2023 Belgian GP Outright Betting Preview

After the small but perfectly formed Hungaroring last weekend, the F1F roadshow heads of the  biggest, baddest circuit on the Calendar, the mighty Spa-Francorchamps. Very much in the classic, old school tracks the lap is the longest in F1 at 7km. It features 19 corner and many of them are fast and just three slow. Sectors 1 and 3 are very fast, mostly flat out. The middle sector is more technical with ten corners. It is a car track, and a poor car will get found out here. Good downforce is required for the many corners but that downforce needs to come with as little drag as possible. The kind of efficient aerodynamics on the Red Bull is perfect.

Last year was a 1-2 to finish for Red Bull, despite Verstappen starting from 14^th on the grid after taking on various new parts. That didn’t stop him winning and winning with a 17 second lead over Perez who had started 2^nd. Verstappen only required 12 laps to get the lead and it was a display of total domination. It should be more of the same this weekend. If you designed a track to suit the Red Bull, this is what it would look like. It is so Red Bull friendly that even Perez should have a easy time of it. A Red Bull 1-2 should be the result.

This weekend is another Sprint race weekend, so we only have one hours free practice on Friday morning, before the qualifying session to set the grid for Sunday’s race. At that point, the cars are under parc ferme regulations. The set ups are locked in for the rest of the weekend, but the regulations do allow for some changes to be made if subsequent sessions are wet, such as raising the ride height. And they might have to.

The Weather Forecast

The weather at Spa-Francorchamps is famous for being wet. Its rare not to have rain at some stage of the weekend and this year looks no different. Friday and Saturday are forecast to be cloudy, cool and showery. Race day looks to be better with some sunshine  and a 25% chance of rain. That said, forecasting the weather in the Ardennes is not an exact science. Rain can bring another challenge for the drivers but at its worst it can lead to the sessions being stopped, as was the case with th2 2021 ‘race’. That was a few laps behind the safety car, half points awarded and the punters fleeced.

Driver Records

This very much a car track, in that the better cars win. It is a high speed track which the drivers love, but if you have a poor car, there isn’t a lot you can do with it. In the last ten years, Red Bull have won four, Mercedes four and Ferrari two. It is a power circuit as well as an aero circuit. Ferrari won when they had the most powerful engine, Red Bull when they had the best chassis and Mercedes power advantage in the early turbo hybrid era allowed them to dominate for a while.

In the turbo hybrid era, Lewis Hamilton has won three races and a further four podiums. Max Verstappen has won the last two, albeit the 2021 race wasn’t a race. He also has had two third places. Perez has had five top six finishes, so he might make it into Q3. This has been a good track for Alex Albon with finishes of 5/6/10. Esteban Ocon has been very consistent at Spa, finishing in the points in his last five races here, as has his Alpine teammate Gasly. Bottas was a regular gather of points for Williams and Mercedes but has not scored in his last  two. Nico Hulkenberg has four top 10’s. Charles has won here once, but otherwise it has not been a great venue for him nor teammate Sainz, who has managed just two 10^th places. Ricciardo is another past race winner.

Since 2014, the pole position driver has won five of the eight races here. The attrition rate has averaged 3.5, but in the last three races  it has been down to 2.33.

Team By Team

Red Bull – We have completed half of the scheduled 22 races this season and Red Bull have won the lot, eight from pole position. They have also won both of the Sprint races. There is no reason the think they won’t win this weekend. Any wet weather can throw a spanner in the works, but there is nothing wrong with Verstappen’s wet weather prowess. Perez and water do not mix so well. He has managed to open a 32 point gap to Alonso in 3^rd place and 38 to Hamilton in 4^th. Perez will be happy that there is now another driver taking points off those two, with Lando Norris picking up 48 points from the last three races. He is coming from a long way back having scored only 12 points from the first eight races. If there are any banana skins on the track, Perez will find them. His race pace was good in Hungary, but he needs a strong qualifying performance. The fact that we have a Petit Prix and Grand Prix in the one weekend should help him score more good points and open up a bigger gap to his pursuers. He is much more vulnerable in qualifying than in the races, so he has time to recover if things go awry again.

