F1 Fantasy 2021 Winners Interview
As mentioned in the F1 Fantasy 2022 Guide we posted a few weeks ago, the overall, global league winner came from our community! Max and Niels aka MaxTil and ZipTil in the Discord! As winners of a very hectic season it only felt right to give a short interview and find out their reasoning to decisions, their mindset, the resources they used and some of the big choices they made which ultimately led them to the victory.
Tell us a bit about yourselves! How long have you been fans? Favourite drivers / team? What do you enjoy outside of F1?
Max: I’m Max, 22 years old and I am studying Economics and Governance in Wageningen, The Netherlands. Besides the study, I train 9 times a week because I’m a competitive rower. I’ve been an F1 fan for 7 years now and my favourite driver is of course Max Verstappen. I’m not a Max Verstappen fanboy but I enjoy F1 as a whole, but if I need to choose one driver to win the race I would choose Max.
Niels: I am a fan since 1994, visited multiple grand prix and watch every grand prix on television. Being Dutch, Max Verstappen is my favourite driver and RB my favourite team. Outside F1 I work as an airline pilot and lead a sporty life.
5 tips for success in F1 Fantasy?
Watch Free Practice!!! (Most important)
Use analyses as a guideline but don’t go all out on statistics
The budget is not the most important thing, but building it up over time is necessary.
Look at how different teams perform on certain tracks. High downforce and low downforce circuits.
Make use of the current form of certain F1 drivers. (Sainz > Leclerc in the end.)
As we always mention in the F1 Fantasy Tracker discord, always wait for FP3! The practice sessions are the best indicators for how the race is going to go on the weekend and FP3 gives you the best chance to see this. The last point is especially important, one driver to note also was Norris starting strong but tapering off in the latter half of the season, realising this fast with more short term average numbers would allow you to spot this earlier and switch out to someone better.
Would sources did you use to help you make decisions?
- F1 Fantasy Tracker Discord
- My brain when watching FP
- Pace analysis F1 site
- Race results previous F1 races
- Phone calls with my father (Niels) after free practice
Unfortunately not everyone has the ability to call Niels after practice! But there is a lot of historical information to use to make informed decisions as well as a wealth of knowledge from the community.
When did you megadrive and what made you make that decision?
Monaco and Brazil, both on Max Verstappen. He had a race and qualy streak in both races and Brazil was a sprint race where you can gain extra points.
Ha! We championed megadriving at Silverstone and Monza due to the race and qualy streak AS WELL as the sprint races for either Max or Lewis but we all know how both of those races went for those 2 drivers. Statistically it made sense but as they mentioned, stats isn’t everything and they showed that!
How would you weigh up risky situations?
Risky decisions are necessary. Going all out on Mclaren in Monza and choosing Ocon in Hungary were key to the global win.
Right here is where I think these two won the league. On top of consistently picking strong teams, their ability to recognise solid picks throughout the practice sessions has given them massive rewards, 2 massive underdog victories were in their pockets for 2 races, an unbelievable delta point haul on anyone who didn’t go for these picks.
How did you choose your turbo driver each race as there were lots of options and lots of streaks to take advantage of ?
When choosing my turbo driver it was between 4 drivers. Checo, Sainz, Leclerc and Norris. The first criteria was if there were streaks in play, because those can gain a lot of points when doubled. If there were no streaks I would choose between these 4 on the basis of free practice.
Did you chase the money with your subs at any point or did you primarily focus on point scoring? Depending on your answer, do you think this hindered you at any point?
In the beginning I wasn’t focussed on money but when I realized I was quite high up in the standings I was also going to make use of upping the budget. My father (Niels) was tracking the driver prices quite a lot and I always asked him about the price changes. So my budget went up and not down. The budget didn’t hinder me, because choosing the right drivers for the weekend was priority.
With your prize, which race are you eyeing up for your paddock passes?
Monza (No prize received yet from F1)
Any other things you’d like to share or mention?
It is an honor to be part of the discord which helped to get me this achievement. Thanks to the analysts for making the analyses.
This is a special shout out to rhter from the discord who produces UNBELIEVABLE analysis on price movements, race predictions and best team predictions. The analysts in the discord really produce priceless information for people to use, I’d heavily recommend them!
I’m really excited to see what these two can do in the new season, working together and utilising all resources and trusting their own judgements should help them repeat this success. If you’d like to join Max, Niels and the analysts in the discord, please come join us here https://discord.gg/Jrwyw9bKGm
Good luck with the rest of the season!
