Date: 02/07/2023
Venue: Red Bull Ring
Max Verstappen is expected to continue his domination of Formula One this season and give Red Bull a home win in our Austrian Grand Prix predictions.
The flying Dutchman heads to Spielberg seeking a fifth straight race win and a seventh victory in nine outings so far this term.
Having also won three of the last five renewals of this race, as well as the 2021 Styrian Grand Prix here, it is easy to see why Verstappen is as short as 4/11 in the Austrian Grand Prix odds.
Verstappen completed another crushing performance in Canada last time out to match Ayrton Senna’s tally of 41 victories – and then promised to keep the good times rolling.
A day after taking pole position in the wet, he reigned supreme in the dry at Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve to beat Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton and move into joint fifth in the pantheon of Formula One winners.
Verstappen will not celebrate his 26th birthday until September, but his sixth victory of the year leaves only Hamilton (103), Michael Schumacher (91), Sebastian Vettel (53) and Alain Prost (51) ahead of him in the record books.
“When I was a little kid driving go karts, I was dreaming about being an F1 driver and I would never have imagined I would win 41 grands prix,” said Verstappen, who also notched up Red Bull’s 100th victory in the sport.
“To tie with Ayrton is incredible and I am proud of that, but I hope it doesn’t stop here. I hope we keep on winning more races.
“It is also a great achievement for the team. We knew this was the first opportunity to win 100 races. I am happy that is done, but I hope we will win more than 100, so the new target is 200.”
Remarkably, Verstappen has won 15 of the last 19 races in F1, with Red Bull failing to taste victory on just one occasion in that streak.
“What we are witnessing with Max is the emergence of another mega talent,” said team boss Christian Horner. “You can start talking about him in the same sentence as the greats now.”
Alonso maintained his ultra-consistent form for Aston Martin when runner-up in Canada and is 8/11 to secure a seventh podium finish of 2023 in the Austrian Grand Prix odds.
Hamilton can be backed at Evens to complete a hat-trick of top-three placings for the rejuvenated Mercedes outfit.
His teammate George Russell is 9/4 in the same market, with Red Bull second string Sergio Perez Evens following a dip in form of late.
Charles Leclerc will be hoping for a change of luck and is 5/2 to make the podium for only the second time this season.
The Ferrari ace was third in Azerbaijan but has posted other figures of 7-7-6-11-4 alongside two early DNF results.
At least Leclerc will have fond memories of this venue, having edged out Verstappen for first place in Spielberg 12 months ago.
However, the other teams look set to be fighting it out for place positions again behind the all-conquering Red Bull outfit, who are 16/1 to win every race this year.
With 14 rounds still remaining in this year’s F1 calendar, seven-time world champion Hamilton believes Red Bull could complete a perfect campaign.
“I know what I am faced with and there is nothing I can do about Red Bull’s amazing performance,” he declared.
“It is likely that they will win every race this year unless the Aston Martins and us can provide a lot more performance or if their car doesn’t finish.
“It is not a frustration. We have got work to do and I am happy to be back in the mix and I am just hoping that at some stage we are level so we can get back to some of the good races we had in 2021.”
Past Austrian GP winners
2022 Leclerc (Ferrari), Verstappen, Hamilton
2021 Verstappen (Red Bull), Bottas, Norris
2020 Bottas (Mercedes), Leclerc, Norris
2019 Verstappen (Red Bull), Leclerc, Bottas
2018 Verstappen (Red Bull), Raikkonen, Vettel
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