> Leclerc was able to keep in front of Piastri at his second stop as well, and both drivers were stationary for just two seconds as their crews swarmed over the cars. But that single stop of Norris' was even faster at 1.9 seconds, and while he was driving slower than his teammate, he held track position at the front and was driving flawlessly.
Wow, I know nothing about F1 racing, but that is a fast tire change. Here's how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE5FGSEQc8Q. Three people on each tire, one single bolt. Full stop over the jack, unbolt, old tire off, new tire on, rebolt, drop and go.
And there's a lot of redundancy, just waiting to execute the task if anyone or some equipment fails.
On the other hand ... why isn't this fully automated yet?
Yeah, I don't see the point of having drivers either.
Given that F1 cars just need to drive around a circuit in good weather conditions, teams could just install a comma 3X self driving system and replace an expensive driver for $1k.
There is an AI powered autonomous racing series...
Perhaps two well-placed grooves in the track could aid with steering with side rails providing DC power?
Life sized self-driving slot car race—could be interesting as its own thing.
> Given that F1 cars just need to drive around a circuit in good weather conditions
That wasn't the case until recently.
It's a real shame that F1 has become so conservative about wet races. I'd love to see something like the Massa/Kubica battle at Fuji in 2007 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnxUu36-uYw) happen today.
F1 racing used to be so much better.
I'm not sure it would be as fast or have anywhere near the same redundancy for the price.
Just locating the wheel in space is non trivial!
Software engineers, ladies and gentleman :P
You could then ask this of all aspects of the sport, and all other sports as well!
Pit stops are a crucial aspect of motorsports; they can make or break a race. So competition in that area is good.
Why not make a race entirely of pit stops?
Or a race with no pit stops. Tire degradation is largely artificial and designed to FIA requirements. They could make tires that lasted an entire race with minimal reduction in grip if they wanted to, but that would remove a lot of strategy.
This exists; they are called sprint races. Sprint races are generally a stepping stone to the bigger leagues because it doesn't require the same type of manpower and coordination to be competitive. A lot of spec series (like the MX-5 series that runs with IMSA sometimes) tend to be this way to lower the barrier of entry.
The MX-5 Cup series is better than F1 anyway :D
F1 has gotten boring lately. That ought to spice it up!
Because it wouldn’t be a sport
Because spectators don't want to watch that.
It's insane how fast they do it.
It's fun to compare it with clips of tire changes in past F1 races. There's been a constant evolution in the tire change procedure/dance.
At one point (oof, one article says 2010) re-fueling went out the window, that's a big time sink.
And it changes things completely for the tire changers. When there's re-fueling, there isn't really any stress on the tire changers. Without it, it's most often all on them.
The record is 1.8s. This was after changes were introduced to try to slow down pit stops. I believe in the past signals were sent that the wheels were on before they were fully secured (anticipating that by the time the signal was given to the driver the wheel would be fully secured). A delay was introduced and over a couple of seasons the crews managed to get back to (and beat) their old times.
I've been watching Netflix's "Drive to Survive." One of the most frustrating aspects of it is the team will talk about strategy, but will never say what their strategy is. They'll say the car needs improvement, then say the car is improved, but never say what they did to improve it. They'll say they need to negotiate to get driver X, but never give any hint over what the negotiations were.
Watch it for a while, and you'll see. You never get any real information.
Anyone who's watched even one series of actual F1 content would quickly understand that the narrative woven in DTS ranges from exaggerated to almost fictional and dramatised for the sake of the cameras.
DTS is only really useful in generating memes like Guenther Steiner's 'foksmash' and the Aldi catalogue, Guenther Steiner and Mattia Binotto in the Dolomites, Guenther Steiner and 'hygiene'—no, sorry, it's 'Hi, Gene'. You get the idea.
There are so many more actually useful resources like most of the pre- and post-race media pens and press conferences, Ted's Notebook on Sky F1, F1TV's technical deep dives, the r/f1technical subreddit, and even each team's own marketing material and press releases. Team strategy and car development is generally not openly discussed anywhere, because they're critical to the teams' performance during the races. There are people who have pieced together information though, and you'll never see this sort of investigative analysis on DTS.
Drive to Survive isn't that type of show. It's about the characters and drama, not the racing.
Drive To Survive is a drama series. It's not really meant for technical information.
I remember when they asked Senna what his F1 strategy was. He replied "start in the pole position, and stay in front!"
Good strategy for any type of racing.
Fast tire changes only matter a very limited amount of the time (pretty much only if the extra time drops you a place, so there has to be 1 car/20 in a specific 1 second window on what is typically a 90s lap for 3s (a slow stop) vs 2s (a fast stop) to matter. Maybe 20% of the time a slow stop happens, it costs a driver.
