Max Verstappen has secured pole position for the Australian Grand Prix, putting himself in prime position to become back-to-back double result champion at this track.
Carlos Sainz finished in the runner-up position and blocked a Red Bull front row, with Sergio Perez finishing third and Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc, and Oscar Piastri rounding out the Friday's qualification round — locking in three teams in the top six spots.
Will Verstappen repeat at the Australian GP or can Ferrari and McLaren's top me throw Mad Max off his course? Continue reading for free Formula One picks and predictions for the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday, March 24.
Australian Grand Prix 2024 odds
| Driver | Team |  |
 |
 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Max Verstappen | Red Bull | -600 | -600 | -700 |
| Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | +1,100 | +1,000 | +1,100 |
| Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | +1,200 | +1,100 | +1,400 |
| Sergio Perez | Red Bull | +1,900 | +2,000 | +900 |
| Lando Norris | McLaren | +5,000 | +3,300 | +4,000 |
| Oscar Piastri | McLaren | +7,000 | +6,600 | +8,000 |
| George Russell | Mercedes | +7,000 | +8,000 | +8,000 |
| Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | +11,000 | +12,500 | +12,500 |
| Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | +11,000 | +15,000 | +12,500 |
| Yuki Tsunoda | RB | +20,000 | +40,000 | +25,000 |
| Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | +20,000 | +25,000 | +30,000 |
| Valtteri Bottas | Kick Sauber | +50,000 | +150,000 | +150,000 |
| Nico Hulkenberg | Haas | +50,000 | +200,000 | +250,000 |
| Pierre Gasly | Alpine | +50,000 | +300,000 | +400,000 |
| Alex Albon | Williams | +50,000 | +100,000 | +100,000 |
| Daniel Ricciardo | RB | +50,000 | +150,000 | +200,000 |
| Esteban Ocon | Alpine | +50,000 | +250,000 | +300,000 |
| Guanyu Zhou | Kick Sauber | +50,000 | +300,000 | +400,000 |
| Kevin Magnussen | Haas | +50,000 | +200,000 | +250,000 |
Odds as of March 23, 2024.
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Australian Grand Prix 2024 starting grid
| Position | Driver | Position | Driver |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Max Verstappen | 2 | Carlos Sainz |
| 3 | Lando Norris | 4 | Charles Leclerc |
| 5 | Oscar Piastri | 6 | Sergio Perez |
| 7 | George Russell | 8 | Yuki Tsunoda |
| 9 | Lance Stroll | 10 | Fernando Alonso |
| 11 | Lewis Hamilton | 12 | Alex Albon |
| 13 | Valtteri Bottas | 14 | Kevin Magnussen |
| 15 | Esteban Ocon | 16 | Nico Hulkenberg |
| 17 | Pierre Gasly | 18 | Daniel Riciardo |
| 19 | Zhou Guanyu | 20 |
Australian Grand Prix 2024 post-qualifying picks
Race prediction: Max Verstappen to win (-600 at FanDuel)
Another grand prix, another unsurprising prediction here. Verstappen has now won 30 of his last 35 races, including the opening two races of the 2024 season — both by sizable margins (+22.457 and +13.643 seconds, respectively).
He did win last year's Australian Grand Prix by "just" +0.179, but he had actually led most of the race by 10+ seconds before a final lap restart that caused the exaggeratedly small gap.
And this track hasn't been one of Verstappen's strongest, with his prior finishes before last year's win including a retirement in 2015 and 2022 and then finishes of tenth, fifth, sixth, and third from 2016-2019.
Securing pole position helps Verstappen for Saturday but it was essentially nearly expected given that he opened at -550 to win the race and only moved to -600 after qualification.
Best bet: Lando Norris to podium (+230 at FanDuel)
The obvious hope here is that you took this before qualification at +600 like it was suggested in our opening odds reactions on Thursday, but there is still a lot of meat on the bone here despite the massive odds shift.
Norris is a very consistent and dependable driver as we have highlighted in previous writeups. In his last 16 races he's managed to finish worse than his starting position just four times. That includes his last race (Saudi Arabian Grand Prix), finishing eighth from a sixth starting position.
That offered an incredible bounce back opportunity in the markets as highlighted by his +600 pre-qualification odds. And again it may feel bad to lose out given his odds now, but his +230 price is still worth it given A) he closed the last fourth of last season in the -100 to -120 range on this exact prop and B) he secured P4 in the qualification round.
Backing his consistency at a race like this that frequently features red flags and restarts is great value.
Australian Grand Prix 2024 pre-qualifying favorites
Max Verstappen (-556 to -500)
Max Verstappen's run of dominance is simultaneously remarkable and void of drama. While he only won two of 2023's first four races, he went on to take the top spot on the podium in 17 of the final 18 races to score the largest point total in F1 history.
He hasn't lost a race since last September's Singapore Grand Prix and held off Lewis Hamilton here a year ago. By winning for a second straight year, Verstappen would be the first driver to win consecutive Australian Grands Prix since Sebastian Vettel did so in 2017 and 2018, though the event did have a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic as well from 2020-21.
Sergio Perez (+700 to +1,400)
Like clockwork, Sergio Perez has finished second to teammate Verstappen in the season's two opening races. It stands to reason that he would be the most likely to benefit if Verstappen's day were to go awry, and he did win a pair of races near the beginning of 2023 (Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan). But, he finished eighth in Singapore — Verstappen's last loss — and was fifth in Australia in 2023.
Charles Leclerc (+1,200 to +1,800)
Charles Leclerc looked like he was on the verge of a massive breakout season at the beginning of 2022. He opened the year with a win in Bahrain, came in second at the Saudi Arabian GP, and then won the Australian Grand Prix. And while he would go on to finish second in the Constructor's Championship to Verstappen, he only won one more race that year (Austrian GP) and hasn't reached the winner's circle again since.
As one of the only drivers in the field with a recent pedigree Down Under, Leclerc is understandably drawing the shortest odds of anyone not on the Red Bull team. Still, betting against Verstappen is a tall order these days. Leclerc did not finish this race a year ago as he was involved in a collision that wiped out a number of drivers.
Odds as of March 18, 2024.
Previous Australian Grand Prix winners
| Year | Driver | Team |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull |
| 2022 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari |
| 2020-21 | Not held for two years | COVID-19 pandemic |
| 2019 | Valtteri Bottas | Mercedes |
| 2018 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari |
| 2017 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari |
| 2016 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes |
| 2015 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes |
| 2014 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes |
| 2013 | Kimi Raikkonen | Lotus-Renault |
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Understanding F1 betting odds
The most popular way to bet on Formula 1 odds is by simply picking the winner of a particular race. Other popular F1 betting options include which car/constructor will win and whether or not a particular race car driver will end up on the podium with a Top-3 finish.
F1 race odds usually look like this:
- Sergio Perez +1,400
This means that on a $100 bet, you'll stand to profit $1,400 if Perez wins that particular race. If one driver is especially dominant, you might see a minus sign (-) ahead of that driver's odds like this:
- Max Verstappen -120
This means that you would need to bet $120 to win $100 on Verstappen winning the race.
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