With 19 wins from the last 20 Grands Prix, it’s no surprise to see world champion Max Verstappen as the prohibitive favourite to win in Australia on Sunday, March 24.
The Dutchman has been breaking records since he made his Formula 1 debut as a 17-year-old back in 2015, but the last three seasons have seen him take his performances to a whole new level.
Since Red Bull provided him with a title-contending car at the beginning of 2021, Verstappen has won 46 races from 68 starts - a strike rate of 68%.
And that percentage increases to 78% if you take 2022 as the starting point, thus disregarding the epic 2021 season-long duel with Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, when the pair had roughly equal machinery.
A win at Albert Park, Melbourne, on Sunday would see Verstappen equal his own record for consecutive Grand Prix victories - set at 10 only six months ago at Monza.
He's rated by the bookmakers as a 1/5 chance - implied odds of 83% - to do just that, with his closest competitor once again judged to be team-mate Sergio Perez.
Perez finished as runner-up in each of the first two races of the season, completing a Red Bull one-two in both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
He could only manage P5 in Australia last season, which nevertheless represented a solid comeback drive through the field following a crash in qualifying which necessitated a pit lane start.
It was left to Hamilton to be the closest challenger to Verstappen in a race that featured three safety-car periods and three red flags, with Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso taking third.
Hamilton is rated the fourth-most likely winner on Sunday, at 33/1 odds, alongside Mercedes team-mate George Russell and behind Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, (16/1 for victory) who leads the chase of the Red Bulls in the early championship table.
Leclerc was the first retirement in last year's Australian race, spinning into the gravel after being squeezed by Lance Stroll's Aston Martin.
He was one of eight DNFs in a chaotic race that ended behind the safety car, and any repeat of that kind of attrition could open the door to some big-priced outsiders this weekend.
Williams driver Alex Albon looks to be a prime contender to emerge from the midfield scrap with some points - or potentially a bigger result.
The Brit qualified an impressive eighth here last year and was running in a promising sixth place when he agonisingly crashed out of the race.
A top six place was within his reach that day and it might pay to back Albon to once again shine at an Albert Park circuit which should reward his car's aerodynamic efficiency.
He had our support in Bahrain but fell short of the points on an afternoon largely spent stuck in traffic.
He'll need to qualify well but that's a strength of the former Red Bull man, as last year showed.
The 18/1 for Albon to finish in the top six is worth a speculative punt, while the 5/4 on him to score points is a more realistic aim.
