Top Sportsbooks favor Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport to win the 2017 Formula One Constructors’ Championship, followed by Red Bull and Ferrari.
Mercedes is the current, reigning, defending, three-time F1 Races Constructors’ Champion – which goes well with its three consecutive Drivers’ Championships. The UK-based, German-licensed team is one of the most successful in recent years at the sportsbooks odds. Mercedes broke McLaren’s 1988 record of 10 one-two finishes in 2014, and then broke its own record with 12 one-two finishes in 2015. Similarly, Mercedes had 16 wins in 2014 and 2015, thus breaking McLaren’s and Ferrari’s record of 15. In 2016, the team raised the bar higher with 19 wins out of 21 races. Mercedes’ F1 success more or less coincides with the pairing of drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. The Brit and the Teuton didn’t so much competed against other teams’ drivers as they did against the each other, and they figuratively as well as literally clashed with each other on more than one occasion. Rosberg won his first Drivers’ Championship finishing 5 points ahead of Hamilton, and to add insult to injury he retired from active competition not long after. Mercedes announced Valtteri Bottas as Rosberg’s replacement, and Hamilton’s partner, for the 2017 betting season.
Red Bull Racing was the last team to win the Constructors’ Championship before Mercedes’ current dominance. As a matter of fact, the energy drink-owned team was the first Austrian-licensed team to win the title, which it did four times in a row between 2010 and 2013. Red Bull started using TAG Heuer-branded Renault engines in 2016. We know Red Bull gives you wings but does TAG Heuer give Red Bull wings? Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were the only non-Mercedes drivers to win Grands Prix in 2016 so, um, maybe? Red Bull Racing finished 2nd in the Constructors’ Championship last season, and accordingly are second-favorites to win it this year at top sportsbooks.
If Mercedes is the most decorated team of recent times, Scuderia Ferrari is the most successful F1 team in the ever. It is also the oldest surviving team, and it kinda shows. Ferrari has a record 16 Constructors’ Championships and 15 Drivers’ Championships but the last of each came in 2008 and 2007, respectively. World Champions Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel are the team’s two main drivers. The former last won the F1 championship in 2007 and the latter in won the last of his four straight in 2013. Vettel is optimistic that Ferrari’s new car is “a step forward.” The team unveiled the SF70H on February 24th, and Vettel and Räikkönen test-drove it at Ferrari’s private circuit, Fiorano. According to the Scuderia, the new car consists of 56,000 components with over a chiliad members of the team contributing to its construction. Definitely not a car designed for the average man. Ferrari finished 3rd in the Constructors’ Championship standings 367 points behind Mercedes and 70 points behind Red Bull, so it’s no surprise that the Italian team is a distant third-favorite to win the title in 2017 on the majority of top sportsbooks.
