Most fantasy managers chase the obvious points: a podium, a pole, fastest lap. But there's a quieter source of fantasy points hiding in plain sight, and it doesn't flow to the drivers you'd expect. Every overtake is worth a point, and the drivers banking the most of them are usually the cheapest names on your shortlist.

Across 1,396 driver-races from 2023 to 2025, the grid averaged 3.79 overtakes per driver per race (Toolverse analysis). The leaders aren't the stars up front — Sergio Pérez topped the chart at 5.35 per race, and most of the top seven are midfield bargains.

Why are overtake points so underrated?

Overtakes score 1 point each in F1 Fantasy (F1 Fantasy), and across our 1,396 driver-races they added up fast: the grid averaged 3.79 overtakes per driver per race (Toolverse analysis, 2023-2025). That's nearly four "free" points a weekend that managers rarely factor in when they're staring at price tags and qualifying pace. Position points get all the attention. Overtake points just quietly accumulate.

Think about what that means over a season. A driver pulling four overtakes per race banks roughly 80-90 overtake points across a 22-round calendar — before you count a single finishing position. Those points don't show up in a headline result, so they're easy to overlook. But they're real, they're recurring, and they're concentrated in a very specific kind of driver.

Which drivers score the most overtake points?

The overtake leaders are mostly cheap midfielders, not front-runners. Sergio Pérez led at 5.35 overtakes per race, followed by Oliver Bearman (5.07), Kevin Magnussen (5.05), Lance Stroll (4.57), Lewis Hamilton (4.40), Alexander Albon (4.23) and Nico Hülkenberg (4.17), per Toolverse analysis of 2023-2025 results. Five of those seven raced in midfield machinery — and that's the whole point.

Pérez ($21.2M average) and Hamilton ($23.3M) are the exceptions — premium drivers who racked up overtakes because their cars were quick but they kept qualifying out of position, forcing recovery drives. The rest tell the real story: Magnussen averaged just $8.9M, Albon $9.5M, Stroll $10.8M, Bearman $8.4M and Hülkenberg $7.1M. You could fit two of these drivers into your team for the price of one Pérez.

Why do cheap drivers overtake more than the stars?

It comes down to a simple rule of racing: you can only overtake if you start behind someone. Front-runners qualify at the sharp end, so there's hardly anyone ahead to pass. Toolverse analysis shows Verstappen averaged just 3.06 overtakes per race, Norris 3.09 and Leclerc 3.04 — all well below the grid average of 3.79.

Midfielders live in the opposite world. They start eighth, twelfth, fifteenth — and the whole field ahead becomes a points opportunity. A messy qualifying for a quick midfield car is practically an overtake buffet on Sunday. That's why the names at the top of the overtake chart skew so heavily toward the back half of the grid. It isn't aggression or skill alone; it's geometry.

So the very thing that makes a driver "cheap" — a slower car that qualifies mid-pack — is what hands them more chances to score overtake points. The stars are priced for podiums. The midfielders are priced for nothing, yet they're out-scoring the front on this one metric every single weekend.

How big is the gap between front-runners and overtake kings?

The spread is wide. Front-runners average around 3.06 overtakes per race, the grid sits at 3.79, and the overtake kings push past 5.0 (Toolverse analysis, 2023-2025). That's a difference of roughly two points per race per driver between a pole-sitter and a recovery merchant — and across a season, two points a weekend compounds into a meaningful gap.

Now layer price on top. A front-runner earns far more from finishing position than overtakes, so for them this metric is a rounding error. For a budget driver, overtakes can be a big slice of their total haul — which means the same two-point edge matters far more on a $7M car than on a $30M one. That's the value angle, and it's where overtakes stop being trivia and start being strategy.

How do overtake points make cheap drivers better value?

Overtake points are most of why some budget drivers post strong points-per-dollar numbers. Bearman, at an $8.4M average, returned 1.18 points per $M (Toolverse analysis, 2023-2025) — and his 5.07 overtakes per race were a steady contributor on top of whatever finishing position he managed. When you're paying a fraction of a premium driver's price, four or five recurring points a weekend moves the needle hard.

This is exactly the "enabler" logic we explored in Do Cheap Drivers Actually Win F1 Fantasy?. A reliable overtake merchant frees up budget for the premium driver or constructor you actually want. They don't need to win — they just need to keep carving forward and stacking those one-point increments. Use the budget builder to model a couple of overtake-heavy bargains into your lineup and watch how much room they open up at the top end.

