RADIO
Formula 1 heads to the United States for the first time this season, hitting the roads around Hard Rock Stadium in Miami for the second Miami Grand Prix. Last year, Max Verstappen led 48 of the 57 laps to win here, with the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz taking the other podium spots. This race will also be the first F1 race in the United States for American driver Logan Sargeant. Once it's lights out on Sunday, an American driver will run a race on American soil for the first time since the 2015 United States Grand Prix, when Alexander Rossi finished 12th at COTA.
Last week, we got about as close as we might get to a team other than Red Bull winning, as Charles Leclerc looked strong early. But Red Bull asserted its dominance, with Sergio Perez winning for the second time this season, giving both Red Bull drivers two wins.
Below you will find our Formula 1 DraftKings DFS lineup picks for the Miami Grand Prix on 5/7/23, with the slate locking at 3:30 p.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: Sergio Perez ($17,400)
Starts 1st
Let's go back to Bahrain. Max Verstappen won. Perez finished second. And it kind of seemed like that was how the season was going to go: Verstappen would dominate, and Perez would have a lot of good runs and be the favorite to finish second in points.
But a funny thing has happened since then: Perez has won two of the last three races. Suddenly, we might have a Red Bull vs. Red Bull fight for the championship. And Perez gets a big leg up on Verstappen on Sunday, as a Charles Leclerc crash in Q3 of qualifying meant Verstappen didn't get to record a lap. He starts ninth, while Perez starts on pole.
That gives Perez the edge to win here. And with how the two Red Bull cars have already separated themselves from the rest of the field, I'm not expecting any kind of team order thing on Sunday to hand Verstappen the win. Perez has a great chance to dominate this thing.
Constructor: Ferrari ($9,900)
It's just become cost prohibitive to stack a Red Bull captain with a Red Bull constructor play, so instead let's target Ferrari again this week, as the team has two drivers starting in the top seven. (Note: if you want to get weird, try Alpine as a constructor in some lineups.)
The Ferrari cars were both top five in FP1, top three in FP2 and top four in FP3. Lot of speed all weekend, and Leclerc would start higher than seventh if he hadn't crashed in Q3, because he was in line for a top-four start based on his Q1 and Q2 speed.
I think there's a really good chance that Ferrari gets a pair of top fives in this race, if not better.
Carlos Sainz Jr. ($7,600)
Starts 3rd
Sainz currently sits fifth in the F1 standings with an average finish of 6.8 this season. He hasn't had a podium yet, but he's shown some good speed in most races, and now he starts a season-best third on Sunday.
I think both Ferrari cars should do well, but with Sainz starting a few spots ahead of Leclerc and costing $2,200 less, I think this is a good value option here for DFS players who want to be high on Ferrari but don't want to have to pay too much salary to do so.
Pierre Gasly ($5,800)
Starts 5th
Great qualifying run for Alpine, which placed two cars in the top eight. Esteban Ocon starts eighth, while Gasly will fire off from the fifth position.
Gasly has had a weird season. He's struggled in two of the four qualifying sessions, starting 20th in Bahrain and 17th at Baku, and the only points he's scored have come from a pair of ninth-place finishes. But the speed's also been there at times, and he's still managed to finish ahead of Ocon in three of the four races so far. And he probably have done better at Azerbaijan if his poor qualifying run hadn't caused the team to try an alternative tire strategy.
Valtteri Bottas ($4,600)
Starts 10th
Bottas fires off in 10th, giving him a decent advantage on the grid over teammate Guanyu Zhou, who'll start in 14th. The season started off well for Bottas, who finished eighth at Bahrain. His finishes since are 18th, 11th and 18th. This Alfa Romeo team has had some questionable speed this season, but he did run well here last year, finishing seventh. Not an exciting play, but at $4,600, I feel decent about it.
Yuki Tsunoda ($4,400)
Starts 17th
Tsunoda starts two spots back of Alphatauri teammate Nyck De Vries, but I'm not really worried about that based on how the 2023 season has gone.
All year long, Tsunoda has consistently outperformed his teammate, earning points for defeating his teammate in every race this season. He's also finished either 10th or 11th in all four races, so there are some positive place differential points at play for Tsunoda in this one as well. Barring accident or mechanical failure, he's getting around De Vries before Sunday's race is over.
I suppose you could take a shot on Kevin Magnussen at $3,600, considering he starts fourth, eight spots ahead of teammate Nico Hulkenberg. But Magnussen has a lot of downside, since he could lose a good number of spots and get negative points for that.
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