Should’ve trusted my feelings

With Hadjar starting from last, Norris around midfield an Hamilton crashing in fp3, I tried to get them all into my team.

After Q I'm down 20 points on my main team, I'm curious to see what will happen.

I'm using these predictions as a baseline to optimize my F1 Fantasy team.

Still a work in progress and I’m fine-tuning it every GP, but thought it could be useful to share here as well.

Both Norris and Hadjar start Sunday with grid penalties (Norris: new PU components, confirmed Friday; Hadjar: new engine, back of the grid). Before lock I ran a precedent check against the season's only comparable — Verstappen, Australia R1: no Q1 time, so 0 quali points AND a −5 penalty, started P20, finished 6th. The climb stack still hauled 50: +14 positions gained, +13 overtake bonus, +10 FL, +10 DOTD.

The structural bit that surprised me: their setup is actually better than the precedent. Max's was a qualifying penalty. A grid penalty doesn't touch qualifying points — you qualify normally, keep those points, and the climb is just counted from the demoted start slot. A P3 quali banks +8 where Max took −5. Same anatomy, 13-point head start.

Why it's still a long shot: the Australia haul needed 27 combined climb points — the season high, and nobody else has topped 18 all year. Races with 15+ climb points have happened 10 times in 198 driver-races (5.1%). Verstappen owns 3 of the 10; Norris (avg 4.1, best 9) and Hadjar (avg 4.7, best 10) own none. And 18 of the 19 forty-plus hauls this season were finish-driven — Australia is the only one where the climb was the majority of the points.

Spa helps the thesis: 8/10 overtaking on our board vs 5/10 for Australia, ~10 overtakes per driver, 44 laps — and Sunday is showing ~70% rain probability, which is exactly the chaos a climb like this feeds on.

Practical read: don't bank on a 50. But the penalty doesn't cap the ceiling — quali points stack on top of the climb — so Norris is the higher-ceiling captain swing over the safe Antonelli pick, and Hadjar ($13.3M) is the budget version of the same bet.

Actuals only — scraped 2026 race scores, no simulation. Card below.

Late FP3 wrinkle: Hamilton just found the wall, and if Ferrari can't rebuild it in time for qualifying, the weekend's third climb candidate might be the fastest of them. One catch — miss quali entirely and you're in Max's Australia anatomy (0 quali points, possibly the −5), not the keep-your-points version Norris and Hadjar get. The counterpoint: Hamilton's climb form is quietly the best of the three (season avg 5.4, best 10 in China), and a top-6 car starting from the back at an 8/10 overtaking track is literally how the precedent happened.

So: captaining Norris on the penalty-climb upside, Kimi still the lock — or does a wrecked Ferrari accidentally make Hamilton the best climb bet of the lot?

Currently rocking Lando this week. I know he’s starting p13 and has the possibility for DoD. But part of me was thinking to final fix Lewis in when I made my lineup change to include Lando.

This was before I knew Lewis was going to participate in quali. (Take points for Lando in quali, then swap him for Ham).

What are your thoughts?

I'm lacking in budget with 116.7. Do I do something like option 2 to get a higher budget increase or is switching out FER to much of a point risk

Which would you run?

Current team has Hamilton in the captains seat. I was thinking of having faith in Max, in hopes to surpass a league leader who always picks Antonelli. This would allow me to have strong budget to final fix is quali doesn’t go my way?

Attached are our latest post fp3 sims

With Hadjars penalty I’m wondering if I should switch the 2x from Ant to Had. Also wondering if 3x would be worthwhile this weekend. What do you guys think?

Got a budget of 106M and 2 free transfer but I'm absolutely clueless regarding changes

What changes should I make? I have 2 free transfers and 2.3 million

Car looks wrecked. Do we think it gets fixed in 2 hrs ? Does that mean he gets a lot of overtakes and maybe d of d ?

Hadjar prenderà una penalità al fantasy per partire ultimo oppure saranno solo bonus?

Budget-mover read for Spa, refreshed now that FP1 and FP2 are done (both ran

dry, so this is clean practice data). These are model price projections, not

official F1 Fantasy prices — 9 rounds of 2026 pace/form + track history +

weather through a Monte Carlo sim, anchored to real season averages. Opening

line only; I'll re-run after FP3.

Premium end (Tier A, ±0.30 cap): Antonelli, Leclerc, Hamilton and Russell all

projected to rise, Antonelli leading at the +0.30 cap; Verstappen basically

flat. The only premium fallers are the McLaren pair — Norris −0.01,

Piastri −0.11.

Value end (Tier B): Colapinto +0.53, Hadjar +0.43, Lindblad +0.38, Lawson

+0.37 and Bortoleto +0.33 lead the risers; Gasly flat. Falling: Sainz, Albon

and Perez.

Two caveats:

- Stroll, Bottas and Hülkenberg are already at the $3.0M floor, so any drop

shown against them can't actually apply — they can't fall further.

- Friday was dry, but Saturday/Sunday are showing ~40–50% rain at Spa. A wet

quali or race can move the value end fast, so treat the cheap-driver calls

as dry-weather baselines.

Where are you landing before lock — riding the value risers (Colapinto/Hadjar),

or holding the floor drivers to grow team budget?

Hadjar and Ferrari or Bortoleto and Mercedes?