Log in to your F1 Fantasy account this week and you will be greeted with a warning message prompting changes to your team.
“Action required: Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson have changed race teams. If you currently have either driver in your team you will need to use your transfer allowance to avoid “inactive driver” penalties.”
No one wants to be hit with penalties in F1, just ask the Ferrari pair of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc after both were disqualified from the Chinese Grand Prix for car infringements.
That means one of the two free transfers for a player with either Lawson or Tsunoda in their squad is lost to correcting the issue – unless said player has a feeling Red Bull might switch the duo back again in the coming weeks!
Tsunoda will set you back $16.4million – exactly double the cost of Lawson in the Racing Bulls team – and given the respective start to the season of the junior team and the fact the ousted Kiwi will clearly have a point to prove, Lawson could make for a shrewd addition this time around.
As ever, we asked a pair of Motorsport.com writers to give us their expert* input ahead of the deadline for transfers.
Ruben Zimmermann, Editor, Motorsport.com Germany, ‘RZ Racing’: “I lost a lot of points in China because of the double Ferrari disqualification. As I’m still annoyed about that, Ferrari is out this time!
“Instead, I’ve opted for a cheaper team with Racing Bulls in order to free up budget for Oscar Piastri, who will be my spearhead in Japan. I had to change something on the driver side anyway, because I previously had Tsunoda in the team.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
“Apart from that, I’m sticking with Alex Albon, Fernando Alonso, who I hope will finally finish a race, and the two Sauber drivers as low-cost alternatives. My second (and most important) team remains McLaren, as in Australia and China. Hopefully they won’t be disqualified this time…”
Hannah Newman, writer, ‘Bortolet’s go!’: “Off the back of Piastri’s fantastic performance in China, I have decided to replace Lando Norris with his McLaren team-mate, both based on my confidence in the Aussie driver and to free up some funds elsewhere.
“I’ve also switched Williams drivers – Carlos Sainz out for Albon as Albon’s performances have been fantastic recently. I have faith Sainz will be fighting up with his team-mate soon, but for now Albon seems to have the upper hand.
“RB has been replaced in favour of Williams due to the Grove-based outfit’s strong start to the season. While I do think RB will perform well this weekend, especially in qualifying, their race strategies need work.”
Check back on Motorsport.com on Monday for an update on the top of the leaderboard following the Japanese Grand Prix, also previewing the fourth round of the season in Bahrain.
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*might not be deemed expert by Sunday evening
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