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After his sensational Formula One debut ended with third place in the Australian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton has been cut from 25/1 to 9/1 fourth favourite by William Hill to win the World Drivers’ Championship.

Hills make race winner Kimi Raikkonen 5/4 favourite ahead of reigning world champion Fernando Alonso at 7/4 with Felipe Massa 3/1 third favourite.

Hamilton has been the subject of a host of long-term ante-post bets with one Hill’s client backing him three years ago at 100/1 to win the world title by 2013.

The young Brit is already 7/1 to win this year’s British Grand Prix and is 1/2 to win at least one Grand Prix this season. Hills also offer 7/4 that he wins exactly one race, 7/2 two, 7/1 three, 16/1 four, 33/1 five, 66/1 six, 25/1 seven or more and 6/4 none.

Hamilton is 1/5 to end the season as Britain’s top driver ahead of Jenson Button at 4/1.

Button, who finished a disappointing 15th in Australia, is 4/7 to fail to win a race, 9/4 one, 13/2 two, 12/1 three, 25/1 four, 50/1 five, 100/1 six and 33/1 seven or more.

Hills also offer 16/1 that Michael Schumacher comes out of retirement to drive in F1 this season.

After his sensational Formula One debut ended with third place in the Australian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton has been cut from 25/1 to 9/1 fourth favourite by William Hill to win the World Drivers’ Championship.

Hills make race winner Kimi Raikkonen 5/4 favourite ahead of reigning world champion Fernando Alonso at 7/4 with Felipe Massa 3/1 third favourite.

Hamilton has been the subject of a host of long-term ante-post bets with one Hill’s client backing him three years ago at 100/1 to win the world title by 2013.

The young Brit is already 7/1 to win this year’s British Grand Prix and is 1/2 to win at least one Grand Prix this season. Hills also offer 7/4 that he wins exactly one race, 7/2 two, 7/1 three, 16/1 four, 33/1 five, 66/1 six, 25/1 seven or more and 6/4 none.

Hamilton is 1/5 to end the season as Britain’s top driver ahead of Jenson Button at 4/1.

Button, who finished a disappointing 15th in Australia, is 4/7 to fail to win a race, 9/4 one, 13/2 two, 12/1 three, 25/1 four, 50/1 five, 100/1 six and 33/1 seven or more.

Hills also offer 16/1 that Michael Schumacher comes out of retirement to drive in F1 this season.

Hamilton has been gambled in to the 5/1 second favourite at Ladbrokes to win the BBC Sport Personality of the Year following his sensational debut drive. 

Hamilton, 22, had been 16/1 to win the TV award but was cut to 8/1 by Ladbrokes soon after the race following a significant gamble.

After that failed to staunch the flow, the Magic Sign were forced to go 5/1 - with only 2/1 favourite Andy Murray in front of him.

Spokesman Robin Hutchison: “Only Jonny Wilkinson is a worse loser in our book now so we’re hoping Hamilton doesn’t have too many more days like that.”

The new Formula One season gets under way next week and already some shrewd punters have been poring over the test session timesheets and dissecting snippets of information in order to steal a march on the bookies.

Predictably the pre-season vibe varies across the grid, with the Ferrari camp appearing bullish, McLaren confident, Honda confused and Toyota despairing as the teams prepare for the start of the grand prix weekend in Melbourne on Friday 16th March.

World champion Fernando Alonso believes Ferrari have a slight edge over his McLaren team at present, with Felipe Massa and his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen so far evenly matched on the evidence available.

“I think Ferrari is a little bit ahead of everybody - really quick and really consistent, said the Spaniard at the weekend. “I think [the two drivers] are 50/50… for me it’s not a surprise, either of them can win.”

There has certainly been support for the Ferrari duo with the bookies and on the exchanges, with Raikkonen remaining a steady favourite since the end of last season and Massa being backed heavily in recent days as his pace and consistency in testing has become evident.

The bookies’ margins are in evidence when you look across the board at the Finn’s price - he is available at a stand-out 2/1 with Paddy Power and Sporting Odds, but is as short as 5/4 with Sky Bet. Punters on Betfair are offering 2.9, from a high of 3.25 last month.

