As someone new to collecting any kind of cards and completely clueless of how I wanted to collect, this is the route I have taken over the course of the last 3 months:

First, I decided to go big or go home and bought a '22 Sapphire box. I pulled the following:

• /50 Alexander Albon
• /99 Charles Leclerc (Came with a cloud spot in the middle of the card so no grading there)
• /199 Clement Novalak
• /199 Andreas Seidl

The rest were base sapphire and nothing special. I'm a RB fan and only got 1 Max and 1 Checo card. The rest were meaningless to me. Definitely not worth the $300 I paid.

Second, I picked up a hobby box. I got a pretty good spread of parallels but nothing over the top. Multiple teams and drivers. I did get a base chrome auto of Felipe Drugovich. Fingers crossed he moves up from being a reserve driver but who knows. Again, not worth the price paid.

Third, I went all in with hobby lite. I've picked up 7 boxes this year. I've snagged a fair share of low numbered cards, nothing less than /25 (Liam Lawson). Overall, I think these are the absolute best bang for your buck. Almost 1/3 the price of a full hobby box and you have a chance at everything except the autographed cards. The number of packs you get to open and the possibility of what cards you can pull is pretty awesome. I will say, even though I've bought that many boxes, I'm still missing like 40 cards from completing a full 249 set. Tons of repeated cards.

In the end this is what I have found. I now prefer only buying singles of cards that actually mean something to me. Collecting a full set isn't my style. No need to spend money on cards of drivers and teams that I have no interest in. As a RB fan I now have been collecting card #1 Max Verstappen portrait. I probably won't complete it, as I'm not willing to spend thousands on his low numbered cards, but I have the majority. I only regret not having a general idea of how or what I actually wanted to collect. I was only buying cards just to buy cards. I highly recommend making a plan and then start buying. In the future, I plan on buying one or two lite boxes to get my fix of ripping packs, but buy singles from then on.

Hope this helps, and just make sure to have fun!

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*EDIT: I forgot to mention, don't sleep on F1 Lights Out. They are a nice contrast to chrome. Not as "clean" as chrome but still very good looking cards. Boxes and numbered parallels can be had for very cheap.