Oliver WhiteWith a four week break in the Formula One action, I thought I would pass some of the time by reviewing what I’ve been getting up to this year. One thing I decided to do back in December of last year was to enter in the widely acclaimed Fantasy Racers competition. I won’t bore you with all the ins-and-outs; I’m sure the premise is fairly obvious. However, what I will say is that it isn’t as easy as you might think, especially given the new driver market rules for this season which have made it quite tricky for a novice like myself to get to grips with. Here’s how my lead team have been performing thus far in 2009…
Named after the site, BlogF1 Racing have been solid, if not spectacular. During the course of the ten races so far this year, very few changes have been made to the squad and the team consistently scores okay. It may not have the budget of some of the leading teams in the competition, but if the tale of slow-and-steady wins the race, then BlogF1 Racing are winners by miles.
Fantasy Racers 2009
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||||||||||
 AUS |
 MAL |
 CHN |
 BHR |
 ESP |
 MON |
 TUR |
 GBR |
 DEU |
 HUN |
|
| Points | 549 | 461 | 645 | 641 | 677 | 668 | 636 | 715 | 618 | 599 |
| Race Position | 1678 | 1504 | 618 | 1175 | 1006 | 1279 | 1147 | 601 | 1084 | 505 |
| Overall Position | 1678 | 1488 | 1152 | 1104 | 1061 | 1085 | 1064 | 980 | 957 | 833 |
| SPC Position | ? | 186 | 186 | 153 | 150 | ? | 151 | 143 | 141 | 130 |
So what can we gleam from the above numbers? Well, BF1R are very steady. The lowest of the lows was in Malaysia where the team only picked up 461 points. The highest of the highs was in Britain, where the squad collected 715 points. Interestingly though, the race where the team scored its lowest was also the race where they improved the most in the overall standings. This suggests that most others got it even more wrong than I did.
A similar story could be said of the recent Hungarian race, where the team scored poorly in comparison to its previous results, yet it had its highest rank for an individual event so far. The only time the team has fallen in its overall position was the weekend that I was away – Monaco – but it quickly recovered in the following race and hasn’t looked back since.
Fantasy Racers 2009
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AUS |
MAL |
CHN |
BHR |
ESP |
MON |
TUR |
GBR |
DEU |
HUN |
|
| Driver 1 | ALO | FIS | SUT | SUT | SUT | SUT | SUT | SUT | SUT | FIS |
| Driver 2 | HEI | BUT | BUT | BUT | BUT | BUT | BUT | BUT | BUT | BUT |
| Driver 3 | ROS | ROS | ROS | ROS | ROS | ROS | ROS | ROS | ROS | ROS |
| Driver 4 | VET | VET | VET | VET | VET | VET | VET | VET | VET | VET |
| Driver 5 | GLO | BAR | BAR | BAR | BAR | BAR | BAR | BAR | BAR | HAM |
From the drivers side of things, you can see why the team has been fairly consistent – there have been few changes. Obviously after the first race in Australia, Button was drafted in along with Rubens Barrichello, and the cost of these two meant that Fernando Alonso was replaced with Giancarlo Fisichella, who would later be swapped out in favour of the an even cheaper alternative, Adrian Sutil.
In the most recent race, I decided to actually play the game properly and followed my instincts after the free practice sessions, which meant Lewis Hamilton was brought in to replace the ailing Rubens Blah-rrichello. A move that did very little harm overall.
The most consistent drivers of the team are Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel. Rosberg was a bit of a gamble, and was initially chosen because of my longheld belief that this year will be the year for Williams. Vettel was chosen because I’ve long believed (well, since he was promoted into Formula One) that he is a talent.
Rosberg has had a bit of an up-and-down year, and the same could almost be said of Vettel. But the Red Bull pilot has won twice now, and each time he has won from pole which has given my scores in these races a welcome boost. In Britain, Sebastian even took the fastest lap.
This is the first look at my Fantasy Racer’s squads; there are another four to go which I will add to the site in the coming weeks. Do let me know how your teams are doing, and if you blog yourself, please do write about your successes and failures and let me know in the comments so I can either gloat or look sheepishly embarrassed.
