto Wolff and the rest of the garage who'd already made a strategic error and were watching Hamilton's car eat its own tires. Out in front the Mercedes performs well, in traffic, it sheds rubber like a charity health worker giving away condoms on a Friday night. The F1 odds might have made him a tempting wager under UK gambling laws, but this just wasn't going to be his day.

Formula One Confounds Your Expectations Again In 2018

The trouble went from his tires blistering like a redhead in the Sahara to fuel pressure dropping like a WAG's knickers after an England penalty shoot out victory, and towards the end of the race he too pulled over giving up the ghost and watching rival Sebstian Vettel get a crucial third place to put him a point ahead in the championship. Raikkonen for his daring came second but the star of the show was Max Verstappen who answered criticism and long F1 odds by driving to an almost flawless win. Can Max then win in the British Grand Prix this weekend? Is he the best bet on sports in the UK going right now? Well bookies like Bet365 will give you around 13/2 on the young Dutchman to get back-to-back wins, with his Red Bull team mate out at 10/1 just ahead of Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari which gets 14/1. Naturally Bottas gets 11/2 for the race at Silverstone but Sebastian Vettel gets 7/2 in the F1 odds to win the home grand prix of Hamilton who himself garners 5/6 on winning in front of his fans.

Find All Your F1 Odds At Bet365 Today

F1 Odds British Grand Prix 2018

Anyone Outside The Big Six – 750/1+

Kimi Raikkonen – 14/1

Daniel Ricciardo – 10/1

Max Verstappen – 13/2

Valtteri Bottas – 11/2

Sebastian Vettel – 7/2

Lewis Hamilton – 5/6

Of course Silverstone is, at present, basking in what the UK calls a heatwave (29 degrees is a heatwave in the UK – I know, try not to laugh) which means we can't count on seeing Max Verstappen or Fernando Alonso display their superb wet weather driving, but that doesn't mean this will all go Hamilton's way, we might expect it to, but this season has constantly confounded our preconceptions and it seems unlikely the British Grand Prix will be any different, especially not with these tires. If the Mercedes don't qualify well, or get caught up in traffic after a poor start, you can expect to see the same limitations of tire wear (a result of their over aerodynamically altered front wing I'm sure) causing the dominant silver arrows to face significant problems on the narrow racing line behind canny drivers like Daniel Ricciardo and Raikkonen. That said anyone in the UK gambling news headlines will be of a Vettel or Vestappen victory on Monday should probably check the F1 odds again, because this really should be in the bag for Hamilton.