Qatar GP Fantasy League Preview & Strategy

Sprint Week Alert!

🚨Lockdown comes early this week! 🚨 Fantasy teams lockdown on Friday rather than Saturday this week. Don’t leave it until the last minute.

The Qatar GP is here! Below are thoughts from the GridRival team on how to set yourself up for Fantasy F1 success this weekend!

Driver Salary Storylines:

McLaren Drivers are Still a Bargain. If the past two races are a predictor of the remaining season’s performances for Piastri and Norris, we still have them in our “must buy” category if you don’t have them on your lineups already. With Lando currently ranked 5th in salary and Piastri 9th, the latter of the two likely has more salary upside, but with so few races left in the season and the need to capture fantasy points, both are probably the best salary/points bet you can make at the moment.

Bottas is coming off a 2-week DNF parlay, resulting in a $4M drop in salary. At $9.8M, we think Bottas is a value pick on a 2-3 race contract. With the exception of the past two events, he’s finished every race this season. Assuming he comes back with his typical consistency, he will most certainly see an increase in salary.

Can things get worse for Lance Stroll? If you think they can, don’t add him to your lineup, but if you think there’s hope, he might be a great buy. Stroll has lost the maximum amount of salary per race ($2M) for three races in a row and has dropped from a high of $16M in Belgium to his current $9.2M. He is currently ranked below Hulkenberg ($9.7M), and Bottas ($9.8M) and is 10 spots lower than his Aston Martin counterpart (one of the largest gaps between teammates we’ve ever seen 😬.)

Underpriced Watchlist:

• Sergio Perez is another driver who had a few races as well, having lost $4M between Singapore and Japan. Given he’s behind the wheels of the fast car on the grid, now might be a great time to pick him up on sale.

• We marked George Russell as slightly underpriced after Singapore, and we still think this is still the case. He’s currently ranked 8th in salary, trailing Alonso by $800k, but routinely finishes in 5th and 6th.

• Yuki Tsunodo is also on our bargain shopping list. Yuki’s had a string of bad luck—not all his own fault. As a result, he’s sitting at $8.6M and 6 places behind his Alpha Tauri counterpart.

• If you consider yourself a risk taker, we’ll continue to argue that Logan Sargeant is underpriced. He simply has a hard time finishing the race and holding a position worthy of the car he is in. But when he does, he is certainly worth more than his current salary ranking of…. last.

Talent Drivers:

Gasly ($16.4M) is currently the highest-ranked driver that sits underneath the $18M talent driver selection cap. His current 8-race average for fantasy points is 123. Nearly $2M below him at $14.8M is Albon, whose 8-race average is 1 point higher than Gasly’s. If you’re in a prime position in your league and need to sail smoothly to the end of the season, either of these two is the obvious choice, with Albon being the better value but Galsy being more likely to finish in a higher position.

If you need to differentiate from others in your league and are looking for a wildcard, Ricciardo/Lawson is the 3rd logical choice, and his 8-race average finish position is 13, meaning he has a higher potential to earn improvement points over Gasly and Albon.

Hidden Gems

The “Events” View in the element selection panel allows you to view the future race calendar and also provides a detailed view of all past races with a breakdown of each driver’s finishing position and a breakdown of their fantasy points.

Give it a try!