For the full picture on which budget names justify their tag, our breakdown of the best value drivers pairs nicely with this overtake data — the two metrics tend to point at the same handful of drivers.

Which drivers rack up the most total overtakes?

Over three full seasons, Lance Stroll leads on raw volume with 320 total overtakes, ahead of Lewis Hamilton (308), Alexander Albon (296), Nico Hülkenberg (288) and Yuki Tsunoda (287), per Toolverse analysis of 2023-2025 results. Volume rewards drivers who simply showed up every weekend and kept passing cars — durability matters as much as per-race rate here.

What's striking is how cheap that list runs. Stroll, Albon, Hülkenberg and Tsunoda were all midfield-priced across those seasons, yet they collectively banked over a thousand overtake points. Hamilton is the lone premium name, and even he earned his place through recovery drives rather than dominant front-running. If you'd quietly held two or three of these drivers as budget anchors, you'd have been collecting overtake points week after week while everyone else fixated on podiums. You can dig into the per-season splits yourself on our statistics pages.

What's the catch with chasing overtake points?

Overtakes correlate with starting badly — you can't pass from pole — so they partly offset poor qualifying rather than adding pure upside. A driver who qualifies fifteenth and finishes eleventh banked overtake points, sure, but they also missed the qualifying and finishing-position points a better grid slot would've delivered (Toolverse analysis, 2023-2025). Overtakes are a bonus, not a complete reason to pick someone.

The trap is chasing overtakes from drivers who score nothing else. Pure backmarkers can rack up passes and still finish near the back, where finishing points are thin and a DNF risk lurks. The drivers worth targeting are the ones who overtake and finish respectably — quick midfield cars qualifying out of position, not slow cars stuck at the back. Want the full points framework before you commit? The F1 Fantasy scoring rules lay out how overtakes stack against everything else. And once you've picked your enablers, the Apex Team optimizer can balance them against the premium drivers worth their price.

Frequently asked questions

How many points is an overtake worth in F1 Fantasy?

Each on-track overtake is worth 1 fantasy point (F1 Fantasy). It sounds small, but it compounds: the grid averaged 3.79 overtakes per driver per race across 2023-2025 (Toolverse analysis), so a typical driver banks close to four overtake points every weekend on top of their finishing position.

Who scores the most overtake points in F1 Fantasy?

Sergio Pérez led at 5.35 overtakes per race across 2023-2025, followed by Oliver Bearman (5.07) and Kevin Magnussen (5.05), per Toolverse analysis. On raw volume over three seasons, Lance Stroll topped the chart with 320 total overtakes — most of the leaders are recovery drivers who keep qualifying behind their true pace.

Why don't front-runners score many overtake points?

Because you can only overtake cars ahead of you, and front-runners start with almost none. Verstappen averaged 3.06 overtakes per race, Norris 3.09 and Leclerc 3.04 — all below the 3.79 grid average (Toolverse analysis, 2023-2025). They earn their fantasy points from podiums and poles instead, not from carving through the pack.

Should I pick a driver just for overtake points?

No — treat overtakes as a bonus, not the whole case. Overtakes correlate with poor qualifying, so they partly offset lost grid-position points rather than adding pure upside (Toolverse analysis, 2023-2025). Target quick midfield cars that overtake and finish respectably, like Bearman, not pure backmarkers who pass cars but still score little overall.

The bottom line

Overtakes score 1 point each, and the grid averages 3.79 per driver per race — nearly four recurring points a weekend that most managers ignore (Toolverse analysis, 2023-2025).
The leaders are mostly cheap midfielders: Bearman ($8.4M), Magnussen ($8.9M), Albon ($9.5M) and Hülkenberg ($7.1M) all out-overtake the stars because they start further back.
Front-runners overtake less (Verstappen 3.06, Norris 3.09, Leclerc 3.04) — overtake points matter far more for value drivers than for premiums.
The caveat: overtakes offset poor qualifying, so target drivers who overtake and finish well, not pure backmarkers who score nothing else.

Ready to put overtake merchants to work? Model a couple of cheap, overtake-heavy enablers into your lineup with the budget builder and see how much room they free up for the premium picks that actually win you weeks.