Three Grands Prix, plus a qualifying session for the fourth, into the 2025 Formula 1 season, and a new driver has already emerged as the betting favorite to win the world championship.
McLaren's Lando Norris opened up the season as the favorite, primarily due to the pace advantage the Woking-based team had during the back of the 2024 season, even though Red Bull's Max Verstappen was still able to win more than twice as many races as Norris and seal the title in the season's antepenultimate race.
Norris has led the world championship standings after each of the opening three rounds of the 2025 season, though his lead is just one point over Verstappen after Verstappen secured his first win in last weekend's Japanese Grand Prix.
But now there is a new favorite to win the title, and it's not Max Verstappen.
At FanDuel Sportsbook, McLaren's Oscar Piastri is now listed as the favorite to win the 2025 world championship at +125, just ahead of Norris at +135.
The change was made after the qualifying session for Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix at Bahrain International Circuit on Saturday. Piastri took his series-leading second pole of the 2025 season, while Norris could only qualify sixth in the same car, just one position higher than Verstappen in a visibly slower Red Bull.
Piastri currently sits in third place in the championship standings, 13 points behind Norris, but a lot of that can be attributed to his off-track excursion in Melbourne when the rain started to fall. If not for that fluke mishap, he would probably be leading the championship, and he probably would have been leading since his Chinese Grand Prix win two races ago.
Verstappen, the four-time reigning world champion, is listed third at +430. Nobody else is listed with odds shorter than +2300, even with Ferrari and Mercedes seemingly in a better position than Red Bull on sheer pace.
Full odds can be found here and are always subject to change.
Tune in to ESPN2 at 10:55 a.m. ET on Sunday, April 13 for the live broadcast of the Bahrain Grand Prix from Bahrain International Circuit. Start a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss any of the action from the 2025 Formula 1 season's fourth race. Will Piastri remain the favorite at the one-sixth mark of the record-tying 24-race season?