Strategy matters a lot and good strategy is worth at least a few positions in a race.
The Hungarian circuit is very difficult for overtaking. Therefore, the front-runner has a much better chance of winning, making tire changes a critical issue.
So I picked up watching F1 during the pandemic. I like it but you have to know a bit to really appreciate it so let me give you some basics.
First, it's what's called a constructor series. That is, there are different engine manufacturers and each team builds their own car. Soem components can be shared (ie bought from manufacturers), some can't. The cars are intentionally not identical. Some are just better. There are constraints but teams have a lot lf latitude.
This is as opposed to a spec series 9eg Formula E) where the cars are basically identical. This is a spectrum.
There are 10 teams (11 next year; there have been more in the past). Each team fields 2 cars with 2 drivers. The first 10 places award points (up to 25) to both the driver and the team. The team (constructor) standings at the end of the year award prize money. There is a title for the best team and the best driver.
The fact that there are 2 drivers and they both want to win the drivers championship. This creates a ton of tension and conflict.
Because there are only 20(ish) drivers in a season, the individual personalities matter. The complete polar opposite of this is probably the NFL, which has I believe ~1700 full time players in any given year, probably not even including practice squads.
There is now a constructor (and engine) cost cap. That's relatively new (since 2022). Before that some teams would spend 2-3x+ what other teams did, kinda like MLB.
So because there are unequal cars, there are periods of dominance. Currently the clear #1 car is fielded by McLaren. Previously that was Red Bull. Then for a long time it was Mercedes. Sometimes (notably in 2021) there was a close fight between 2 teams for both championships.
The current engine regulations are for a hybrid engine with ground effect cars. Next year it's even more hybrid but they're getting rid of ground effect.
There are currently 24 races in a season going from March to early December with some breaks in between. Race weekends generally run from Friday to Sunday. The format is to have 3 free practice ("FP") sessions on 2 days, each lasting an hour, where teams can change their setup, run different tires and have different run plans to fine tune their setup.
The second session on the Saturday is qualifying (often just "quali") in 3 sessions. In each session each driver is trying to do the fastest single lap possible. In the first 2 sessions the bottom 5 drivers are eliminated. They have a tire allowance for all this that I won't go into. But the starting order for the race (on Sunday) is set from fastest to slowest times. These sessions are called q1, q2 and q3.
The actual race typically runs ~300km (Monaco is less). With different lap lengths that's a different number of laps. In the current regulations the cars are fully-fueled at the start. Previously there was in-race refuelling but no more, for safety reasons.
Tires will last a varying number of laps and there are 3 compounds to use, called soft, medium and hard. There's more complexity to this but I'll ignore that. You have to use at last 2 differnt compounds in the race. That's what the pit stops are, to change tires and possibly a broken front wing (and, as I said, previously refuelling).
The starting order and finishing order are usually called p1 to p20. The top 3 places are also called podium places because, well, you get a trophy. On a podium.
There's more to it like sprint races and how wet weather changes things as well as safety procedures like safety cars, red flags and yellow flags.
But when you go beyond this, you get into the lore, which is both fascinating and hilarious, like industrial espionage on teams that was exposed by a Kinko's employee or someone intentionally getting a driver to crash to affect the world championship or the two childhood friends who ended up teammates and ended up not speaking to each other after a bitter championship fight.
Would love to know how such high performing teams operate and execute.
If you want a less technical, entertaining view into F1, Netflix’s “Drive to Survive” is excellent (if a little over-dramatic).
It’s documented-drama, but has enough of the geeky stuff to be interesting.
James Vowles and Toto Wolff are both really interesting to listen to. Especially James - you can immediately tell that his brain is operating on a very high level of organization and clarity.
Good interviews with those two leaders. “High Performance” has other interviews with drivers, trainers, etc. But I’d agree that Wolff and Vowles are two of the best in the industry and also at talking about it/interviewing.
Toto Wolff: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z5Yxk6s971E
Wolff with Daks Shepherd (bit less geeky, probably watch this first): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D-LrZc193uU
James Vowles: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nYzwvTSffiY&pp=0gcJCRsBo7VqN5t...
F1 is a wonderful sport if you're a geek.
The drivers are of course the athletes - they have to spend a couple of hours driving cars at up to 200mph through lateral and longitudinal forces that can exceed 5G, or race in conditions where they can lose 4kgs (9lbs) of weight in sweat - but the edges, the performance gains, it's all in the engines and aero departments back at the factory, the crews getting setups right, the pit stops down into the sub-2s, and so much more.
