Max Verstappen is a slight favorite over Lewis Hamilton to win the F1 Belgium GP on August 29 at Spa Francorchamps. Hamilton is the defending winner of this race after beating teammate Valtteri Bottas to the line last year by more than eight seconds.
Verstappen has won five times this year and finished second on three other occasions through Round 11. Hamilton has four victories in 2021 and currently leads Verstappen in the points’ standings. On Thursday, Verstappen showed a line of +115 to Hamilton’s +120.
One way to view American Odds is to move the decimal point two positions to the left. That will let a bettor know what they will make on a $1 bet, so the return on investment this week for Verstappen is $1.15. For bettors more comfortable with fractional odds, a bet of +300 is the same as 3/1.
Both drivers have eight podium finishes this season with the difference in the points largely coming down to two bad finishes for Verstappen compared to one for Hamilton. Verstappen was leading the Azerbaijan GP late in the race when a tire blew and sent him into the wall. In the British GP, he had contact with Hamilton on the opening lap. Verstappen failed to finish either race and did not earn points.
Hamilton finished outside the the points once this year. He missed his braking mark at Azerbaijan and drove off course before finishing 15th.
The two points leaders also have close lines in regard to winning the pole position for this weekend’s Belgium GP. Verstappen is listed at +110; Hamilton is +115.
Sergio Perez is ranked third with odds of +1200. Perez won the highly volatile Azerbaijan GP in the middle of a seven-race streak of results sixth or better that spanned Portugal through Austria. His last two finishes have been well outside the top 10 with a 16th in the British GP and a DNF at Hungary.
Ranked fourth for this week’s Belgium GP is Bottas with odds of +2200. Bottas carried a streak of four top-fives with him to Hungary before he was involved in the same opening lap crash that eliminated Perez. Bottas is the third-ranked driver with a line of +560 to win this week’s pole. He has one previous pole in 2021, which came at Portugal in Round 3.
Rounding out the top five is Lando Norris at +3300. Norris is third in the drivers’ championship chase, a distant 82 points behind Hamilton, but only five points ahead of Bottas. Norris had a perfect record of top-10 finishes heading into Hungary with all but one of those results in the top five. He was also eliminated with crash damage early in that race.
Charles Leclerc won the 2019 edition of the Belgium GP. If he can win again this week, that is worth +5000.
The 2018 winner, Sebastian Vettel faces extremely long odds of +25000 after being disqualified from a second-place finish in Hungary. That would have been Vettel’s second podium of the season. He finished second in Azerbaijan.
The most recent F1 winner of the Hungarian GP, Esteban Ocon also faces +25000 odds. His victory was the first time this year that he has cracked the top five.