“I think the new car is very good,” said Raikkonen following the end of the Bahrain test. “It seems to look OK here at least. It is difficult to say what the others are doing so we have to wait and see in Melbourne.”

Massa, whose title challenge has gained the backing of F1 commercial chief Bernie Ecclestone, has crashed to just 4.9 from 7.0 in the last couple of weeks and the bookies have seen fit to trim him to a best price of 7/2 (Stan James and totesport).

Ladbrokes spokesman Nick Weinberg is also wary of the Italian team: “The Ferrari cars have impressed during testing,” he said. “Even without the services of Michael Schumacher they will be the ones to beat.”

Weinberg, whose firm offer Massa at 2/1 to be leading the drivers’ standings after the opening three races, added: “If the testing’s anything to go by we’d expect to see Ferrari and in particular Massa fastest out of the blocks.”

Meanwhile Alonso, who has seemed to be marginally off the pace in the new McLaren, has drifted out to 3.85 on the exchanges, from a low of 2.80.

Sky Bet are putting their heads above the parapet with Alonso, offering a bookies’ best of 12/5, and their motorsports compiler Dave Pilgrim insists that they’re happy to take on the world champion in the ante-post markets.

“Getting out of the blocks quickest could be more crucial than ever this season as the new rules will take away plenty of the usual opportunities to catch up as the season progresses,” he said. “As a result, we’ve been top price Alonso all through the winter, but even so, all the money has been for the boys in red.”

Alonso’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton has been the centre of attention since being confirmed in the number two car late last year, and unsurprisingly the hype has generated support for the young Brit.

Ladbrokes claim to have seen a £3,000 each-way wager on the current GP2 champion, while the initial 33/1 quotes have long gone.

Hamilton has stacked up well alongside his illustrious team-mate so far in testing with little to separate them on the timesheets, and the best prices now available on him are Expekt’s win only offer of 29/1 and Betfred’s 25/1 with one-fifth the odds for the first three places.

The youngster is odds-on at 5/6 with the Magic Sign to record a grand prix win in his maiden season, while a pole position is offered a 4/6 chance and a British Grand Prix victory is 10/1 with the same firm.

“I am very, very confident - the car is definitely better than last year’s and so is the engine,” said the man himself. “We have a very strong package - again we will see what happens in the first race.”

“I don’t think anyone is showing their cards yet. Obviously we are in a good position, we still have a lot of work to do and throughout the season we will continue to improve.”

Meanwhile, world champion team Renault are “at least half a second a lap” behind Ferrari and McLaren according to their lead driver Giancarlo Fisichella.

The Italian, backable at 33/1 with Sporting Odds - the same price as his rookie team-mate Heikki Kovalainen - is slightly downbeat about his chances of mounting a title challenge.

“We are not as quick as two years ago, when I won [the season-opening race] and last year, so we are struggling a little bit at the moment,” he claimed. “We have some new bits coming for the first race in Australia. The main thing now is to find a little bit more.”

Further down the grid there is optimism at BMW Sauber and despondency at the two works Japanese teams, Honda and Toyota.

The BMWs have been flying in pre-season, if anything edging Ferrari and McLaren over shorter runs, and Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld have seen support on the ante-post markets.

William Hill saw fit to cut the pair to 14/1 and 16/1 respectively last week (they are now 20s and 25s with the Leeds-based firm) but despite their potential, Sporting Odds are still happy to lay the duo at 50/1 and 40/1 respectively.

Sky Bet are also keen to keep Pole Kubica onside, their compiler revealing that he believes both he and Renault rookie Heikki Kovalainen could well have the measure of their more experienced team-mates this season.

“We tip Kovalainen to suprise a few people and we have him as favourite to out-score his team-mate Fisichella. That’s a feat I also expect Kubica to manage after his strong showings last year, and I even wouldn’t rule out a win in his first full season if the BMW lives up to its potential, which looks enormous at this stage.”

Jenson Button’s Honda team have suffered balance and reliability problems so far and the Englishman has been almost devoid of support in the build-up to his eighth season at the top level.

