RADIO
Formula 1 heads to Canada this weekend for the Canadian Grand Prix. Last season, Max Verstappen won here from the pole. His teammate Sergio Perez finished last, retiring early from a gearbox issue.
F1 was last in action two weeks ago in Spain, with Verstappen winning after leading every lap. A Red Bull driver has won every race this season, and a P1 start for Verstappen on Sunday makes it look like that streak can stay alive.
Below you will find our Formula 1 DraftKings DFS lineup picks for the Canadian Grand Prix on 6/18/23, with the slate locking at 2:00 p.m. ET. 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: Esteban Ocon ($9,600)
Starts Sixth
Trying a new approach this week, which is saving some money at captain and constructor to instead build a lineup with some strong contenders in it, so we aren't just relying on Max Verstappen.
That starts with Esteban Ocon as captain. After a slow start to the season, Ocon has scored points in three consecutive races, finishing ahead of his Alpine teammate Pierre Gasly in both races. That's something he has a chance to do again on Sunday, as Gasly is mired back in 15th at the start.
Also of note: Ocon started seventh here last season for Alpine and finished sixth, while then-teammate Fernando Alonso scored a top-10 as well.
Constructor: McLaren ($4,400)
Only two teams have two drivers starting in the top 10. There's Mercedes, which has Lewis Hamilton and George Russell starting third and fourth, respectively. Then there's McLaren, which has Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri starting seventh and eighth, respectively.
Sure, there are two Ferraris and a Red Bull behind who can pass them up, and Piastri losing three spots would put him out of the points. But this is also a race where anything can happen -- last year, we had three drivers DNF. It's not impossible to see McLaren with double points for the second time in the last three races.
Max Verstappen ($14,800)
Starts First
Alright, here's Max. The defending drivers champion has already staked his name as the favorite to win this season's title, and he comes to Canada having won three races in a row. He led every lap in the latter two races, and his worst showing this year is second.
Even though he's incredibly expensive, getting Verstappen in your lineup basically guarantees you get the highest-scoring driver of the day in your lineup, which is always a good thing to have.
Verstappen won here last year, leading 53 of the 70 laps and winning by just under a second over Ferrari's Carlos Sainz. But Ferrari doesn't look like a challenger to Red Bull this year, and neither does anyone else. Verstappen's only real challenger is teammate Sergio Perez, but he starts outside the top 10. This projects to be another race where Verstappen smashes the field, especially at a track where the winner has come from the front row six consecutive times.
Lewis Hamilton ($10,200)
Starts Third
While I don't think Lewis Hamilton will have much for Verstappen unless Verstappen has a problem, the seven-time Canadian Grand Prix winner should have a great shot to finish P2 at a track where he's usually been really good.
Even last year when Mercedes seemed to have lost a bit of speed, Hamilton finished P3 here. This is just such a strong track for this Mercedes team, with George Russell finishing P4 last year as well.
Lando Norris ($6,200)
Starts Seventh
If we captain McLaren, then we should probably go ahead and stack that with a McLaren play as well, right?
Norris fires off seventh, and last week's 17th-place finish was the first time he hadn't finished as the top McLaren since Saudi Arabia back in March. And he would have been in line to contend for a podium last race, except Lap 1 contact with Lewis Hamilton shredded the front wing of Norris' McLaren, forcing an early pit stop to replace it. Keep the car clean and Norris should have a good shot at a top-five finish.
Nico Hulkenberg ($4,800)
Starts Fifth
If it wasn't for a grid penalty, Haas would have had its first front-row start ever. But Hulkenberg was penalized three spots, dropping him to fifth on the grid.
Still, he opens the race eight spots ahead of teammate Kevin Magnussen. And Magnussen's 13th-place starting spot ties his second-best qualifying effort of the year, giving us some evidence that the whole Haas team has found a little speed this weekend.
Hulkenberg has earned the "defeated teammate" points in two consecutive races. He did lose eight spots the last time he started in the top 10, but the team's three-stop strategy kind of doomed him there. Hope for a better strategy this week.
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