Hot off the heels of last weekend’s French Grand Prix at Le Castellet, the second of three successive races in as many weeks rolls into Austria, for the Styrian Grand Prix on Sunday.
Returning to their home track of the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg for back-to-back races, Red Bull currently hold a sizeable 37-point advantage over Mercedes and will be keen to extend it, by the time the paddock arrives at Silverstone next month.
After repeated attempts – and failures – to win successive races in F1, Max Verstappen is presented with his third opportunity already this season, to break what is becoming an unwanted statistic. Currently, evens with all three of SkyBet, Betfred and William Hill, MansionBet are also offering 19/20 on the Dutchman finally winning back-to-back in Austria.
If, however, you fancy Lewis Hamilton to close the gap on his Red Bull rival, 888Sport will give you value of 13/8, whilst MansionBet dangle the carrot of 7/5 for the Briton to repeat his win of last year. During that race at the Red Bull Ring – the opening round of last season’s pandemic-hit campaign – the Silver Arrows came home with a customary 1-2, as has been the case on many occasions in previous campaigns. Achieving the same result this year however, looks a tall order given Valtteri Bottas has not had so much as a podium finish since Round 4 in Barcelona.
Whilst a Mercedes procession is perhaps fanciful, another Styrian podium of all three of Verstappen, Bottas and Hamilton looks rather more likely, at 5/2 with SkyBet. Or alternatively, you can get Mercedes at 11/8 – again with SkyBet – to be the winning team in the Austrian mountains.
Elsewhere in the field, Daniel Ricciardo recorded his third P6 this season in France last weekend, and the McLaren driver looks like he may finally be settling into his new surroundings. To be top six again in Spielberg, the Perth driver is 6/5 with SBK or evens with SkyBet.
Should you feel a little more adventurous though, a podium finish for the Australian is in his near future and for that happen this weekend, you can fetch 11/2 with Betfair, PaddyPower or Bet365.
