 This is Covering the Spread, part of the Fandall Podcast Network. Formula One is back. They have got the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend. The season opener, we're going to see if anybody can take down Red Bull this year. We're going to talk about some F1 betting with Sam Hopin of Betting Pros for today, getting his read on modeling out Formula One, his thoughts on the 2024 season, and some bets that he likes for this weekend in Bahrain. This is Covering the Spread right here on the Fandall Podcast Network and Fandall Research. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a managing editor of digital media for Fandall Research. Joined here as mentioned by Sam Hopin. Check him out on Twitter at Sam Hopin. He is a data scientist for Betting Pros. Sam, it is a delight to have you on the show for today. How are you doing? Jim, thank you for having me on. I'm doing well. It's always funny. I've listened to your show a number of times, but I always listen to it on a faster speed, so then I get to hear the intro at a normal speed now, but we're going to be talking speed all today with some Formula One. I feel like I'd be a nightmare to listen to at 1.25 or 1.5, because I talk fast to begin with, and I know that about myself. It's just like the caffeine, the ADHD blend is a really fun one for talking slow. I can't imagine trying to keep up with my voice if it were faster. Yeah, it's I don't go that as crazy as the 2X speed. I saw three out somewhere. Well, it may be very anxious, but there was a three. Yeah, just the 1.2X doesn't distort things too much, but enough that I noticed the difference in the in the intro. Well, that is good to hear. Well, hopefully we can, as you mentioned, allude to the pace throughout today. Get your read on the 2024 Formula One season and much more in just one second. 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But first, I want to dig in to overall betting process when it comes to F1. You've been doing F1 modeling for a bit now. For those of people who are new to betting specifically on F1, what are some key things you've learned from your process of building on a model that they should know before they decide to bet it? Yeah, there's there's a lot that goes into it. There's it's much different than, you know, a football or a basketball where you have specific plays that you can simulate out, stuff like that. You know, within Formula One, there's there are tiers of teams, which we'll we'll get to with it within the rest of the podcast here. But it's there are a lot of things that not necessarily decided. But like Max Verstappen, who will talk about like he's going to be the favorite in almost every race, there are a lot of one way markets. So it's it's tough to necessarily fade drivers as much as you'd like, which is something I tend to want to do a bit more than buying into someone like Max. But that said, I think some of the best bets are often the ones with a lot of juice. Like it's it's not fun to lay minus 300 on a favorite to finish on the podium or finish in the points. But those are often the best bets. And it's basically as long as they don't crash or the car doesn't go to put then you win the bet. So I think it's the and I'll talk about this in the modeling section here next. But the the DNF problem, which is what I like to call it is how do you simulate a driver not finishing the race? Again, whether it's because of a crash or because their their car cramps out, but there are a couple of ways to to do that. But again, I I personally try to buy low and sell high on on some of the teams and drivers understand when they're making upgrades to their car, there are a lot of nuances throughout the season in terms of how many upgrades they can make penalties if they make more upgrades, things like that. So I honestly want to say that there's a little bit more qualitative analysis to this and things that can't necessarily capture in a model that you need to pay attention to, you know, because there are lap times and the the Formula One public data that that's available is is incredible. But I by no means am a a physics expert and understand the things like that. So I don't get that in the weeds and there are some people who do. But understanding again, what, you know, with these different courses to that they're driving on, what team cars are best suited for those courses as well. And luckily, I think that the the qualitative part, you know, if you're not an expert in it, which I'm not similar to you, like, I don't know, aerodynamics and stuff like that. There are a lot of people you can find who are able to parse that for you. And with the upgrades you mentioned, those are reported beforehand. So there will be a list of upgrades in that specific specific week, and you can list that out. And it may not mean an upgrade every time, because sometimes it takes a while to get adjusted upgrades and stuff like that. But it means increased uncertainty. And I think it's important to keep that in mind and increase uncertainty can work both ways, can be good or bad. It could be McLaren last year, mid part of the year or, you know, could be Haas towards the end of last year where their upgrades did not work. So I think it's an important thing to keep in mind that, especially this point in the year, we have not seen cars on track in equal conditions yet. There is a lot of that qualitative aspect in there that you mentioned for right now. Now, you alluded to the modeling part. And my favorite thing about building out a model