Just when we thought the dust had settled on Logan Sargeant’s mid-season exit from Williams, it seems the American’s unceremonious dumping is still impacting one unexpected pocket of the F1 fanbase. For the 1.7 million people playing the F1 Fantasy game, a bizarre loophole emerged in the wake of the announcement that Sargeant would be replaced by Argentina’s Franco Colapinto for the remainder of the 2024 season.
For those uninitiated, fantasy players draft five drivers and two constructors to their teams on a $100m budget each race weekend, with prices set based on driver performance. For example, during the Dutch Grand Prix — Sargeant’s final race with Williams — he crashed during practice and wasn’t able to take part in qualifying, resulting in a fantasy score of -5 points for that session.
Naturally, many players were proactive in removing the 23-year-old from their lineups before the team lock deadline, and he proceeded to hit a season-low price of $4.8 million after finishing P16 in the race. Although Sargeant was arguably one of the worst assets given his consistently disappointing results, owning him allowed players to afford more expensive drivers like Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, who come with a significantly higher price tag.
So, when Williams confirmed that Sargeant had been dropped ahead of the Italian Grand Prix, his profile became ‘inactive’ and players weren’t able to draft him. Then the gaping loophole emerged when those who already had Sargeant in their lineups could keep him in their team at a very affordable price while drafting Colapinto for a similarly low cost.
Sargeant obviously won’t be scoring any points over future race weekends, but he also has no risk of losing value as the result of a DNF, so retaining him is a no-brainer for those with the ability to do so. These players also have extra budget to draft three top-tier drivers, resulting in a significant advantage over those without the axed American on their team.
Unlike Grid Rival — an F1 Fantasy competitor with a much smaller player base — that swiftly removed Sargeant from the game altogether, Formula 1 did not immediately confirm whether the loophole would be rectified.
Motorsport reached out to F1 and we understand the game will be updated to address the issue ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
It's certainly a step in the right direction after fans expressed their frustration on social media, with many lamenting the organization’s apparent disconnect from the fantasy community.
"Feeling very flat about this week’s fantasy. Developers need to sort out the Sargeant fiasco or the game is broken for me," the user @potpanmanF1 wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
"There’s lots they need to adjust next year for me to be playing beyond this year unfortunately," user @Ifcdan__ chimed in.
"After all the work we all put in this game… feels like a kick on the stomach," @souslik27 added.
It’s been confirmed that you can own both SAR and COL at $4.8m (assuming you own SAR already)!
— F1 Fantasy Hub (Rob) (@F1FantasyHub) August 29, 2024
As @potpanmanF1 mentioned, it’s a bit of a farce with how the scoring is weighted for DNFs that we consider an inactive driver a season-long hold.
But how good does this lineup look… pic.twitter.com/uoYswV4x9a
Robert Beaumont, who runs the YouTube channel F1 Fantasy Hub and co-hosts the Fantasy Formula podcast, said F1 has made some proactive changes over the past two years but still has issues with "communication and transparency."
"F1 has made immense strides forward with the user interface, the functionality of the game and transfer strategy," he told Motorsport. "But I think one of their biggest shortcomings, particularly in the past 12 to 18 months, has been communication around driver situations like Nyck De Vries last year and Sargeant this year," he went on, referencing a similar issue that arose when De Vries was axed by AlphaTauri during the 2023 season.
As the fantasy sports market ballooned to a global value of around $30 billion, F1 upped its efforts to promote the game on F1TV and its F1 Nation podcast. They also attempted to increase engagement by setting up public leagues with influencers and content creators for players to join. However, it seems a few simple fixes to the game itself could go a long way in retaining the current player base and inspire confidence in potential new users.
