2023 Austrian GP Outright Betting Preview

After another Verstappen procession in Montreal at the Canadian GP, we are back in Europe this weekend. The 2023 Austrian GP will be held in changeable weather conditions and James Punt has an in depth preview with a couple of fancies at huge odds. See who he is backing below.

2023 Austrian GP

This weekend’s 2023 Austrian GP is a Sprint race format. That means just the one free practice session on Friday. That is followed by a qualifying session to set the grid for Sunday’s Grand Prix.

Saturday morning sees a ‘sprint shootout’ (otherwise known as qualifying) to set the grid for the afternoon’s Sprint Race. The Sprint Shootout is only 30 minutes long, so the emphasis is on getting it right early, as is hitting the ground running in FP1.

We have had one of these sprint race weekends already this season (with four more to come) at the Azerbaijan GP in Baku. Charles Leclerc qualified on pole for both races that weekend but Sergio Perez (remember him?) won both races.

New Format Same Results

Did the format mix things up as desired by the rule makers? No. Perez, Verstappen and Leclerc filled the top 3 spots in every session. As it turned out, it was a rare boring Baku race weekend.

Hopefully that will not be the case this weekend, but the Sprint race does rather put a bit of a dampener on the Grand Prix. Sunday’s race becomes something of a repeat of Saturday’s. Seven of the top ten in Saturday’s race were top seven on Sunday The same three on the podium on Saturday were on the podium on Sunday. Slow cars on Friday were slow cars on Sunday.

Petit Prix

The only ways this format is going to have much effect on the grid is if a driver crashes in FP1, misses most of the session and goes into the race qualifier unprepared. The Sprint race qualifier and Sprint race have now just become the Petit Prix. A shorter qualifying session for a shorter race with fewer points awarded. Two races for the price of one. It has its merits but lacks the natural rhythm of a traditional race weekend.

There is more pressure on not making mistakes in FP1, getting the laps in and the car set up as that setup is fixed after the Friday afternoon qualifying session, which explains why nothing much changes.

Cars that perform better in the races than in qualifying, like Mercedes, should benefit from the format, but only for the smaller points awarded for the Sprint race. They did in Baku, but only by a very small margin.

The 2023 Austrian GP Circuit

The Red Bull ring (nee A1 Ring) is a great little track. It is a butchered version of the old Österreichring, but none the worse for it.

The old track was very old school with lots of long fast corners which just became too dangerous. It is now a short lap of 4.3 km featuring just eight proper corners of which most are slow and three preceded by heavy braking. Three are reasonably fast and flowing with a couple of medium slow right handers to finish.

Straight Line Speed Key

Straight line speed is important despite the short lap. There are three straights which reward power but the slower, twisty and flowing run back down the hill rewards good aero efficiency. A car with good straight line performance and good downforce in slower corners will be rewarded, otherwise known as a Red Bull.

It is a very picturesque circuit but it is at quite a high altitude. The weather can be anything from scorching hot to very wet and miserable.

The Weather Forecast

The forecast for this weekend can best be described as changeable, and it certainly has changed every time I have looked at it. Things are not helped by the fact that the track is in the mountains, which make things a bit more volatile.

Friday is set to be mostly sunny, quite hot and dry but with a chance of a thunderstorm/showers in the afternoon. Those chances have gone from small to 90%. The thunderstorms are forecast to arrive around the end of, or after, the Grand Prix qualifying session however.

Cooler Saturday

Saturday will be 5-6 degrees cooler with a 65% chance of showers, both morning and afternoon. Sunday looks more likely to be partly cloudy, 5-6 degrees warmer and with a 50% chance of showers, but lighter than on Saturday.

If the forecast is correct the teams will have a hot track to deal with for Friday’s free practice and the race on Sunday, but a cooler tack by the time we get to Saturdays Petit Prix, which is the more likely to be a rain affected affair.

So, we might get two very different events thanks to the weather. However, when it says showers, that means the track could get wet, or the showers may miss. Saturday does look to have the highest chance of getting a wet track.

2023 Austrian GP: Driver Records

The Red Bull Ring returned to the F1 calendar in the same year that the turbo-hybrid power units came into being. It has played host to nine Austrian GPs and two Stryian GPs.

Of the Austrian GPs Mercedes have won five, Red Bull three and Ferrari one. The two Stryian GPs saw one win For Mercedes and one for Red Bull.

There are a few drivers with good track record here. Lando Norris has never been in a race winning machinery but in his six races here he has been 3rd twice, 5th twice and never worse than 7th with no DNF’s. He goes really well in Austria.

