Beginner Guide
A plain-English guide to the sport, the jargon, and where to start.
Formula 1 is the world's top single-seater motorsport. Twenty drivers from ten teams race 24 times a year across 21 countries, each chasing one of two championships — the Drivers' Championship (the best driver) and the Constructors' Championship (the best team).
Every race has points on offer: 25 for the winner, 18 for second, 15 for third, and so on down to 1 point for tenth. Whoever has the most points at the end of the season is crowned world champion.
But F1 isn't just about who's fastest. It's about strategy: when to pit, which tyres to use, how to manage fuel, how to read the weather, when to risk an overtake. Every race is a puzzle. That's what this site exists to help you see.
Every Grand Prix is actually a three-day event. Here's what happens:
Three or four hour-long sessions where teams run tyre comparisons, set-up tweaks, and long runs. Lap times don't count for anything — it's a rehearsal.
A knockout shootout in three stages (Q1, Q2, Q3) that decides the starting order for the race. Fastest lap in Q3 starts first — that's pole position.
Usually around 60–70 laps, roughly 300 km, lasting 90 minutes to 2 hours. Points awarded to the top 10. Win = 25 points, second = 18, etc.
F1 cars are purpose-built single-seater racing machines that accelerate from 0–100 km/h in under two seconds and top 350 km/h on straights. Each car weighs around 800 kg and produces enough downforce to theoretically drive upside-down on a ceiling.
Ten teams (also called constructors) each run two cars. Some teams build their own engines (Ferrari, Mercedes), others buy them (Aston Martin buys Mercedes engines, for example). Big names right now include Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, and McLaren.
Cars use one of five tyre types depending on conditions. Choosing and managing them is a huge part of race strategy.
Once you click into a race, here's what you'll see:
A written narrative of how the race unfolded — the turning points, the weather, the drama. Written for people who didn't watch it live.
Auto-detected highlights — big overtakes, crashes, safety cars, pit stops that changed the race. The moments you'd see on a highlight reel.
"What history tells us" — similar races from the past 16 seasons that match this one's conditions. A wet race from pole? Here's how those usually go.
Click to expand: full strategy breakdown, season standings at this point, teammate battles, and more. For when you want the whole picture.
Pick a driver, choose tyres, set pit stops — then watch a machine learning model predict how your strategy would have played out vs reality. Try it. It's the best way to understand F1 strategy.
Every term you'll run into on this site, explained.
If you want to fall in love with F1 in one afternoon, read these three.
Brazil 2008
The most dramatic title decider in F1 history. Hamilton needed fifth to win the title. He was sixth going into the last corner, in the rain. Then Timo Glock crawled across the line on dry tyres, Hamilton swept past him, and a drivers' champion was crowned at the last possible moment. Sebastian Vettel celebrated the win. Felipe Massa had already thought he'd become champion. Watch the chaos unfold.
Read the race story →
Abu Dhabi 2021
Two drivers tied on points entering the final race. Hamilton dominated most of the race. Then a late safety car, a confused race director, and five cars waved through turned a procession into a one-lap shootout. Verstappen on fresh softs versus Hamilton on worn hards. One lap. A title. F1 rewrote its rulebook after this one.
Read the race story →
Turkey 2020
The Istanbul track had been freshly resurfaced and barely drained. Rain turned it into an ice rink. Cars spun everywhere. Hamilton, on intermediate tyres, somehow managed the chaos better than anyone — not by being fastest, but by being smoothest. He tied Michael Schumacher's record of seven world titles that day. A reminder that F1 is as much about control as it is about speed.
Read the race story →