Even though Verstappen has officially become the champion the season is still continuing for all of us here especially. We are on another race week and the location is the USA this time.
This race was dominated by Lewis Hamilton in the past for long years until 2017. But since then we have seen different drivers winning the race like Kimi, Bottas and Verstappen respectively. Verstappen is the biggest favourite to win again now. Maybe he is the champion but we all know how much competitive he is in every condition. He would still fight for winning the rest of the races. I've checked the odds for qualifying session as well and seen this:
There is a very small gap between these drivers for pole and it isn't surprising of course. Leclerc has won 9 poles in this season so far. So it might be worth betting on Leclerc to win pole position in this race.
Odds have changed meanwhile and Leclers is at 3.00 now for getting pole, which is quite a lot.
When I saw Verstappen's odds yesterday, I was considering to go for Verstappen pole because as swogerino has said: it's a long straight and long straights should be good for RedBull. RedBull has also improved for qualifying recently when Verstappen was taking pole in Japan.
Going for Leclerc after his engine change and RedBull's recent performance is too risky for me.
He has 1.45 to win the race which clearly confirms my thinking.
Odds have also changed here but Leclerc getting a penalty would be an easy win for Verstappen. He could only lose when team orders are given in favor of Perez or from a technical issue. But RedBull has been very reliable recently.
High temperatures should be also suitable for RedBull as Ferrari has huge problems with tyre degradation. Sunday is forecasted to be above 30°C, so Ferrari's tyres can get serious issue.
I'm taking a Verstappen win at
1.41But it will be an interesting race to see if Sainz can stop Verstappen or Perez.