Gm degens and welcome back to Episode 13 of my Adventures on the Solana Blockchain 🏝️
If you were to meet me, you’ll quickly find out that I am a sports nerd ⚽ 🏈 🏀
This love for athletics combined with casual sports gambling has attracted me to dig into many projects in the space.
Formula 1 is a sport I have grown fond of through the years and the project I will be writing about is going to make my race weekends even more fun!
Let’s dive in. 🪂
Sporting Labs
Sporting Labs has announced the launch of its debut game, a Formula 1 NFT/Fantasy game, built on the Solana Blockchain.
Players can mint a car and join in on the fun.
2000 cars, top 100 receive 40 $SOL each 💰
First race: Australian Grand Prix 🏁
Built on Solana 🚀
🕹️ About the Game
The Fantasy League game is called Sporting F1.
It allows players to customize a Formula 1 race car by assembling their ideal fantasy car from various auto parts. During the race, players gain points based on how their parts perform.
Throughout the F1 season, players (2000) will compete against each other and climb the leaderboard to become the ultimate F1 driver.
➕ Benefits
Owning and participating in the 2023 F1 comes with several rewards, including:
Exclusive access to all future Sporting Labs games and betting exchanges
Special events are held for every race to discuss car stats and game strategies, place side bets during the race, share ideas on future designs, and more
🏎️ Auto Parts
Auto Parts are an essential aspect of the Sporting F1 game, with six different types available for degens to collect. Each car minted is generated with a random combination of these parts, which can be equipped, detached, or traded.
Every F1 auto part has two attributes: a number and a label.
The number of points awarded to players for each will depend on the results of each F1 race and drivers’ performances.
Let's take a closer look at each Auto Part and its breakdown of points:
👨✈️ Driver
The Driver trait lets players predict a particular driver's final position. Each Driver has a corresponding number between 1 and 20. If this number matches their final placing in a race week, players with this Part gain 15 points.
e.g. you have Kevin Magnussen as your driver and his number is 12, you’d gain 15 points if Hamilton comes in 12th place.
👨🚀 Cockpit
The Cockpit works similarly to the Driver trait but with some twists.
Instead of getting 15 points, players get 12 points for correctly guessing the final placing of the driver.
Players can gain 4 points if their cockpit's driver retires before completing 90% of the race. We can also gain 3 points if their driver’s qualifying results match their number.
e.g. your cockpit's attributes are Max Verstappen and 2, you’d gain 12 points if Verstappen comes in 2nd place. However, if Verstappen crashes and retires, you’d still get 4 points. You will get 3 points if Verstappen finished in 2nd position in Saturday’s qualifications.
👼 Front Wing
The front wing is the first to hit oncoming air and determines the way air flows to the rest of the car. Engineers know this part is crucial to achieving max speed.
To give some love to the engineers, points gained are determined by the finish place of an F1 team. If the number attribute matches the placing of either driver on the team, players gain 8 points.
e.g. you equipped a Mercedes Front Wing with the number 3. If either Hamilton or Russell comes in 3rd on a race week, you get 8 points.
🚂 Engine
For the 2023 season, here are the 4 engines and the teams using them:
Mercedes AMG: McLaren, Williams Racing, Aston Martin, and Mercedes-AMG Petronas.
Honda: Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri
Ferrari: Ferrari, Alfa Romeo Racing, and Haas
Renault: Alpine F1 Team
Engines have 2 attributes (one of the four engines above and a number) and you can gain 5 points if a car with its engine finishes the race in the same spot as its engine number.
e.g. your engine’s attributes are Ferrari engine and 3, you’d collect 5 points if either Sainz or Leclerc finish the race in 3rd.
🔙 Rear Wing
Rear Wing is about show and entertainment. Thus, this attribute score is determined by the number of overtakes your driver has during the race.
For every overtakes, 1 point is awarded. If the number of overtakes matches your rear wing's number, your points are doubled.
e.g. you have equipped your rear wing with the attributes of Sergio Perez and number 7. If Perez overtakes 5 cars during the race, you get 5 points. If he achieves 7, you double up and get 14 points.
☸️ Wheels
Strategy and tire selection need to be on point for a pilot to have the best result possible. As such, players will be awarded based on where their drivers finish relative to where they started the race.
e.g. you have equipped your wheels with the attributes of Lando Norris and number 4. If Norris starts the race in 6th place and finishes the race in 3rd place, you would receive 3 points.
Also, if the number of positions gained matches your wheel's number, your points are doubled. e.g. Norris gains 4 positions and your wheel's number is 4, double up your points (8).
🖼️ Minting
This mint was the first of its kind ☝️ So smooth!
Everything happened inside your Backpack wallet 🎒 and the Sporting Labs xNFT app.
Sporting Labs built their xNFT app which you can find on the Backpack xNFT list page (here).
After downloading it to your wallet, you can open the app through your xNFT tab. You can then hit “Mint” and receive your car and discover the 6 attributes attached.
🔢 Mint metrics
Date: 03/28/2023
Collection size: 2000 items
Number minted as of today: 200+
As you can see, the mint has not gone perfectly according to plan as only 10% have been minted. This is a roadblock that I believe the team and racers will overcome to make this project a great success (NFA 😉).
🏎️ My race cars
I minted two and here is what I came out with:
Both of these have 50% of attributes I would consider good when taking into account results from the first two races of 2023.
