#	Question	My Pick	2×	Pts Available	Pts Earned
01	Predict the podium	Antonelli · Russell · Verstappen	2×	46	36
02	Fastest driver in qualifying	George Russell	—	10	—
03	Qualifies highest (Bearman vs Ocon)?	Oliver Bearman	—	10	10
04	How many teams get a car into Q3?	6	—	10	10
05	Fastest lap of the race	Kimi Antonelli	—	12	—
06	Fastest pitstop (team)	Mercedes	—	10	—
07	SC/VSC in the first 15 laps?	No	—	15	—
08	How many classified finishers?	19	—	20	—
09	Finishes ahead (Colapinto / Sainz / Lawson / Bortoleto)?	Liam Lawson	—	20	20
10	Most points (Red Bull vs McLaren vs Ferrari)?	Red Bull Racing	—	10	10
TOTAL				163	86

Final: 86 pts, 40% accuracy. Four questions landed in full (Q3, Q4, Q9, Q10), plus two of the three podium legs. That is 12 up on R15’s 74, our best round since R12 (128), and about 8 below the sheet’s EV of ~94. The podium question paid as the multiplier question for the ninth round running, through the Antonelli and Verstappen legs, both in the wrong slots.

Q1 podium: Verstappen · Antonelli · Hamilton. Antonelli (picked P1, finished P2) paid his 8 payout with no exact-slot bonus. Verstappen (picked P3, won) paid his 10, also with no bonus. Russell (picked P2) retired after 49 laps. 8 + 10 = 18, doubled to 36.

The platform’s answers for questions our race results file doesn’t record: fastest pitstop was Red Bull, and there was an SC/VSC in the first 15 laps. The rest come from content/results/R16-Malaysia.md: pole Verstappen, Bearman out-qualified Ocon (P18 v P19), 6 teams in Q3 (Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren, Alpine, Audi), fastest lap Verstappen (lap 55), more than 19 classified finishers (20, counting Russell at P20 on 49 laps), Lawson first of the four (P7, ahead of Colapinto P13, Sainz P17, Bortoleto P18), and Red Bull 35 GP points to Ferrari’s 27 and McLaren’s 10.

Pts Available follows the picks file (payout × multiplier, 163 total) and does not include the exact-slot bonus. Q1’s true ceiling was 92.

Notes

Pre-race decisions:

• 2× on the podium (Q1) for the ninth consecutive round, on ~19.7 combined EV against ~8–10 for the best single-answer question (Q9). Sheet EV was ~94 with the multiplier, against 163 available.
• Four declared beliefs: (1) Mercedes have the best car → Q1 P1 and P2, Q2, Q5, Q6; (2) Red Bull are second, ahead of Ferrari and McLaren → Q1 P3, Q10; (3) base rates hold on the structural questions → Q3, Q4, Q8, Q9; (4) Q7 and Q8 priced separately.
• Concentration capped at two questions per driver, in response to R15, when three Antonelli picks were lost to one Q1 crash. Antonelli: Q1 P1, Q5. Russell: Q1 P2, Q2. Verstappen: Q1 P3 (plus Q10 through Red Bull).
• Q5 broke the R15 “favourite, no case” rule on Antonelli’s 7-of-15 season fastest-lap record. Q6 kept it (Mercedes, the favourite).
• Russell was put back on the sheet at his base rate, after R15’s narrative markdown cost Q2 and Q5.

Result:

• Belief 1 was the costliest on the sheet: 16 earned from 58 available. Red Bull had the fastest car at Sepang, not Mercedes: Verstappen took pole, the win and the fastest lap, his first pole and first win of 2026, and Red Bull had the fastest pitstop. Every pick that belief carried except the Antonelli podium leg lost, and all of them lost to Red Bull: Q2 Russell, Q5 Antonelli, Q6 Mercedes, and the Russell leg of Q1. Mercedes’ three-race winning run (R13–R15) ended. The base rates the sheet built on were season-long, and Verstappen’s form had been climbing for three rounds (P3, P2, P2 before this one). The fantasy sheet bought him on exactly that trend.

• Belief 2 scored 30 from 30, and understated Red Bull. The Verstappen P3 leg paid 20 after doubling, and Q10 Red Bull paid 10 (35 GP points to Ferrari’s 27). This is the second round running that the Red Bull belief carried the sheet (R15: 39 of 74). The R13 test held for a third round: the belief on Q1’s 2× produced the round’s largest return. But the belief was priced as “second”, and it was first. Verstappen at P1 would have earned the exact-slot bonus as well.

• The concentration cap did its job. One bad Russell weekend cost two questions, not three, and Antonelli’s P2 kept his Q1 leg paying even though his Q5 lost. No single event emptied the sheet. One team beat the sheet everywhere instead: Red Bull took pole, the win, the fastest lap and the fastest pitstop. That is a correlation by team, not by driver. The R17 sheet should audit concentration by team as well as by driver: Mercedes carried four questions here (Q1 two legs, Q2, Q5, Q6).

• Belief 3 (base rates) scored 40 from 60, the best return of the method’s two rounds. Q9 Lawson (20) landed with P7, first of the four by six places: Lawson is now first of that group in 10 of 16 races. Q3 Bearman (10) landed on the season base rate over recent form (P18 v P19, now 11–4). Q4 “6” (10) landed: the market’s 6 has now been right seven rounds running (R10–R16), and 6 teams in 13 of 16 this season. Q8 “19” missed by one: 20 were classified, the “>19” alternative (25) the sheet named and graded at ~4.5 against 5.5. Only Albon and Bottas retired. The heat and Aston Martin’s reliability, the two reasons given against “>19”, didn’t materialise: both Aston Martins finished in the top twelve.

• Q7 “No” missed: the first miss on “No” in an early-neutralisation question since R04. “No” had landed at R08, R09 and R15. The sheet’s reason was Sepang’s wide run-off, as against Baku and Madrid. Bottas retired on lap 7, which is the likely trigger, though the results file doesn’t record the cause (confirm in R16 research). Q7 and Q8 split for a third round running, this time in the opposite direction: a neutralisation early, and few retirements over the full race. Pricing them independently was right. The Q7 pick was what lost.

• Q5 (fastest lap) is now 1 for 8 since R09 and 5 for 16 on the season. The departure from “favourite, no case” didn’t pay. Antonelli’s 7-of-15 record carried the case, and Verstappen set it on the final lap from the lead. The last two fastest laps have gone to the race winner (Russell at Baku, Verstappen here). At R14 it went to Russell, who didn’t win.

• Q6 (fastest pitstop) is 1 for 16 on the season, and 1 for 8 since R09. (R15’s “1 for 7” counted from R09; across the full season the question has been asked and lost every round except R15.) Mercedes was the favourite and Red Bull won it. Keep it mechanical. It isn’t worth an EV argument in either direction.

• Season total: 1,342 pts across 16 rounds (R01 97 · R02 99 · R03 87 · R04 90 · R05 28 · R06 88 · R07 56 · R08 78 · R09 93 · R10 163 · R11 65 · R12 128 · R13 40 · R14 70 · R15 74 · R16 86). The Q1 multiplier has paid in eleven of the twelve rounds it anchored, failing only at R13.

• For R17 Singapore (sprint weekend, street circuit): Verstappen and Red Bull are now the current-form favourites, not the second-best option. The street-circuit base rates also apply again: 16 classified finishers has been the most common count on street circuits, and “No” on early neutralisation held at Baku and Madrid, though Singapore’s safety-car rate is the highest on the calendar.