Motor racing beginner’s guide: what can you bet on?

June 16, 2020

When you’re new to the motor racing betting world, it can be confusing for you to get a good grasp of the different betting opportunities that are there. For starters, you know that you can bet on who’s going to win a race, who’s coming second, and who might lose the race.

But are these the only possibilities in motor racing? Far from it! Just the way you have a multiplicity of betting options in other sports, motor racing gives you the opportunity to stake on different possibilities too.

From constructors’ championships to off-season races, drivers markets over the course of a season to qualifying races, there is a load of options out there for you to try your luck. 

The only question is: which bong88 race way will you be betting on?

While you ruminate on that, here is a guide on the list of markets you can bet on in motor racing.

Prop Bets

A prop bet is referred to as a side bet in certain parts of the world and relates to a market that doesn’t necessarily have an effect on the race result. Prop bets can involve popular options such as Fastest Lap, where anyone can come through the field, put their foot down and go round fastest without actually winning the race.

Other, more obscure prop bets exist, while the following options are among the most common for the motorsport betting community.

Fastest Qualifier

In most forms of motor racing, there is a series of qualifying laps which will determine who will start at the front of the grid when the race begins for real. This can be referred to as a Pole Position bet, but most bookmakers these days simply refer to it as Fastest Qualifier.

As the bettor, the job is to simply assess conditions, look at who potentially has the fastest car, and then place the chosen amount of stake next to the name of the driver who they think will qualify in the fastest time.

Winning Margin

As the name suggests, the winning margin bet requires the punter to stake on the amount of time between the winner of the race and the second-placed driver. This can be a mere matter of fractions of seconds up to a minute and beyond.

Sportsbooks that get involved in this bet will list a number of options, and it’s up to the bettor to decide which parameters they think the winning margin will land in and then place their bets accordingly.

Top Six Finish

This is one of the easiest bets to explain, and, as the title indicates, it’s all about betting on whether or not you think the driver in question will finish inside of the top six.

The odds here will be much shorter than the ones you can find in the race winner market, but there can be some value. A longer priced driver or rider may have little chance of taking the chequered flag, but a bet for a top-six finish has a stronger chance of landing and returning any sort of profit.

Podium Finish

This market offers a variation on the top-six finish, and for the bet to deliver a profit, your driver has to finish inside the top three. In motorsport, a driver or rider has to finish in first, second, or third place for them to take a place on the podium when the trophies, and the champagne, are handed out.

The market is also referred to as Top Three Finish in some places, and all the best motor racing betting sites will offer this option.

Driver Match Ups / Head to Head Winner

The Driver Match Up will typically take two drivers in a race, and the task is to decide which of them will have a higher placed finish. This has been growing in popularity in areas such as Formula One and MotoGP, where certain individuals such as Lewis Hamilton and Marc Marquez have started to dominate the straight result markets.

An example here might be to put F1 Drivers Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo up against each other and decide which of those will finish in a higher position. It’s a simple concept, but the head to head markets are a good alternative to the more obvious bets.

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