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Justin Carter's DraftKings and FanDuel DFS lineup picks for the Formula 1 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Read our daily fantasy F1 advice and sleepers analysis.
Formula 1 is in Imola, Italy this weekend for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. This race was canceled last season because of flooding, but Max Verstappen has won the past two races run at the track, taking first place in 2021 and 2022.
The last time F1 hit the track this season, Verstappen didn't win. It was the second time this season he failed to stand atop the podium. At Australia, Verstappen suffered a mechanical failure, so that Miami race on May 5 represented the first time he'd lost a race that he actually finished since last September when Carlos Sainz Jr. won in Singapore. This time, it was McLaren's Lando Norris earning the win, the first of Norris' career.
Below you will find our Formula 1 DraftKings DFS lineup picks for the Miami Grand Prix on 5/19/24, with the slate locking at 9:00 a.m. EDT. If you have any questions or want to talk about Formula 1, you can find me on Twitter at @juscarts.
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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:
| Finishing Spot | DraftKings Points |
|---|---|
| 1 | 25 |
| 2 | 18 |
| 3 | 15 |
| 4 | 12 |
| 5 | 10 |
| 6 | 8 |
| 7 | 6 |
| 8 | 4 |
| 9 | 2 |
| 10 | 1 |
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: Yuki Tsunoda ($8.1K)
Starts Seventh
Yuki Tsunoda has looked really good this weekend. He was sixth in FP1 and then third in FP2 on Friday. He didn't have the same speed in FP3 on Saturday, but he bounced back in qualifying, making it all the way through to Q3 and ultimately qualifying seventh.
"yuki tsunoda, a star of the imola weekend" sky sports i suddenly love you 🫶🫶 pic.twitter.com/ExLfPVJfQT
— weenie (@toiletdinosaur) May 18, 2024
Tsunoda has finished in the points three times so far this season, including tying his best result of the year at Miami with a seventh-place run. He's been the top RB F1 Team driver in all but two races this season and should be in a position to earn those points again on Sunday in Imola. He finished seventh when the series was last here in 2022.
Constructor: RB F1 Team ($3.4K)
Let's stack Tsunoda and RB F1 Team this weekend. It helps us save some salary space for a couple of big hitters and it also offers us a cheap window in what could be a double points finish.
Don't hold me to that latter statement, but we have both RB cars starting in the top 10 for this one. Daniel Ricciardo has yet to score points this year, but he also hasn't had a qualifying run like this yet this season. Worst case, Tsunoda should contend for points.
Max Verstappen ($16.6K)
Starts First
Let's be real here. I don't expect Max Verstappen to lose back-to-back races. The last time we went two races in a row with non-Verstappen winners was July 2022, when Ferrari managed to snap two consecutive victories.
Add in that Verstappen has won the last two races here and it makes him the overwhelming favorite on Sunday. When F1 was here in 2022, Verstappen parlayed his pole position into a dominant victory that saw him lead all 63 laps. The year before, he led 61 of the 63 laps, starting third but managing to have the lead by the end of the first lap.
Lando Norris ($10.4K)
Starts Second
Fresh off his first career victory, Lando Norris came up just short of the pole on Saturday, running a 1:14.820 lap, just a smidge behind Verstappen's 1:14.746.
Norris was actually slower than teammate Oscar Piastri in all three practice sessions and in qualifying, but a grid penalty pushed Piastri back to fifth. Now, Norris finds himself in a good position to go for his third podium finish in a row. He's also been the top McLaren for four consecutive races.
(I think you could play Piastri in some lineups and hope the speed that the younger driver showed all weekend can manifest in a podium run, but I think it would take an issue with Norris' car for Piastri to finish ahead of his teammate, so you're missing out on those points. I just don't see McLaren letting Piastri take points off Norris with how the battle for second place in the title race is likely to go.)
Fernando Alonso ($7.2K)
Starts 19th
It's not often that we have guaranteed place differential plays in Formula 1. Usually when a top driver is starting in the back for some reason, I fade them because I don't foresee them having an easy path to the "defeated teammate" points.
Fernando Alonso had to pit late on in the Imola #F1 Q1 with an unspecified technical issue, consigning him to 19th on the grid.
He says the Aston mechanics "deserved a little bit better" after rebuilding the car just in time for qualifying. pic.twitter.com/YR9CbqqNOc
— The Race (@wearetherace) May 18, 2024
I don't think that's the case this week with Fernando Alonso. The full five points for gaining 10 spots on the grid and the five points for defeating his teammate are very much in play for the Aston Martin driver, as he's finished ninth or better in every race this season and has failed to finish ahead of teammate Lance Stroll just once.
Esteban Ocon ($4.2K)
Starts 12th
Following his 10th-place finish in Miami, Esteban Ocon's DraftKings salary jumped a little bit, but he still remains a solid value based on how he'd been running. While Alpine F1 Team struggled early in the year, Ocon had his two best finishes of the season in his past two races and has finished ahead of teammate Pierre Gasly in all but one race so far this season. It's clear that Ocon is the team's top driver and he should be competitive for a finish in the lower end of the points on Sunday.
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