How to play
A stock market for F1 drivers that runs all season. Buy the drivers you think will do better than expected, keep them as long as you like, and sell when you're ready.
Spread it across the drivers you rate: no more than 40% on any one.
Practice nudges them, qualifying shoves them and the race decides. Everybody else is trading all week too.
What you hold as a race starts pays into your prize pot for every place your drivers beat their expected finish.
A favourite who wins was always expected to, so the price had it already. Prices move on surprise.
The favourite
$14 a share, expected to win, and wins
+$22.93
+0.6%
A midfielder
$8 a share, expected around 13th, finishes P3
+$1,436.23
+35.9%
After a bad race the result takes its share off a driver at once. Then the crowd often sells them further, usually overnight. Prices are pulled back towards what the results justify, so a panic tends to come back within a few days. Whether the bad race was bad luck or the start of a slide is yours to judge, and that's the game.
Trading shuts as the race is due to start, and at that moment your portfolio's mix becomes a $1,000 race stake. Every place one of your drivers beats their expected finish pays into your prize pot, and so do their points. Your portfolio itself is never paid or charged.
Two players, both 40% Stroll, 40% Verstappen and the rest in cash. One has $10,000, the other $30,000. Their race stakes are the same:
Same picks, same prize, so starting small or joining late costs you nothing in the pot. Cash in your mix is stake left unspent. A retirement costs your pot, but never more than $30 a race and never below zero.
United States is next.
Sign inNo. The $10,000 is play money, and so is everything it turns into. It's free to play.
From drivers who do better than expected, in two ways. Their prices rise, which grows your portfolio and lifts you up the weekly table. And every race and sprint pays a prize into your prize pot for every place your drivers beat their expected finish. A favourite who wins as expected barely pays; a driver who finishes well ahead of where people thought pays most.
Two things. A result moves it once, the moment it's in: beat what was expected of you and your price rises, fall short and it drops, and the bigger the surprise the bigger the move. In between, prices move when people buy and sell, and drift back towards what the results justify.
Mostly from where a driver usually finishes: their average over their last 5 races this season, nudged towards where they start. Starting behind it, they're expected to make up two-thirds of the gap; starting ahead, to keep four-fifths of the gain. A grid penalty doesn't count against them: once the official grid is out, they're measured from the better of where they qualified and where they start. Practice works the same way, from their average in that session over their last 5. Qualifying, and anybody without a finish yet, are expected from the prices.
Every place counts, however it's gained. Expected finishes already allow for the usual number of retirements, so when more cars than usual drop out ahead of your driver, those places pay; when fewer drop out, the expected finish is a little harder to beat. The share price counts every place too.
Whenever no car is on track. The market shuts as each session is due to start, so late news on the grid can still be traded but nobody watching can buy ahead of the result. It opens again when the results are in, usually about 20 minutes after the flag.
Trading shuts as the race is due to start, and your portfolio's mix then becomes a $1,000 stake: a driver who is 40% of your portfolio is 40% of it. Every place a driver beats their expected finish pays 15¢ a share, and every point 0.75¢. Their expected finish already allows for the cars ahead of them that usually retire, so any more retirements than usual are places that pay. A retirement takes $1.13 a share off what the rest earned, more in the first laps, but a race never takes more than $30 from your pot, and never below zero. A sprint pays 45% of what a race does. The prize is provisional as soon as the result is in, and paid two hours after the result on whatever the stewards leave standing.
No, they're separate. Your portfolio is your drivers and your cash: it rises and falls with their prices, and the weekly table ranks how much it grows. Your prize pot only collects each race's prize. Buying and selling never touch it, and a retirement can take something out, but never more than $30 a race and never below zero.
Two ways to win. The prize pot, which every race and sprint pays into on your race stake. And the weekly table, on percentage gain: a race week runs from one race being priced to the next, and the season there is ranked on your typical week, where you have usually finished over the last 6 weeks, so one lucky punt can't win it.
No. The game tells you when something happens to you: when results are in, when your prize is paid and when one of your drivers moves a lot. Each one slides down at the top of the screen, and the bell keeps the last 30. In Settings you can switch any of them off and set quiet hours.
Not where it counts. Everybody starts a race week level, ranked on percentage, your $10,000 buys at today's prices, the same as anybody's, and the prize pot pays on your mix, not on how much you have.
The share price is the house's own price. It sells a touch above it and buys back a touch below, 1% apart, so your drivers are always worth about what you could sell them for. A big order also moves the price as it fills, so it pays a little more a share than a small one. Buying and selling straight back always costs a little.
No more than 40% of everything you have on any one, so one crash can't sink you. Nobody may own more than 5% of a driver's shares either.
The race takes its share off at once, and the crowd may sell more. You decide whether to get out or ride it: prices are pulled back towards what the results justify, and a panic usually fades within a few days.
Everybody in the league, and a crowd of 1,000 house players who come in every day: fans, bargain hunters, trend chasers, the jittery and the patient. You'll see every trade on the tape, but never who made it.
Not far. A price is pulled back towards what the results say a driver is worth every day, and it can never stand more than 25% above or below it.
The market closes after the last race. Next season every driver floats at $10 again and everybody starts afresh.
No price is ever rolled. Results come from the track, and the house players have habits of their own, drawn once, so the same results and the same trades always give the same prices.