If you were to ask a casual fan who has won the most World Championships they might suggest in recent history that is Max Verstappen (he's won four). A more serious fan will tell you that Lewis Hamilton (still driving today) is tying with Michael Schumacher (who isn't), with 7 drivers' championships, which is the all-time record.
But a more serious fan might suggest it's Adrian Newey - an engineer who has designed cars that have won 12 constructors' championships and 14 drivers' championships. He is now working at Aston Martin on their 2026 car, when all the regulations are changing and Cadillac is joining as an 11th team.
There is ample geekery on YouTube about various design aspects (Phase changing materials to change airflow over inner brake drums? Rear wings that flex "illegally"? Technical regulation deep dives? It's all there), and there is a sofa-friendly series to get partners interested in "Drive to Survive" on Netflix where you'll get to know all the human personalities, and even a - frankly absurd, but popcorn-worthy fun - Hollywood film starring Brad Pitt.
On race weekends there are teams of hundreds of people back at factories analysing not just their own teams' data, but what data is available from other teams: just over 1m data points a second through 3 practice sessions, a qualifying session, potentially a sprint qualifier and sprint race, and then the race itself.
There are team members who specialise in strategy, some who do nothing but figure out the likelihood of rain and understanding where the prevailing wind is coming from (aerodynamics are critical), and squads of people who think long and hard about tires - the three compounds they can choose from (and they must race a minimum of two per race), pressures, and degradation - and even a few people making sure that the car (which is fuelled to not quite finish the race for weight reasons), is correctly being coasted when needed if a safety car doesn't turn up.
Then there's the simulator setups. There are sims back in the factories with dedicated sim drivers testing setups with engineers, but you can join in at home to a point. The gaming sims are now getting good enough that with a decent wedge or with a visit to one of the F1 arcades, you can get something that, g-forces aside, will give something that's about 80% accurate in terms of track layout and some car setups, which is enough for the lay person to realise how insanely hard it is to get the car setup right and consistently send it around the tracks at those speeds and tolerances.
It's a deep well. It's my favourite sport to watch, and I recommend it to all.
> The drivers are of course the athletes
In the modern sport they're a weird hybrid between athlete and pilot. The cars are exceptionally complex and in addition to the forces you mention there's incredibly complicated input devices embedded into the steering wheel and it's not uncommon to have 15 to 20 different, specific, timed control changes during the course of a lap.
A comparison, and I'm not sure everyone will appreciate this, but to my elderly eyes, a major difference is in how drivers look when they get out of a car at the end of a race. Modern drivers spring out of their cars with plenty of spare energy to parade around the paddock. In previous eras drivers would come out of their cars drenched in sweat, often in visible pain, and had to be assisted to get back into the garage.
It reflects a fundamental shift in the role and use of technology in the cockpit. I love both sports; however, I do see them as almost two entirely different sports.
I guess compare the fatality rate to the classic years that made the sport. Guys were literally risking their lives every race and drivers died regularly. It’s no doubt the cars were harder to manage and stressful to push to the limits.
I'm not sure I'm reading your comment correctly, or getting your point. How does technology affect how they look when they come out?
Technology made driving f1 cars less brutal on the body. To start of in the first seasons a lot of stuff was unknown, for example some drivers wanted oxygen bottle so they wouldn't pass out while carefully leaving a fire. Others preferred instead to have the car to be the most easy as possible to leave, if a fire happened.
Now there is also head support, while drivers back then had to just use their muscles to hold their head in place.
The list goes on... but it still is an athletic sport. When Nico Rosberg decided to win the championship, he had to heavily change his routine to so way more fitness training than he was used to. After he won the championship and immediately retired, he hinted that one of the reasons for retirement is that he didn't want to continue with the heavy body training.
> and even a - frankly absurd, but popcorn-worthy fun - Hollywood film starring Brad Pitt.
Yeah, "F1 the movie" was ridiculous; some of the lines had me laughing out loud at how corny they were. But it was certainly popcorn-worthy, and it had enough Easter eggs for actual F1 fans to keep them entertained. It was hilarious to watch one of the podium scenes where Leclerc had this look of, "am I doing this acting thing right, guys?" that was precious.
But if you want an actual good F1 movie, "Rush" is very well done. It tells the story of the rivalry between drivers Niki Lauda and James Hunt during the 1970s.
> even a - frankly absurd, but popcorn-worthy fun - Hollywood film starring Brad Pitt.
The last race in Netherlands, last Sunday, was the closest to the movie in this season though.
rain and safety cars!