Nerd Grand Prix

May 3, 2009 11:05 AM

Please give suggestions for a Fantasy Formula 1 league.

Four friends and I are interested in starting a Fantasy Formula 1 league next year. Now, I know there are already several pages out there with available formats, but I have my problems with them. One league, for example, gives the player $90 phony dollars to assemble two drivers, one car, and one engine. But the prices are pre-set by the commissioner, and are totally out of whack with the way this F1 season is progressing. (For example, Button and Barichello are the bottom two price-wise.) Also, they made Mercedes a mid-price engine, but there are six Mercedes cars on the track, two from elite teams.

My idea is based on the Home Run pool I participate in. We select a draft order at random, run a serpentine draft until all 20 drivers are taken, then simply track the points each driver accumulates and add them to the team's total. Then, at the end of the year, we give out a constructor's prize for the player with the best team overall, and a driver's prize to whoever has the actual driver's champion on their team. (I imagine that the constructor will get 60% of the pot, and the driver's champ 40%)

So, has anyone tried this? Can anyone see any obvious flaws with this model? Any other suggestions? I'd like to keep the league relatively simple.

posted by Doctor Suarez to sports, hobbies, & recreation (2 comments total)

I've found I had the most fun with racing pick 'em games, where the players just pick the top n results per race, and awarding points for how close the predictions were to the actual results. Since there aren't as many players as in other sports leagues other fantasy scenarios just feel artificially complicated.
posted by Space Coyote at 11:45 AM on May 3

One flaw is that the person who picks last is going to have a much worse chance of winning the drivers championship.

A second potential flaw is that there's a good chance of a runaway leader/runaway losers, given the nature of F1.

I would recommend doing something that happens every race, such as:

1. Doing what Coyote recommends (pick the first n, get points for how accurate predictions are) OR

2. Pick X drivers/Y teams each week, and score their points. Restrict picking a given driver/team to Z times a year (eg, 2 drivers and 1 team a week, pick each one a max of 4 times).
To restrict this further, you could do what I've seen in some NASCAR leagues and also break them into group so you're picking 1 good, 1 midfield, and 1 bad driver/team/whatever each week.
posted by radicarian at 2:13 PM on May 3