After a two-week hiatus, it’s time for the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. There is a lot of high hopes for this weekend’s race with the new cars. Will that come to fruition? It’s too early to tell but through practice, it certainly seems like we’re setup for an interesting Spain GP.

All weekend on the Sky Sports broadcast, they’ve been saying that if the car is good at Barcelona, it’s a very good test of the rest of the season. Teams have certainly taken that to heart as they’ve brought a bunch of updates and upgrades for their cars. The only team not to bring updates and upgrades this weekend is Haas, as far as has been reported. The updates have really tightened the field up quite a lot with six cars within .2 seconds of each other in FP3 at the top of grid.

Barcelona-Catalunya Track Layout

This is one of the shortest tracks on the schedule at just 2.9 miles in length per lap. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy lap though. The corners are very tough and put a lot of load on the tires early in the lap. That makes Sector 3 of the lap the difference maker as the tires are struggling for grip. This is also a track layout that hasn’t provided a lot of chances to pass. It’s got just one long straight and two DRS zones but the tight racing line in the corners causes the challenge in passing. Barcelona is absolute test of the equipment and teams that have had reliability issues will be exaggerated here.

F1 DFS Strategy For Spain GP

There are 65 laps in the Pirelli Gran Premio De España on Sunday. That’s a lot, relatively in F1 and that means there’s a bit more points on the table for captain spots and driver spots to grab. That being said, that might be the only spot that there’s extra points to be grabbed. This is a notoriously tough track to pass at in the flow of the race. In fact, of the 31 races at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, 28 of them have been won by drivers starting on the front row. So with the drivers starting on the front row being chalky, we’ll have to be sneaky with where we’re finding points elsewhere from drivers. Qualifying has given us some upside plays with circumstances out of some drivers control. Even with that though, you may find some new names in the playbook below to try and get differentiation from the field.

Captain Picks for DFS

As usual, anyone listed in the Captain section can be used in the driver slots as well but are the ones that can maximize the 1.5x fantasy points available.

Max Verstappen — $17,400

We’ve seen Verstappen start off the pole and still lead the majority of laps and win; he’s done it twice this year. That’s a possibility again this weekend. He’ll start P2 on Sunday but has shown better race pace than the Ferraris this weekend. The only concern here is on his final qualifying lap he said he didn’t have power in the car but the car didn’t fully die — it just couldn’t get all the way through the gears. We’ve seen Red Bull bothered by reliability issues this year, this could be a risk here.

Charles Leclerc — $16,800

Leclerc is on the pole…again. He led all three practice sessions…again. What else is new here? The pole at Barcelona has been a very good place to be having been the winning position 23-of-31 previous races. Couple that with Leclerc only ever winning from the pole in his career and it’s setting up well for the Scuderia. The issue here is twofold. Firstly, they’ve had tire degradation issues the last few weeks and he mentioned that post-qualifying. Secondly, Red Bull outpaced Ferrari on long runs and Ferrari was third in the straight line speed through three practices. If he can runaway and hide at the start of the race, it should be a wire-to-wire win for Leclerc.

George Russell — $13,200

In his best qualifying effort of his career, Russell will start P4 on Sunday. That puts him ahead of his teammate, again, with a shot to finish on the podium for the second time this year. The price might be getting steeper on Russell, but the results bare out why that’s the case as he’s still the only driver to finish top-five in every race. There’s also a chance that Russell finishes P2 if the Red Bulls have an issue and he either outruns Carlos Sainz or one of the Ferraris makes a mistake, which is possible. There’s value here but perhaps not any laps led.

Pierre Gasly — $8,400

Gasly’s up-and-down year continued with an up-and-down weekend so far through practice and qualifying. He ran P11 and P8 in the first two practices and then the car caught fire in FP3. They were able to fix it for qualifying where he spotted P14 in the grid. He’s been faster than his teammate most of the weekend and should be able to move up a few spots in the race to potentially finish in the top-10 and beat Yuki Tsunoda. The upside here is worth the price and he might be a contrarian pick throughout builds.

Top Driver Picks

Lewis Hamilton — $9,200

The argument here is simple. This is one of his favorite tracks and one of his best. He’s won here six times and we squarely in the top-five much of the weekend. Mercedes appears to be figuring out the pace in the cars and were legitimate contenders for the front row in qualifying for the first time all season. If he catches some breaks and out runs his teammate, there’s value here at this price as he could be in for a Bahrain or Australia type performance.

