The 2019 Formula One World Championship season is over with. As you most likely already know, Lewis Hamilton won the Championship once more, making with his third consecutive World Championship win and sixth overall.

But when you are running in F1 fantasy leagues or trying to have some fun - or earn a few bucks in the betting markets - how reliable are the Formula One race predictions that we find on the front pages of Google?

If you followed the predictions against the betting odds at SBR, it was a mixed bag for the Abu Dhabi race. Of course, the expert understood and stated that Lewis Hamilton was the most likely to win the race, but he also predicted a safety car or VSC which did not happen as well as Valtteri Bottas to win at +600. That said, he also predicted that the Pole Position would win the race at -120, which did happen as Hamilton took the Pole and won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

So, you have to take these types of predictions with a grain of salt, because most of the time they are based upon value propositions. He found value on the Pole Position to win for 83.33 cents on the dollar. And of course, a chance that Bottas would finish strong for and show that he will be back and contending next season at top-level for a return of six dollars to one.

An example is finding a really great relationship between probability and potential value or ROI. So, you might be 90% positive that X-thing is going to happen in a race, but if you have to pay out the nose on the odds, it isn't really valuable. But, 6-1 on Bottas to win was a valuable prediction, even though it didn't actually happen.

So I guess you should redefine how you think about F1 predictions. Are you looking for a pick on the most probable outcome and nothing more? Or are you looking for value and predictions that make watching the races extra fun?

Let's go back to the Brazilian GP

The same SBR expert missed on Lewis Hamilton winning and doubling down on Sebastian Vettel to go both ways. But he nailed it for +500 on Charles Leclerc not finishing and between 16-17 cars to finish the race at +225. So if you had bet $100 on each of these picks. You would have lost $100 on Hamilton with the potential of $162 return and lost $100 on Vettel with a $500 potential for return, but won $225 on how many cars finish and won $500 on C. Leclerc not finishing. So, $400 risked and a gross return of $725 making your net profits $525. Again, I point back up to what you are looking for ... straight up, right and wrongs as far as who is going to be on the podium and in which position, or predictions that are loaded with value and make you root for certain things in the race that a casual fan might not be aware of.

If you have the potential to win $500 on Leclerc ending with a DNF, suddenly you are hoping and praying that the 10-place grid penalty that the young Monegasque got hit with and an engine replacement go awry and he doesn't even finish the race. You are not just concerned with who is in the lead or going to get the most points. You have other things to get excited about.

So, as far as these predictions are concerned, in my opinion, they are pretty reliable, but again. It all depends on what you are looking for and also making sure you follow an expert source.

These are all things to keep in mind for the upcoming 2020 season. You just might find yourself looking at all of the proposition odds and enjoying Formula One motorsports in a whole new way; paying attention to penalties, last-minute changes to cars, etc. and looking at things like who won't finish and number of seconds out of first place on the checkered flag, whether we'll see a safety car in the race ... and a plethora of other race propositions!