Introduction

I am so excited about the Team Speed F1 Fantasy League! We have nearly 50 participants with more joining every day. With this many players it should be really fun to see where everyone scores. As we found out in the first race of the season, 2009 is going to be a particularly unpredictable season. You can get humbled in a hurry!

OH BOY! What an incredible first race of the season! I can't believe how exciting it was. It was also very cool to share it with so many of you in the Official Banter and Discussion thread. We have some incredibly knowledgeable race fans in our midst. It is great to learn from you guys!

STATS

Here are the complete fantasy stats from the Australian GP. These are ranked by score for the week and - since it is the first week - the overall scores rank the same. The first number next to the team name is the week's score and the second is the cummulative score. Note that participants 43, 44, and 45 were not signed up in time for the Australian GP so they received either the minimum or no score. Better late than never! Late comers are more than welcome in the Team Speed F1 Fantasy League!

1st OrangeCountyF1 751 751
2nd TommyBahama 749 749
3rd Maatens Racing 749 749
4th whitlockF1 David 746 746
5th Formula MD2009 728 728
6th Pablo Escobar GP 702 702
7th DrivingSideways 662 662
8th Red Team 651 651
9th Bologna GP 628 628
10th Total Domination 608 608
11th Prestige Worldwide 608 608
12th Barrister 576 576
13th GobbleTek Racing576 576
14th Gormican522 522
15th Billy Mays' Bedazzlers 514 514
16th The Gun Show 506 506
17th TS Tifosi gir 506 506
18th NOTaTIFOSI 490 490
19th HulmeF01 490 490
20th TS Tifosi 482 482
21st Turbo Charged 449 449
22nd BigE 436 436
23rd Ballarado 436 436
24th Team E/S 429 429
25th If you're not firs 411 411
26th Oversteer 410 410
27th lightning mcqueen 410 410
28th 16&Counting 393 393
29th L.G.Petros 374 374
30th Crazy Canadian's 355 355
31st VAMOS ALONSO 348 348
32nd MontrealBoyz 346 346
33rd Tobasco F1 345 345
34th Gigantes Tomas 342 342
35th LTD Racing 338 338
36th OneLove Racing 332 332
37th The MGH Group 316 316
38th EuropeanAutoGarage.com 307 307
39th Panther F1 307 307
40th Racer's Edge 297 297
41st Force_Romania 283 283
42nd Winqvist Felix 267 267
43rd GP GrayTT 138 138
44th AK 470 Bullets 0 0
45th Big Black Hawk 0 0

Analysis

Congratulations to the high scorer from the Australian GP - Orange County F1 (Over Under)! What an impressive score! Orange County F1 nabbed 751 points with the following lineup:

Adrian Sutil Force India F1 Team 5.00m 88
Jarno Trulli Panasonic Toyota Racing 7.00m 67
Jenson Button Brawn GP 6.30m 228
Nico Rosberg AT&T Williams 7.50m 138
Rubens Barrichello Brawn GP 6.30m 158
Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 7.00m 63
Budget Remaining 0.90m 9
TEAM VALUE 40.00m 751

When I saw that Orange County F1 had picked 6 drivers for the Australian GP - many of whom were the least expensive drivers on the grid - I was suprised. But I soon saw the logic and brilliance of the strategy. This strategy allowed Orange County F1 to maximize the points available for completed laps and snag bonus points for pole position (Button) and fastest lap (Rosberg). And think about it - Vettel didn't even finish the race! Putting both Rubens and Jenson on the team was also a genius move - and it paid off big time. This was not dumb luck folks. Rather, Orange County F1 knows Formula 1 racing and applied that knowledge - along with information gained from both practice sessions - to form the week's best lineup. Once again, great job Orange County F1.

Orange County F1's steller performance underscores the fact that - with many of the big boys (McLaren, Ferrari and Renault) struggling early on this season - picking up expensive drivers is not a great strategy. Furthermore, given the current state of affairs, the four-driver strategy that I advocated so strongly does not appear able to win the day. The weekly stats show this. Of the top 10 teams in the league for the Australian GP, 8 of them had 5 or more drivers. Only Total Domination (Alzilla) was able to crack the top 10 with only 4 drivers (Button, Barrichello, Raikkonen, Hamilton). Yet it should be noted that Total Domination did sign up both Brawn GP drivers - a great move.

Right now every double-digit value driver has proven to be a pretty bad buy. Just think, for what Lewis Hamilton or Felipe Massa cost everyone could have bought both Rubens and Jenson! And they are still cheap! Probably the best value on the grid right now, however, is Sebastian Vettel. At 8.50 m. He is the finest driver on the grid under 9.0 m. And even though he takes a 10-spot grid penalty in Malaysia this week, everyone should consider picking him up before he crests double-digit value. Another steal right now is Sebastian Buemi. The rookie was steller in his debut and is a steal at 6.40 m.

Gaining Perspective

The overall best player in the Fantasy Racers league as a whole - best of over 4,500 members - scored an incredible 869 points with the following 6 driver lineup.

Jenson Button Brawn GP 6.30m 228
Nico Rosberg AT&T Williams 7.50m 138
Rubens Barrichello Brawn GP 6.30m 158
Sebastien Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso 6.50m 98
Sebastien Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso 6.50m 108
Timo Glock Panasonic Toyota Racing 6.80m 138
Budget Remaining 0.10m 1
TEAM VALUE 40.00m 869

Impressively, our league was the 13th best league overall with a top 5 average of 744.60 points! I am so proud of you guys . . . Sniff . . . Sniff.