Lando Norris — $8,200

Norris should’ve been in Q3 with a top-eight time before it was disallowed (by mere inches) for exceeding track limits. Norris has also outrun his teammate much of the weekend, putting the new updates to his McLaren to use. If he can make up the gap in the grid between he and Daniel Ricciardo, he’s worth the play. That being said, we can also take the other side of the matchup and play Daniel Ricciardo for $1,200 in savings and hope he hangs on to his grid advantage for those bonus points.

Valtteri Bottas — $7,600

Is anyone shocked to see Bottas in the playbook? The man has just been consistent all season and has been improving all weekend. The fastest times he’s run came in FP3 and qualifying as they dialed in the Alfa Romeo’s setup. Even if he finishes about where he starts, he should still get bonus points and put up double-digit scoring for the fifth time in six races.

Esteban Ocon — $6,600

Ocon has moved up at least one spot in the grid in every race but one this year, including a whopping 12 spots last weekend. Even though this track is marked as tough to pass on, Ocon hasn’t had issues with that anywhere this year. He ran between P11 and P9 in practices before qualifying P12 on Saturday. Even with his teammate being Fernando Alonso, Ocon has still gotten the defeated teammate bonus in every race. He’s also got a grid advantage on him this weekend, again. Let’s bank on those bonus points and a solid finish for a fifth double-digit scoring day from the Frenchman. If we want to take a risk, play Fernando Alonso in the hopes of getting Spot vs. Grid Position points and potentially a top-10 day as the Spaniard is at his home race and has shown good speed this weekend, at times.

Kevin Magnussen — $5,200

K-Mags price has been all over the place this year. He’s been as high as $8,000 and as low as $3,800. That’s kind of like his scoring. He’s ranged from one point to 16 points and posted eight twice. We’re looking for an eight or better type week from Magnussen. Both Haas cars made the Q3 session with Magnussen qualifying P8. He’s seemed to get faster all weekend and ran P8 in FP3. If he can hang onto a top-10 spot and beat Mick Schumacher we’re in line for a decent point day. It’s not sexy but we need savings somewhere in the lineup.

Sebastian Vettel — $3,400

All of the talk of the Aston Martin being a green Red Bull seemed to die down as the Aston Martins’ speed trailed off later in the weekend. If the speed trailed off why is Vettel in the playbook? Because of the old “I don’t have to outrun the bear I just have to outrun you” saying. All we need him to do is outrun Lance Stroll which he did at Imola and was doing at Miami until Schumacher forgot how to drive and took out Vettel. If he can realize the P12-P8 speed he had earlier this weekend, Vettel is in for his second double-digit scoring weekend of the year.

Constructor Plays For Spain GP

Just like last race at Miami, Red Bull and Ferrari are always playable. They’ve been the most dominant teams this season quite clearly. They’re the two most expensive constructors though and will make you get creative with the last few driver spots to pair them with a Red Bull or Ferrari driver in the captain spot.

Mercedes — $9,000

Mercedes is back. Or at least it appears that way given the speed they showed all weekend and how well their filming day went on Thursday. Both drivers are feeling really good about their cars for the first time this season and now they have the pace to compete. Let’s put it this way, they’re averaging 25 points a race already, prior to having pace. Now they have pace and still have the pit strategy and straight line advantage. The same thing we said for Russell above carries over here — if Red Bull and/or Ferrari has a mistake or car issue, Mercedes is looking at a chance for a podium spot, if not two.

McLaren — $6,000

When Lando Norris had his Q2 time disallowed, it got Daniel Ricciardo back into Q3. That’s how close both drivers were to being in the top-10. Admittedly it was a disastrous weekend for them in Miami but prior to that they’d put up 25 and 17 points respectively. This is also now their cheapest price of the season and a perfect chance to get them at a discount while they can still get the double top-10 bonus points.

Alpine — $5,000

It was not a great qualifying session for Alpine. That’s plain to see. Putting Ocon P12 and Alonso P17 wasn’t their plan and it mostly came down to Alonso not having enough spacing on his lap in Q1. The speed is there though to move up through the field a bit and Alonso has the skill and wherewithal to do it at his home track. We could be looking at some very nice Spot vs. Grid Position points and if there’s a safety car on Sunday, we could also see both drivers sneak into the top-10.

Haas — $3,800

To be honest, I wasn’t sure Haas was going to make the playbook this weekend with them being the only team without updates on their cars. However, then they went and put both cars in Q3 on Saturday. At track that it’s tough to pass and having had both drivers flash top-10 speed at various points this weekend, it’s worth a shot. IF they can hold their spots, and you’ll notice I capitalized “if”, they’re a sneaky source of points for very little budget.