All the individual Fantasy Racers posts can be viewed here: Fantasy Racer Update Posts.
I heart your Fantasy Racers updates, Ollie. I would do a mid-season update but Hungary was such an unmitigated disaster, I would quite like to pretend it never happened.
What kind of fool has Massa, Alonso and Vettel in the same team? Oh yea, that would be me.
It could be worse. My entire LCM Caro team consisted of Button and Vettel, both bought at their most expensive…
Don’t blame me, you asked for it 🙂
Couchpotato’s midseason review:
Most of it is pretty much self-explanatory but the numbers directly behind the drivers are: the first one is the points per value ratio. Is it bigger than one then it means that the driver has earned more points as the money he is worth (I’ve ordered the drivers according to this ratio). The second number is the race position of the driver.
Also the conclusions for the single races aren#t proper conclusions but more something of the sort: “Look how
smartlucky I am.”Melbourne:
Jenson Button 3.62 (1.)
Rubens Barrichello 2.51 (2.)
Nico Rosberg 1.84 (6.)
Adrian Sutil 1.76 (9.)
Kimi Raikkonen 0.48 (15.)
Budget Remaining: 2.40m
TEAM VALUE: 40.00m
TEAM POINTS: 696
FR team position: race: 454th overall: 454th
Conclusion: could have been a lot better
Malaysia
Nick Heidfeld 1.89 (2.)
Jenson Button 1.82 (1.)
Timo Glock 1.72 (3.)
Mark Webber 1.3 (6.)
Fernando Alonso 0.53 (11.)
Kimi Raikkonen 0.34 (14.)
Budget Remaining: 1.00m
TEAM VALUE: 52.60m
TEAM POINTS: 653
FR team position: race: 86th overall 159th
race positions: 1.,2.,3.,6.,11. and 14.
Conclusion: Choosing Heidfeld and Glock instead of Barrichello was a splendid idea 🙂
China:
Sebastian Vettel 2.40 (1.)
Mark Webber 1.95 (2.)
Rubens Barrichello 1.44 (4.)
Timo Glock 1.13 (7.)
Jenson Button 1.04 (3.)
Nico Rosberg 0.68 (15.)
Budget Remaining: 0.40m
TEAM VALUE: 60.90m
TEAM POINTS: 855
FR team position: race: 7th overall: 9th
Conclusion: It was a good decision to Stick with Webber over Trulli (retired in lap 18)
Bahrain:
Jarno Trulli 2.17 (3.)
Jenson Button 1.4 (1.)
Sebastian Vettel 1.29 (2.)
Nico Rosberg 1.21 (9.)
Timo Glock 1.19 (7.)
Fernando Alonso 1.18 (8.)
Robert Kubica 0.95 (18.)
Budget Remaining: 0.40m
TEAM VALUE: 65.80m
TEAM POINTS: 905
FR team position: race & overall: 1st
Yay!-moment: picking Trulli instead of Barrichello
Spain:
Rubens Barrichello 1.81 (2.)
Jenson Button 1.69 (1.)
Mark Webber 1.68 (3.)
Felipe Massa 1.56 (6.)
Robert Kubica 1.32 (11.)
Sebastian Vettel 1.12 (4.)
Kimi Raikkonen 0.28 (ret.)
Budget Remaining: 0.30m
TEAM VALUE: 68.90m (from this race onwards couchpotato is the richest team)
TEAM POINTS: 951
FR team position: race: 2nd overall: 1st
Conclusion: Picking up the Ferraris (148 points) instead ot the Toyotas (86)
Monaco:
Nico Rosberg 2.12 (6.)
Kimi Raikkonen 2.07 (3.)
Adrian Sutil 1.82 (14.)
Felipe Massa 1.81 (4.)
Jenson Button 1.77 (1.)
Rubens Barrichello 1.57 (2.)
Kazuki Nakajima 1.44 (15.)
Lewis Hamilton 0.74 (12.)
Budget Remaining: 0.90m
TEAM VALUE: 72.50m
TEAM POINTS: 1171
FR team poition: race & overall: 1st
good decision: dropping Vettel
Turkey
Nico Rosberg 1.86 (5.)