is sometimes it's like something clicks. It's like, aha, OK, I figured this thing out. And that really brings the models together. And your confidence in the model can increase dramatically with one tweak to it. So I want to ask you, when you've been tweaking and already built Formula One model, what was the biggest aha realization for you in that process? Yeah, so I don't know if I've had that aha moment yet. I mean, I mentioned the, again, what I call the DNF problem and trying to understand, again, what causes these guys to DNF. And, you know, it's if you start further back in the grid, you're more likely to crash in lap one because you're in this big cluster of things. Again, the reliability stuff, sort of assigning reliability for a car as opposed to a driver. Like if a Ferrari engine, you know, craps out, then there are several cars that use Ferrari engines. So what can you can you learn from that? I am currently working on a new type of model. So I'm hoping that this aha moment comes. Previously, I was projecting finishing position in a race based on a number of factors and then running simulations based on that. The new model I'm building, I'm trying to build a lap by lap model. So I can, one, again, use some of the more nuanced data in terms of lap times and when people are expected to pit all that sort of stuff. But also apply it to to more markets. There are stuff like leader after the first five laps after 10 laps, stuff like that, so hoping to be able to derive that sort of information from this new model. But yeah, it's it is it is a challenging thing to write, because it's it's similar to golf where not every course is the same. So one driver and car can be different in, you know, on a street circuit versus a race circuit, stuff like that. So I it is it's one of the more fun and challenging projects for sure. I think the aha moment could be the realization that you want a lap by lap kind of model, you know, saying like this is the ideal way for me to build this and kind of getting down that path can even be like, OK, I feel like I'm at least heading the right direction. Right. And because there are things, too, that you can capture with that, whether it's, you know, whether within the specific race, too, in the training data you're using that hopefully, again, I'll be able to capture more. Yeah, OK, I like that. That's a pretty fun improvement. Looking forward to seeing that as it eventually gets rolled out. Now, let's talk about some teams here, because last year, the big story obviously was Red Bull. They won twenty one of twenty two races. Max Verstappen won nineteen of those two for Czecho Perez. And we don't know if that will translate to twenty twenty four. But the preseason testing numbers kind of set is probably going to happen. So let's kind of just assume right now, Sam, that Red Bull continues to do what they did last year. How should that impact the way people bat formula one? It sort of goes back to to what I was saying earlier, of finding some of these other markets. I personally really like had to have markets where you're getting betting on a specific driver versus another. Books are now releasing markets of winner without Max Verstappen because he's just such, you know, like he's such a big favorite. So they're giving, you know, better as other things to to bet on. And that's something that I started simulating out, too, is, you know, how many times does a driver finish essentially second without or first without Max Verstappen? But it's it's understanding those team tiers and understanding, again, when you're doing, you know, looking at the head to head markets, where the drivers sit within those teams of of drive, excuse me, of teams. And so like you've got Red Bull at the top and then you've got the next tier of Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren and probably Aston Martin and then everyone else after that. So understanding to what those teams priorities are, I think is super important. Like for them, for some of the bottom teams, like finishing the points is a huge win for them. And it's like all they ever want in a race. So they're not going to necessarily be aggressive if they get into the top 10. Whereas a team like Mercedes finishing seventh is not a great result for that. So understanding those dynamics, too. And then I think within the teams, understanding if there is a driver dynamic in terms of sort of who's their one A and one B, like Max Verstappen is is the one A at Red Bull. They there are times where they're going to tell Checo to move over and let let Max go through. That's something I built in my simulations last year of understanding. OK, when they're sort of neck and neck in the simulation, I'm going to flip them because that's what Red Bull is going to do. Right. Got an interesting scenario with Ferrari this year where we know Lewis Hamilton is going to be joining them next year. Carlos Sainz is going to be on his way out. And so how does that impact Sainz's driving? Does he just sort of ignore team team instructions at certain points? Maybe, you know, goes a little more toe to toe with with Charles Leclerc. But again, that's a lot of that qualitative stuff that is very difficult to capture in models. And I think that the other part, too, is how tightly correlated stuff like that is, where if Ferrari is fast, it's going to benefit both Leclerc and Sainz. And the gap between them will stay likely stagnant. You know, if you have a gap between Leclerc and Sainz, but that makes it tougher for Sainz to beat