Presenters’ League Heats Up
Just 148 points separate Laura Winter in P1 from Chris McCarthy in P3. McCarthy remains the only top-3 team still to use the Limitless chip, so this fight will continue all the way to Abu Dhabi. Lawrence Barretto sits between them at P2 and continues to challenge for his first F1 Live league title.
At Zandvoort, Alex Brundle began his ascent to podium contention by leading all teams with a brilliant lineup centered around Lando Norris and a resurgent Red Bull constructor. Brundle joined The Fantasy Formula to discuss the driver market, his off-air work with Brundle Motorsport, and the challenges of setting a fantasy lineup on a race weekend.
F1 Fantasy Tools Raises the Bar Again
In their most comprehensive update ever, the team at F1 Fantasy Tools released v2 of their popular Team Calculator in a closed beta for Patreon subscribers. The massively overhauled user experience includes a table view that displays predictions for all 12 fantasy scoring categories, the ability to simulate a Sprint weekend, and improved views for the Best Teams feature.
Since our First Look and exclusive interview with F1 Fantasy Tools, the tool was updated again to enable simulations with Inactive drivers.
Logan Sargeant Exits the Game
An FP3 crash at Zandvoort sealed Logan Sargeant’s fate as the first driver to lose his seat in 2024. Williams announced prior to the Italian Grand Prix that F2 star Franco Colapinto would replace Sargeant for the remainder of the season, while the sophomore from Florida became Inactive in F1 Fantasy.
Colapinto joined the game at $4.8M, the same price as his American predecessor. Strategists that ran Sargeant at Zandvoort were gifted a unique loophole: while the game prevented teams from adding Sargeant’s Inactive asset, it did allow them to run Sargeant (now with no chance of DNFs or losing value) and Colapinto which creates more cost cap space to afford elite drivers. At the time of publication, Motorsport reported that F1 intend to close the loophole prior to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
By the Numbers
Selection Rates
Lando Norris’s selection rate increased more than any other driver since Miami, as the McLaren veteran charged up the standings with seven podiums since his maiden win. Many top strategists locked in Norris as their 2X DRS-Boosted driver due to his strong form and propensity to earn Driver of the Day honors.
Alex Albon continues his season-long reign as the most selected driver in F1 Fantasy. After Logan Sargeant’s FP3 crash at Zandvoort, many teams turned to Albon due to concerns over Sargeant’s readiness for Qualifying. Shockingly, Albon was disqualified on Saturday night due to an illegal floor, triggering an even bigger penalty than the one earned by his teammate.
Driver of the Day
Lando Norris won six DOTD awards in a span of seven races, including the Austrian Grand Prix where he collided with Max Verstappen and retired before reaching the checkered flag. Over the last five races, however, Norris only led the fan vote in one race – his second Grand Prix victory at Zandvoort.
Ollie Bearman, who won this award for his brilliant efforts in relief of Carlos Sainz at Jeddah, returns this weekend for Haas. Can the rookie win the award in consecutive races?
Overtakes
The season leaders in this category remain unchanged after a strong run of form from the Haas duo. Magnussen’s 14 overtakes across the Chinese Grand Prix and Sprint hold the record for the most logged by a single driver this year.
Overtaking dropped off dramatically over the last five races, as only two drivers (Hamilton at Zandvoort and Russell at Monza) recorded more than 10 overtakes. Last year’s budget driver of the year, Zhou Guanyu, lost nearly all of his overtaking value this year and ranks P18 in the category.
Price Changes
For the first time all season, the top 5 price gainers on the season also led the grid in value gained over the last five races. Magnussen leads the pack with $6.6M gained on the season and heads into his Baku suspension after six consecutive races with $0.5M gains.
Charles Leclerc’s win at Monza triggered his fourth $1.0M gain of the season to maintain his place in the top 5 while Oscar Piastri remains the hottest Tier B driver, gaining at least $0.1M in all sixteen races to date..
Best Time to Use Limitless Chip
Since the Sprint races at China and Miami, only the Spanish Grand Prix yielded more points to the top scoring lineup. The five top scoring drivers in that race included the two least selected drivers on the grid in George Russell and Sergio Perez, while Perez logged DNFs in his two previous races, so we doubt that many strategists ran such an obscure lineup.
With Sprint weekends at Qatar, Austin, and Brazil still remaining, these weekends remain the optimal time to use Limitless.
Reviewing My Post-Miami Predictions
1. Alpine emerge as the best midfield drivers in F1 Fantasy, above Williams, Haas, and Lance Stroll. This was a HUGE stinker.
Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon showed flashes of potential at Canada but Gasly’s back-to-back DNFs coupled with Haas’s consistency made this prediction an epic failure.
2. Lando Norris will lead all drivers in Driver of the Day wins in this sector in an improved McLaren and fan support at an all-time high.
Lando logged five DOTD wins since Miami, while Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton each won the award twice. This was right!
3. The Fantasy Formula will have at least one F1 Live league guest on the show by the summer break.
This one ended up coming true as well, since we had the pleasure of interviewing Alex Brundle. Two out of three – not bad!
Three Predictions for the Rest of the Season
- McLaren overtake Red Bull in both the Constructors’ Championship and F1 Fantasy scoring.
- Chris McCarthy maximizes his 3X DRS Boost and Limitless chips in the final Sprint weekends to win the F1 Live League.
- F1 will be unable to fully remove Logan Sargeant from the game - the fix will include preventing strategists from saving lineups with Sargeant on them, but a few shrewd players will make no changes for several weeks and continue to take advantage of the loophole.
Join Our Community
The Fantasy Formula releases two episodes each race weekend to help you become an F1 Fantasy Pro! Join top ranked strategists, Adam and Rob, for all the latest news and advice and join our live show one hour before Qualifying, featuring Terry from Coffee Corner Motorsport.
If you have any questions you want answered on future shows, want your lineup critiqued, or just want to consult Adam and Rob on anything else F1 Fantasy-related, then download the FanAmp using our invite link and reach out in our Community Base. You can also find all the essential info on the show's official homepage.
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