Learn to Love F1

I have lost track of the number of times when telling someone that I am a passionate F1 fan that they announce ‘Oh F1 is boring; I only watch the starts’ or ‘the crashes are the only good bits.’ My response is normally to tell them they are watching it wrong; with this article I hope to explain how even new fans can find the whole Grand Prix interesting, even when not much is happening on track.

  

Get to know the larger-than-life personalities


It feels like some of Liberty Media’s efforts to attract new fans to the sport are working and one of the most successful of these new initiatives is the excellent Drive to Survive documentary on Netflix.  F1 has always been famous for its larger-than-life personalities. There is a long list including the likes of Fangio, Ferrari, Hunt and Senna to name a few.  It is hardly surprising then that the current paddock includes more than a few big personalities and the behind-the-scenes style of Drive to Survive really brings them to life. But why would knowing these personalities help you enjoy the race? With drivers hidden behind helmets and only the occasional glimpse of the garage the race can seem a very impersonal affair, but if you have a good understanding of the personalities at play it turns the race into a much more human battle.    


Understand the Team and Drivers’ Form


For even hardened F1 fans the same team and driver winning every race can get dull.  Think Schumacher at Ferrari, Vettel at Red Bull and currently Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes.  It is often the case that the hardest fought battles on the track are not for the win; it might be a point for Williams, or a podium for Toro Rosso, it might be the rookie outqualifying his teammate, or McLaren battling with Renault for 4^th in the Constructors’ Championship.  Competition for the first few places is easy even for a very casual viewer to understand, but a little investment in understanding the backstory can really bring a race to life.  To start with something as simple as watching the race pre-show or reading blogs like this can help.

Get to Grip with the Tyres


Love them or loathe them the current generation of Pirelli tyres add a different dimension to the race.  All tyres will strike a tradeoff between durability and hardness, and therefore grip.  The more grip a tyre has the faster the car and so you can see how the fastest tyres have the shortest lifetime.  The tyres used in an F1 race are deliberately designed to degrade at rates that offset the speed advantage gained on them and once they have reached a certain amount of wear they rapidly become less effective as the race goes on, known as “dropping off a cliff”.  This creates strategic dilemmas for the teams, as coming into the pits to change tyres can take between 18 -24 seconds depending on the track which is made more complicated as they must run at least two compounds or hardness of tyre.  There are currently five compounds of tyres used in F1, but this has been simplified to make it easier to understand and so soft, medium or hard compounds are available to the teams at each race. 

The dynamics of the different cars will mean that some cars will perform better on one hardness of tyre than others, and these characteristics may vary between tracks.  Drivers can also make tyres last longer by changing their driving style.  All this means that even when it looks like nothing is happening on the track it is likely that things are beginning to evolve for an exciting phase of the race such as the Pit Stop Window. Some of the clues that things are evolving with the tyres are things such as drivers starting to lock up as they enter the braking zone of a corner or suffering from under- or over-steer. 


Don’t Let Yourself be Undercut


As I have already explained tyres are very important under the current rules. One of the most powerful tactics that can be used by a team to overtake if a car is struggling to get past the car in front is the undercut.  As all the cars must run at least two compounds of tyre and they must come into the pits to change them.  As there are so many factors affecting tyre wear the optimum moment to change your tyres is often difficult to discern and so instead F1 talks about a “Pit Stop Window”.  This is the period of time when a team can change their tyres, still making it to the end of the race and not have their tyres “drop off the cliff”.  At the start of the “Pit Stop Window” it is possible for a team to come in for new tyres which will be quicker than the car in front and when they go back out drive fast enough so that when the car in front changes their tyres they have driven so much faster than the car on the older tyres so that when they change their tyres, usually a lap later, they are behind.  The overcut works in a similar way but in reverse.

Never Miss a Wet Race


If it rains during a race then the differences in performance between the cars are to a large degree neutralised and driver skill becomes much more important leading to some shock results.  It is also very hard to drive in the rain at 200 MPH with no windscreen and so you can guarantee some spectacular results.  An excellent example of this was the 2019 German Grand Prix which saw some surprising performances and shocking mistakes.


Watch for out of Position Drivers


There is little more exciting than watching one of the top drivers carve his way through the field from the back of the grid.  This happens surprisingly often, as things such as grid penalties or mechanical failures in qualifying, sees a driver who would ordinarily qualify in one of the top spots start from the back.


Becoming Fanatical About F1


F1 is a sport where it seems the more you know about it the more you love it.  Budding F1 fans will be pleased to hear that there is a huge wealth of information available out there and more importantly millions of other fans who will be just as obsessed as you.

Words by Mike Whitmarsh

Images: F1.com