Leclerc. If you have it in there where, you know, Leclerc is a better driver because in the event where Sainz is very fast, Leclerc is probably fast, too. And that's a really tough component with doing all this is trying to figure out what that correlation is, how to model that. But then also trying to figure out the prioritization of the two guys. And, you know, whether a slightly lesser driver within the same team, what the odds are that he actually beats his teammate and stuff like that. That's it's very difficult, for sure. Yeah. Now, you've alluded to a couple of markets and the markets that I enjoy. So I want to ask you, what have been your most successful markets when you've been betting F1, modeling F1 and stuff like that? Yeah, it's it's not the outright markets because I mean, trying to pick a race that Max's car craps out or something like that happens, like there were several times last year that he started outside the top 10 and still won the race. Like it's it's absurd. Like at that point, like you you were able to get him at like slightly plus odds and plus 150 in Miami. I remember. Yeah. So like that's a time to buy by him. But the head to head markets for me, because again, you have some of that qualitative stuff that you bring in, especially the ones that are cross team. Most books will do like same team markets for, you know, Lewis Hamilton versus George Russell. But it's really fun when you get like the fifth and sixth starting drivers against each other or the seventh and eighth stuff like that. So I think that's been been really successful for me. And again, that sort of gives you a little bit more of a chance to to fade certain drivers if you want. And I think part of it, too, is also when you're betting these markets, because I've found that I tend to have a lot more success betting post qualifying markets specifically, not like not a specific market, but post qualifying markets, because what I found is that my back testing on what weight to put on the starting grid is lesser than the weight that sportsbooks tend to put on it. So when we're looking at those matchups and stuff like that, I've wanted to find a lot of success in that department because at least based on what I found, I think that specifically the starting grid I'm not talking about qualifying because qualifying matters a lot. So there's a grid penalty and stuff like that. That's where I found there to be some pretty big discrepancy between my model and the market, which is terrifying to bet on a guy starting eleven versus a guy up in seven. But I do think that there is a bit of an over adjustment and a bit of an over waiting on the grid spot. It's very important, but I think that it might be overweight at the bit. Yeah. And and that's, you know, you set a very nuanced thing there of qualifying position versus starting grid. And those who don't know, again, you can get grid penalties for a litany of things. Again, the upgrades that I mentioned, stuff like that, there are sometimes when a driver will just try to get into Q3 and then just stop trying. So their qualifying might not look right good. And then their grid or a grid position is not going to look any better. So again, those are the things that essentially the film versus stats debate for Formula One. Well, I also think that that going back to the Miami example for Max in Q2, he had the fastest time of anybody the entire day. He's spun in Q3 and started towards the back. But his like, if you look at the best lap time of the entire qualifying session, it was Max and Q2. So my model treated him as the fastest driver in the pack, even though he was starting, I think, seventh or whatever it was. And that was what presented value on him at plus one 50 or whatever it was for that race was because that speed kind of got overlooked by what the market was. So that's that's something I think is important to keep an eye on. It's not always going to be that way. Sometimes grid penalties will matter a lot. Like you go to Monaco, you know, tough sailing dude. But like, no, I think we do see a lot more weight on not a lot. There is more weight put on grid position than I would personally put on it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, OK. Let's talk about 2024, Sam. We can talk about rain in a second and that specific race. But I wanted to ask you, you know, going into NFL season, we can have some teams or players want to buy into like, OK, I think I'll be above market on this team. That may not happen because many markets are sometimes they're pretty savvy and they can get ahead of players or teams or drivers we thought we'd be high on. But when you look and think about things holistically, are there any drivers or teams you think you'll be above market on entering this year that you kind of want to buy in on before markets can adjust? Yeah, there's there's two teams and they're both in that that second tier. The first one is McLaren. They finished the season incredibly strong last year. It didn't didn't have a great testing session last week. But I'm not buying, you know, reading too much into that. They it sort of began at Silverstone, where Lano Norris and Oscar Piastri finished P2 and P4 respectively. Norris finished top five and all but one of the final eight races. That was a race that he didn't finish. And he was on the podium for five of those races. Piastri had a couple of podiums of his own in Japan and Qatar. Like they started moving in the right direction. And I I'm really excited about the direction that they're