Fantasy F1 League Rules

Introduction

Welcome to the Fantasy F1 League rules, outlining the draft procedures, scoring system, and prizes for the league.

Participants in the league are as follows:

The F1 fantasy league will run for the entire 2026 season with weekly and yearly prizes.
Each race week will include a draft of F1 drivers for each team.
Drafts will consist of 4 rounds, resulting in 20 drivers drafted each week.

Drafts will start on Sunday night at approximately 9:00pm Central US time of race week.
The draft app will be open continuously until draft is done. Please complete draft before Friday practice of race week.

Round order for first 5 races: determined by random draw for the first round and second rounds.
Round order after first 5 races: determined by a random draw for the first and second round from posteriors of Bayesian hierarchical model on mean weekly score (lower draw = higher draft). This will on average provide higher draft pick compensation for poorly performing teams.
Rounds 3 and 4 will be using a snake system but round 1 will be snaked with round 3 and round 2 will be snaked with round 4. This is to avoid consecutive picks due to snaking.
Replacement rules apply if a drafted driver is out for any reason:
- You can choose any of the remaining undrafted drivers as a replacement at the time in the draft at which the driver is ruled out or use the replacement driver from the driver’s team.
- Mitch will monitor during the week driver outtages but don’t expect perfection.
Note: all random draws (draft order and MCMC draws) will be replicable using a seed set to the race date according to mmddyyyy

All race points count toward a team’s score.
New this year, qualifying points will be added:
- For Q3, there will be an additional score of 0.5 points per position finished, with an additional 0.5 points for pole. This results in scoring by position:
  - P10 = 0, P9 = 0.5, … , P2 = 4, P1 = 5
- 1 point for making Q2.
- 1 point for making Q3.
Penalties resulting in grid placements drops will not impact qualifying scoring, unless penalties were for gaining an unfair advantage in qualifying (Mitch’s discretion).
On sprint weekends:
- All sprint race points will count towards the score.
- Qualifying points use the same system are regular qualifying but are multiplied by 1/3.

R1 scoring has no modifications
R2, R3, R4 are multiplied by 1.5, 2, and 2.5 respectively
Additional race will be held only among the R4s, with points awarded for the top three positions:
- 5 points for the winner.
- 3 points for second.
- 1 point for third.
“Mr. Irrelevant” (last driver drafted) gets double bottom race points.

Weekly winner = $40
Weekly runner-up = $20
Weekly third place = $10
Season winner = $250
Season runner-up = $150
Season third place = $100
Season “most average” = $40 (this is awarded to the player with the lowest modeled sd)
Season “most extreme” = $40 (this is awarded to the player with the highest modeled sd)
Season “Best Bottom” = $40 (this is awarded to the player with the most R4 points)

Rules are subject to change throughout the year. Mitch will post in the group chat any rule changes and ask for alignment prior to any decision.