The winner of last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix is a best price of 25/1 to lift the title with Sporting Odds, while Ladbrokes make him a 5/6 take-your-pick to win a race or to finish the season empty-handed.

Veterans Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli also appear to be off the pace in their Toyota and the pair can each be backed at 150/1 for the championship with Sporting Odds, who are best-priced or joint best on 18 of the 22 runners (the exceptions being the McLaren drivers, Alonso and Spyker debutant Adrian Sutil).

Red Bull Racing are also playing down expectations, with David Coulthard and Mark Webber both expressing concern about the competitiveness of their new Renault-engined RB3 chassis, while Webber’s former team Williams appear to be in slightly better shape as the team aims to regain their place at the sharp end of the grid.

Both of the experienced pilots are available at 250/1 to win the championship while the rest of the field, including the fourth Brit on the grid, Super Aguri’s Anthony Davidson, can be backed at 750/1 or better.

After the asphalt of Monte Carlo and a brace of Scandinavian snow events, this weekend’s Rally Mexico is the first gravel test on the 2007 calendar.

Successive Ford one-twos in Sweden and Norway have catapulted Marcus Gronholm and Mikko Hirvonen above champion Sebastien Loeb in the standings, the Frenchman finishing well out of the points in Hamar last time out.

So could the smooth mountainous roads around Leon be the place where Loeb and Citroen get their championship charge back on track?

The bookies certainly think so - the Frenchman is odds-on across the board to repeat his victory here last year, an event at which he took the lead of the championship and was never again headed.

This will be the first rally since Mexico last year at which Loeb has not been required to be the first runner onto the stages on the opening leg, something which could be beneficial on Friday.

“It’s effectively been some time since I last wasn’t first on the road,” he said. “But that could play in our favour in Mexico - we will try to profit from the situation to achieve our goal which is to win.”

The man who will be sweeping the roads clear for his pursuers is Gronholm, fresh from being beaten by his less-experienced team-mate in Norway last month.

Ladbrokes and BetFred have him at 11/8 to take his second win of the season, but this rally hasn’t been kind to him in the past.

Last year the Finn could only finish eighth, in 2005 he was pipped to the win by Petter Solberg, and the previous year he struggled to an uncompetitive sixth.

And Hirvonen too has not had the best of times in Mexico - last year he was battling with Solberg and Loeb for the lead when he approached a crest with too much speed and slid off the road, eventually being classified 15th.

Perhaps the man best entrusted with a small each-way bet this weekend is that man Solberg, who finally appears to be enjoying his rallying again after a dire 24 months of disappointment.

That his last win was at this event two years ago goes some way to explain his price of 14/1, but of all the rallies on the calendar, this is the one where he has always gone consistently well.

Last year he led for two-thirds of the event in a dog of a car before being overhauled by Loeb, and his other two visits have yielded a first and a fourth - although that fourth place in 2004 would have been first if he had not been handed over five minutes’ worth of penalties.

In addition, the Norwegian has been finally given the keys to the new updated Subaru Impreza WRC and his first impressions have been positive.

“We had a very good test in Spain and found some interesting developments with the car,” claimed the 2003 world champion.

“It seems to have good traction and my feeling is that there are many areas where we have taken a step forward from last year. We may still have a few areas to work on but that is something we can do during Rally Mexico or at the next test.”

So despite his recent lack of results and hideous luck, it may be worth cautiously siding with Solberg on what is historically his best event.

Aside from Hirvonen, who will be looking to make it a four-way fight for victory this weekend, there are a handful of other drivers who will be looking to challenge for the podium.

Loeb’s team-mate Dani Sordo finished a creditable fourth here last year, in what was his first ever competitive outing in a WRC car on gravel.

He will be looking to go one better and hang onto the coat-tails of his team-mate, while the man who finished on the final podium place in 2006, Manfred Stohl, is also confident of a repeat performance.

Stohl will be driving the same-spec Citroen Xsara that took Loeb to the title last year, a car that is more predictable and consistent than the Peugeot 307 WRC that the Austrian wrestled to third place last year.

At 50/1 Stohl would be considered a reasonable bet if the each-way terms involved the first three finishers rather than the first two at one-third the odds.

