F1 Fantasy: top picks & predictions for the 2025 Australian Grand Prix

While McLaren ended last year as constructors’ champions, 2025 testing made it almost impossible to choose between the papaya team or its rivals Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes as the favourites.

Will Lando Norris pick up where he left off in Abu Dhabi, or will his friend-turned-rival Max Verstappen fight back? Then there’s always Lewis Hamilton in a Ferrari…

This all makes choosing your F1 Fantasy team harder than ever but, never fear, Motor Sport is here to help you with the best tips and predictions. The deadline for choosing your team is when qualifying begins on Saturday – after that your choices are locked in.

A few new rules and shifts in the F1 Fantasy landscape mean that the game should be more exciting and intriguing than ever – there are real gains to be had by making the right call at the right time.

Read on below for our guide to building your 2025 Australian GP F1 Fantasy line-up.

Who should I pick for my 2025 F1 Fantasy team?

Two things have made choosing your teams this year particularly difficult.

One is that across recent seasons, it’s shown to be a massive benefit to choose two teams which regularly have both drivers qualifying in Q3. You get five points for one driver making into the final qualifying round, and 10 points if both do. These points gained really tell across a season.

These are of course in addition to points scored for final finishing positions in qualifying, the sprint and the race – as well as positions gained in the GP, for on-track overtakes, Driver of the Day and pitstop performance. A full guide to the scoring system can be found here.

What this means though is that by picking two of the more competitive teams to snare those precious Q3 points, your budget for drivers is somewhat drained.

This has a knock-on effect to the other consideration, caused by another change: last year Max Verstappen was by far and away the most expensive driver at $30m. Now F1 has become far closer this year – or at least looks to be judging by 2024 competitive order – others have joined him in the same price bracket.

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While the Dutchman has dropped slightly to $28.4m, Lando Norris has risen to $29m; Charles Leclerc to $25.9m; Lewis Hamilton $24.2m and Oscar Piastri $23m. The difference between all these drivers is less than the cost of the cheapest backmarker – there isn’t much wriggle room to work with.

With even George Russell coming in at $21m, what it all means is that a more conventional strategy would see you pick one top driver with four other pretty canny cheap picks.

Aside from Fernando Alonso, who is a surprisingly cheap option at $8.8m, other drivers who are likely to score similar results.

Therefore, key to making it all work would be to pair one ‘top-tier’ driver (with the most obvious choice being Norris) with low-cost rivals who compete for a less-fancied teams but make it into Q3 regularly – giving you real value for money.

A more recently example of this was Pierre Gasly for Alpine when it improved towards the end of the season, while at the start of 2024 it would have been the brilliant regular Q3 efforts of RB’s Yuki Tsunoda or Haas’s Nico Hülkenberg.

However, Gasly’s price has increased to $11.8m, and Hülkenberg has switched to a Sauber team which had a disastrous 2024.

Tsunoda would therefore be the logical choice $9.6m, but so would be Fernando Alonso, whose $8.8m price tag is surprisingly low.

Tsunoda was a strong qualifier last year, particularly in the early part of the season where he started eighth in Australia – ahead of Lewis Hamilton.

Alonso can also be relied upon to drag his car into Q3 pretty regularly, and as one of F1’s feistiest racers often makes up places in the early stages.

2025 F1 Fantasy’s crucial tactic

Buying cheaper options, who could appreciate in value throughout the season, gives you the potential to sell them on later at a profit – then allowing you to buy even more valuable assets. This is an incredibly crucial element of the game.

Ollie Bearman showed his ability to score points from the off with Ferrari and Haas last year, so the Scuderia junior makes it into our team for just $6.7m.

Though above we discounted Hülkenberg as a strong Q3 contender due to his Sauber switch, the German driver still has both speed and experience in abundance, making it likely he’ll avoid chaos and move up the order throughout each race – thus gaining points for both overtakes and positions gained. He’s a more attractive option than similarly priced assets such as Isack Hadjar or Gabiel Bortoleto, as well as Jack Doohan who costs almost a million more.

Along with McLaren – who look the most likely to get both drivers to Q3 – we’ve chosen Aston Martin for the other nominated team with the remaining funds. This is because so far it looks to have the best chance to get into Q3 – courtesy of Alonso – after the ‘big four’ outfits, versus value for money at $8.5m. Alpine is $1m more expensive, while Racing Bulls is just $0.5m cheaper at $8m.

