Betting on Motor Sports with totesport
Formula One offers punters many variables, namely competition, massively changing fortunes and a great chance to profit from knowledge and at totesport we offer great markets to run alongside the action.
The main F1 events of the season are the Australian, Monaco, US, British and Japanese Grand Prix. Each provide a different challenge to the drivers none more so than the Monaco circuit which favours those who get the best times in practice and earn pole position as it is extremely difficult if not near impossible to overtake on this tight circuit.
Formula One racing is not a year round sport, but it does offer totesport punters plenty of action during the season, which usually runs from March to October.
Newcomers to F1 could be forgiven for thinking that betting opportunities are limited to picking the eventual winner of each race (or maybe the runner up), but that is only a fraction of what is available with us at totesport. It is an intricate sport and we offer a wide range of bets to reflect that fact.
The day before every Grand Prix race the teams need to compete in a qualifying hour to determine their starting position on the grid for the race. This qualifying hour is a betting event in its own right – you can speculate on everything from qualifying times through to who will achieve Pole Position.
The Grand Prix race itself is obviously a focal point for F1 fans who like to have a bet. The most popular wager is one where you pick a driver to be the outright winner of an event. You can bet to win or each way. Bet to win and your nominated driver must finish first in the race for your bet to win, but if you bet each way you will receive a payout at 1/5th of the win odds if he finishes in first, second or third place.
You can also bet on the “Top Scoring Constructor” in an event. This allows you to bet on any participating constructor (such as Renault, Williams or McLaren) to achieve the highest number of constructor championship points at the designated Grand Prix. This is a popular bet, as constructors receive points for finishing in any of the first eight positions.
The appeal of bets related to the overall championship is simple to understand – one bet can provide you with a financial interest in F1 for the entire season. It doesn’t always matter so much if your nominated team or driver fail to do well in the first Grand Prix race of the season, because they may do much better in subsequent events and still come out on top overall. Again, the two main types of bet here relate to individual drivers and constructors.
You can nominate an individual to win the F1 World Drivers Championship, and you can bet to win or each way. Betting to win requires the individual to finish top with most points, but betting each way means you still receive a payout (usually 1/3rd of the win odds) if the driver finishes first or second overall.
Betting on a team to win the F1 World Constructors Championship does not allow for each way betting, but since there are half as many teams as there are drivers, this makes sense.
Study the form. In F1 it is common for a particular team or driver to dominate throughout a season. Of course it does not mean an in-form driver or constructor will win every race in a season, but under normal circumstances past performance is a very good guide to the future. It therefore makes sense to do some homework, study the form to find out who has been dominating the sport in recent months, as it could pay to side with that winning form.
Remember that F1 is very much a team sport, because success depends just as much on the proficiency of the technical, pit-stop and support team as it does on the talent of the individual driving the machine. When looking to bet on a particular driver make sure you are confident that his team is in good shape.
Often if you place your bets ahead of qualifying you will get better odds than once the starting positions are known. Of course, if you are happy to take lower odds about a driver or constructor then knowing where they will be starting on the grid can be extremely useful.
As with most of sports, always have in mind the weather conditions and how that can affect the race too – and the strategies of the teams and how many pit stops they will have to make and what sort of tyres they will have selected for the race.
Keep up to date with all the latest information and news and enter the wonderful world of F1 betting at www.totesport.com