heading. I think they will be ahead of Aston Martin this year and be able to contend for sure with at least Mercedes and Ferrari. And again, speaking of the second team, like the other one that I'm bullish on is Ferrari. And like I hate to say that because they've been a bit of a mean lately the last couple of years and obviously have that dynamic with Carlos Sainz and Louis Hamilton coming in. But it's their second year with Fred Versailles, their team principal. You know, I think it's they they did show pretty well in testing last week. And I think it's a bit of buying low a little bit and and not, you know, fading the narrative, I guess, in terms of the some of the mistakes that they've had and all that sort of stuff. Like they're still a really good team. Like they had some good races last year. Sainz was one, I think the only not Red Bull win last year. So like they still have the ability to put up a good race. It's just like, can they avoid those daunting mistakes? Right. Yeah. With Ferrari, I was on them a lot last year. So fully on board with you with that one. I didn't have the courage to take Sainz outright at Singapore because I'm a coward, but had a podium that would have. Yeah. Yeah. I showed value of my model. I mentioned that like on my piece and I was like, oh, I got a value. I'm not taking it. It was like, oh, cool, moron. But with McLaren, I think the tough thing with them with testing is I can't get a read on them because we never saw Lando Norris get a full race run in. It was Oscar Piazri who got one in. And Piazri has had trouble with tire degradation. He's pretty well below Lando, at least in my stuff. Just based on last year, I think that long term Piazri, the outlook is good, but not Lando. And we never saw Lando get in a long run. So I have no idea how to handle them. Betting markets are very low on the McLaren right now. But like I don't think they showed their entire hand, given that they're at least by my numbers, they're better driver, never got in a representative run. Maybe that means he's not going to have the same. Car knowledge that other teams do runs in will have. But I think that they're they're a pretty big unknown for me right now. Speaking of those betting markets, take a look at them right now for this weekend for the Bahrain and Grompre. When you look at these specific markets, Sam, looking across the industry, any bets you want to lock in before? Specifically, we see tracks on cars on track on Thursday. Yeah, sort of dovetails off of of my last point there. You know, going back to the old me, but Charlotte Clare to podium. I think you can find them around minus one or five or even on on some books. I again, they showed really well in testing. There's a chance that they, you know, he takes pole position in this race. Like they do have continue to have a great single lap pace. And that's the other thing is, you know, these cars can be incredible in a single lap, but then just not have the race pace. So again, I think they're firmly, you know, I don't want to say that they're going to compete with Red Bull like I need to see it for a couple of races first. But I do think that he can push to be sort of the best of the rest. Another one. And this is a little bit further out there, but Alex Albon top 10. I think he's around plus 250 or points finished for those who don't know finishing in the points is finishing in the top 10. 220 looks like unfan dual there. It's again, he had some really good races at the end of last year as well. He was able to hold off, I think Louis Hamilton. I don't remember what race exactly it was, but was driving really, really well. They showed out really well in testing this past week, too. So I think there's a chance again that with his their single lap speed that he can can creep into the top 10. And then finally, if you want some equity in Max Verstappen, it's to be the fastest qualifier and to win the race. I think that's around minus 115. So it's again, there's a lot to it. I think that's if you want Max Verstappen, that's that's the way to play it for me. Yeah, that was that's also a market that can be pretty interesting when it comes to tracks where it's difficult to pass like last year in Monaco. Max was I think like plus 240 to win the podium in the race, where the or to win the pole in the race. And like, because those markets are so tightly correlated to Monaco, it actually made a lot of sense to go that route. So it's another one to kind of have like in your mind of like, OK, if it's tough to pass, maybe you want to go that route, as opposed to just the firm outright, because I mean, if he qualifies seven through bets dead, regardless, he might as well get a better number on it, that kind of thing. So I think that's a smart way to look at things. A smart look, a smart market to look at as well. That is Sam Hoppin of betting pros. Make sure you check him out over at betting pros. Find his work on Twitter as well at Sam Hoppin. Sam, I appreciate the time. Fun talking to you about the F1 season opener. Good luck to you on Saturday and hopefully talk to you again in the future. Yeah, thanks for having me on, Jim. Alrighty, thank you, Sam. Once again, you can find Sam on Twitter at Sam Hoppin. I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis. Check me out on threads at Jim Dot Sonnis and FanDuel Research on Twitter at FanDuel Research. Back once again tomorrow, talking some NFL combine betting. We'll talk to all of you then. This has been covering the spread right here on the FanDuel podcast network.