RADIO
Formula 1 heads to Hungary this weekend, with one big change on the grid. Nyck de Vries saw his rookie campaign come to an abrupt close 10 races in, as AlphaTauri opted to replace him with Daniel Ricciardo. In his return to F1 action on Sunday, Ricciardo will fire off from the 13th position.
F1 was last in action at Silverstone on July 9, when Max Verstappen won his sixth race in a row, and his fifth in a row from the pole. Red Bull has been unstoppable this year, with Sergio Perez winning the only two races that Verstappen hasn't.
Below you will find our Formula 1 DraftKings DFS lineup picks for the Hungarian Grand Prix on 7/23/23, 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: Oscar Piastri ($9,900)
Starts Fourth
While going with Lando Norris as a captain might make more sense if you're thinking specifically about which McLaren driver is more likely to have a strong race, I like what captaining Piastri allows you to do with the rest of your lineup.
McLaren came to the British Grand Prix with a car that had been through some changes, and it led to Piastri starting a career-best third. He finished fourth, which was also a career-best mark. This week, he starts fourth and it looks like McLaren's changes have stuck, as row two is Piastri and Norris. Again, better chance Norris podiums than Piastri, but it's not out on the realm of possibilities that Piastri gets past his teammate, and even if he doesn't, he should run top five based on how this team's looked this month.
Constructor: McLaren ($7,500)
Bad news: DraftKings very quickly picked up on the rise in speed for McLaren, with the constructor price jumping from $5,200 to $7,500. But even with that, I think there's still a good shot here to ride the McLaren hot streak.
Like I mentioned above, the two McLarens start third and fourth, and last race, both drivers finished in the points, with Norris leading four laps. That gave the team a fantasy score of 37 points in last week's race. Sure, Red Bull's 48 outscored them, but Red Bull is almost double this price. Provided there's no issue with one of the McLaren cars, they should have a good shot to be the No. 2 constructor in fantasy scoring again this weekend.
Max Verstappen ($15,000)
Starts Second
Verstappen isn't on the pole! This is the first time since Miami in early May that someone other than the defending driver's champion has led the field at the start of the race.
But it's not like he plummeted down the starting order or anything. He starts second and has a great shot to lead by the end of the first lap. It's just hard to bet against a driver with eight wins in the first 10 races and a low finish of second. He should once again be a threat to lead as many laps as possible and win.
At this point, the only argument against not playing Verstappen is that you're hoping something breaks on the car. If he has a clean race, he wins. Of the two times he hasn't won this year, one's explained by the fact he started 15th.
Lewis Hamilton ($10,000)
Starts First
Lewis Hamilton is on pole for this race, his first pole since Jeddah in 2021. His previous best start this season was third, twice. Can he be the first non-Red Bull driver to win this season?
Maybe. He's got a better chance than anyone else, though it's hard to see anyone stopping Verstappen at this point unless something goes wrong for Verstappen. But Hamilton's definitely positioned to pounce here if that scenario happens, and he's been really good at this track, winning eight of his 16 starts here. He was second in this race last year, losing to Verstappen.
It also helps that he has a clear advantage over his teammate George Russell in this one in the race to earn the "defeated teammate" points. Hamilton starts first, while Russell starts way back in 18th after getting stuck in some traffic in qualifying led to a slow lap.t
Valtteri Bottas ($4,000)
Starts Seventh
Impressive showing in qualifying for both Alfa Romeo cars, as Bottas starts seventh and teammate Guanyu Zhou starts fifth. It might be tempting to save an extra $1,000 and play Guanyu since he starts two spots ahead of Bottas, but I just trust the veteran Bottas to maintain a spot in the top 10 more than I trust Guanyu. Guanyu has finished in the points twice this year, sporting a pair of ninth-place results. Bottas has also finished in the points twice, with an eighth and a 10th. The two are close in average finish, with Bottas at 13.5 and Guanyu at 13.8.
In other words, I'm not saying to fade Guanyu. I trust Bottas more to not lose me place differential points, but I'll likely sprinkle a little Guanyu in as well, taking advantage of Alfa Romeo having speed for once.
Nico Hulkenberg ($3,600)
Starts 10th
No matter how many times I say I'll stop playing Haas drivers, they just keep fitting perfectly into my final lineup spot. So, we'll do it again, with another Nico Hulkenberg recommendation.
This is the fifth race in a row that Hulkenberg has started 11th or better. His best finish in that time is 13th. But he's defeated teammate Kevin Magnussen in four of those five races, and that's what we're hoping for again today, as he starts pretty far ahead of Magnussen, who will come from the back row.
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