Anomoly of The Week

This week we saw the extremes of strategy that can net you a very high score in the fanasy league. We have already seen that Orange County F1's 6 driver strategy carried the day. But consider the strategy employed by Bologna GP - the 9th place finisher. He scored a very impressive 628 points with the following lineup:

Jenson Button Brawn GP 6.30m 228
Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 7.00m 63
Timo Glock Panasonic Toyota Racing 6.80m 138
Budget Remaining 19.90m 199
TEAM VALUE 40.00m 628

You are reading that right folks - a 3-driver TEAM! And of those 3 drivers only 1 finished the race unscathed. Now, hat 1 driver was pole sitter and race winner Jenson Button - but it is still amazing. Bologna GP was able to net such a high score largely due to the 199 points he nabbed in unused budget! Just goes to show that there is more than one way to win in fantasy F1!

Fantasy Tip of The Week

Don't forget that changing your lineup costs you money. Every time you change a driver during the season you lose .20 m from your budget. So make those changes count. Also, I noticed that the driver values begin to change as soon as the race is over and continue to fluctuate. Driver values are based on the popularity of that driver amongst all league players. The more often a driver is selected the more expensive he gets. These values are constantly fluctuating. For example, I picked up Rubens at 9.10 m on Sunday morning but he is valued at 9.50 m at the time I am writing this (Monday afternoon). So if you do choose to change your lineup, doing it early could save you some money.

Be sure to see the Fantasy Racers sight for a detailed explanation of the rules: Fantasy Racers : F1 Competition

Final Thoughts

What a great week! The season is up for grabs folks. Enjoy the ride.

Thanks to all of the participants and congratulations again to our weekly and current overall leader Orange County F1.

Be sure to check out these threads for the best F1 discussion on the Internet!

Fantasy League Discussion: https://teamspeed.com/forums/pit-sto...-spoilers.html

Weekly Race Banter and Discussion Thread: https://teamspeed.com/forums/pit-sto...-spoilers.html

Let's try to keep all of our discussion of the Fantasy League and our banter, discussion and analysis of the the week's race in the Official threads.

Don't forget to set your lineups for the Malaysian GP by Friday at 10:00 am PST.

Good luck to everyone!!

Dana

 

Nice recap Barister, as usual..
congrats Orange county.. 6 driver strategy was a good one.

i am just glad i scored higher than Like.no.other

Looking forward to the next race

 

Great writeup Dana! That's funny that Rubens is up to 9.80 now! I snapped him and Jenson up before Q1 for 6.80 pts a piece!

 

What a re-cap Dana! I'm trying to put togeather my strategy for this week, might keep things the same for now.

And congrats to Orange County F1!

 

Look at how the driver values have changed!

Lewis originally was 13.50 m. Jenson and Rubens were both 6.30. So you would could have gotten both Jenson and Rubens for 12.60 m - almost 1.0 m less than Lewis alone!! Crazy.

Jenson was the single largest jump in value - as would be expected (+4.6 m) and Kimi suffered the largest drop in value (-1.9 m). Rubens increased a lot too (+3.0 m). Those who are adding Jenson and Rubens now have missed the boat entirely.

Lewis only dropped .50 m - far less than he should have. More people should be dropping him and picking up 2 for the price of 1.

Another big dropper was Alonso (-1.5 m).

Adrian Sutil 5.00 5.00 4.80
Felipe Massa 13.00 13.00 11.60
Fernando Alonso 9.90 9.90 8.40
Giancarlo Fisichella 5.50 5.50 5.00
Heikki Kovalainen 11.50 11.50 10.40
Jarno Trulli 7.00 7.00 7.20
Jenson Button 6.30 6.30 10.90
Kazuki Nakajima 7.20 7.20 6.30
Kimi Räikkönen 12.50 12.50 10.60
Lewis Hamilton 13.50 13.50 13.00
Mark Webber 6.80 6.80 6.50
Nelsinho Piquet 6.90 6.90 6.20
Nick Heidfeld 8.40 8.40 7.30
Nico Rosberg 7.50 7.50 8.30
Robert Kubica 8.60 8.60 9.20
Rubens Barrichello 6.30 6.30 9.30
Sebastian Vettel 7.00 7.00 8.50
Sebastien Bourdais 6.50 6.50 5.90
Sebastien Buemi 6.50 6.50 6.40
Timo Glock 6.80 6.80 6.90

On an interesting note, look at Erich's (Orange County F1/Over Under) team value: 49.90 m!!

The player with the highest score in Fantasy Racers overall has a team value of 48.70 m. That means that Erich has - by far - the most valuable team in the entire Fantasy Racer league.

 

My team is only worth 45.2 but I'm still pretty happy about that, and I've still got 0.30 pts to spend if need be.

 

I hate you all.

 

Dana, very good recap! This is great information. Thanks. Looks like there is an advantage to trade soon after the race is over. I wonder if there will be a lot of trade movement after Thursday practice.

 

Excellent recap Dana!!!!

As far as winning with a stable full of low price drivers, how does the old addage go???? "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while"

Brawn appears to be for real. However, the teams with the best drivers, and best resources, and best management will ultimately prevail.

This is shaping up to be an interesting season indeed......

 

I prefer: "If you throw enough crap against the wall, some of it will stick."