Max Verstappen is flying the flag for the circuit owners and he has rewarded them with four race wins and two second places. Charles Leclerc has a mixed bag with one win and two 2nd places, but outside of that nothing better than seventh.

Ocon has had four top 8 finishes. Bottas has two wins and five other podium finishes, one for Williams.

Strange Record Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton has a strange record in Austria. He has traditionally struggled against his teammates. He lost out to Nico Rosberg in 2014 and 2015. In 2016 he crashed into Rosberg on the final lap, which knocked the German out of the lead and promoted Hamilton to 1st.

He did get a penalty but that was not enough to change the result. In the next six Austrian GPs he only beat his teammate twice and one of those because Bottas retired before him.

He did finish ahead of his teammate in the two Stryian GPs (by one place only) and he was 3rd to Russell’s 4th last year. He has won two of his eleven GPs here but it would be a push to say this is a good track for him.

Perez Struggles

It has been a poor venue for Sergio Perez who has never had a podium finish and a 4th place in the 2020 Stryian GP was his only top 5 finish. That is a worry for a driver in free fall at the moment. Carlos Sainz is also without a podium and never better than 5th.

The pole position driver has won five of the eleven races here but nobody has won from outside of the front two rows on the grid. The attrition rate averages at 3.27 not classifieds per race, with a low of no retirements in 2019 to seven in 2020.

2023 Austrian GP: Team Form

Everyone has by now brought upgrades to their cars and had a bit more track time to fine tune them. Has the pecking order changed as a result? Up to a point.

Red Bull

Remain a class apart. The chasers have closed the gap a little, but Verstappen can still keep them at arm’s length with considerable ease. The Sprint race format holds no terrors for them as their race pace is better than qualifying pace and they will be favourites to win both races.

The team are talking up the chances of Ferrari and Aston Martin at this track but that sounds very much like expectation management and not wanting to put too much pressure on the team to win ‘at home’.

Max Marching On

Verstappen continues to march on to the title, now 69 points clear of second place man, Sergio Perez. The Mexican has completely lost his confidence since screwing up in Monaco. He has picked up just 20 points from his last three races compared to 106 from his first five.

We have a sizeable bet for him to win the championship without Verstappen and he is throwing away a big lead in that race, now just nine points ahead of Alonso and twenty four ahead of Hamilton. He arrives at another bogey track for him just when he needs a good result.

I suspect another poor race is in the offing for Perez which should free up two podium spots for the likes of Alonso, Hamilton, Leclerc and Russell. Rain is not a friend to Perez and everything is stacking up against him again.

Aston Martin

Best of the rest in the first six races, Aston Martin are now locked in a close battle with Mercedes. Lance Stroll continues to be the weakest link, scoring just 37 points to Alonso’s 117. He was injured for the early races, but his form hasn’t improved as his fitness returned.

Alonso has a modest record here, but that just reflects on the machinery he had at his disposal. He will be a contender this weekend but might just find the Mercedes too good this time.

Fine Tuning

The team are still working to fine tune their recent upgrades and are a little concerned that the Sprint race format doesn’t give them much time for further evaluations.

Alonso believes the track should suit their car. However, I’m not so sure. A lack of many proper high speed corners and the track being made up more of straights than corners might not the see car at its best.

Mercedes

The Mercedes upgrade introduced in Monaco has yielded three podiums and 100 points in the last three races. That compares to 67 in the first five.

They now look like podium contenders at every race and with their stronger driver lineup, should be overhauling Aston Martin soon enough. They finished 3rd and 4th here last year and now with a much improved concept, they will be right up there again come Sunday.

New Concept

The new concept is giving the drivers much more stability under braking which will help going into the two big stop corners which provide the best overtaking chances on this circuit. The team say that Montreal was not a good fit for their car, which gave Alonso the edge there, but they will be in the podium hunt once again.

Mercedes are the fastest improving car at the moment and have another big upgrade coming for Silverstone next weekend.

Ferrari

Detached from the top three teams but well clear of the rest. Ferrari will come here, the scene of their last win some 19 races ago, with a bit more of a spring in their step.

They may only have finished 4th and 5th in Canada but their race pace was very good and that had been their big weakness in 2023 (and 2022). They did their screwing up in qualifying in Montreal, but so long as they haven’t swapped race pace gain for qualifying speed loss, we could see a Ferrari in the podium mix come Sunday.