Jenson Button 1.63 (1.)
Mark Webber 1.43 (2.)
Sebastian Vettel 1.37 (3.)
Felipe Massa 1.10 (6.)
Kimi Raikkonen 0.91 (9.)
Rubens Barrichello 0.41 (ret.)
Budget Remaining 0.0m
TEAM VALUE: 75.50m
TEAM POINTS: 937
FR team position: race: 2nd overall: 1st
Conclusion: Not a very good race. The only reason I came still second was because I am stinking rich.
Great Britain:
Sebastian Vettel 1.94 (1.)
Nico Rosberg 1.83 (5.)
Mark Webber 1.40 (2.)
Adrian Sutil 1.34 (17.)
Jarno Trulli 1.34 (7.)
Robert Kubica 1.24 (13.)
Timo Glock 1.23 (9.)
Kazuki Nakajima 1.21 (11.)
Jenson Button 0.86 (6.)
Budget Remaining 1.10m
TEAM VALUE: 77.90m
TEAM POINTS: 1071
FR team position: race & overall: 1st
Conclusion: Again I didn’t pick amazingly well. But going for many drivers was probably a good idea.
Germany:
Mark Webber 1.90 (1.)
Nico Rosberg 1.89 (4.)
Fernando Alonso 1.83 (7.)
Felipe Massa 1.52 (3.)
Adrian Sutil 1.43 (15.)
Giancarlo Fisichella 1.42 (11.)
Timo Glock 1.27 (9.)
Sebastian Vettel 1.14 (2.)
Kimi Raikkonen 0.42 (ret.)
Budget Remaining: 3.50m
TEAM VALUE: 79.00m
TEAM POINTS: 1107
FR team position: race & overall: 1st
Conclusion: quite happy with that one. Sold both Brawns and even Kimi’s usual low score didn#t hurt me much.
Hungary:
Kimi Raikkonen 2.10 (2.)
Lewis Hamilton 2.07 (1.)
Nico Rosberg 1.95 (4.)
Timo Glock 1.86 (6.)
Robert Kubica 1.70 (13.)
Heikki Kovalainen 1.69 (5.)
Jarno Trulli 1.52 (8.)
Mark Webber 1.42 (3.)
Rubens Barrichello 0.85 (10.)
Budget Remaining: 2.40m
TEAM VALUE: 79.20m
TEAM POINTS: 1292
FR team position: race & overall: 1st
Conclusion: YAY!! I’ve changed this team at least a million times (2 Million worth of changing fines to be correct), in the end I kept only 1/3 of the team from my old team.
Overall Conclusion: As you may have noticed the driver that bring the most points per value are almost never the expensive drivers. You can see that especially clearly for Monaco. 4 drivers would have been a better choice than the race winner.
So what I’m trying to say is: Only ever choose an expensive driver when you’re sure he will finish first (or maybe second and gets fastest lap/pole), otherwise more cheaper driver is always the better option. It also has the advantage that if you choose one expensive driver and he DNF you loose all but if you have several drivers the chances that at least one of them finishes well is quite high, because there is nothing worse for you FR score than a DNF.
So that’s all:)
Thanks muchly, Christine. 🙂
Oh noes! Still, it could have been worse (from a Fantasy Racer perspective), you could have still had Bourdais in the team! 🙂
Ouch!
Ouch! {Oliver White – previous comment}
I have to admit I wasn’t enormously upset at LCM Caro being last, just disappointed by the margin. You see, LCM Caro is one of three teams I have with automated selections. In LCM Caro’s case, it takes the most expensive drivers affordable. When a driver on the team is cheaper than one not bought, or there’s enough change to buy the next-most expensive driver, the line-up is changed.
In practise, this frequently leads to poor results.
LCM Dragons, which is the team completely picked from who I think will do best, is currently beating all my other teams. LCM Fire Lizard, a combination of the drivers I support and drivers who I think will do well in a given race, also did well in Hungary.
What LCM Caro shows is that my brain can beat a simple algorithm. This gives me confidence 🙂
By the way, I’m still digesting Kathi’s methods and numbers…
U-oh!
I wouldn’t be worried if I were you. You have it wrapped. 😛