How to run an F1 prediction league

How do you set up an F1 prediction league?

In four steps. After that, the league admin has nothing left to keep track of.

1. Name the league. The name shows in the app and in the invite. A short description helps anyone who plays in more than one league, something like "work league, for the glory".
2. Enter your own name. You are the first player and the league admin, so you pick the questions and the rules.
3. Decide how much to predict: Simple, Classic or Advanced, or build your own set of questions.
4. Share the invite link or the six-character code in your group chat. Anyone who opens it picks a name and is in, with no account and no password.

From then on it runs itself. The calendar and the drivers are already there, and after every qualifying session and race the official result comes in and the points are worked out. Nobody types anything in.

Do it well before the first race. Until that race has been run you can still change the questions; after that the set is locked, so every weekend is scored by the same rules.

How many questions should count?

As many as your group will keep up with. Two top 10s a weekend is plenty for a competitive league; if you want everything, there are 14.

Simple is just the two top 10s, qualifying and race. Classic adds the winner, pole position and fastest lap. Advanced switches everything on, from fastest pit stop and teammate battles to the number of safety cars and a red flag.

More questions means more to win, but also more to fill in. In a group where half the players only think about qualifying on Saturday morning, Simple lasts longer than Advanced.

How does the scoring work?

For every driver in your top 10 you get 5 points if he finishes exactly there, 3 if he is one place off and 1 if he is two places off.

Example: you put a driver in P3 and he finishes fourth. That is one place off, so 3 points. A perfect top 10 is worth 50 points per session, and on a sprint weekend the sprint adds up to 25 more.

Because nearly right still scores, nobody is out of it after one surprise. You do not need the exact order to pick up points, and one chaotic race does not wipe out your weekend.

When do predictions close?

When the session starts. The qualifying top 10 closes at the start of qualifying, the race top 10 at the start of the race.

On a sprint weekend the sprint closes first. Once the deadline has passed, your prediction is locked.

Should you play with jokers?

A joker doubles all your points for one race weekend. With jokers switched on, everyone gets 5 per season by default; as the league admin you can set anything from 1 to 5, or leave them off.

You play a joker before the weekend starts, and then it is locked in. Jokers give players who are behind something to hope for, and they turn every weekend into a small bet: is this the circuit where you know better than everyone else?

What kills an F1 prediction league?

Rarely the questions. It is almost always one of three things: a gap nobody can close, people forgetting to enter, or nothing to talk about after the race.

• A gap nobody can close. Someone who is miles behind after eight races stops playing. So give people more to win than the final standings: the weekend winner (whoever scores the most in a weekend wins that weekend), head-to-head records (you see who has won more often against each friend) and jokers.
• Forgetting to enter. Miss one race and you are behind; miss two and you are gone. What helps: the calendar subscription with a reminder an hour before every deadline, a push notification when you have not entered anything 3 hours before a deadline, and auto-fill, which gives anyone who forgets a random top 10 instead of zero.
• Nothing to talk about. After the race there has to be something to look at. The result per driver, the standings showing who climbed and who dropped, and a result image for the group chat give everyone something to argue about every weekend.

A checklist for the league admin

Go through this before the season starts.

• The league exists and the code is shared, before the first qualifying session.
• The level is chosen: Simple, Classic, Advanced or your own set.
• Jokers: on or off, and how many each.
• Auto-fill: agreed together whether it is on.
• Everyone has subscribed to the calendar or switched on notifications.
• The season questions are filled in before the first race.
• Everyone knows what you are playing for: bragging rights. There is no entry fee, pot or prize in the app.

Frequently asked questions