Your Typical F1 Weekend is Eventful
Well, well, welcome to the F1 Racing podcast. I’m your host Billy Simpson and I used to practice my cuss words in the bathtub when I was five years old. I mention this because this episode is focused on the vocabulary and race weekend festivities on track…boring! and it just makes me want to cuss.
So if you’re an experienced Formula 1 race fan and don’t think this episode will interest you much, stay tuned and listen in because you might just learn something, or at least get a chuckle. My plan is to arm you with the vocabulary you need to know to carry-on a conversation with other F1 racing enthusiasts in person and on social media. I’ll also fill you in on normal events that happen during a normal race weekend.
Vocabulary
General Terms
Grand Prix – Overall name of race, i.e. US Grand Prix, Spanish Grand Prix
Circuit – the race track, and each has it’s own name, not just named after the city, i.e. taking place on a 2.3mi circuit
Paddock – team’s garages; kind of each team’s homebase at a circuit/ racetrack. Garages are arranged based on success, from best to worst. So if your team did not finish well last year, then your team has to walk the length of the paddock. Think of it as a walk of shame.
Chicane – tight sequence of corners; I feel like this term is used more often than not when describing corners period.
Livery (not a word to describe the after taste of cunilingus or felacio) – this describes the paint job, sponsor design / placement and team/ driver names on car
Car Terms
Dirty / Turbulent Air – not related to flatulence; as a car drives it punches a whole in the air and the air that comes off the back of the car is called dirty air because it affects the performance of following cars in corners, etc.
Slip stream / getting a tow – on straight-aways cars that follow closely to the car in front will have less wind resistance and as a result gains a little more speed
Box, Box – this means to make a pit stop
DRS (drag reduction system) – when a car is within 1 second of the car in front of them they are able to use DRS; this drag reduction system is a fin located in the rear wing that when enabled lifts, reducing the wind resistance allowing the car to travel around 12mph faster
Tire compound (C5-C1) – there are 5 tire compounds provided by Pirelli; C5 is the softest tire and usually the fastest, but it doesn’t last as long. during any race Pirelli selects 3 compounds in sequential order, i.e. C5 – C3 where C5 is the softest tire with red striping on tire itself, C4 would be the medium yellow stripe tire, and C3 would be the hard white striped tire. These are the slick tires, no grip. There are also 2 other types of tires used in rainy conditions: intermediate and wet tires. Intermediate tires are used when there is some moisture on the track, Wet tires are used when is raining a lot.
KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) / charging the battery – when you see the red light blinking on the back of cars, that’s not a brake light it means the battery is charging the power unit which gives the car more speed. this is a green technology that when a unit is fully charged adds 60kW or 80HP to the car.
1 stop, 2 stop strategy – All cars are required to race two different tire compounds in a race. if a car only makes 1 pit stop it is a “1 stop strategy”
Get temperature in the tires – this means driving on your tires in order to warm them up so they get better traction for faster speed and handling. In the formulation lap you will see cars swerving from left to right to get temperature to the tires.
Under / over steer – Oversteer is what occurs when a car turns (steers) by more than the amount commanded by the driver and vice versa for under steer
Undercut (pit before competitor) – this is a strategy when one team makes a pit stop before the other team in order to get fresher tires and hopefully gain position on the track.
Outlap (lap after leaving pit area) – this is the first lap after a car makes a pitstop, i.e. this driver is on their outlap
Apex – the tactic is to hit the ‘apex’ of a corner perfectly so the driver maintains maximum speed through a corner
Porpoising effect – bouncing of the car due to new regulations sitting lower to ground.
Flow viz – neon green paint applied to the front wing so that engineers can see how the wind rolls off the wing.
Underbreaking – taking a corner too fast and locking up the tires, causing a flat spot on tires. which is not good for traction. More and more lockups cause tire to lock up and slide on flat spot, so a puncture could be eminent.
Downforce – The aerodynamic force that is applied in a downwards direction as a car travels forwards. This is harnessed to improve a car’s traction and its handling through corners.
Race Officials
Race Director (head referee) – think of this as the head referee who is responsible for talking to team managers during the race and keeping safe racing conditions.
Stewards (referees) – panel of people who interpret the F1 rule book and review incidents to decide if and what penalty should be handed down
Marshals – the people who wave flags and are responsible for clearing debris from the track.
Safety Car / VSC (virtual safety car) – this another word for pace car, or the car that leads the other cars during a caution flag; if a driver runs off track or debris is on track a virtual safety car is deployed, there isn’t an actual car it’s just a flashing sign all drivers can see; under a VSC all drivers cannot pass and must reduce their speed to 30% of normal speed.
Race Weekend Formats
Normal Race Weekend (Qualifying)
Friday: Free Practice 1 & FP 2 (1H ea)
Saturday: FP3 & Qualifying (determines starting position) (1H ea)
Sunday: Race Day (2H) Rain or shine
Tricked-Up Race Weekend (Sprint Race)
Only 3 sprint race weekends in 2022: Italy; Austria; Brazil
They do sprint races because spectators don’t really give a hot fuck about watching practice, which is when teams are running programs with computers and shit to lock in optimal settings for the car on specific tracks so they can perform best on race day.
Pit Stops | Scoring | Flags
Pit Stops
it only takes a pit crew around 2-4 seconds to change a set of tires, but since the speeds are reduced in the pit area a normal pit stop usually takes 26 seconds. Therefore this is where the chess match begins.
Scoring
In F1 Racing, only the top ten positions finish in the points. There is also one point awarded for fastest lap of the race.
- P1: 26 pts
- P2: 18 pts
- P3: 15 pts
- P4: 12 pts
- P5: 10 pts
- P6: 8 pts
- P7: 6 pts
- P8: 4 pts
- P9: 2 pts
- P10: 1 pt
Races will take place rain or shine. But in the off chance races are shortened, usually due to horrible weather. If there are at least 2 green flag laps raced then there’s some convoluted shit with scoring that happens. I’m going to cover that here, but you can google it, or if you want to be a smart ass to your friends or enemies when they ask you something go to LMGTFY.com, which stands for “let me google that for you” and send them the link. it’s a hilarious website
Finally at the end of year there are two major awards based on points. The World Champion is awarded to a single driver with the most points. The Constructor Champion is awarded to a team with the most points and are awarded 100s of millions of dollars.
Flags & Their Meaning
There are 11 different flags that may be waved but you usually only see a handful during a race.
Double Yellow – means there’s a dumbass in the middle of the road and all drivers must slow the fuck down and passing is not allowed; usually results in a safety car
Yellow – means there’s stuff in the road and all drivers must reduce speed and no passing; usually results in a VSC
Green – means go fast bitch bc it’s normal racing conditions
Red – session suspended and all drivers must return to the pit
Blue – means you suck and you need to move to the side bc you are about to be lapped by another car
Black w/ orange circle – means your car has a mechanical issue and must return to the pit
Black / white – this is a warning that means you’re a dick for unsportsmanlike conduct
Black – means you’re disqualified asshole
White – means that there are slower vehicles on the track or misc vehicles on the track
Checkered – the race is over
Conclusion
In conclusion, there’s a lot of shit to learn and it can be hard to follow when you don’t know what the hell they’re talking about, but don’t worry about all that. Just jump right in and begin watching some races and it will begin to come to you naturally and if not just start playing a drinking game where you take a drink when there’s a term that comes up that you don’t know, or you could just google it, but I prefer to drink.