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Justin Carter's DraftKings and FanDuel DFS lineup picks for the Formula 1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Read our daily fantasy F1 advice and sleepers analysis.
Well, that went like we expected. The Formula 1 season got underway last week in Bahrain and Max Verstappen continued the dominance he ended 2023 with. The defending F1 champion led all 57 laps on his way to a commanding victory.
Now, we had to Saudi Arabia, where the big story is that Ferrari's Carlos Sainz won't race on Saturday due to appendicitis. That elevates F2 driver Oliver Bearman to the Ferrari ride as he'll make his F1 debut. Bearman is the youngest driver on the grid and is coming off a 2023 F2 season that saw him win four races.
Below you will find our Formula 1 DraftKings DFS lineup picks for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on 3/9/24, with the slate locking at 12:00 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: Yuki Tsunoda ($6,900)
Starts Ninth
We're getting a little weird this week, but I think it's something we have to do until Max Verstappen's dominance ends: going a little value with our captain pick in order to ensure we've got the salary space for Verstappen and another top driver in our lineups.
Yuki Tsunoda with a BIG performance to make Q3.
4 tenths ahead of Ricciardo. pic.twitter.com/sQTzWG8Ygt
— formularacers (@formularacers_) March 8, 2024
This week, my captain play is Yuki Tsunoda, who starts this race in ninth place. Tsuonda is coming off a 14th-place finish last week at Bahrain, but he ran better than that for much of the day. There was a controversial team order call late that put Tsuoda behind Daniel Ricciardo because RB felt Ricciardo had the better shot of getting past Kevin Magnussen, but Tsunoda mostly outran his teammate.
This RB team looks solid this year and I'd expect to see Tsunoda fighting for a spot in the back part of the points most weeks. I also believe that at this stage, he's a better driver than Ricciardo.
Constructor: Aston Martin ($5,400)
Aston Martin might not look as fast as it did in 2023, but the team put two drivers in the top 10 starting spots for Saturday's race, with Fernando Alonso in fourth and Lance Stroll in 10th.
I'll talk about Alonso later, but first, here's why I think this could be a decent day for Stroll. Dating back to last season, he's finished in the points in four consecutive races, including a pair of fifth-place runs near the end of 2023.
His luck at Jeddah hasn't been so good, but he did qualify fifth here last season before losing the engine on Lap 16.
Max Verstappen ($16,200)
Starts First
New year, same Max Verstappen. While there's a lot of internal issues with Red Bull right now, those issues haven't trickled into the team's performance as Verstappen led every lap at Bahrain.
If Helmut Marko isn‘t at Red Bull anymore, then you won‘t stay either?
Max Verstappen: "Then we might have a big problem in the team, yes."#SkyGermany pic.twitter.com/fuAFPDGE82
— tami. (@Vetteleclerc) March 8, 2024
Now, Verstappen starts from the pole at Jeddah. He only finished second here last year behind his teammate Sergio Perez, but that happened with Verstappen starting back in 15th. If he'd been on the pole, it likely would have been a different story, as Perez led 47 of 50 laps from the pole last year. This is likely a race where Verstappen dominates.
Charles Leclerc ($10,000)
Starts Second
I'm not going to sit here and pretend that Charles Leclerc is going to beat Verstappen straight up on speed, but with Sainz out and a rookie in the other Ferrari this week, it's hard to imagine Leclerc finishing worse than third unless some strategy call goes wrong.
Of course, it's Ferrari, so anything can happen. Car could explode. Tire could fall off. Team could decide to pit three extra times. Weird things happen for Ferrari.
Leclerc finished second here in 2022, leading 30 of the 50 laps but losing to Max Verstappen. He should be a contender for second place again this weekend.
Fernando Alonso ($7,000)
Starts Fourth
After finishing ninth last week, Fernando Alonso starts Saturday's race fourth. It's been a good weekend from the veteran driver, who was second fastest in FP1, fastest in FP2, and sixth in FP3. He should contend for a top-five finish on Saturday.
Fernando Alonso is closer to being the third best F1 driver than the fifth best F1 driver and that is a pretty alarming sign for driver development over the past 15 years but at least it's also really cool
— Fred Smith (@FredSmith914) March 8, 2024
Last year, Alonso had a strong race here. He was the only driver other than Sergio Perez to lead laps in the race, pacing the field for three laps. He ended up finishing in third place in the race.
Valtteri Bottas ($4,400)
Starts 16th
This play is pretty much only about earning those five points for defeating your teammate, as Valtteri Bottas starts 16th and teammate Guanyu Zhou, who crashed in FP3, starts last. Bottas has struggled here since joining this race team, but he did finish third in his first Jeddah start in 2021, back when he was still racing for Mercedes.
You can probably get a little better value if you get one of the two Haas cars since they cost $3,600 and $3,400, but there's a lot more uncertainty there about which one beats the other, so those five points don't feel as guaranteed.
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