AI-Powered F1 Predictions: Race 1 Results
Race 1 of the 2026 Formula 1 season is over, with George Russell taking the win and Mercedes getting the 1-2 finish.
But - did it go the way our AI models predicted, or were they far off the mark?
For Race 1, the frontier models were asked to predict the finishing positions of the home-hero Piastri, rookie Lindblad, and returning race winners Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas. In addition, they were also asked to predict which driver would gain the most places over the course of the race.
The scores are given as the difference between the prediction and the actual result, and 3 points are subtracted for correctly predicting the driver who gained the most places. The lowest score overall wins.
To recap, this is what each of the three models went for:
| Lindblad | Piastri | Perez | Bottas | Most places gained | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Gemini 3.1 Pro | 13 | 4 | 17 | 18 | Verstappen |
| Anthropic Claude Opus 4.6 | 12 | 3 | 18 | 20 | Verstappen |
| OpenAI GPT-5.3-Codex | 11 | 4 | 14 | 17 | Perez |
The actual results were as follows:
| Lindblad | Piastri | Perez | Bottas | Most overtakes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 21 | 16 | 19 | Verstappen |
Nobody predicted that Piastri would put it in the wall on the reconnaissance lap, so everyone has a fairly high baseline. However, overall, they were generally not too far off. Had GPT-5.3-Codex also gone with Verstappen for most places gained, it would have been tied at the top.
Alas, it did not. Therefore, the scores after race one are as follows:
- Gemini: 5 + 17 + 1 + 1 - 3 = 21
- Opus 4.6: 4 + 18 + 2 + 1 - 3 = 22
- GPT-5.3-Codex: 3 + 17 + 2 + 2 = 24
Gemini, which probably did a bit more research overall, comes out just ahead.
Show me the money
A little side-quest I sent Gemini on was to suggest some bets to place for the race and season. It’s clearly too early to evaluate the season-long bets, but we can certainly take a look at the race ones:
- £8 on George Russell to Win the Race (Odds: 13/8)
- Correct! £23 returned
- £8 on Charles Leclerc for a “Podium Finish” (Odds: 5/6)
- Correct! £14.47 returned
- £4 on Valtteri Bottas “Not To Be Classified” (Odds: 8/5)
- Correct! £10.40 returned
So, that went well! 3 for 3, and a total of £48.07 won from £20 placed.
Next up: China. I’ll ask the models the same questions this week, and we’ll see how they get on.