Points Per Million in F1 Fantasy: The Only Metric That Matters

Here is a comparison that sounds obvious but trips up most players.

Imagine two drivers. One scored 580 points last season. The other scored 206. The first driver finished in the top three in the championship. The second drives for a midfield team.

Which one was better value in F1 Fantasy?

The second one. By a significant margin.

George Russell scored 580 points in 2025 and costs $27.4M in 2026. That is a Points Per Million score of 21.17. Oliver Bearman scored 206 points and costs around $7.4M. His PPM was 27.84, second highest on the entire grid.

You paid nearly four times as much for Russell and got less value per million spent. That gap compounds over 24 race weekends.

What PPM actually is

Points Per Million divides a driver's total points scored by their current price. The formula is straightforward.

PPM = Total Points / Price in Millions

A driver who scored 400 points and costs $20M has a PPM of 20. A driver who scored 200 points and costs $8M has a PPM of 25. The second driver is better value despite scoring half as many raw points.

The metric adjusts for price. It gives every driver a comparable score regardless of whether they cost $6M or $28M. Raw points alone cannot do that.

Why raw points mislead

The problem with comparing raw points is that expensive drivers score more by design. They drive for better teams, in better cars, qualifying higher, finishing higher. A driver costing $28M will almost always outscore a driver costing $7M in absolute terms. That is not an insight. It is a tautology.

What the game actually rewards is the gap between what a driver costs and what they deliver. A $28M driver who scores like a $28M driver is neutral. A $7M driver who scores like a $15M driver is where leagues are won.

PPM captures that gap. Raw points do not.

What the 2025 data showed

Max Verstappen scored 776 points in 2025 at a 2026 price of $27.7M. That is a PPM of 28.01. For a driver at that price point, that is genuinely strong value. Verstappen regularly starts from the back due to grid penalties and accumulates positions-gained and overtake bonuses that other front-runners cannot match. His raw points total was the highest on the grid. His PPM backed it up.

Bearman at 27.84 was almost identical PPM to Verstappen at less than a third of the price. The total budget freed by choosing Bearman over a mid-tier $15M driver could fund a second premium asset.

George Russell at 21.17 PPM and Lance Stroll at roughly 18.25 PPM represent the other end of the argument. Neither is a bad driver. Both were poor value for their price in fantasy terms. Stroll scored 146 points at $8M, which sounds cheap until you compare it to Bearman scoring 206 points for roughly similar money.

The zone to avoid

The $10M to $18M price range consistently produces the worst PPM in the game. Drivers there are priced expensively enough to eat significant budget, but they are not in machinery good enough to consistently score at the rate that justifies the cost.

This is not a universal rule. A midfield team that suddenly finds form can produce strong PPM from a $12M driver. But as a starting point for budget allocation, the evidence points to the same conclusion most seasons: pick up one or two genuinely expensive drivers if their PPM justifies it, fill the rest of your team from the $5M to $9M range, and avoid the middle.

The limits of PPM in 2026

PPM based on 2025 data has a specific problem this season. The 2026 regulation reset means the cars are new, the power units are new, and the competitive order is not yet established.

Verstappen's 28.01 PPM from 2025 was earned in a Red Bull that dominated the high-overtake tracks. If Red Bull's 2026 car is not competitive from the start, that historical PPM does not tell you much about the next six races. Bearman's value came from Haas overperforming relative to their price in 2025. Whether Haas continue to punch above their weight in a new regulation era is a genuine unknown.

The correct approach is to use 2025 PPM as the prior expectation and then update it aggressively based on the first two or three races of 2026. Once actual race results start to establish which teams are competitive, the PPM calculation runs on current data rather than historical data. That is when it becomes most reliable.

In the first two rounds, treat PPM as a directional signal rather than a precise number.

How to use PPM before each race

Before a transfer decision, the process is simple. Check the trailing PPM for the driver you are considering buying and the driver you are considering selling. Factor in recent form — has anything changed in the last two races that PPM has not yet fully reflected?

The rolling three-race average that drives price changes is closely related to PPM. A driver posting strong recent PPM is likely to rise in price. One posting weak PPM is likely to fall. Buying a driver with strong recent PPM before they rise earns you both the points and the budget appreciation.

PPM is not a ranking to follow blindly. It is a lens that makes the value comparison honest.

Frequently asked questions

What does PPM stand for in F1 Fantasy? Points Per Million. It divides a driver's total points scored by their current price to give a comparable measure of value across all drivers regardless of their price tier.

How do I calculate PPM for a driver? Take their total points scored — typically from the most recent season, or from the current season once results are available — and divide by their current price in millions. A driver who scored 300 points and costs $15M has a PPM of 20.

Is a higher PPM always better? A higher PPM means more points per million of budget spent, which is generally better value. The exception is a driver at the very top of the price range who consistently scores the highest raw totals — sometimes paying a slight PPM premium for a dominant driver is still the right call for boosting.

Why do expensive drivers often have lower PPM? Premium drivers are priced to reflect their real-world performance, which tends to lag slightly behind their scoring upside in fantasy terms. The price mechanism adjusts upward as they score well, meaning you often pay a premium for recent success rather than future value.

Can PPM change during the season? Yes. Prices update after every race based on performance, so PPM shifts as results come in. A driver on a good run will see their price rise, which compresses PPM over time. Identifying strong PPM drivers before the price rises is the core of the buy-low strategy.

Should I ignore PPM in the first two races of 2026? Not ignore it, but treat it cautiously. In the first two rounds, prices are based on 2025 data and the early-season distortion affects price movements. From Round 3 onward, current-season performance starts to dominate and PPM becomes a more reliable guide.