THE ABC'S OF FORMULA ONE

It would be a good idea to bring you up to speed no pun intended there with how the sport works so this is the beginner's guide to formula one. The race weekend itself lasts three days and starts on a friday with two practice sessions each lasting an hour, taking place these are used by the teams and drivers to assess the track conditions and try out different setups on the car. if you don't know what a setup is it consists of suspension angles and how much downforce a wing produces along with many other factors drivers will already know the track well either from experience racing there before or from practicing the simulator probably a bit of both but this doesn't mean that we won't see some big mistakes and crashes as drivers get used to the circuit.

On saturdays we have the third and final practice session in the morning which is used by the teams to make final tweaks to the setup of the car and prepare for qualifying which takes place in the afternoon. Drivers will try to set qualifying simulation laps in practice 3 making sure that their setup is perfect as they can't change the setup for the rest of the weekend after they start qualifying we then move on to qualifying where we see the cars going the quickest they will go all weekend the session lasts one hour overall and is split up into three sections q1 q2 and q3 in q1 all 20 drivers are out on track and they have 18 minutes to set at lap time with the five slowest drivers being eliminated from qualifying in q1.

We don't expect to see the faster teams going as quickly as they can as they don't want to push the car too hard when they don't need to because all they need to do is get in the top 15 which for a team like mercedes is almost guaranteed after a short break we move on to q2 with the 15 drivers left having 15 minutes to set their lap time like q2 the five slowest drivers are eliminated and one thing to remember about q2 is that the 10 drivers who managed to get through to q3 have to start the race on the same tires they used to set their fastest lap time in q2 due to this some faster teams will us slower tyres like the mediums so that they can go longer into the race before pitting but this is a risk as medium tires are slower than the soft finally we have q3 the top 10 shootout for pole position where we see the cars and drivers pushing themselves to the absolute limit the driver with the fastest time after 12 minutes of q3 gets pole position and it's probably to be mercedes driver on pole this year we now head into the race the only session on sunday and it can last anywhere from one and a half hours totwo hours with drivers being required to use at least two different types of tire compound during the race uh but this doesn't apply to wet races this means that pit stops play a key part in the driver's finishing position when a driver uses the faster and slower compounds and how many stops he's makes during the race are all key factors for the strategist to consider the race is regarded as the best part of the weekend by most fans and for good reason too as this is where we see big crashes bold overtakes and sometimes changeable weather conditions the race is also the only place where drivers can score points for the world championship hence why it is regarded as the main event the point system is on screen and one thing worth noting is that one additional point is awarded for the fastest lap of the race if the driver is in the top 10.

The top three drivers get to go on the podium a prestigious place with champagne and music although it's not exactly all civilised with drivers gently sipping the champagne. And then there's the race weekend three practice sessions qualifying and the race three days of drivers pushing the fastest cars in the world to the limit making daring overtakes having big crashes and sometimes achieving results that absolutely no one expected all with the aim of winning a big shiny trophy at the end of the year in my opinion it truly is the most exciting sport in the world and i encourage you to watch at least one race just to experience it all.

Therefore it's time for f1 rules and flags a beginner's guide flags have been used in motorsport for a while now and they give the drivers key information about what's going on around the track like whether there's been a massive crash or not in f1 a very common one to see is the yellow flag a flag indicating that there is debris or a crash ahead and the driver should be cautious and slow down with no overtaking being allowed after this we often see the green flag showing to drivers that everything is safe and they can return to racing again. There's also the red flag the complete opposite indicating that the race or session has been stopped usually due to an absolutely massive accident on the track.

Finally we have the blue, that means that a slower car is being lapped by a first one and must let them through or suffer a penalty at the end of the race we see the checkered flag as well a flag that every driver wants to see at the end of the race as it means that they have won in qualifying or practice it shows that the session is over and no more time lapse may be started so those are all the main ones that you'll see when watching a race but of course there's more first off we have the black

flag meaning that a driver has been disqualified from the race for breaking a rule and has to return to the pits immediately. Next up we have the white flag meaning that a slow vehicle like an ambulance or medical car is on the track and this one's not seen often but some say it was necessary for some of the slower cars on the grid in 2020 some of which were as fast as my honda

ac self-propelled lawn mower.

Next up we have the red and yellow flag meaning slippery surface ahead which could mean oil or another fluid from a car or that a driver has decided to start real-life mario kart and has thrown a banana on the track. Finally we have black and white flags and black and red flags both of which shown with driver numbers.

There are penalties for causing big crashes and cutting the tracks but one of the lesser known things is park fermi a place where drivers have to park their cars off the race so that the race stewards can inspect them and make sure that they're legal. Also if a driver gets too many penalties in a year he can be banned for one race as when you get penalties you're awarded penalty points on your license and if you reach 12 of these in one year then you'll get ban

Now when i watch an f1 race i like to appreciate everything that's going on behind the scenes the drivers making constant adjustments to make their cars as fast as possible the team's monitoring everything on the car to make sure all is okay the strategy teams who are constantly running different race strategies to see if they can finish the race ahead of their rivals.

Everything you need to know the whole point of strategy in f1 is to make sure you finish ahead of your rivals because you know that's the whole point of racing. The reason that strategy exists at all is because you're not allowed to just stay on one set of tires for the whole race.The rule is you have to use two different sets of tires for example soft and medium or medium and hard but the problem is that when you pick, you lose time in the pit lane usually around 20 seconds. If the pit stop is good but

this varies if different tracks have different length pit lanesso what teams want to do is ensure they

lose the smallest amount of time possible when pitting and also try to gain time on your rivals by having a better strategy. This means that not all overtakes are made on the track often the race win is decided by a driver overtaking another in the pits and the whole reason that happens is

because of strategy it all depends on tyre wear because as we all know the longer you drive around

on a set of tyres the more wear it will get and the slower you will become.

But we don't just pit as soon as the tires get worn.After all is the whole point of strategy

will i be quicker if i stay out or pit for new rubber now. There are three main options in race

strategy the undercut the overcut and going long. The undercut means that a driver pits

before his rivals puts on fresh tyres for a lap or more and uses the fact that they have fallen down the order and are now in clean air not following a car and the fact that they are on newer

tires and therefore should be able to lap more quickly than their rivals gaining them time on their rivals as they haven't pitted yet and have been lapping slower on used tires. The undercut is important at circuits where there is high degradation and overtaking is difficult, meaning that overtaking a car while it's in the pits may be the only way to pass.

The tyres can only displace 30 liters of water every second however if you want to be a bit more nerdy there are actually five types of dry tyre compound these are named from c1 to c5 with c1 being the hardest tire in the range and c5 being the softness teams are notified which tyre compounds are to be used for the so-called soft medium and hard tires a few weeks before the race and which compounds are used is based upon the nature of the circuit aka how much tire wear it causes to tie now the reason we don't say c1 to c5 and have five different compounds on the circuit is it's a bit confusing for the fans so we've got three soft medium and heart but that actually changes a bit behind the seams but that's it when it comes to formula one tires i hope you're now all up to speed and will know exactly what the commentators are speaking about next time you're watching a race.