The 2025 Formula 1 season kicks off on Sunday with the Australian Grand Prix at the Albert Park Circuit in suburban Melbourne, and there's been a tectonic shift this offseason. Lewis Hamilton left Mercedes for Ferrari, setting the driver carousel in motion and leading to 10 total changes to the F1 starting grid. After a strong finish to the 2024 season, McLaren's Lando Norris, who has the position, is listed as the +145 favorite in the 2025 Australian Grand Prix odds. He's followed by Red Bull's Max Verstappen (+240) and teammate Oscar Piastri (+380). Hamilton is +1900 in this week's F1 odds.

The lights go out at midnight ET on Sunday and SportsLine's proven computer projection model simulated the Australian GP 2025 10,000 times, creating a surprising leaderboard.

Developed by daily Fantasy pro and SportsLine predictive data engineer Mike McClure, this proprietary Formula 1 prediction model takes into account a slew of factors, including track history and recent results.

The model has been scorching hot when it comes to picking Formula 1 race events dating back to 2021. It nailed both of Charles Leclerc's wins in 2022, and at the 2021 Mexican Grand Prix, the model was strongly backing Verstappen as its top pick. The result: Verstappen dominated the field and ran away with a surprising victory. 

It followed that up by calling Verstappen's win at the Rolex Emilia Romagna GP in April and nailed Verstappen to win in Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, the United States, Mexico and Abu Dhabi. It also called all 19 of Verstappen's wins during the 2023 season and nailed each of his first seven wins in 2024. 

It also predicted Lando Norris's 2024 wins in the Netherlands (+200), Singapore (+190) and Abu Dhabi (+250). Anyone who followed the model's lead on those plays has seen HUGE returns!

The Albert Park Circuit has hosted the Australian Grand Prix in every year that it's been held since 1996 (F1 didn't race in Australia in 2020 and 2021 because of the global pandemic). The 12-turn, 3.280-mile track winds around Albert Park Lake and is made up predominantly of public access roads. There have been different winners in each of the last five Australian Grand Prix held, but Ferrari has been the winning manufacturer in three of those races.

Now, the model has dialed in on the 2025 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix and just released its coveted picks and leaderboard projections. 

We can tell you the model is predicting a top-two finish for Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen that would pay out +150. Verstappen has won the last four world championships in a row, but he had to survive a midseason scare where Red Bull found itself struggling to catch McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes in certain phases. However, he still managed nine wins on the season and finished 63 points clear of Norris for the title.

Now he sets his sights on a 2025 F1 season where he has a chance to match Michael Schumacher as the only driver in history to win five consecutive world titles. Verstappen won two of the last four races of the season in 2024 to close out Norris and he was top two in 13 of the 22 races on the Formula One schedule. He also won the 2023 Australian Grand Prix on the Albert Park Circuit.

The model has also made its win prediction and is also targeting one significant underdog to make a charge up the leaderboard! Anyone who backs this driver could hit it BIG. You ABSOLUTELY need to see who he is before locking in any Formula 1 Australian GP picks of your own.

So who wins the 2025 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix, and which SERIOUS longshot could be in contention? ... Join SportsLine right now to see the full projected Australian GP leaderboard, all from the model that 26 of Verstappen's 30 wins since the start of 2023 and called Norris' wins in the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix, Singapore Grand Prix and Abu Dhabi Grand Prix!