Warren Kosoy 
Welcome to the first edition of Formula 1 DFS: Race Week!! My name is Theodore or tcuz86 in the discord chat and it is my pleasure to introduce you to the wonderful world of Formula 1. I would like to extend my gratitude to Jason, @Windaily, and Matt Vecchio @Vecchio for giving me the opportunity to express my thoughts and opinions on Formula 1 for the Win Daily Sports community.
With that out of the way, Ladies and Gentleman, it’s Race Week 1: Bahrain March 20th, and I’m freaking excited!
We kick off the season going 57, 3.3-mile laps in the country of Bahrain, in the Middle East. In this article, I will help introduce you to the drivers, teams, and help you set your daily fantasy lineups.
DK Scoring
The DraftKings Format is just like a showdown event, you’d select 5 drivers, including 1 captain, with the captain gaining 1.5x points, 4 other drivers, and a constructor.
DraftKings scoring for the drivers.
The better your finishing position the higher you will score. P1 gives 25 pts, P2 18 pts, P3 15 pts; all the way to P10, giving 1 point. Bonus points are given for the fastest lap of the race +3 points, laps led +.1 points and beating your teammate +5 points. There are points for place differential (+3 spots, 2 points; +5 spots, 3 points; +10 spots, 5 points) and negative points for losing spots, just like in NASCAR.
DraftKings scoring for the Constructors
Since there are 2 cars per team DK gives out points for both cars’ finishing positions as long as they are in the top 10 spots. As a result, if both Mercedes’ race cars finish P2 and P6 then the Mercedes constructor points would be 26 points (P2 18 points + P6 8 points = 26 points.) Moreover, if both racecars finished on the Podium (positions 1-3) then bonus points would be rewarded.
Therefore, let’s just focus on finishing position more so than place differential. So let’s get to the plays.
Formula 1 DFS: Top Captain Options
- Charles Leclerc $16,200. Ferrari. There’s going to be a recurring theme in this First edition of Formula 1 Race Week, and that’s Ferrari is back! Throughout preseason testing, practices, and qualifying, the talk of the paddock has been the resurgence of Scuderia Ferrari. The top driver at Ferrari is Charles Leclerc. Charles has been dominant since teams arrived in Bahrain. As a result, he was P2 in all three practices which mean as teams have been practicing in qualifying and long-run race trim he and his Ferrari were consistently in the top 3 positions. Consequently, he put it all together in qualifying as he qualified P1 for Sunday’s race and he will be my heaviest used top captain option.
- Max Verstappen $18,000. Red Bull Racing. Max is the defending 2021 Formula 1 Driver’s Champion after beating Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in the final race last year. Therefore, He and his #1 Red Bull Racecar are set to defend his championship as the Red Bull looks strong again. He qualified P2 after averaging P2.3 over all three practices. As a result, Max will definitely be cycled through in my multiple lineups for the captain position.
- Carlos Sainz $15,300 Ferrari. Carlos is Charles Leclerc’s teammate and will be piloting the sister Ferrari on Sunday. Likewise, he had an average position of P3 during practices and qualified in the same position for Sunday’s race. I don’t see him outperforming his teammate but he will definitely be used in my rosters for Sunday.
Secondary Captain options
- Lewis Hamilton $17,400 Mercedes. Lewis is a 7x Formula 1 Driver Champion, tied with the great Michael Schumacher. Lewis and his teammate George Russell are having issues early on in the season with the design of the new 2022 Mercedes. However, he was still able to qualify P5 with an average practice position of 7th. He will be a part of my rotation for the captain spot.
- Sergio Perez $13,200 Red Bull Racing. Sergio “Checo” Perez will be piloting the other Red Bull Racing car. Sergio qualified P4 with a 6.7 average practice position. As a result he be rotated through my lineups as a captain.
Formula 1 DFS: Mid Tier Options
- George Russell $9600 Mercedes. George will be piloting the other Silver Arrow Mercedes Racing car. George has been waiting to get into this seat for years and is seen as the eventual replacement for Hamilton whenever he decides to retire. George averaged the 4th best practice position and had an issue in qualifying putting him in P9 to start the race, I expect him to gain some positions.
- Fernando Alonso $6600 Alpine. Fernando, a 2x F1 driver champ, will be in the Alpine, the former Renault race car. Renault is the parent company to Infiniti, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Alpine, and others. Fernando qualified P8 and had an average practice position of 9.6.
- Pierre Gasly $7600 Alpha Tauri. Pierre is the former teammate to Max Verstappen. After being overshadowed and outperformed by Max, Red Bull sent Pierre down to the “junior” sister Alpha Tauri team. Pierre has thrived in the secondary team and the start of the 2022 season has been no different. Pierre qualified P9 and had the same average practice position. He should be a fine mid-tier play in your DK lines.
- Esteban Ocon $6200 Alpine. Esteban will be piloting the other Alpine race car. Esteban had an average practice position of P14 and qualified P11.
- Nico Hulkenberg $5600 Aston Martin Racing. Nico Makes his return to Formula 1, filling in for former champion Sebastian Vettel who will be back as soon as he clears Covid-19 protocols. Nico slightly underqualified, consequently I expect him to move up some positions. He had an average practice position of 14.3 and qualified P17.
Formula 1 DFS: Top Value drivers and constructor plays
- The HAAS drivers, Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher. HAAS uses Ferrari engines, and just like their engine supplier, they have what appears to be a return to competitive form. The HAAS, which is owned by Gene Haas who also co-owns the Stewart-Haas NASCAR racing team, sacrificed the 2021 season in order to assimilate to the 2022 regulations better. Because of the sacrifice it has appeared to have paid off. Since they were so bad last year the drivers are cheap and make for good values as they are $3800 and $3200 respectively. As a result of HAAS’ 2021 performance they can be used as a value constructor.
- Ferrari-powered cars are in play early in the 2022 season. Subsequently, this includes the other Ferrari-powered race team, Alfa Romeo, and their drivers Valtteri Bottas and newcomer to F1 Guanyu Zhou, $4600 and $2400. Valtteri used to race with Mercedes last year but is now the top driver on an up-and-coming race team. In the Ferrari powered Alfa Romeo he has shown some quick speeds qualifying in the top 10, P6. However, the Alfa Romeo has had some reliability issues so I would use him and his teammate sparingly.
- The other top constructors are the Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes.
Formula 1 DFS: Final Thoughts
Salary and construction-wise you cant use both drivers and the team in your rosters. Therefore, you would have to use a combination of either both drivers and a different constructor in your DFS lineups, or one driver and the constructor. For example Charles Leclerc and Ferrari and if I can fit in Max Verstappen I will. I’ll be trying to rotate in both Ferrari drivers and Ferrari in the constructor spot, same with Red Bull drivers and Red Bull Racing in the constructor spot.
If you’d like help with rosters, or have questions, @ me in the discord chat @tcuz86, and if there are any updates I can be reached there.
It’s my honor to bring to you Formula 1: Race Week Bahrain on March 20th and I’m looking forward to sharing my insight with all.
Theodore
