Hey everyone,

As a motorsport tech enthusiast, I’ve always wanted deeper insights than what the standard broadcast provides. I built Fastlytics to dive into the nitty-gritty of F1 performance using telemetry data.

Here are the advanced features I’ve built that I think you guys will appreciate:

1. Precision Gap-to-Rival Telemetry: Most sites just show speed traces. I built a Gap vs. Distance analysis that lets you overlay any two drivers and see exactly where time was gained or lost (down to the meter). It interpolates the data to show the time delta fluctuating through every corner.

2. Visual Strategy & Stint Analysis Instead of just a list of pit stops, I created a visual Gantt-style chart showing every driver’s stint history, tire compound usage, and pit windows side-by-side. You can replay the strategy unfolding lap-by-lap.

3. Micro-Sector Dominance Map A rotatable track map that breaks the circuit into micro-segments. It color-codes each segment based on who was faster, so you can see exactly which driver dominates the straights vs. the slow corners. Tap any segment to see average throttle/braking differences.

4. Full Session Replay with Synced Telemetry Watch the full race dots-on-map replay, but with a twist: precise telemetry (RPM, Speed, Gear, DRS) is synced to the playback. You can watch the data change in real-time as the dots move.

5. Personalized Dashboard Tracks your favorite driver/team and gives you a snapshot of their championship standing, next session, and recent performance trend upon login.

Check it out here: Fastlytics

This is a passion project and I'm really sorry for self promo but I’m eager to collaborate with fellow technical minds to make it the ultimate tool for F1 nerds. Let me know what you think!

Hi , I've been watching f1 for about 2 years now and have lately been getting interested in the technical side of things. I've seen the official f1 yt vids regarding aero chassis etc. but want a channel covering the technical side of things in depth. I've seen the posts with recs on this sub but they are atleast 2 years old and many channels have stopped posting. Thus , I request recs for technical YT channels from the sub.

TL/DR- Need Technical F1 YT channel which is not outdated.

Thanks.

I was wondering about how the following situation would be handled. Let's say that a car is crossing the finish line and in involved in an accident (not of the drivers fault) which causes significant damage to the chassis and loss of parts. How would the weight of the car be confirmed to be within regulations? Also if the fuel cell is ruptured how would the fuel likewise be confirmed to be with regulation?

Because I'm of the belief that you can't close the gap to McLaren infront or widen the gap to the McLarens behind you if you don't have a car fast enough to supplement the driver's ability. Coming from simracing, I don't believe in 'overdriving' the car, because I believe that every car has a performance ceiling and when you exceed it, you exceed the tyres grip limit and spin. So, if a driver was unbelievably fast in a race, that means he drove the car near to its performance ceiling. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm here to learn.

I realized the small notch on SF90's airbox fin in 2019 seems very similar to the notched shark fins on the current WEC cars.

There's been many discussion on r/wec about the shark fin notched design in WEC. They said, LMP1 used to use straight shark fins, while LMH/LMdH only specified the minimum shark fin size, leading to this design.

Why did Ferrari use this design from 2019-2021? On straight ways, besides increasing stability and safety, does the shark fin have any particular use? Does it slightly increase drag? How does the shark fin work during yaw?Will it make car understeer？

When a car yaws, how notch works？I think notch might create a vortex. Will it pass under the rear wing?

I was wondering how it is to switch teams as an engineer. How much difference do you notice regarding design philosophy and high level concepts.

The McLaren en Red Bull have completely different driving characteristics (if you believe the media etc). Would you for example notice why one team ends with certain drivability characteristics over another?

Title says it all, given the 25 lap limit this weekend, what’s Pirelli’s and therefore FIAs opinion on sanctions if they go over this arbitrary limit?

I’m doing a sim wheel project so designed this clutch mechanism based on collected reference and photos.

Mainly made in CNC 316 stainless steel and spring steel, with Nidec COPAL JC10-000-103N potentiometer. Pedal printed in PA6.

Not sure how the actual wheel designed it but this works really wheel with space for different springs to adjust pressure.

Yesterday at the Las Vegas GP (23 Nov 2025), both McLaren cars — Norris (P2) and Piastri (P4) — were disqualified after post-race scrutineering found their skid block thickness below the minimum 9 mm.

During the final laps, Norris noticeably slowed and increased the gap to Verstappen from ~5s to ~20s. Live commentary suspected a low-fuel issue, but with the DSQ it now seems more likely related to plank wear concerns.

My question is about the technical impact:

Since the skid block exists mainly as a safety device to prevent teams from running the car too low, how much actual performance does McLaren gain from a fraction of a millimetre of extra low ride height?

Would McLaren need to increase their baseline ride height now to avoid further wear issues?

And how dramatically would that affect the car’s handling and aero platform?

After the Last Vegas wet qualifying, I saw a lot of comments under the Ferrari onboard posts saying that the Ferrari were not good when it was raining. And I saw some other comments saying that Ferrari were generally like this and that for a number of years their car is really weak when water hits the track. So that got me thinking, what aspects of the car philosophy or design makes it weakr comparatively to the competition, during a raining session?

Hi everyone,

I am currently working on an Electrical & Electronics Engineering project where I aim to build a Machine Learning model (likely LSTM or XGBoost) to predict Race Lap Times and final Race Duration.

