RADIO
Formula 1 heads to Austria this weekend for the Austrian Grand Prix. We've already had a sprint race this weekend, with Max Verstappen winning Saturday's event. The biggest surprise of the sprint race had to be Nico Hulkenberg finishing sixth, while Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were both out of the points.
F1 was last in action two weeks ago in Canada, with Verstappen leading all 70 laps on his way to the win. That's now three races in a row where Verstappen has led every lap from the pole, something that's getting...well, it's getting just a little bit tiring, right? The rest of the racing is good, but Verstappen's just running off with these races.
Below you will find our Formula 1 DraftKings DFS lineup picks for the Austrian Grand Prix on 7/2/23, with the slate locking at 9:00 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: Lando Norris ($9,000)
Starts Fourth
Norris fires off fourth in this race, while McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri rolls off 13th. That's the first big thing in his favor: nine spots better on the starting grid gives him a pretty big advantage in the race for the "defeated teammate" points, and when I select a captain, I really like having someone who's in a good position to earn those points.
Beyond that, Norris's overall DFS salary is fairly low, because he's kind of struggled to live up to his qualifying runs lately. He's started in the top 10 in three straight races, but only finished top 10 once in that span.
But Norris was top 10 in the sprint race, though he lost a handful of spots from his third-place starting spot there. The race pace hasn't been there like the qualifying pace.
Still, sometimes you've got to take a risk. Norris has had speed all weekend, and he ran well here last year as well, finishing in seventh. In fact, Norris has always run well here, with last year's seventh being his worst finish in his six starts here.
Constructor: Ferrari ($8,800)
Hard to really play Red Bull, the most obvious constructor play, at this point given the $14,000 price tag, so I'm pivoting down to Ferrari. They've got drivers starting second and third in this field and a Ferrari won this race last year.
Has Ferrari had some issues in 2023? Sure! The same strategy issues that plagued them last year have been around, and the raw speed hasn't necessarily been there in the same way it was in 2022, when Charles Leclerc actually looked like a challenger to Max Verstappen at times. But this feels like it should be a good race for Ferrari, so I'll play them as my constructor.
Max Verstappen ($15,000)
Starts First
With how Verstappen has been running, you kind of have to make sure you get him in your lineup, right? Leading every single lap in three races in a row really highlights his dominance this season.
On Saturday, Verstappen was victorious in the sprint race here. He lost the lead to teammate Sergio Perez at the jump, but managed to get around him and cruise to the victory.
Verstappen is on a historic pace right now. Last year, Verstappen's 15 wins were an F1 single-season record. He's already at six wins through eight races this year, putting him on pace to potentially beat his own record. His average finish this season is 1.3, and he's finished on the podium in every single race. Verstappen's unbeatable right now.
Carlos Sainz Jr. ($7,400)
Starts Third
Sainz starts one spot behind teammate Charles Leclerc, but he's finished ahead of Leclerc in five of the eight races so far, and he was third in Saturday's sprint race while Leclerc was 12th. Sainz led two laps here last year, but his engine let go on lap 56.
Based on starting spots, Leclerc has the upper hand in the Ferrari battle this weekend, but things just seem to always go wrong for Leclerc's team. And Sainz just hasn't really had a ton of issues this year—he's finished outside the top five just three times, and outside the points just once. He's got a higher floor than Leclerc, even if his ceiling is lower.
Nico Hulkenberg ($4,800)
Starts Eighth
I keep telling myself I don't need to trust Haas cars, and then I keep coming back to Haas cars, specifically Hulkenberg. I was high on him last week, but his fifth-place starting spot turned into a 15th-place finish. A poorly-timed safety car deserves part of the blame for that fall, but also the Haas team just didn't have much race pace.
Still, I'm heading back to the Haas well today, as I recommend Hulkenberg, who starts eighth on Sunday. This week, though, we at least have some evidence in Hulkenberg's favor aside from a good qualifying run, as finished sixth in the 24-lap sprint race.
Alexander Albon ($4,400)
Starts 10th
Albon's really impressed this season. Sure, he's only finished in the points twice, but he's consistently outrun his teammate Logan Sargeant, beating him in all but two races this season. And this marks the second race in a row that Albon's had a top-10 starting spot.
Maybe he'll fall out of the points, but Albon starting eight spots ahead of Sargeant puts him in line to earn those "defeated teammate" points again this weekend. He was 13th in the sprint race, five spots better than Sargeant, after starting 11th. There's some downside here if he drops a few spots and gets negative place differential points, but as a value play, you could do a lot worse.
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