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F1 FANTASY: Tips for the Spanish Grand Prix – Verstappen, Stroll and Albon on hot streaks
The Spanish Grand Prix is looming and that means it’s time to look at F1 Fantasy options for this weekend's race, plus the best team from the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix – in which Max Verstappen took his first victory of the season. No prizes for guessing, then, as to who appears in the Team of the Week…
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Hot streaks
Max Verstappen costs $5m less than Lewis Hamilton but could pick up a bonus of 10 points as he’s on a streak of four consecutive top-10 finishes. Even if he doesn’t win the Spanish Grand Prix, he could net around 50 points this coming weekend if he nets a podium thanks to the top-10 streak.
READ MORE: Perez will compete in Spanish GP weekend after testing negative for Covid-19
Team mate Alex Albon doesn’t haul quite as many points as Verstappen but costs around $20.7m and is also on a streak of top-10 finishes. Expect him to net around 30 points if he finishes in the top-five and completes another terrific charge up the field.
But the driver to focus on here is Lance Stroll, who costs just over $10m (eligible for a Turbo Driver powerup that doubles his score) and could bring in around 30 points if he outraces returnee Sergio Perez and finishes in the top-10.
Tips for the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix
Apart from Lance Stroll, who’s definitely worth buying for reasons set out above, team mate Sergio Perez returns and will be eager to prove his mettle after two races out. His price has dropped to $9.7m and 53% of teams include the Racing Point driver now.
Antonio Giovinazzi continues to score healthily with eight points from the last race and is worth picking at $8.9m, but his price has risen a whopping $1.2m this season so far.
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AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat, as mentioned in the last F1 Fantasy piece, is a bargain at $9.5m. He netted 16 points from the last race and his price has actually reduced $0.4m over the season.
Team of the Week from the 70th anniversary Grand Prix
That’s right, race-winner Verstappen features in the best team from the last race at Silverstone, with 52 points. Twenty-five of those points came from winning, 10 from qualifying, six from gaining three positions and a few more for beating his team mate and finishing the race. Crucially, he made it a fifth consecutive top-10 qualifying, which gave him five extra points.
Thanks to the aforementioned streaks, Lewis Hamilton was the highest-scoring F1 Fantasy driver, even though he didn’t win the 70th Anniversary race, with 54 points overall. His P2 qualifying netted him 12 points and he took Fastest Lap (five points), plus 18 for finishing second. Then, for finishing in the top-10 for a fifth race running, he got 10 extra points, with five more for a top-10 qualifying streak. He was made Mega Driver (x3 score) for 162 points in all.
Lance Stroll took a solid 20 points for P6 in the race and qualifying, beating team mate Nico Hulkenberg, making Q3 and finishing the race itself. His temporary team mate Hulkenberg features too, scoring 12 points overall for qualifying P3, finishing P7 and beating Stroll in qualifying too – but he lost eight points for losing four places in the top-10. Finally, Romain Grosjean netted five points for beating team mate Kevin Magnussen in the race and qualifying with a Q2 appearance.
READ MORE: Hulkenberg interested in Alfa Romeo seat for 2021 as he plots full-time return to F1
As for the constructors, although Mercedes took 56 points overall, they lost four points as Valtteri Bottas finished P3 from pole position. As a result, Red Bull were the top-scoring constructors thanks to Verstappen’s win and Alex Albon’s brilliant charge up the field – netting 66 points from the last weekend.
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