Mercedes – Now 39 points clear of Aston Martin and while they are not closing on Red Bull, they are best of the rest at the halfway point. Can they hang on with McLaren now on the march? It could be a close run thing with McLaren picking up 70 points to Mercedes 55 in the last three races.  The B spec car introduced at Monaco has brought them four podiums but only one in the last three races. They have been overtaken performance wise by the upgraded McLaren. Clearly the Mercedes is still a difficult car to get the most out of but they are ahead of Ferrari and Aston Martin since the new design was introduced. Russell produced a great drive in Budapest. Having started 18^th after a qualifying cock up, he finished 6^th on a track where you can only make up that sort of ground if you have a good car. Obviously nobody is in the same class as Red Bull, but Mercedes are able to compete for a podium, but they are now fighting McLaren rather than Aston Martin for those podiums. George Russell was second here last year and this version of the Mercedes is a better car. Cooler conditions will not help Mercedes in qualifying, but they should pick up a decent haul of points, but can they beat both McLaren’s?

Aston Martin – As Mercedes and McLaren introduced their major upgrades, so Aston Martin have found themselves falling back into the pack. Finishing just 9^th and 10^th in Hungary, a track they expected to be fighting for a podium, was reality check for the team. Alonso was 75 seconds behind Verstappen and 41 behind Norris was a true reflection of where they are. From best of the rest in the first six races, they are scrapping over who is 4^th best with Ferrari. There are developments in the pipeline, but maybe finishing 5^th in the constructors table wouldn’t be that bad a thing for Aston Martin. That would give them more wind tunnel time for next years developments and that maybe more important as they settle into their new factory….sorry, new campus. The forthcoming updates are expected to arrive after the summer break.

Ferrari – Charles Leclerc’s 2^nd place in Austria seems a long time ago. They have managed just 13 points in the last two races and they look like being passed by McLaren in the constructors table before the end of the season. The gap is now 80 points but McLaren are taking chunks out of that lead now. The car is much the same as it was at the start of the season, good one lap pace, but the hight tyre deg is hurting their race performance. Mercedes and now McLaren have out developed them. Race Strategy remains a weakness, pitstops are being botched and the drivers are making errors and it is hard to find many positives when looking at Ferrari.

McLaren – Now the second best car in terms of performance. It is very rare to see a midseason upgrade so dramatically improve a cars performance relative to the opposition. Alonso is trying to blame the new Pirelli tyre introduced at Silverstone for the improvement in the McLaren’s performance and Aston Martins reversal, but few believe that to be the case. Their cars was always decent in fast corners but the now have made it stronger in the slower stuff. The Hungaroring would have been a bad track for them pre upgrades, but they ended up locking out the second row of the grid and got another podium finish for Norris. They are still a long way off Red Bull but it is hard to say that they are not best of the rest now. That mantle has moved between Aston Martin, to Mercedes and now McLaren. This version of the MCL60 looks in a good position to stay there. They have a car that is good across various types of track and even its hot weather weakness was nowhere to be seen in Hungary.

This weekend should be another good one for McLaren. The track has plenty of fast corners which the car is strong on and any wet, cool weather conditions will play to its strengths. Another podium? Very likely.  We should also keep an eye on Oscar Piastri. Norris gets all the attention, but Piastri looks to be a very decent driver in his own right. He looks much more mature than he should after just 11 F1 races. McLaren find themselves with a good car and good drivers.

Alpine – Hungary was a disaster for the struggling Alpine team. Both cars taken out at the first corner meaning they have suffered back to back double DNF’s. With McLaren now way ahead on performance, Alpine are going to struggle for points as they are out of the top 5 in terms of performance. On some tracks, and this maybe one, they may even be behind Williams. They are now struggling to get into Q3 and if it can go wrong for them, it will. Both drivers have gone well here in the past but if the car is not up to the job, that counts for little. The car may be up to the job this weekend with the introduction of a new floor, a very important downforce generator for these ground effect cars. The team are hoping for a 0.2 seconds a lap increase in pace, which in a packed midfield could bring them back into the points.

Williams – Quietly going about their business of getting faster, and performing on a wider variety of tracks than has been the case in the last couple of seasons. The have the talented Alex Albon leading the charge and while Sargeant isn’t quite officer material, his performances reflect the improvements in the cars performance. Alex Albon has scored points in all three starts here at Spa and his Williams should be more suited to this track than the Hungaroring, where Albon finished 11^th. His last four races have seen finishes of 7/11/8/11. He has reached Q3 in three of his last four qualifying sessions this season and he now looks a potential points scorer at most tracks. He is at the top of his game right now.