Potential

The car has potential but they remain operationally untrustworthy. This is a track which should suit their car, as it did last year. However progress in addressing their lack of race pace is one thing, eliminating it something else. It may well be baked into their design concept and that is harder to address mid-season.

Even Mercedes’ big turnaround thanks to their concept change is limited by the chassis design. That is too big a job to be completed mid-season under the current cost cap.

Alpine

Another team who remain operationally weak. The car is decent but they haven’t really made the most of it. With Mercedes having improved markedly, Ferrari finding better pace and Red Bull out of sight, they look doomed to finish 5th in the championship.

Their race pace isn’t matching qualifying pace. Gasly’s qualifying form is blurred by a few outliers, but Ocon is 1.5 places down on his average qualifying position.

Double Points finish

They had a double points finish here last year and should do so again, if they don’t drop a clanger along the way. That said, a double points finish is the bare minimum Alpine should be achieving at every race, but they have only done it in four of the eight races so far.

They have done it in three of the last four and their problem in Montreal was that Gasly was blocked in Q1 and had to start from 15th place. He finished 12th, while Ocon qualified 6th and finished 8th.

If they can get both cars into Q3, and they should, they should be able to score a double points finish. Gasly is already on his fourth power unit and he will incur a penalty if he requires any more.

The team say they are able to refurbish and reuse the previously failed ones and think they can make the rest of the season without penalty. I’d take that bet.

McLaren

Continue to struggle and their Baku upgrade, which was only the car with which they had planned to start the season with, hasn’t really moved them up the order as everyone else has improved as well.

If it is cold and wet then Norris can shine on his strongest track but otherwise, his record of finishing at least 7th in his six races here could be brought to an end.

Their qualifying pace has improved but the race results remain poor. McLaren are planning more upgrades in the coming weeks and there will be a significant one coming this weekend.

Upgrade Coming

One of the aims of the upgrade for this weekend is to address the cars weakness in longer, corners, such as corners 5 through 8 at the Red Bull Ring, and certainly an area they need to improve before Silverstone next weekend.

They are fine in proper fast corners, but long duration corners and slow corners are a weakness. It sounds like a complicated problem and a quick fix is unlikely. Norris is optimistic that progress is being made and that they are heading in the right direction, but that needs to translate into lap times, starting this weekend.

Introducing upgrades in a Sprint race weekend is not ideal but the team are behind schedule already so delaying things would not help. The weather forecast which suggests rain on Saturday may give Norris the chance to shine in Austria once again, but a dry race on Sunday, not so much.

Alfa Romeo

Top the four teams who have yet to get their points tally into double figures. It is hard to score points when the top five teams are clearly quicker. These teams are just hoping from some crumbs falling from the top table.

On the positive side for Alfa Romeo, they have scored points in the last two races, albeit a 9th and a 10th. That really is the extent of their abilities. Bottas finished 11th here last year but their car is not strong on fast corners and that will not do here.

Haas

Not for the first time, Haas have done their best work, or got their best results, at the early stage of the championship. They scored seven of their eight points in the first three races and the last five have yielded just one.

Their problem is terrible race pace. Hulkenberg, for example, is losing three places on average to his qualifying position. Very hard to fancy even if they reach Q3 again.

Deep Issues

Hulkenberg had hoped that they could sort this out with set up changes, but after his struggles in Montreal he says that the problem is deeper than that. It happens, a team designs a fast car but its pace takes the life out of the tyres over a race distance.

The other team with the same problem is Ferrari. Haas are Ferrari’s customer team. Ferrari have the resources to carry out mitigation work on the problem in season, Haas, probably not.

It sounds like a built in design concept, common to both teams.  A wet Petit Prix qualifying and race on Saturday would give them a chance to look good, but come Sunday, no way.

Williams

Alex Albon’s tremendous 7th place in Montreal has moved them above Alpha Tauri and off the bottom of the table. The track suited the limitations of their car and they made the most of it.

Logan Sargeant is a waste of a seat and there are rumours of Mick Schumacher being lined up to take his place. I doubt that would make a huge difference but he couldn’t be any worse.

This is not a track that will suit the Williams like Montreal did, but there are parts of the track that will suit so they may have a couple of teams behind them. Sargeant will have the upgrade that Albon had in Montreal on his car from this weekend.

Alpha Tauri

This was never one of the top teams in its various guises, but they are having a terrible season. The car is poor and their driver line up weak. They also appear to be going backwards.

