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You can’t win ‘em all.

For the first six races of the season, Mercedes was the value for money F1 Fantasy constructor, racking up the points like nobody’s business.

And so, Motor Sport sagely advised you to pair Brackley with McLaren – before the Silver Arrows proceeded to have two absolute nightmares in Imola and Monaco.

It poses a huge F1 Fantasy question heading into this weekend’s Spanish GP – stick with Toto’s team or go with a budget squad in exchange for more premium drivers?

All these quandaries and more will be dealt with down below in preparation for a Catalunyan circuit that usually delivers Sunday snoozers before throwing up a thriller when you least expect it.

Ferrari emerged as a new challenger to McLaren in Monaco, but it can it keep up that form in Barcelona?

Verstappen is always lurking, while Red Bull’s junior team RB could continue capitalising on its pace with another double Q3 and points finish.

We help you negotiate the Spanish chicanes in our F1 Fantasy guide.

How did Motor Sport’s 2025 Monaco GP F1 Fantasy picks do?

While all our fruit machine symbols didn’t quite line up in Casino Square, it wasn’t a terrible week due to some consistent performers handing us 163 points in total.

It tells you a lot about Oscar Piastri’s season that he had an off-weekend but still qualified and finished third. With DRS boost the Aussie still clocked a handy 46 Fantasy points.

Isack Hadjar had the best weekend of his F1 career to finish sixth, bringing his tally to 12 for the weekend.

Monaco is an outlier on the calendar in that it’s almost impossible to overtake, which brought the ‘Final Fix’ chip into play where you can swap a driver after qualifying for that race only.

After Liam Lawson qualified ninth, the Motor Sport team subbed in the Kiwi for Oliver Bearman, who lined up 17th.

Lawson grabbed a respectable five Fantasy points by finishing ninth, but Bearman gained eight for coming 12th – it would have been better to keep our powder dry.

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If you didn’t use the Final Fix chip, you can deploy it later this season after a wet qualifying which might put some usually unfancied runners in a better position for the race (as an example).

Franco Colapinto chalked up five Fantasy points for finishing five places ahead of where he started, while Gabriel Bortoleto did the same with three, despite a lap-one prang with the barriers.

Reliable McLaren scored 83 Fantasy points, while the Mercedes mess-up resulted in nine.

That points total drops us slightly in the Motor Sport league to 878th – but out of 31k+ teams, it’s still a decent ranking.

Currently topping the Motor Sport league is dHass Auto, which snatched a handy 238 points by using the Auto Pilot chip to give Charles Leclerc DRS boost (74 Fantasy points).

Having cheaper driver assets in Colapinto (5) and Hadjar (12) in addition to Esteban Ocon (10), as well as cheaper constructor Racing Bulls (31) allowed dHass to afford McLaren (83) also in addition to Leclerc.

Is this the way to go as we hit the middle part of the F1 season? We explore this point below.

Motor Sport’s 2025 Spanish GP F1 Fantasy choices: Stick with Mercedes?

Raking in the Fantasy points over the course of the season is about consistency – and doing it for good value too.

Oscar Piastri is the embodiment of this by being the second highest Fantasy points scorer after Norris (274 points to 326 respectively), but by costing $6.4m less at the same time.

The Aussie is still your sure bet as the No1 driver, but there are interesting choices to be made elsewhere.

Two races ago we advised players to bring in budget choices Colapinto and Bortoleto (both $4.5m) to be able to afford Mercedes as well, but you soon could be able to make this strategy possible with drivers much more capable of scoring Fantasy points on a regular basis.

Fernando Alonso has had a torrid season so far, and thus has dropped to $4.5m. However, his value belies his speed. ‘Nando has qualified in the top ten for the last two races, only to be thwarted by poor strategy and reliability issues.

The Aston driver’s fortunes therefore could soon be on the up. Alpine has also shown signs of life across the last few races, and last year started and finished the Spanish GP with both cars in the top 10.

We’d advise keeping Colapinto (for now) and swapping Bortoleto for Alonso.

Liam Lawson ($4.8m) saw his value drop by $0.3m despite a career best finish in Monaco. With a handy car in the Racing Bull, the New Zealander looks to have more chance to score Fantasy points regularly than Colapinto, so if the former decreases in value – or the latter increases – we’d suggest swapping them for Canada in one race’s time.

Bearman ($7.5m) proved in Monaco that, even against the odds, he’s usually good for scoring Fantasy points so he stays in. With Hadjar ($5.5m) improving all the time, the same goes for him.

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McLaren ($32.4m) is a dead cert for our constructors choices, while we’ll give Mercedes ($24.7m) the stay of execution for now.

Our theory that the expensive second team was worth it is still supported by the fact Mercedes (364) still has almost twice the Fantasy points of the next-most affordable constructor in Williams (184).

Haas (143) and Racing Bulls (135) aren’t that far behind the Grove team either, and all three did better than Mercedes in Monaco.

It’s known that Merc struggles with its tyres in hot conditions, but due to the fact we can easily afford the others were we to move on Brackley, we’ll give it a couple more races yet before making a change.

Which F1 Fantasy chips should I use?

Due to the 2025 Spanish GP not being a sprint event nor forecast for any inclement weather, we’d advise not to use any chips this weekend.

Motor Sport 2025 F1 Fantasy Spanish GP line-up

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