DraftKings Formula 1 (F1) 2023 DFS Season Preview

Team Oracle Red Bull Racing hangs off the pit wall fences to congratulate F1 driver Max Verstappen for winning the Formula 1 Aramco United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas on Oct. 22, 2022.  Aem F1 Day 4 5

2023 DraftKings Formula 1 – Looking Back at 2022

DraftKings Formula 1 came to us during a perfect storm in the sporting regulations with the introduction of a new formula for the 2022 Season!  We saw ground effect aero re-introduced, followed by a change from 13″ wheels to 18″ wheels and all the “Interpretation” that a new formula brings to the Grid!  The cars were so different from the previous era and boy oh boy, did the drama ensue throughout 2022!  Our members saw success from week 1 last season.  I remember numerous screenshots in the Discord with wins almost every race weekend!  In this article, we’re going to take a look back at the DraftKings 2022 Formula 1 Season and provide you with some statistics that will give you a repeatable process to build your lineups week to week as you watch F1 coverage and track our DFS Army content!

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2022 DraftKings Formula 1 Season by the Numbers

Two things stand out in the above data:

1. Max Verstappen is a Stud!, and
2. Red Bull Racing was the overwhelming optimal Constructor in 2022, due in part to their team dominance and finishing races in close proximity.

DraftKings Formula 1 Lineup Construction

Captain Position

The overwhelming strategy is to captain the race winner.  Next, roster their Team in the Constructor and this is your standard core.

Driver Position

These four selections are the jigsaw puzzle that will differentiate your result!  Salaries are priced fairly and we rarely find mispriced opportunity.  We’re trying to peer into the near future and imagine the finishing results of the race to make the best possible choices.  The truth tellers come from Free Practice 2 and the post-Qualifying Starting Grid.  You’re looking for drivers capable of a Top 10 finish and capable of beating their teammate – most weekends we get an opportunity to pick one that falls in this category.  After that your selections are in the sub-$6000 range.  These drivers are generally those outside of the top 10, so we’re looking for who can beat their teammate and finish the race.

Constructor

Under normal circumstances, optimal fantasy points production for the Constructor position requires a combination of Laps Led and finishing sequences of 1st/2nd, 1st/3rd, 1st/4th.  Any combination of a finishing result of 5th or worse for a teammate opens the door for a non-correlated Constructor to be optimal.  The most common non-correlated finishing sequence is a 2nd/3rd or 2nd/4th.  We will have to pay close attention to reliability in 2023 to see if the door opens for the other teams to upset these stats, but based on winter testing, all teams had smooth running and Red Bull looked just as strong as 2022.

Basic Fantasy Points Considerations

Drivers who lead the race are awarded 0.1 fantasy points per lap.  Fastest Lap is awarded 3 fantasy points.  Drivers in the Top 10 are awarded fantasy points by finishing position.  Drivers outside the Top 10 are limited to points for beating their teammate and finishing the race.  Positive and Negative Grid Differential awards or deducts points for gaining or losing (+/-) 3, 5 and 10 grid places.

Constructor Points capture finishing position points values, lead laps and points for both cars finishing the race, finishing in the Top 10 and for both being on the Podium (Top 3).  See the full set of F1 DraftKings Rules here.  Then check out our F1 cheat sheets for identifying drivers to target and those to fade this weekend in Bahrain!

Back Testing

I back tested the 2022 Season.  The combination of the points structure and the Captain Position weighted at 1.5x led to no sneaky build styles.  My thesis to save salary at Captain and roster the race winner in the Driver position did not work out mathematically.  There was a single instance in 2022 where the race winner was so expensive that you had to move them to the Driver position, that race was Abu Dhabi.  Max Verstappen was $13,600 that weekend.  On other occasions, I was able to get within a few tenths of the optimal a few times, but still would have lost to those that put the race winner in Captain.  We would need to see more competition in the top 6 between Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes or perhaps Alpine or Aston Martin to force us to think twice before default correlation of Captain and Constructor.

Bahrain GP – The Opening Round

Last year’s Bahrain GP saw Red Bull double DNF which opened the door for Ferrari to finish in style.  Winter testing showed reliability across the paddock.  We’ll see who, if anyone, was sandbagging at last week’s testing soon enough!

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