Matt Selz
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Track limits. That’s most of what we heard about on Friday during practice and qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix. That includes even the “home track” team of Red Bull. The 2023 Austrian GP is set for Sunday following a Sprint race on Saturday. That means that all we have to go on so far this weekend is the FP1 results and Qualifying, which were interesting to say the least. Just how do those results speak to what we can expect to see come Sunday? What is the Red Bull Ring like for racing? What teams do we expect to be good at the Austrian track? Who do we expect to win Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix? All of that and more below.
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Red Bull Ring Track Layout
The Austrian GP track has a long and storied history in F1, but the newest version of the track has only been on the schedule since 2014. It is a fast, flowing circuit with a lot of high speed corners and elevation change. The first half of the track is spent climbing a hill while the second half is spent heading, windingly, back down the hill. It is a short, fast lap, with practice and qualifying lap times at 1:05-1:06 for the fastest laps. Spreading over 2.68 miles and 10 turns it can be tough to overtake here aside from the homestretch and even the straight between Turns 1 and 2. The 71 laps of the Austrian GP make it one of the longer races, laps wise, on the 2023 F1 schedule yet still one of the fastest time wise thanks to the speed throughout the lap.
Weather Conditions for Austrian Grand Prix
If you watched Friday’s practice and qualifying sessions things appeared to be calm in Spielberg. In terms of precipitation that’s true. However, there was wind. Wind can wreak havoc on these cars, especially at this track with the elevation change. The wind cause a lot of the drivers to have issues with the track limits, not to mention the relatively tight lines in a few corners. If the wind is there again on Sunday, it could cause issues with not only control, but also drivers getting hit with track limit penalties.
Betting Strategy for the Austrian Grand Prix
The midfield is where a lot of the shifting and prop bets are going to be valuable. Why the midfield? Well, we saw a lot of drivers get shifted around in qualifying due to laps not counting due to track limits. That means we should see drivers in the midfield be able to move up more than we typically see at tracks like this. In terms of winner bets, everybody but Max Verstappen is a longshot at this point.
F1 Austrian Grand Prix Winner Best Bets
All betting lines listed are from the DraftKings Sportsbook unless otherwise noted.
Max Verstappen (-450)
We get it, this isn’t anywhere close to the best line we’ve seen for Verstappen. However, we can’t just ignore it because we don’t like the return. He’s been the best driver all year, is starting on the pole and it’s his team’s home race. What more do we need?
Charles Leclerc (+1000)
How many times are a we falling for Ferrari? I’ll answer that with at least for this weekend. The Scuderia duo has been quick in practice and qualifying and weren’t that far behind Verstappen at the front of the grid. Now, they’ll have to get the right strategy in place for the race and they’ll need help with Verstappen having trouble in the race. It should tell you what you need to know by the fact that Leclerc is the second driver on the board this far behind Verstappen in the odds.
Lando Norris (+2200)
The new updates to Norris’ McLaren seemed to be showing plenty of speed this first weekend out. Prior to having a lap removed for track limits in qualifying, he was a fraction of a second slower than Verstappen. The practice speed wasn’t great but that seemed to be more due to a bad set of tires and ill-timed runs that ran into traffic. Norris is rolling off P4 behind Verstappen and both Ferraris which is certainly far enough up that a break can get him to the lead.
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F1 Austrian Grand Prix Prop Best Bets
Lando Norris Top-6 Finish (+180)
Everyone else around him in the betting slip is well into the negative returns. That, along with the speed he showed in qualifying and the starting spot suggest he should be able to stick inside the top-six by the end of the race. He’s also -500 for a top-10 finish which suggests we have nice value simply betting him to finish four spots better than 10th.
Alex Albon Top-10 Finish (+120)
Here we have another driver who not only had a lap deleted for track limit violations but then backed it up again cleanly, Albon is starting P10 in the grid in a Williams car that flies on tracks like this especially down straights. He’s already starting in a spot that pays off with with some more speed in the car and a history this year of nabbing top-10s and we’re still getting plus money.
Valtteri Bottas Top-10 Finish (+400)
We’re talking about a driver with a track history here that is great. We’re talking about a driver who again, had a lap deleted for track limits. We’re talking about a driver starting behind a few drivers he should be able to finish ahead of. Bottas is starting P14 and there are at least three drivers starting in front of him who have run slower than him in most races this year and that means we only need him to pick off one more driver to hit this 4x return.
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