How to Play - Updated for 2010

There are 2 options when creating your Fantasy Racers team in 2010.

Strategy 1 is very similar to that used in 2009. A starting budget of 40.0m, and unlimited changes to your driver line-up throughout the year. This allows you to refine your team of drivers for each race, and possibly benefit from their changing values as the season unfolds.

Strategy 2 is geared towards those that would prefer to show a bit of loyalty towards their drivers. Once the cut-off for the first race passes, all changes to the driver line-up will be frozen for the duration of the competition. Only where the driver has left the series will you be able to draft in a replacement. The reward for adopting this strategy will be a starting budget of 45.0m, 5.0m higher than Strategy 1.

When creating your team you will be presented with these 2 options. Once selected, you will be able to switch strategies via the 'View Team Drivers' page, but only up until the cut-off for the first race. !!!

Once you have decided which strategy to adopt, you will be able to pick up to 6 drivers to represent your team. Your choice of drivers will be influenced by their fictitious 'price' which has been assigned to each of them for the purpose of this competition. If you choose Strategy 1 you are able to change your drivers as often as you like throughout the season, although all selections are frozen once we reach the advertised 'cut-off' for each race weekend. For Strategy 2 all selections will be frozen after the cutoff for race 1 and will remain frozen throughout. However, where a driver is no longer racing, you will be permitted to remove that driver from your team and spend the proceeds (+ any residual budget) on a replacement driver.

After the race has been run, and all points have been updated for the competition, the drivers values will be assessed based on their performance. Where necessary, a drivers value will be adjusted (up or down) in line with their performance over that weekend. It is only after this adjustment has been made that teams adopting Strategy 1 will once again be able to make changes to their driver line-up. The drivers values will not change again until after the following race weekend.

Where a drivers value increases, it will also increase the budget for all teams who had that driver in their line-up at the time the change was made. Therefore if one of your drivers value changes from 7.0m to 8.0m, your team budget will increase from 40.0m to 41.0m. If you choose to transfer this driver out of your team after the increase in value, you will still be able to spend up to 41.0m on your drivers. (the value of teams can go down as well as up!!!)

If your driver is released, replaced, or injured, their value will be frozen allowing you to transfer them out and spend the money on a new driver. You will not 'automatically' score points for their replacement driver - it is down to you to make that change. This applies to both strategies.

All selected drivers will score points for your team based on their performance in each race, as set out on the 'How to Score' page.

Please note that the 'cut-off' for any changes is typically 17:00 UK time on the Friday before each race weekend. An exception to this is for the first race, where the cut-off will be 08:00 GMT, 03:00 EST, 11:00 Local time on Saturday 13th March. After which any driver selections will be prohibited until after the completion of the race.