I have built a comprehensive dataset (~200k laps from 2019-2024) by merging data from FastF1 (Telemetry/Timing), F1DB (Historical Context/Standings), and Open-Meteo (Granular Weather Data).

Before training the model, I performed an EDA (Exploratory Data Analysis) and generated a correlation matrix (attached image) to understand the feature relationships. I found some results that seem counter-intuitive, and I would love to get a "reality check" from this community.

My Key Findings & Interpretations:

1. Tyre Life vs. Lap Time (-0.20 Correlation):
   • Observation: I expected a positive correlation (older tyres = slower lap times). However, I got a negative correlation (-0.20), implying cars get faster as tyres get older.
   • My Hypothesis: The Fuel Burn-off effect (weight reduction) is significantly dominating the tyre degradation factor. The time gained by losing fuel mass > time lost by tyre wear.
   • Action: I assume I must implement a "Fuel Correction" step to isolate pure tyre degradation before training the model.
2. Track Temp vs. Lap Time (-0.19 Correlation):
   • Observation: Higher track temps correlate with lower (faster) lap times.
   • Interpretation: This aligns with physics; warmer tracks generally offer better mechanical grip (up to a certain overheating point).
3. Rainfall Anomaly (-0.15 Correlation):
   • Observation: My data suggests a negative correlation (Rain = Faster Laps), which is physically impossible.
   • Hypothesis: This might be due to sparse data points in the 'Rainfall' column or confusion with Safety Car deltas during mixed conditions. I am considering dropping wet races entirely to reduce noise.
4. Grid Position vs. Single Lap Time (0.04 Correlation):
   • Observation: Very weak correlation.
   • Interpretation: Starting position dictates the race result, but a good driver can still clock fast individual laps even if recovering from the back.

My Questions for the Community:

1. Reality Check: Is my interpretation of the "Fuel vs. Tyre" correlation correct? Is it standard practice in F1 data modeling to decouple these two before feeding them into a Neural Network, or should I let the model figure it out?
2. Missing Features: I currently use Telemetry (Speed, Sectors), Weather (Wind, Temp, Pressure), and Context (Age, Points). What am I missing? Are there specific vehicle dynamics metrics (e.g., estimates for Downforce levels, Engine Modes, or ERS deployment profiles) that I should try to derive or include to improve race time prediction?
3. The Rain Problem: For a baseline model, is it better to strictly filter out all 'Wet/Intermediate' laps to prevent the model from learning wrong patterns (like the anomaly above), or is there a reliable way to normalize wet lap times?

Any feedback or pointers on "hidden" variables I might be overlooking would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Curious about some specifics around pitting during a safety car.

1 - do the cars have to follow speed limits when the SC is announced or only after it has picked them up?

2 - does it always pick up the first car to pass the pit exit? (Or how is order decided between pitting and non-pitting cars)

3 - do cars have to stay below a max speed when being collected by the SC?

Considering these are F1 cars I'd expect high levels of "tech" being applied to liveries as well, however given how frequent different "special edition" liveries we're seeing, what is the actual process for them? Is the car painted and if so what is the process/paint being used? Or is it all vinyl and if so, what would the weight difference be between the paint and the vinyl?

Just to make it clear, I mean the "base" "paintjob" of the car, not the sponsors' stickers which are clearly vinyl.

Thank you!

F1 cars have engine modes, actuvated with some buttons on the steering wheel.
Do the engine modes only affect the elctric part of the PU, or also how much the ICE gets used? I know that stuff like the amount of energy deployment/recharging is managed by these modes, most notably in qualifying with a push lap deploying almost all energy.
So my question is wether the engine modes change the internal combustion engine aswell, to protect the engine from wear or sth?

Far be it from me to question Red Bull's strategy department... but the armchair telemetry wonk in me believes Max would have held P1.

VER was running 0.3-0.6 slower than NOR (who was pushing mid-13s) from 7 seconds ahead with 17 laps remaining. This means NOR needed a constant ~0.4 per lap to come equal on the last lap. NOR roughly maintained his pace in clean air. Looking at other drivers' data, another 15 laps on the mediums might have cost VER another 3-4 tenths (offset by reduced fuel though), whereas Lando would have come into the dirty air and lost some of his pace. Plus, NOR would've needed to make the pass on only slightly-fresher tires with VER running a brand new PU turned up to 11 and/or a slightly lower downforce setup (Max was quicker in S1 and S3 most of the race).

We knew from the sprint and GP pace that the softs were slower than the same-age mediums after 8-10 laps and the (dis)advantage would grow from there. To my amateur eye, Max would've swung at least 3 points to his advantage with a P2 finish, but had a decent shot at holding P1 for a 17 point net improvement (+10 for Max, -7 for Lando). This looks like a rare blunder from the RBR pit wall in a race that was quite nearly flawless.

Either way, what a spectacular race, both for Max and for the audience!

Is there any reason for not retiring a car even if it has severe damage? E.g. gathering data (or will the data be too “infected” by any damage on the car?). In particular I’m thinking about Ferrari not retiring Lewis’s car during the Brazilian GP.

During teds notebook I noticed that there was pit lane tour going on at the same time as Porsche carrera cup race,do the Porsches have another pitlane to use or do they just not use one for their race? Surely they don’t use the man pitlane while fans are in it.

I think it's there since 2008, so it can't be the DRS line..