Spain 🇪🇸 — Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya

Liam Thompson

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May 14 · 6 min read

Top Fantasy Picks

So here it is, our top picks for the next Grand Prix taking place in Spain. These are the drivers that we believe will be amongst the top highest fantasy point scorers after completing the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. We will give an explanation behind each driver that we have chosen, which could have been chosen based on a driver’s past performance, a statistic we have gathered, some recent news or just gut instinct. Whilst we don’t expect everyone to agree with all of our picks, we at least hope you can understand our reasoning behind them. We aim to choose high scorers so that you can improve your fantasy team before the race! So, lets begin…

Spotlight Pick 🥇 — Racing Point

The best of the rest constructor?

Normally we give drivers as spotlight picks for the upcoming race, but we thought Racing Point should take the spotlight this week. So far Racing Point have proven to be very reliable, they currently hold a 0% Constructor DNF Rate. They also hold a 0% Engine Failure Rate, the same as Mercedes, as they both share the Mercedes M10 EQ Power+ engine. A common theme throughout these blogs is the importance of not retiring, which generates a costly -15 fantasy points. Before Azerbaijan, Toro Rosso and Williams were the only other constructors to maintain a 0% DNF Rate. With a retirement from Kvyat in Azerbaijain this has now changed. This reliability and performance from Perez in Baku has led to this spotlight pick.

Perez finished in 6th place in Baku after qualifying 5th Place and scoring additional fantasy points beating his team-mate, Stroll, in both. His performance led to his highest scoring fantasy points race so far, and once again highlighted the talent he has. Perez’s price increased by 0.93% this week after his performance and holds a ‘Bang for Buck’ score of 1.40, which is 4th highest, therefore he consistently produces a large number of fantasy points with respect to the price you pay for him. This, and the fact that Lance Stroll currently holds the highest score for Average Overtakes, makes Racing Point a great pick for the upcoming Grand Prix.

Worst Pick 👊 —Renault

The saddest story so far.

Out of all the teams, Renault was the team I really wanted to see thrive this year. I wanted to see Ricciardo outperform the pack, the Renault car to be the fastest on the grid and just wanted some redemption for Ricciardo after how he was treated in 2018 at Red Bull. Sadly, although myself and a lot of people wanted this, so far it hasn’t happened.

Renault hold a constructor DNF rate of 38% which is the highest rate amongst constructors. Ricciardo has an individual DNF rate of 50% and Hulkenburg 25%. The Renault engine has a failure rate of 31%. The Renault engine is shared by Mclaren, who had engine problems in Melbourne and Bahrain. Since both constructors have had engine problems and since the statistic is extremely high, this might highlight a problem with the Renault engine? Certainly a concern for anyone who have Mclaren drivers in their team. However, Ricciardo’s mistake in Azerbaijan, where he locked up whilst attempting to overtake Kvyat and then proceeded to reverse in to him, has not helped his case. With Ricciardo retiring from half of the races so far, whether the fault of the engine or driver, should be enough to persuade you to remove him from your team.

In Depth Analysis

Another great race that went unexpectedly trouble free. I’d like to recap on the noteworthy stats from the race and insights that we’ve found so far and also provide recommendations for the next race.

What Valtteri Bottas and George Russell have in common

Bottas is performing amazingly so far, taking the championship lead and letting his talents show. George Russell on the other hand in stuck unable to show himself with the Williams car. What unites these two is their impressive points-per-million stat. Bottas now leads this statistic with a score of 1.87 while Russell closely follows with a 1.85. These two racers are showing they are your absolute best bang for buck. Bottas is outperforming Lewis while costing $9 million less. With this lower price this has afforded people the chance to have the likes of Verstappen or Leclerc in their teams, costing $24.6m and $23.8m respectively. Max being the better choice as his reliability being so good and having a higher average points per race than Charles with a 29.8 compared to 25.3.

Racing Point performing well

I mentioned in my previous post before the race to seriously consider having the Racing Point drivers. I feel like the magic in the game is picking the best middle to lower end drivers, as those are the ones who can really shine and score big. Racing Point is showing to be the team to do that. Stroll and Perez both have a very tight range of average points at 12.5 and 14.8 as well as having great average points per million at 1.67 and 1.36. They have a reliable Mercedes engine and reliable constructor with plenty of talent to take the cars home. I trust Perez and Stroll to keep up the good stuff.

Renault and Haas

I feel like I can group these two together, unfortunately Renault are still working on perfecting the car for their drivers and Haas seem to be in the same boat. I’m really hoping Haas can get it right as Kevin Magnussen really brings home the points when it goes right. I can’t say the same for Ricciardo at the moment who’s possibly feeling the pressure. These drivers aren’t ones you want in your team as they can really hurt your points with a -15.

Kvyat and Albon

Kvyat, when hes got the same conditions as Albon, out qualifies his teammate and looks to finish higher than him more often than not but unfortunately finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time very often and this inconsistency can hurt your points. When he scores, he brings home big points but that’s only balanced out with his bad races bringing his average down to a sad 2.5 per race. Albon on the other hand is not as fast in some areas but is definitely more consistent, and its that ability to finish while showing glimpses of talent is why hes got a higher average points at the moment and someone you want to have if you want to grow your scores.

What to look out for

The most important statistics to look for are the AVERAGE DRIVER POINTS and comparing that to POINTS PER MILLION. If you can navigate these numbers you can really see where, over the course of a season, you can score great points every race and out perform everyone else who hasn’t got these statistics available to you. Have a look on our website for these stats.

My recommendations for next week are

High Price Drivers:

• Bottas
• Verstappen

Mid Price Drivers

• Perez
• Raikkonen

Low Price Drivers

• Stroll
• Russell
• Albon

Having all or mostly consisting of these guys will score you big for the upcoming Spanish Grand Prix.