A 33-year-old French bettor had bet on the double podium of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon at the Brazilian F1 Grand Prix, even before qualifying. A crazy attempt, for a six-figure rating, which met with success at the end of a completely crazy GP.
“I would like to know the person who bet on that,” joked Esteban Ocon after the Brazilian Grand Prix. “If there is one, it’s a real genius,” added Pierre Gasly. After their double podium, in conditions made dantic by the rain, the two Frenchmen from Alpine savored the improbable performance they had just achieved, without suspecting for a second that the true genius was hallucinating in front of his TV thousands of kilometers away.
A firefighter on fire
Christopher, a professional firefighter in Gard, had just multiplied his stake of 10 cents by 160,000 thanks to the French duo. Absolutely crazy odds, almost unreal for a bet with only two occurrences. Gasly's podium: odds at 400. Ocon's podium: odds at 400. Gasly + Ocon on the podium = quite a jackpot for our bettor.
“The question I've been asked the most since then is 'why didn't I put more?'.” It's true that with €10 stake he would have been a millionaire, but without being a math genius, you will easily understand that the sums invested in this handset had a greater chance of going up in smoke than anything else.
Except that the rain made the miracle possible. “On Thursday, when I got the news that it was going to rain, I sent lots of little combos to the Top 2, top 3, top 6. €50 in total to spice up my race a little.” Passionate about F1 and never missing a Grand Prix, even at night, Christopher had perfectly felt that the race could fall into the 'big nonsense' category.
So maybe…
And it’s an understatement to say that his race was spicy. With his odds at 160,000, another at 843,750 and one at 7,200 which was decided by one place: “When the red flag comes out, I start to tell myself that it is possible for the two French people, but it remained when even more than 30 laps, so it's very long. At the end I didn't even watch the race, I only looked at the gaps between Russell and Gasly, which oscillated around one. second.”
The gap, tiny, held until the end. Checkered flag, deliverance, €16,000 in pocket. “I'm a fairly introverted person, so I didn't shout or jump. I remained quite calm, it was internal, but I'm super happy. It's crazy odds, there's the money yes, but also the performance of the French, for me as a fan, it's incredible. I will have to frame this podium with my bet. The story of an F1 fan who saw the weather in Brazil and changed it to gold.
Alexis Toledano Journalist RMC Sport