See our full team below:

The ‘Value Pack’ Fantasy F1 team

Taking this concept one step further, you could alternatively hedge your bets across five much cheaper drivers without picking one ‘top tier’ candidate driver someone in the $20-$30m range), spreading value across your team.

To kick us off, we’ve gone for the two most affordable drivers the front-running teams, Kimi Antonelli ($18.4m) and Liam Lawson ($18m).

As well increasing the potential for more drivers to score big points, it also frees up cash to spend on another driver who could snare a decent upper midfield score in the form of Pierre Gasly ($11.8m).

The final two strongest candidates are Yuki Tsunoda and Fernando Alonso, for the reasons stated above.

This leaves you with enough money to afford one top team in Mercedes ($22.7m) and a strong midfield candidate in Aston Martin ($8.5m).

Here is our ‘Value Pack’ Fantasy F1 team:

2025 F1 Fantasy – playing the long game

What makes this year’s game even trickier is that there are some arguably overpriced assets in the midfield, which means any money saved from choosing a cheaper front-runner, say Leclerc ($25.9m) instead of Norris ($29m), still wouldn’t be enough to transfer in Williams drivers Sainz ($13.1m) or Albon ($12m) and would only leave you with change of $0.1m for Pierre Gasly over arguably the midfield’s most value for money driver: Alonso at $8.8m.

If Oscar Piastri suddenly starts performing as well as Lando Norris, but costs you $6m less, and Williams or Alpine show decent Q3 form, it might be worth switching in the Australian as your star turn and then bringing in Sainz, Albon or Gasly – but we’d advise keeping your powder dry for now.

Which 2025 F1 Fantasy chips can – and should – I use?

F1 Fantasy is always gamble and the same is true for using any of the performance chips – particularly in the opening round. The first race of a season can often be a bit of an anomaly in terms of form, and that rings particularly true at the Australian GP’s Melbourne street circuit, where chaos is never too far away.

Throw into the mix the weather – dry until Sunday, before a 95% chance of rain for the race – and making any predictions for using chips is particularly difficult.

It’s inevitable that some players will take a chance, for example giving one driver Extra DRS Boost (tripling their points), but the inclement weather could make things somewhat random. We would therefore advise against using your chips for this first race. However, for those that fancy a flutter, here they are:

Players have access to six ‘chips’, only one of which can be used before each race weekend. Each chip can only be used once during the year.

Autopilot This automatically gives your DRS Boost (double your points) to the highest scoring driver in your team.

When to use it: save this for a sprint weekend for maximum bonus

Extra DRS Boost This triples the score of a selected driver for a grand prix weekend.

When to use it: This is also best for a sprint weekend, when there’s a driver with a clear advantage

No Negative If you’ve gone for a riskier strategy, this chip prevents you from scoring any negative points over the course of the weekend – and that can only be a positive. Unlike last year, this is now applied to individual scoring categories instead of the driver’s overall score for the weekend.

When to use it: Looking like a wet weekend in treacherous Singapore? Take out this insurance policy

Wildcard This allows you to make an unlimited amount of changes to your team whilst staying within the cost cap.

When to use it: Save this for after the first few races, when a better picture of the running order will have emerged

Limitless Similar to the wildcard, this allows you to make unlimited changes to your team with no cost cap for just one grand prix – allowing you to pick the best teams and drivers

When to use it: When trying to regain ground after a slow start or in the final stages of the season when top teams and drivers have separated themselves from the rest of the pack.

Final Fix – This allows you to make a single change between the end of grand prix qualifying and the start of the race.

When to use it: To transfer in a driver who has qualified unexpectedly high on a track where overtaking is difficult

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New 2025 F1 Fantasy rules to consider

Pitstops

Each team will now get points for pitstops during the grand prix, but not in sprints.

The number of points each team gets is based on its fastest pitstop in the race, with the teams being ranked in a table with points distributed accordingly. A 5-point bonus will be awarded to the constructor that sets the fastest pitstop of the race.

If a teams records a new pit stop world record, it will score a 15-point bonus.

Transfers

If your selected driver competes in the sprint but is replaced before qualifying for the grand prix, you’ll get a transfer suggestion so to avoid a ‘Not Classified’ penalty.

However, the suggestion still comes out of your transfer limit, and will result in a -10 point penalty if you exceed your transfer limit.

Disqualification penalties

Penalty points for any disqualified drivers will now be applied to their respective constructor instead of the driver themselves. Disqualified drivers will not score any points for the session they were disqualified from.

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