This week it’s off to the Suzuka International Racing Course located in Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, Japan. The 3.608-mile-long track sports 18-turns and even a bridge that crosses over part of the circuit giving it a figure-8 look. Suzuka is one of the most dangerous and tricky courses on the track. This will be the first Japanese Grand Prix since 2019 due to the Covid Pandemic. Valtteri Bottas, at the time driving for Mercedes’, captured the last victory here.
Sergio Perez got it done in dominating fashion at the Singapore Grand Prix. After heavy rains delayed the start of the race, Perez would start second on the grid and took off at lights out, and never looked back. He quickly grabbing the lead and never relinquished it. Charles Leclerc made a run at Perez as the clock wound down. Perez’s team informed him he may be penalized five seconds for a run-in with the safety car earlier in the race. He then kicked into full go mode and drove away, winning by more than seven seconds. The five-second penalty was imposed by the stewards post-race making his win officially by +2.5 seconds.
Japanese Grand Prix DFS How to Watch ESPN2/Watch ESPN
When to Watch: Sunday, October 9th, 1:00 A.M EST
The Captain: Lando Norris ($12,000)
Lando has had a great under-the-radar season in 2022 so far. In seven of the last eight races, he’s scored a top-7 finish. The Mclaren driver scored a podium back in Imola earlier this season. At just a $12,000 Captain’s salary, leading off with Lando opens up so many possibilities in contract to the $6,600 savings you get from playing a Max Verstappen. This offers you much more wiggle room as you continue down your Japanese Grand Prix DFS lineup.
Max Verstappen ($12,400)
No brainer, right? Max was disappointing from a DFS perspective last week after multiple setbacks had him settle for seventh place and just 7.0 fantasy points. I always encourage making some lineups without Verstappen just in case that happens. However, as we talked about on the F1 GAMBLING PODCAST this week, Max can wrap up the driver’s championship with a win and the fastest lap this weekend, a result we fully expect. In cash lineups and even some Japanese Grand Prix DFS GPPs, you just have to play Max.
Lewis Hamilton ($10,000)
The 7-time champion set the course record lap at Suzuka last time they were here in 2019. After a good start to last week’s race, things went south for Lewis. He was not pleased with the team not listening to him on which tyre he wanted and when. He let some people down last week and I hope this leads to him being lower rostered. Lewis has shown us he still has it this year. While he’s not visited the top of the podium just yet he’s been on the podium six times in 2022.
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Valtteri Bottas ($5,000)
As I mentioned above, Bottas won this race in 2019. Of course, that was in a Mercedes, and nobody expects him to win again this weekend. The 33-year-old has 195 starts to his name and over 840 career laps led. He’s had a few rough weeks lately. Bottas has proven he can score you points though with six top-8 finishes this year. He’s the biggest gamble of the week. If it pays off though, it could pay off big.
Constructor Mclaren ($5,700)
I have a lot of eggs in the Mclaren basket this weekend. Starting off with them to score the double top-10 finish (+170) here as they did last week. Lando has been on fire getting those consistent finishes as I mentioned above. Daniel Ricciardo has been the less inconsistent of the two, however last week he put together a full race scoring the 5th place finish. Playing Mclaren won’t be popular, and again the savings you can get here compared to a Red Bull ($12,000) allows you to build better Japanese Grand Prix DFS lineups in other areas and hopefully out-whit your opponents.