Tsunoda was knocking on the door of 10th place (and got two) in the first five races, but he now looks more likely to be in the low teen’s. Nyck De Vries just hasn’t clicked and remains pointless.

2023 Austrian GP: Ante Post Selections

Max Verstappen is the 1.44 favourite to win the GP and there is a bit of value for short price favourite backers there. It is not my kind of bet, however.

The battle for the podium places is much more competitive and it is good to see so many bookmakers offering the ‘without Max Verstappen’ market, said nobody. The lack of imagination from the oddsmakers is pitiful.

Mercedes Progression

I like the progress being made by Mercedes. It took far too long to do what was necessary, but they are seeing the dividends come thick and fast already.

They did well here last here last year with a poor car. Hamilton was 3rd and Russell 4th. It was a sprint race last year, but it was the old format were the sprint race set grid for Sunday’s race and there was no Petit Prix.

Hamilton crashed out in the qualifying session for the sprint and started that from 9th. He only made up one place in the sprint and started from 8th. He benefited from the retirement of Perez and Sainz on Sunday but it was still a decent result.  

Russell was 4th in qualifying, 4th in the Sprint and 4th in the GP. That was despite getting a 5 second penalty for taking out Perez. That knocked him down to 19th after his pitstop, so it was a good recovery drive. It could be argued that Russell was the better of the two Mercedes drivers that weekend, but for his clumsy collision with Perez.

Tempting

Russell to beat Hamilton is a 2.34 shot with Unibet which, given Hamilton’s very mixed record here, is tempting. However, I prefer Russell’s odds to finish on the podium.

It could be we get both Mercedes on the podium for the second time in three races. There are parallels with the Sao Paulo circuit in Brazil on which the Mercedes also goes well on. Lots of elevation changes, a short lap with straights and slower middle sector and both are at altitude.

2023 Austrian GP Tip: 1 point George Russell to finish on the podium @ 4.50 with Ladbrokes

The second ante post for the 2023 Austrian GP is on Alpine. I have not enjoyed much success backing them so far, but they remain overpriced and hopefully they execute the weekend without too much drama for a change.

They have had a double points finish in the three of the last four and it should have been at least six from eight. They remain a decent price and are worth backing again.

2023 Austrian GP Tip: 1 point Alpine to have double points finish (Grand Prix*) @ 2.75 with Ladbrokes

*Be careful to place your bets on the Grand Prix, and not the Sprint Race.

It looks worth taking a punt on the weather being wet for the Sprint Shootout on Saturday. That usually guarantees a dry session but there are a couple of drivers at huge odds who are worth throwing some loose change at.

Lando Norris is a track specialist. The Red Bull Ring is his strongest track. He has only finished outside the top 6 once in his seven race starts, and that was a 7th place. It has to be said that the tools at his disposal this year are blunt to say the least, but a wet track is a leveller and a shortened qualifying format likewise.

Rain Will Suit McLaren

The McLaren has shown a good ability to get heat into the front tyres which really helps in wet conditions. That was why he was so good in the wet in the Monaco race and was 3rd fastest qualifier in the wet session in Spain. He backed that up with 7th in the wet qualifying in Montreal.

With rain said to be an 80% chance for Saturday, Norris could get his required conditions to be competitive in the Shootout, and maybe the Sprint.

On his strongest track, with favourable conditions, you never know. Hopefully the planned upgrade on the McLaren works, without taking away its front tyre heating trick.

2023 Austrian GP Tip: 0.25 point e/w Lando Norris to be the fastest qualifier in the Sprint Shootout @ 176.00 with Paddy Power, Betfair (1/3 the odds 1-2) (151.00 Skybet)

Haas are qualifying specialists, not by design, but the fact that they are hard on the tyres means they are heating them up quickly. Terrible for the race, but handy in cooler, wet qualifying sessions.

Hulkenberg has been 8th and 2nd in the two wet qualifying sessions we have had in the last two GP weekends. In the dry he averages 13th. Magnussen was the fastest qualifier in the wet/drying/wet qualifying in Brazil last year to further underline the Haas wet qualifying potential.

2023 Austrian GP Tip: 0.25 point e/w Nico Hulkenberg to be the fastest qualifier in the Sprint Shootout @ 176.00 with Paddy Power, Betfair (151.00 Skybet)

That will do for now. The weather situation is fluid enough to hold fire until later. There will be an update for the race qualifying on Friday, the Sprint Race on Saturday and the usual Race Day Update on Sunday, so plenty more to come.

-JamesPunt