After a dramatic opening round of the 2021 season, it’s time to reflect on the best teams for F1’s Fantasy Game. With over 18 million theoretical team combinations, let’s dive into the best – and worst – selections, and review the fortunes of the DIVEBOMB team members.
Written by Lewis Rundle, Edited by Aiden Hover
Best Global Team – 285 points
The highest-ranked global team belongs to Jace M. from the United States, who utilised his Megadriver to perfection by placing it on the eventual race winner, Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton picked up 45 points over the weekend through winning the race, beating his teammate, and out-qualifying his teammate on Saturday – this was then tripled to give 135 points.
The second key element of his team was the choice to play Lando Norris as his Turbo Driver. Norris made up a brilliant three positions in the race after tussling with Daniel Ricciardo, Charles Leclerc, and Pierre Gasly. Lando’s haul of 29 points was the highest for a driver under $20 million, making him the perfect candidate for the Turbo boost.
A brilliant debut from Tsunoda, moving from P13 to finish P9, made him the highest-scoring driver under $10 million. Despite losing out to Gasly in the qualifying head-to-head, Tsunoda’s race pace more than made up for it and netted him 16 points in the Fantasy game.
The final two drivers of Jace’s squad were Räikönnen and Schumacher. Mick Schumacher was second only to Lando Norris in the points per million metric, at 1.9P/M. Räikönnen was a solid sub $10 million pick to round out the team, scoring 12 points in the opening weekend of F1 Fantasy. The total cost of this selection was $96.7 million
Jace M’s team
Theoretical Worst Team – -44 points
If you had picked Nikita Mazepin as your Megadriver, Fernando Alonso as your Turbo Driver as well as Nicholas Latifi, Pierre Gasly, Antonio Giovinazzi, and Williams for your Week 1 team, you would have scored a sensational -44 points this weekend. A triple-score Mazepin would have multiplied -14 points by 3 to take away 42 points from your total, followed up by Alonso’s unfortunate retirement deducting a further 16 points. The damage would only be partially covered by the positive scores of Latifi, Gasly, and Giovinazzi, along with William’s as your team. This “Suicide Squad” lineup would have only cost you $53.5 million (just over half your budget), so I can’t imagine there’s anyone unfortunate, or to be brutally honest, stupid enough to have selected this combination.
Divebomb’s Best Team of Round 1 – DJ Byrne.
Within DIVEBOMB, the top spot was occupied by DJ Byrne’s “Worst GP” squad, who took home a whopping 214 points with the lineup of Hamilton (MD), Vettel (TD), Leclerc, Tsunoda, and Latifi, with Aston Martin as their constructor.
DJ Byrne’s team
The highest-ranked team without deploying their Megadriver token was Ishaan M.’s “Meh”. Consisting of Verstappen, Norris (TD), Leclerc, Russell, Schumacher, and Red Bull. Ishaan’s team had a lot in common with that of the best in the world, but by holding onto his Megadriver he will have a strategic overcut later on in the season.
Driver Market Analysis
Yuki Tsunoda won the hearts of motorsport fans across the world this weekend with his aggressive driving, including an audacious overtake on the two-time world champion of Fernando Alonso. This is reflected in his Transfer In percentage of 7%, the highest of any driver.
On the flip side was Sebastian Vettel, whose disastrous first outing for Aston Martin saw him get a removal rate of 5%.
Unsurprisingly, Lando Norris featured in 51% of the 2.1 million player-created squads. This high pick rate wasn’t unwarranted, as the Briton gave players the best value for money of all the drivers.
Both Red Bull drivers featured heavily in the Bonus deployment statistics, with Perez topping the Turbo usage stat at 21% and Max taking almost half of the Megadriver choices (48%). Comparatively, Hamilton – who would’ve netted MD users an additional 30 points – only picked up 25%.
811 wildcards have already been used worldwide, a massive gamble given how early into the season we are. I will be interesting to see how those players maximise the Italian Grand Prix in Imola and what effect that will have on the driver market after round 2.
With a tight championship on the cards and an unpredictable midfield, this year’s F1 Fantasy is wide open. Who will be on top for Round 2? We’ll find out in three long week’s time…
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