Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix DFS: DraftKings Daily Fantasy F1 Lineup Picks

Formula 1 heads to Belgium this weekend for the Belgian Grand Prix, and a Max Verstappen grid penalty means that the most dominant driver in F1 starts sixth, his lowest starting spot since Miami when he started ninth. But Verstappen won that race, kicking off a string of seven consecutive victories. Can he make it eight in a row?

Lewis Hamilton was on pole last week in Hungary, but Verstappen grabbed the lead on the first lap and never gave it up, winning by over 30 seconds, with Lando Norris finishing second. Verstappen has been unbeatable lately, and 11 races into the season we still haven't seen a team other than Red Bull win a race.

Below you will find our Formula 1 DraftKings DFS lineup picks for the Hungarian Grand Prix on 7/30/23, with the slate locking at 9:00 a.m. ET. If you have any questions or want to talk about Formula 1, you can find me on Twitter at @juscarts.

How Does Formula 1 Fantasy Work?

Here's how the scoring and format work for F1 DFS on DraftKings. You'll pick five drivers and a constructor. One of those drivers will be your captain, who earns you 1.5 times the points but also costs 1.5 times as much as they usually cost. For the constructor, you're choosing one of the F1 teams.

So here's how the scoring works. Your driver only gets points if they finish in the top 10. Here's a chart for how that breaks down:

In addition, the driver with the fastest lap of the race gets three points. You get 0.1 points per lap led, five points for beating your teammate, one point for being classified at the finish (finished 90% of the race, essentially), and points for place differential.

Finish three spots higher than your grid position and you get two points. Finish five better and you get three points. Finish 10 better to get five points. You also lose points for a negative place differential, starting at three spots.

The constructor points work the same way, with some added points if both cars do well.

It's confusing, but for Formula 1 DFS to work, it probably had to be confusing.

Now that we've gone over that, let's talk drivers. Here's what I've put together as a kind of base lineup.

Captain: Sergio Perez ($15,600)

Starts Second

I want to do an experiment this week, which is called "fading Max Verstappen." Which isn't to say I won't play Verstappen in some lineups. In fact, here's a quick note of what a Verstappen-led lineup looks like for me:

CPT: Leclerc, CON: Ferrari, DRIVERS: Verstappen, Gasly, Albon, Tsunoda

The problem with that one? Relying on both Albon and Tsunoda. That's why I'm going to just experiment with ignoring Verstappen's dominance and building a lineup that wins through the rest of my plays being strong.

This build begins with Verstappen's teammate, Sergio Perez, as my captain. The only other driver to win a race this year, Perez will have a shot to get out front early, and he should be able to get far enough away that Verstappen, who starts sixth now, won't be able to DRS his way past him easily, though pit stop cycles could end up contributing to Verstappen eventually getting the race lead and winning once again.

Constructor: Ferrari ($8,500)

Beating Red Bull seems impossible at this point, but maybe this is the week Ferrari can do it. They have a car on the pole in Charles Leclerc, plus Carlos Sainz starts fourth. Sainz was the fastest in FP1, and Leclerc was fourth.

The recent strong performance from McLaren has also really shaken up the constructor pricing. A huge value just a couple of races back, McLaren is now up to $9,300, making it the No. 2 constructor in price. Ferrari has slid back to fourth, and $8,500 ties the cheapest the team has been in DFS all season. If you think this is potentially a big week for the Ferrari squad, then you've got to love this price.

Charles Leclerc ($8,800)

Starts First

With Leclerc on pole, we might finally get a different constructor atop the podium this week, right?

Ehh. We'll see. I still view Verstappen and Perez both as better shots to win this race, but Leclerc has a chance. He was only sixth here last year, but that was because he started 15th. His No. 16 car had speed but also had to contend with traffic. And while Verstappen won here last year, the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz was on pole, and he wound up with a podium and led 12 of the 44 laps. Leclerc has a good shot to get his third podium of the year on Sunday.

Oscar Piastri ($8,400)

Starts Fifth

While Piastri qualified just one spot ahead of teammate Lando Norris, the Verstappen penalty means he'll actually start two spots ahead of him, as Piastri is the final driver to benefit from that.

While Norris has been the better of the two McLaren drivers, Piastri has back-to-back finishes in the top five, earning double-digit DraftKings points in both races despite not getting the "defeated teammate" points in either of them. Considering Norris costs $10,200 vs. Piastri at $8,400, I really like the idea of betting on Piastri being the top McLaren this week. Even if it doesn't happen, he should have a strong run. He was second-fastest in FP1, and he was quicker than Norris in all three rounds of qualifying.

Pierre Gasly ($5,000)

Starts 12th

Alpine has had some issues lately, with a double DNF at Silverstone, followed by another double DNF in Hungary. But the team's still had decent speed most weeks, and they're still sixth in the constructor standing. And there's a big gap back to Williams—Alpine has 47 points in sixth, while Williams and Haas are seventh/eighth with 11 points each.

All that's to say that Gasly has a car that can score points with a little luck. He starts a couple of spots ahead of Esteban Ocon this weekend and is $400 cheaper. It's kind of really a toss-up between the two when it comes to the "defeated teammate points," so I'll go with the driver who starts higher as my pick. (And when I say it's a toss-up, I mean it—through 11 races, Gasly has earned the points six times, while Ocon has earned them five times.)

Yuki Tsunoda ($3,400)

Starts 11th

Last week, Daniel Ricciardo made his return to AlphaTauri, finishing 13th at Hungary while Yuki Tsunoda was 15th. That's led to a sharp drop in Tsunoda's DFS pricing, as he was $5,000 at Silverstone when Nyck de Vries was his teammate, $4,600 last week for Ricciardo's debut, and now is down to just $3,400 after Ricciardo outran him once.

But Tsunoda had a top-10 run in FP1 and in the first round of qualifying, and he'll start Sunday's race 11th, while Ricciardo will start 19th. Tsunoda might not have the car it takes to get up into the points, but at $3,400, I'll bet on him outperforming Ricciardo when he has this big of an advantage on the starting grid.

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