The current champion would be a sports betting odds-on favorite to win the 2017 Formula One championship. For example, Lewis Hamilton won it twice in a row in 2014 and 2015, and Sebastian Vettel before him won it four straight years. However, the 2017 season will be the first since 1994 in which the defending champion will not compete. Reigning champ Nico Rosberg showed a lot of restraint by retiring while on top – provided it isn’t a 10-minute retirement. If Rosberg were a racing horse, he could be said to have been put out to stud. Which given his fame and money is probably not too far from the truth.
Odds to win F1 Drivers Championship 2017
Carlos Sainz +10000
Daniel Ricciardo +400
Fernando Alonso +3300
Kimi Raikkonen +5000
Lewis Hamilton +125
Max Verstappen +300 Nico Hulkenberg +15000
Pascal Wehrlein +1200
Sebastian Vettel +1400
Stoffel Vandoorne +10000
Valtteri Bottas +300
FIELD (Any Other) +150
No one must have been happier at the news of Rosberg’s retirement than his erstwhile Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton. Both divers clashed – literally and figuratively – with each other as they raced for F1 dominance in 2016. With the exception of the Spanish Grand Prix and the Malaysian Grand Prix, Rosberg and Hamilton exchanged victories throughout the season. Hamilton had 10 wins, 12 poles, and 17 podiums in 21 races, but his 380 points fell five short of Rosberg’s.
While Hamilton is the sports betting odds-on favorite, his happiness might be short-lived. His new Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas is tied for second as offshore online gambling favorite. The Finnish driver had been a fixture of Williams Martini Racing for the whole of his F1 career, during which his best finishes were 4th in 2014 and 5th in 2015. In 2016, he finished 8th with 85 points – only 300 behind Rosberg. While Bottas joining Mercedes has presumably quite a bit to do with his favoritism, he was probably hired to be Hamilton’s wingman, all things considered.
Max Verstappen was promoted by Red Bull as a replacement for Daniil Kvyat and went on to win the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, thus becoming the youngest driver to win a Grand Prix and the first racing under the Dutch flag. Overall, Verstappen finished 5th with 204 points. Surely an offshore online gambling as well as a future champion in the making.
Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo won the 2016 Monaco Grand Prix and finish 3rd for the second time in the past three years.
Pascal Wehrlein made his Formula 1 debut in 2016 with Manor Racing. Wehrlein scored his first championship point – and his team’s only point of the season – with a 10th place finish at the Austrian Grand Prix. Wehrlein signed with Sauber on January 16th, 2017.
Sebastian Vettel is one of those multiple winners we mentioned earlier, having won the F1 betting championship four times between 2010 and 2013. More recently, he finished 5th in 2014, 3rd in 2015, and 4th in 2016. At 29 years of age he remains an offshore online gambling favorite as reflected by his sports betting odds to win the 2017 season.