Further down the entry list there are seven non-works Ford Focus WRCs, including that driven by Irishman Gareth MacHale, who returns to the rally in which he finished an impressive sixth last year.

A repeat would be unlikely but all the WRC cars will have their eyes on points-scoring finishes in what has traditionally been a race of attrition

British motor racing starlet Lewis Hamilton got the ultimate backing when a Ladbrokes punter had a £3,000 each-way bet on him to win the F1 World Drivers’ Championship on his debut.

The Hertfordshire rookie was priced up at 20/1 to make a spectacular start to his career with McLaren.

But Ladbrokes have had to slash his odds to 14/1 following the hefty hit struck on Thursday morning from an online customer who hails from Hamilton’s home county.

The mystery man now stands to pocket £72,000 if Hamilton wins and £12,000 if he comes second or third.

Ladbrokes spokesman Robin Hutchison said: “People have said 20/1 looked a bit short about a driver in his first season - but the levels of support have been sizeable.

“We have taken more money on him than any other British driver so far and he will be a bad result for the bookies if he can pull off the unbelievable feat.”

Hamilton, who began karting at the tender age of eight, is 16/1 to be named BBC Sports Personality of the Year - just behind 12/1 shot Jenson Button.

And he’s certainly talking a good game ahead of the new season, saying he doesn’t believe Ferrari are the fastest team heading into the first race of the new campaign.

“I don’t necessarily agree with that,” he told Autosport. “For sure, at some tests we are on top, and here Ferrari has been very strong.

“I think for sure they have a different programme to us, we do not know what fuel they are running, you don’t know what fuel we are running, so it is difficult to say who is quickest but I think Ferrari and McLaren are the two main competitors for the title.”

And even though this year will be his first in F1, the 21-year-old is confident he can play a role in helping McLaren fight for the world title.

“I am very, very confident, the car is definitely better than last year’s and so is the engine. We have a very strong package. Again we will see what happens in the first race,” he said

Sebastien Loeb is still odds-on across the board to retain his world drivers’ title in spite of the champion failing to finish a rally for the first time in over a year in Norway.

Bet Direct rate the Frenchman an 8/15 shot to secure a fourth successive crown but Hills are less convinced, making him a best price of 10/11 after the running of the season’s three winter rallies.

Loeb got off to the best possible start to the season, blitzing the Monte Carlo Rally in January and finishing a creditable second behind principal rival Marcus Gronholm in Sweden two weeks later.

But the Citroen man made an uncharacteristic mistake in the championship’s other snow rally, falling foul of a snowbank and losing 18 minutes on his way to 14th place in Norway.

Gronholm went on to finish second, less than ten seconds behind his Ford team-mate Mikko Hirvonen, and that pair now head Loeb in the standings by six and four points respectively.

The experienced Finn is only 11/10 to add to his championship titles of 2000 and 2002 with Hills, but Bet Direct offer 15/8, while his younger compatriot is available at 10/1 with the Wigan-based layers.

Petter Solberg, who debuts the long-awaited Subaru Impreza S14 at the next round in Mexico on March 9th, is now 14 points worse off that Gronholm and is out to 40/1 to regain the title he won in 2003.

That rally, the first gravel event of the calendar, is likely to provide a crucial pointer to the rest of the season as the championship protagonists compete on the loose surface on which nine of the remaining 13 events will be held.

Loeb’s new C4 appears to have a clear advantage on asphalt but has yet to come under scrutiny on either rough or fast gravel roads, while the Frenchman’s strangely erratic driving last time out suggests that he was trying to over-drive his car - something he never had to do in the Xsara WRC.

And with Hirvonen emerging as the first team-mate since Richard Burns to provide a genuine intra-team challenge to Gronholm, the action this season may yet turn out to be less predictable than last year’s fare.

Solberg always goes well in Mexico and if the Banbury team can provide the Norwegian with a machine to match his talents, we could be seeing a four-way scrap on some events.

Bet Direct make Loeb the early 8/11 favourite for that event, with Gronholm 11/8, Hirvonen 9/1 and Solberg 10/1