RADIO
Here we go—the final Formula 1 race of the 2023 season is upon us. The 20 drivers head to Abu Dhabi this weekend to see who'll end the season on a high note.
This has been the season of Max Verstappen, as he's won an F1-record 18 races already this season and has failed to finish on the podium just once. It's been as perfect a season as possible for Verstappen to win his third Formula 1 drivers championship.
Below you will find our Formula 1 DraftKings DFS lineup picks for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on 11/26/23, with the slate locking at 8:00 a.m. ET. If you have any questions or want to talk about Formula 1, you can find me on Twitter at @juscarts.
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How Does Formula 1 Fantasy Work?
Here's how the scoring and format work for F1 DFS on DraftKings. You'll pick five drivers and a constructor. One of those drivers will be your captain, who earns you 1.5 times the points but also costs 1.5 times as much as they usually cost. For the constructor, you're choosing one of the F1 teams.
So here's how the scoring works. Your driver only gets points if they finish in the top 10. Here's a chart for how that breaks down:
| Finishing Spot | DraftKings Points |
|---|---|
| 1 | 25 |
| 2 | 18 |
| 3 | 15 |
| 4 | 12 |
| 5 | 10 |
| 6 | 8 |
| 7 | 6 |
| 8 | 4 |
| 9 | 2 |
| 10 | 1 |
In addition, the driver with the fastest lap of the race gets three points. You get 0.1 points per lap led, five points for beating your teammate, one point for being classified at the finish (finished 90% of the race, essentially), and points for place differential.
Finish three spots higher than your grid position and you get two points. Finish five better and you get three points. Finish 10 better to get five points. You also lose points for a negative place differential, starting at three spots.
The constructor points work the same way, with some added points if both cars do well. It's confusing, but for Formula 1 DFS to work, it probably had to be confusing. Now that we've gone over that, let's talk drivers. Here's what I've put together as a kind of base lineup.
Captain: George Russell ($11,700)
Starts Fourth
George Russell will start fourth on Sunday, a few spots above teammate Lewis Hamilton, who fires off from 11th. I think there's some good value here in betting on Russell to be the top Mercedes driver considering Hamilton costs $3,000 more as a captain option.
Russell has lost out to Hamilton in three consecutive races, but he's been fast all weekend, including leading all cars in FP3. While this hasn't been nearly as strong a season for Russell as last year, when he won a race and had 19 top fives compared to this year's no wins and eight top fives, he's still someone who can get you a podium if things go right.
Constructor: Alpine F1 Team ($3,800)
There's a little bit of value here with Alpine, which has finished with 14 DraftKings points as a constructor in two consecutive races. At $3,800, I'll take that kind of showing again. Pierre Gasly starts 10th and Esteban Ocon 12th, so a double points finish for the team isn't at all out of the picture.
Max Verstappen ($17,000)
Starts First
We come, finally, to the official end of Max Verstappen's third title season. He's had the championship wrapped up for over a month at this point and is having the most dominant season F1's ever seen. His worst finish in any race this year is fifth. He has a chance to add another win to his season total to close out 2023. If he finds himself atop the podium on Sunday, it'd be his 19th win of the year. The previous record for wins in a season was 15, also by Verstappen last year. No one else has won more than 13 in a year.
Now, he takes to a Yas Marina circuit that he's won on three years in a row. In 2020 and 2022, he led all but one total lap combined in his two victories.
Charles Leclerc ($8,800)
Starts Second
Charles Leclerc gave it a good effort in Las Vegas last week, leading 13 laps as he tried to deny Max Verstappen a win but couldn't get it done. That marked his second podium in three races, with a weird race sandwiched in between where he crashed on the formation lap after qualifying second. Leclerc has shown a lot of speed lately and is the most likely driver to dethrone Verstappen on Sunday, though I'm not sure how likely that is.
Alexander Albon ($4,400)
Starts Seventh
Despite teammate Logan Sargeant having a strong qualifying run last week in Las Vegas, Alexander Albon finished ahead of him again, marking the 17th race in a row that Albon has earned the five DraftKings points for defeating his teammate. This week, Albon's easily in line to do that again as he starts seventh and Sargeant brings up the rear. Albon has started in the top 10 seven times this year and has maintained a top 10 spot by the end in four of those races.
Yuki Tsunoda ($3,800)
Starts Sixth
Great qualifying effort by Yuki Tsunoda. I am, of course, scared he'll lose a lot of spots on Sunday and get me negative place differential points, but at $3,800 it's a risk I'm willing to take in some of my lineups. Tsunoda had a gearbox issue last week that relegated him to an 18th-place finish, but he had three finishes of 12th or better in the three races before that, including two races where he finished in the points. The AlphaTauri driver could end the season on a high note.
As far as other value options here, I can see some value in Lance Stroll at $4,800 if you want to find some extra salary space somewhere else, or Nico Hulkenberg at $3,400 is in play as well as he starts eighth, with teammate Kevin Magnussen back in 17th.
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