F1 Insider: Free betting tips for the 2019 French Grand Prix
Sporting Life's Formula One Insider is backing Lewis Hamilton to make it four straight victories, as F1 rolls onto the French Grand Prix.
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Hamilton to dominate again
Hamilton has won five of the seven races to date and last year's French Grand Prix was arguably the champion's easiest cruise of the season. An early accident between his team-mate Valtteri Bottas and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel nullified his main threats and the Mercedes man took victory by over seven seconds from Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
This year his biggest challenge is likely to be to ensure he prevents Bottas from taking pole on Saturday to ensure he is in a position to control the race. The Finn leads 3-2 on that metric but Hamilton had the edge here 12 months ago and looks a solid favourite to head the grid again. Even money looks very fair for the championship leader to make it six wins from eight.
Verstappen to finally return to the podium
Verstappen's challenge since he got his hands on a podium-contending car has been to qualify in a position from which he can exploit the Red Bull's race pace.
His consistency over the last few months has been extraordinary - his fifth place in Canada was the first race in 12 that he had been out of the top four - but only Monaco has seen him qualify in the top three this season.
That might not change at the Circuit Paul Ricard on Saturday but he should have similar race pace to the Ferraris on Sunday and pair his prodigious wheel-to-wheel skills with Red Bull's strategic guile to find a way past.
Two podiums from seven outings in 2019 suggests the 5/2 for a top-three finish is at least fair, and this track should be better suited to his package than most of those that have gone before.