It doesn’t take a Formula 1 engineer to know that Max Verstappen is a virtual lock to win his fourth consecutive F1 championship in 2024.
Wanna bet?
Well, ABB FIA Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds is so convinced—and with good reason—that Verstappen will win this year’s F1 title that Dodds is offering up $250,000 to the charity of choice of any driver who beats Verstappen for this year’s championship.
And Dodds is no dummy.
“No matter what, 99% he gets that trophy,” Dodds said in a TNT social media post today. “I’ll tell you what. If he doesn’t win it—there’s 20 drivers in Formula 1—if any of the 19 other drivers wins it, we’ll give a quarter of a million dollars to the charity of choice to the other driver who wins it.
“It wouldn’t be the worst day in the office to give a load of money to charity.”
Dodds backed up his wager with numbers posted by Verstappen during his 2023 championship at Red Bull.
“I know as a Formula 1 fan, the season is about to start and I’ll watch it and the fanfare and everything that goes with it. But I absolutely know who’s winning. You can’t win 19 out of 21 in one season, go in the offseason, a bit of development on the cars, and come back the next season and not win it.”
Mike Pryson covered auto racing for the Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot and MLive Media Group from 1991 until joining Autoweek in 2011. He won several Michigan Associated Press and national Associated Press Sports Editors awards for auto racing coverage and was named the 2000 Michigan Auto Racing Fan Club’s Michigan Motorsports Writer of the Year. A Michigan native, Mike spent three years after college working in southwest Florida before realizing that the land of Disney and endless summer was no match for the challenge of freezing rain, potholes and long, cold winters in the Motor City.