United States Grand Prix Predictions, Best Bets & F1 Odds at COTA
By Phil Bobbitt in Racing
Published:
- The starting grid tells one story. The longer practice runs give us a few reasons to question it
- We’ve sorted through the tire compounds, deleted laps and sportsbook prices to find two matchups worth backing in Austin
- How to watch: The United States Grand Prix starts Sunday, Oct. 25, at 4 p.m. ET, streaming on Apple TV in the U.S
Formula 1 gave us three practice sessions in Austin, which sounds like plenty of time to figure out who has a fast race car.
Then you open the timing data.
One driver is on hard tires. Another is on softs. Somebody is carrying enough fuel to drive home afterward. The fastest lap you’ve found has been deleted because the driver briefly decided the white line was more of a suggestion.
We’ve spent hours sorting through all of it. Somewhere along the way, watching cars go around a racetrack became an accounting position with worse benefits.
But there are useful clues underneath the mess. The starting lineup tells us who put a qualifying lap together. Longer runs help us figure out whose tires might survive the afternoon without requiring a support group.
That distinction gives us two matchups to play in Sunday’s United States Grand Prix. We’ve got an underdog whose starting position undersells his potential and a favorite we’re comfortable backing at modest juice.
Now we just need everyone to remember which side of the paint counts.
United States Grand Prix Odds
United States Grand Prix Best Bets
Lando Norris over George Russell (+110, theScore Bet / Caesars)
Norris starts eighth. Russell starts sixth.
That’s an advantage for Russell, although Norris helped create it by having his final qualifying lap deleted. That effort would have moved him to sixth. Instead, he gets an extra row of traffic and another opportunity to discuss track limits with the media. A productive Saturday.
We’re interested in what Norris showed over consecutive laps.
In our selected FP2 sample, he averaged 1:41.289 across eight laps on used hard tires. Russell averaged 1:41.844 over five laps on used mediums. Both sets already had seven laps on them when those runs began.
Different compounds and unknown fuel loads prevent us from treating that as a precise prediction. We aren’t declaring Norris half a second faster for Sunday and ordering commemorative shirts.
The progression is useful, though.
Russell opened with laps of 1:41.221, 1:41.180 and 1:41.401. His next two slipped to 1:42.606 and 1:42.814. Norris sustained competitive times over a longer sample on the harder compound.
There’s a substantial complication: five of Norris’s eight selected laps were deleted.
We’re keeping those laps in the pace evaluation while acknowledging that regularly leaving the permitted racetrack is a terrible foundation for a peaceful betting experience. His three legal laps averaged 1:41.145, which is encouraging, but three laps don’t settle the argument.
Steve’s projection favors Russell, 4.3 to Norris’s 5.8. We’re disagreeing with that order here because Norris’s sustained pace and compromised qualifying result give us enough reason to take the plus-money price.
At +110, we need Norris to win this matchup more than 47.6% of the time.
He has positions to recover, and the McLaren has been difficult to drive consistently. Those are real concerns. But we think his race prospects are better than eighth on the grid makes them look.
Lando, please keep the speed. We would appreciate a slightly narrower interpretation of where to use it.
Lewis Hamilton over Isack Hadjar (-124, BetRivers)
Hadjar qualified third, just 0.036 seconds behind Max Verstappen.
That deserves some respect before we start enthusiastically betting against him. Nobody accidentally parks a car on the second row while looking for the hospitality entrance.
Hamilton starts fifth, so we’re again backing a driver who begins behind his opponent. This time, Steve’s projection agrees with us: Hamilton at 3.5, Hadjar at 4.8.
Friday gave us a mixed picture.
Hamilton’s selected FP1 soft-tire run averaged 1:41.773 over four laps, compared with Hadjar’s 1:42.640 over six. Lewis had fresh tires and Hadjar didn’t, so we aren’t pocketing that entire difference.
FP2 was less helpful. Their averages were virtually identical, with Hamilton on softs and Hadjar on mediums. Friday alone wouldn’t convince us to lay this price.
Saturday gave us another reason.
Hamilton looked much more comfortable after his Friday setup struggles and qualified only 0.044 seconds behind Charles Leclerc. That suggests progress, even though a better qualifying lap doesn’t prove every race-trim problem has disappeared.
At -124, the break-even rate is 55.4%.
Put it together, and we have Hamilton looking more comfortable Saturday, some encouraging Friday running and Steve projecting him ahead. At this price, we’re comfortable backing him to work past Hadjar over the race distance.
Hadjar’s qualifying lap earns him the head start. We think Lewis can make it a temporary one.
Lewis can leave the champagne to somebody else. Finish ahead of the other fella, collect our modest contribution toward groceries, and we’ll call it a useful afternoon.
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Phil Bobbitt is a motorsports betting analyst and recurring guest on CBS Sports HQ, The Early Edge, and VSiN’s A Numbers Game. He and his pal Steve developed a racing algorithm that’s profited over 260 units and $1 million in DFS winnings since 2020.