Here are my top picks for each part if I wanted to build MY dream F1 car:
👨✈️ Driver
Verstappen - 1 : Verstappen won 15 races last year and Red Bull looks even stronger than last year. Would not be surprised to see Max reach that tally again 💪
Perez - 2 : Same reasoning as above.
Leclerc - 3 : Feels like Ferrari is the second team in the pecking order and I believe Leclerc is the best of the two drivers.
Tough to pick middle or back-of-the-pack pilots as the finish place is much more random IMO!
👼 Front Wing
Red Bull - 1 : I expect either Max or Sergio to finish in the top 3 of every single race barring any reliability issues. 1-3 seems like a good range.
Mercedes-AMG - 5 : I can see Mercedes being a reliable car and a bit behind the Red Bulls and Ferraris. 4-6 is a good range.
Alpine - 8 : Alpine is primed to be the 4th ranked team and either Ocon or Gasly can take advantage of one of the cars in front to have a bad race or reliability issues. 7-9 feels like a good range.
👨🚀 Cockpit
Verstappen - 1 : With the many wins I expect from Max, this attribute is my best bet to score points (12) and get the 3 additional because Max gets pole position on the grid.
Stroll - 6 : With 4 points awarded if the pilot doesn’t finish the race and 6th place feels like a regular weekend. I try to maximize points by picking pilots prone to mistakes or a good race to finish at an attainable place (Both qualifying and race). 5-7 is a good range as well.
🚂 Engine
Honda - 1 : Counting on Red Bull to win close to 20 races. This selection looks like the best to me.
Ferrari - 4 : Expecting a battle between Perez and Leclerc for 2nd, I go for 4th place. Sainz is the prime candidate but Leclerc could also fill that spot in case of a disappointing race. 3-5 is the right range.
Alpine - 9 : With Alpine a bit behind the top 4 teams, right inside the top 10 makes sense. 8-10 is a great range IMO.
🔙 Rear Wing
The rear wing rewards drivers that have the most overtakes in a race. I looked for 2022 overtake stats and the first two races to make the most informed decision.
Any great pilot (Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes-AMG, Aston Martin) who gets penalties for a race is a great play. Verstappen or Leclerc starting from the back is great!
But let’s think season overall here;
Alonso - 5 : Fernando is one of, if not the best, pilots on the grid. He finished second last year (starting from far down the grid). but he has a tremendous car this year which should make him an overtaking machine.
Albon - 4 : I can see a weekend scenario where Alex doesn’t qualify great (15-18) but still manages a few overtakes to get close or in the points. He is also capable of sneaking in Q2 & Q3 and getting up in the points
Verstappen - 15 : More of a gamble but Max still gets a few overtakes and will load up (10-15 overtakes) on a weekend he is penalized. The correct number to double up might be up to the # of grid positions he gets as a penalty.
☸️ Wheels
Look out for top drivers getting penalized. Verstappen starting last is a golden opportunity to score massive points.
Any top driver starting far because of penalties - 15-20 : Verstappen (insert any other RB, Ferrari, Mercedes driver) starting last is a golden opportunity to score massive points.
Alonso - 3 : Fernando is a racer! The most likely scenario IMO is to have the Spaniard start from 6-8 and get up near the podium or just off.
Gasly - 4 : I don’t trust Alpine and Gasly to qualify particularly well. Around 9-13 starting place and finishing 4 better is my best assessment for now.
🦿 Game Mechanics
Stacking in Backpack 🎒
Staking NFTs ensures that we cannot make changes to our F1 car once the Saturday race begins.
Afterward, we can unstake our cars, triggering the smart contract to award points accordingly.
Viewing leaderboards 📈
[Upcoming]
Players can view their points on the leaderboard (prior week's race and cumulative season total). Points are distributed as non-tradable tokens.
Using Boots to Customize 🪄
Each F1 car NFT consists of a Base Layer and six tradable F1 auto Parts traits.
The base layer is the “structure” on which the parts are displayed and is significant as it accumulates and stores points throughout the season. Players can trade the base layer marketplaces.
Between races, we will have the ability to customize our F1 cars by swapping out auto parts.
Throughout the season, the base layer will become the most valuable aspect of the NFT, reflecting the probability that it will be in the top 100 players.
Attributes’ Distribution ⚖️
The distribution of the number of attributes for each auto part is not uniform, ensuring that a majority of parts are relevant and have a decent likelihood of occurring.
For example, the number of cockpit attributes is distributed per driver, as shown in the table above. There are 100 cockpits available per driver, with drivers from Red Bull, Ferrari, and Mercedes falling under the "Frontrunner" category. Albon, on the other hand, will only have one cockpit with the number 1.
🗺️ Roadmap
From Sporting Labs whitepaper
1️⃣ Mint before the Australian 2023 F1 Season on our xNFT ✅
2️⃣ Open NFT trading on Solana Marketplaces
3️⃣ Staking Demo and Game Play walkthrough for Australian GP
4️⃣ Activate car traits with Boots v2 before Azerbaijan GP
5️⃣ Introduce Boots customization within the Backpack wallet
6️⃣ Work with Projects & Artists to release custom car designs
7️⃣ Release SAGA & mobile demo to test for the 2024 season
8️⃣ Showcase the 2024 season designs at Solana Breakpoint
🔚 Reward the top 100 players with their 40 SOL each!
Great writeup 💯!!!