Learn how to follow along and understand how a Grand Prix works!
When you watch a Grand Prix, it will be pretty hard to follow along and understand all the jargon.
Pit Stops and tires
The first thing you should know is that when a team calls to "box" during a race, it means to go in for a pit stop. During a pit stop, the team usually replaces the car's tires for new ones. It is accoridng to FIA rules that a car should use atleast two different car compounds per race. There are soft, mediums, and hards. Softs don't last long, but they are the fastest and have good grip. Mediums last a little longer and have more balance. They go slower than the softs but faster than the hards. Hard tires last the longest but do not have the best grip. Pit stops are very quick, and usually take less than 3 seconds. This speediness is essential when trying to keep pace.
Yellow flags, Safety Cars, and Strategies
Each team have different strategies to try and beat who ever is around them. The midfield teams tend to compete within the midfield, and they don't usually try to get to the top unless they really have the chance. But these teams strategize whatever they need like when they want to pit, use a safety car, or how to want to conserve some of their cars energy. Speaking of a safety car, when there is a safety car, that means there is a yellow flag and there is an obstruction on the track. The cars need to lower their speed, and they cannot overtake. Sometimes there is a real safety car that actually goes on track and drives in front of all the cars, and other times there is a virtual safety car where there is no physical safety car driving, the yellow flag is just waved and cars must reduce their speed. When there is a safety car, this can be good for teams that have not pitted yet because they can pit without losing any places. If a car pit before a safety car, then they just lost a lot of places.
Flags and Laps
Each Grand Prix circuit has its own number of laps the drivers must complete. Circuits can range from 40-90 laps depending on how long they are. Some drivers have very fast cars and can complete laps very fast, causing them to lap other drivers. When this driver finishes the reace ahead of a lapped car, they get a checkered flag at the finish line, and the lapped cars finish after them. The lapped cars do not get to complete the rest of their laps because the race is over. Another flag besides the checkered and yellow flag is a red flag which means the conditions on track have been deemed very dangerous and the cars must return back to the pits. This happened when there was a very bad crash at Silverstone, so the cars had to sotp racing and wait in the pits. Click here to know more about the different flags waved during a race.
Times
Sometimes during a race, you will hear commentators and engineers refer to the "pace," or the times they are going. This is to keep track of how fast a car should go relative to the cars around them.
Sectors and DRS
Each circuit is split into different sections, or "sectors," that people refer to to determine where the cars go the quickest. Each sector is timed, and F1 uses three colours—green, yellow, and purple—to report how a driver's lap is going, sector by sector. A green sector means the driver set their personal best on the day. A yellow sector means they fell short of their best time. A purple sector means they've set the best time out of any driver that session. A circuit also usually has DRS zones, or Drag Reduction System zones. The Drag Reduction System in an F1 car is on the back spoiler of the car that opens up to let air through and reduce drag. DRS zones on a drag are specific zones where a car can activte DRS and overtake a car; however, DRS is only activated in this specific zone, and the car must be less than 1 second behind the car they are trying to overtake. DRS zones are usually during straights and not where the circuit has a lot of turns.
Track limits and penalties
There are different types of penalties in F1. Here are some common ones that come about.
- Exceeding track limits means the driver had their car completely out of bounds. Like a normal road has dotted lines to separate each lane, the track has lines that act as boundaries for the track. A car must always have atleast the center of their car inside the line. A driver will be called for track limits in F1 when they have crossed over the white line repeatedly without good cause – such as avoiding an incident. They are also not allowed to force another driver off the track and must leave racing room on the out or inside or risk a penalty.
- A driver cannot overtake during a safety car. Their front wing must atleast be behind the car infront of them's front wing.
- In the pit lane, a car must go a certain speed limit for the safety of all the people working in the pit lane. If they exceed that speed limit by even 1 mph, they can get a penalty.