2026 Formula 1 Championship Odds - Motor Racing Betting

2026 Formula 1 Championship Betting Online

Coming off four consecutive titles, there was a compelling case for Max Verstappen to make it five in a row in 2025 something only Michael Schumacher has achieved before. But it was not meant to be.

Instead, Lando Norris took the 2025 Formula 1 championship. Norris became the Formula 1 world drivers' champion for the first time after securing the 2025 title at the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

The McLaren driver fought off year-long challenges from teammate Oscar Piastri and defending champion Max Verstappen before clinching the title at the final round, where all three had a chance.

Norris, starting second, was overtaken by Piastri early but held off the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc to finish third, which was all he needed to triumph. Verstappen won the race but finished two points behind Norris in the standings. Norris' title ends Verstappen's run of four consecutive championship victories, which stretched back to the Red Bull driver's first title in 2021.

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2026 Formula One Betting Overview

While 2025's three-way championship fight went to the wire, racing was arguably the worst it had been for a while, in the final year of the controversial, much-disliked ground-effect cars introduced in 2022. Formula 1 has a clean slate this year, with a complete overhaul of the rules on both the aerodynamic and engine sides.

As a result, F1 will look and feel radically different in 2026. Under the new rules, the cars themselves will be shorter, thinner, lighter, and nimbler, with the stated aim of creating better racing. Pirelli is still supplying 18-inch tires, but they're narrower.

And perhaps the best bit of news for haters of the last generation of cars is the simplification across the board. Flatter floors and side pods with bigger openings are replacing the long ground-effect tunnels of the last cars. Front and rear wings are also becoming much less complex after looking more and more like a sci-fi writer's dream in recent years.

Beneath the bodywork, the new engine rules were enough to convince Red Bull to partner with Ford to build their own, convinced Audi to join as a fully fledged manufacturer by taking over the Sauber team, and saw General Motors promise to have the new Cadillac team race with American-made engines by the end of the decade.

While the complexity has shifted away from some design elements, it has shifted toward the driver in the cockpit. Early simulator feedback from drivers was hardly enthusiastic. While virtual running is far from definitive and the cars will evolve rapidly through testing and the early races, one theme has already emerged: workload.

Managing power deployment, aero modes, and energy recovery looks set to become a constant, relentless task inside the cockpit. Those simpler front and rear wings will become big talking points, as they are both part of the "active aero" rules: drivers will be able to adjust flaps and angles on both as they complete a lap, which will require constant back-and-forth with their teams. The Drag Reduction System (DRS) has been scrapped completely, with drivers now equipped with an Overtake Mode power boost.

Expect more radio traffic than ever as drivers and engineers attempt to unlock performance lap by lap, a mentally exhausting reality that could define the early races of the season at the minimum. F1 had to explain all of this in an eight-minute video, hinting at the complexity that might dominate the start of the new season -- and that's just on the aerodynamic side.

Cadillac's new Formula 1 team has been several years in the making and will join in 2026 with Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas at the helm. It's a landmark moment, the first new team to join under the current owners, Liberty Media.

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