Haas – A very predictable car. Good one lap pace followed by poor race pace, just like Ferrari. Hulkenberg is able to get very good qualifying results, reaching Q3 six times this season, one more than Sergio Perez in the Red Bull. However, he has just one points finish all season. The car is good in the wet, so it may get the conditions it needs at times this weekend. Like Ferrari, the car has a fundamental flaw that is baked in and no amount of development will fix it.

Alfa Romeo – A very promising performance in qualifying for Alfa Romeo set them up for a good points haul in Budapest, but it all went wrong before the first lap was over. Zhou qualified a career best 5^th, Bottas 7^th. Zhou’s car then bogged down at the start, forcing Bottas to swerve round him, losing places to cars around him. Zhou finally got going but rammed the back of Gasly’s Alpine causing a lot of cars to get baulked. He got a 5 second penalty. Bottas found himself on the wrong line coming out of turn 1 and he got swamped and was down to 12^th. Their race pace was not good enough and they were unable to capitalise on a great qualifying performance. Their car was well suited to the Hungaroring with its lack of fast corners. Spa-Francorchamps is full of them and the Alfa has never been good on tracks with fast corners. 12^th place seems to be the limit of their performance.

Alpha Tauri – Ricciardo had a decent comeback weekend in Hungary, out qualifying and out racing Tsunoda. Any chance of a points finish ended when he was caught up in the first corner mele but he was able to recover to finish 13^th after running a good race strategy which put him in clean air, able to run at his pace rather than getting stuck in a DRS train. The car is still uncompetitive and with Alpine likely to be faster with their new floor and Williams set to go well here, this doesn’t look like a realistic chance for any points.

Ante Post Selections

It must be said that most of my ante post selections have been rubbish this season. The tightly bunched midfield means that small, track specific changes in performance can dramatically change the pecking order. The podium chasers have also had fluctuating fortunes. The biggest constants are Red Bulls domination, Ferrari’s under-performance and Haas lack of race pace.

This weekend does look like the weather will play a part in proceedings, even if it s dry on Sunday. Friday looks likely to see light rain all day, and in the morning the cloud base is low enough to cause a problem. If the medivac helicopter cannot take off, the practice session will be delayed. That means a wet/damp single practice session followed by a wet/damp Grand Prix qualifying. Saturday now looks to see sunshine and showers all day, so the Petit Prix qualifying and race could be rain affected. Sunday looks more likely to be dry but there is still a 40% chance of light showers around race time.

The teams have a difficult decision to make in terms of set up. Do they just go for a wet set up from the word go and have that locked in for the weekend, or, if they think the race will be dry, do they take the risk of a poor qualifying session and Petit Prix and go for a dry set up for Sunday? It is less important for Red Bull such is their dominance, but for those teams in the midfield it is crucial. More downforce for the wet leaves the car very vulnerable on the long straight if it turns out to be a dry race. Less downforce and you risk crashing out if it does.

It is a difficult choice and made harder as we are in the Ardennes. The mountain range has its own micro climate and if you can accurately predict the weather here when low pressure systems are around, your either a genius or lucky.

With a changeable weather situation, this looks like a race where it is better to bet late than early. I will make two exceptions. Alex Albon’s form held up well in the recent run of wet/damp qualifying sessions and if the car goes as expected, his odds are likely to shrink to around evens, maybe odds on.

1 point Alex Albon to finish in the points @ 2.40 with Unibet

With rain around and cool temperatures tomorrow, the McLarens could have favourable conditions and a track to suit. Norris was very fast in the wet qualifying here in 2021. He was fastest in Q1 and Q2 before the rain got dangerously heavy and he had a hefty smash and the session stopped. He is very much in the e/w frame for Fridays qualifying session.  We backed him for the Austrian qualifying session at 175.00 and we missed out by 0.077 seconds. Such has the cars form improved that he is now the second favourite to win the Grand Prix and second favourite to be the fastest qualifier on Friday. However, the improvements to the car do make it more likely that he can make the front row and the weather, which just dried up at the wrong time in Austria, does look more likely to be cool and damp. He has been 4^th, 2^nd and 3^rd in the last three qualifying sessions and he is in the frame on pure performance. With added sky juice, he is right in the frame.

1 point e/w Lando Norris to be fastest qualifier  (Friday) @ 10.00 with BET365, Boylesports, Skybet

I’ll have an update for Fridays qualifying session and Saturdays Sprint race and the usual Race Day update on Sunday.

-JamesPunt