Winners and Losers: A mid-season F1® Fantasy review

A massive Turn 1 incident in Hungary not only gave the 2021 Driver Standings a shake-up heading into the summer break but wreaked havoc for nearly one million Formula 1® Fantasy players.

With 11 races in the books and 12 races still to come, we’re looking back at the biggest winners and losers from the first half of F1® Fantasy for season 2021.

The Winners

Barring a DNF result in Budapest, Lando Norris has been the standout of season 2021.

Not only has he consistently outscored his teammate Daniel Ricciardo, but Norris heads into the break, having increased his purchase price to $14.2m, a full $1.1m more than what you could have purchased the McLaren star for at the beginning of the year.

Norris’s price increase is the largest of any driver on the grid, with his performances in 2021 seeing him rank third overall for points scored behind Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen and ranked first in points per million at 2.00.

The beauty of F1® Fantasy is the importance of the back of the grid, with no better example in 2021 than Mick Schumacher. Schumacher ranks second behind Norris for points per million (1.54) and enters the summer break ranked as the 12^th highest scoring driver on the grid, ahead of the likes of Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen and Lance Stroll. At a price of just $5.8M, Schumacher ranks as one of the bargain buys of the season.

Drivers ranked by points per million:

No F1® article would be complete in 2021 without mentioning the Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton rivalry. Unsurprisingly, the two Drivers’ World Championships leaders also sit atop fantasy rankings for total points. Despite having trailed Verstappen for the majority of 2021, Hamilton heads to the break with a 28-point fantasy advantage but carries with him a hefty price tag, still a full $7.3M more expensive than his Dutch counterpart.

Drivers ranked by total points:

The Losers

F1® Fantasy is all about value for money and finding drivers that will outperform their price tag, freeing up salary-cap space to be spent on drivers at the front of the grid.

Despite being priced as the cheapest driver on the grid at $5.3m, Nikita Mazepin also holds the last place when it comes to points per million at just 0.51, meaning the Russian driver is returning a shade under 2.7 points per race weekend.

Such has been Aston Martin’s up-and-down start to 2021 that both drivers all see themselves at the bottom of the points per million list, with Lance Stroll joining Mazepin with a score of 0.51 and a post-race adjustment after Budapest plummeting Sebastian Vettel to just 0.57 despite a price tag that still exceeds $15m.

Drivers ranked by lowest points per million:

Unfortunately for Australian fans, Daniel Ricciardo ranks as the driver with the most significant price drop of 2021. The Australian struggles to find consistency in his McLaren, having dropped $1.5m from his season start price.

What about the Constructors?

In what will come as a surprise to no one, it’s Mercedes, and Red Bull that sit one-two in the Constructors’ Standings with the Silver Arrows taking the narrowest of leads into the break just a single point clear of the Christian Horner led team.

Despite the slight overall lead, Red Bull still ranks as the better fantasy option, at a price-point that’s $10.5m cheaper than the Mercedes and with an equal best-on-the-grid score of 2.01 points per million compared to 1.44 from Mercedes.

McLaren looks the sleeper of all Constructors and a solid choice if you’re looking to free up some extra salary cap space to spend on drivers. Currently priced at $18.7m, a full $7.9m cheaper than Red Bull, McLaren ranks third in 2021 for overall points scored and shares the top spot with Red Bull for points per million. If Daniel Ricciardo can find some consistency in his McLaren and has an improved second half of the year, McLaren could finish the season as the value pick of the Constructors.

Closer to Home

In the race to be crowned Australia’s top fantasy player, it’s the teams that managed to minimise damage in the Hungarian Grand Prix that see themselves atop the Australian standings at the halfway point.

Heading into the Belgium Grand Prix race weekend, Australia’s top-ranked fantasy team is a team called Go!!!! by Joel S. With a season score of 2,304, Joel sees himself sitting atop Australian rankings and ranked sixth globally from more than 965,000 players. An awe-inspiring result.

The biggest mover heading into the break was our second-place team from Isabelle T., who timed the use of her Mega Driver perfectly, using it on Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone to return a season-high round score of 382.

Bennie Ecclestone Racing ranks as the third-best F1® Fantasy team in Australia in 2021 and probably has a claim to the best Australian based F1® Fantasy team name.

Australia’s Top-5:

With 12 races remaining and new public mid-season leagues set to start in Belgium later this month, there’s still plenty of time to join more than 33,000 registered players from Australia and start putting your F1® knowledge to the test.

What do you think? Who have been the biggest winners and losers in F1® Fantasy so far in 2021? Let us know on social media and if you’d be interested in joining an Australian Grand Prix F1® Fantasy League in 2022 as we continue to work on more ways to keep Australian fans connected to F1®.