FORMULA 1
IN A NUTSHELL
So what exactly is F1? Great question.
A question, I might add, that I had no interest in asking until somewhat recently.
One day, I was a normal girl. The next day, I was an F1 fan as if I'd been an F1 fan my whole life. I wish I could explain it to you.
F1 is Formula 1 car racing. The motorsport. Yeah, like you sit down and watch super expensive cars race around on a track for eight months of the year. The races happen about every other weekend (March - November, with one month-long summer break in the middle) and happen all over the world.
Race day is always on Sunday, but it's not just the races that you end up watching. Sure, it'd be fine if it were just 2 hours (give or take) every couple of weeks. Right?
But there's also televised practice sessions. This is when we watch the ten teams drive around and test out their cars and the conditions on whatever track they're at for that particular weekend.
Two of these practice sessions (called Free Practice 1 and Free Practice 2 - or FP1 and FP2) happen on the Friday of race weekend. The third practice happens on Saturday (Free Practice 3 -or FP3). Saturday is a big day because it's also when the Qualifying session happens.
Are you also an unlikely F1 fan that has no idea how this happened?
Great! Me, too. You're in the right spot for F1 stuff and, also, we should probably be friends.
Thanks for checking out
FASTLY
What does an "Average F1 Race Weekend" look like?
What is a "race weekend"? And does it really last all weekend? Isn't it just watching a televised race for a couple hours on a Sunday night?
An F1 race weekend actually involves way more than just watching the race on Sunday. From the moment the cars get on track on Friday during the first practice session, the race weekend has officially begun. Then all you have to do is make it through the rest of the weekend's events until the race is over on Sunday.
For me, I watch the events in chronological order and they usually happen on this schedule:
Friday
Free Practice 1 - (1 hour)
Free Practice 2 - (1 hour)
Saturday
Free Practice 3 - (1 hour)
Qualifying (1 hour, divided 3 parts in quick succession. These three parts are Q1, Q2 and Q3, with the slowest cars being eliminated from each)
Sunday
Pre-Race (1 hour)
Race (anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 hours)
Post-Race (about an hour)
+ any additional time you might need to CALM THE HECK DOWN after the beautiful rollercoaster of raw emotions you very likely have experienced
What's Qualifying, you ask? Qualifying is an hour-long session where the cars go out and try to have the fastest lap. This session is broken into 3 parts: Q1, Q2, and Q3. This session exists so that the cars know what position they get to start in for the race.
Trust me, the easiest way to figure out Qualifying is to sit down and watch it, where you'll get the Gladiator-style may-the-fastest-man-win thing much easier when you watch it visually than if I try to explain it here.
But just in case you want a little guide for the Qualifying sessions, it goes something like this: the Quali session starts. Everybody - all 20 cars that compete in F1 - go out on track and try to have a fast lap time that will make sure they're not one of the 5 slowest cars. At the end of Q1, the 5 slowest cars get eliminated and do not get to go out for a lap in Q2.
The same thing happens in Q2, only the second 5 slowest drivers get eliminated.
Then, in Q3, there are only 10 drivers left. The goal is to get into Q3, where the cars battle it out to get the top fastest time. Whoever is fastest gets to start in the first position for race day. Second fastest starts in second position, and so on. It's all about figuring out where you're going to start in the race and everybody wants to be in that top spot.
Then, of course, you have the actual race on Sunday.
With all these lovely festivities, plus any additional content like the pre-race show (Usually called "F1: On the Grid" or "Grand Prix Sunday") and the post-race show (where they often grab interviews with the drivers and walk around the track), you end up having a lot of thoughts about F1.
Especially if you're watching all of the content. Which I am. Because I have to. It's just part of my life now.
I can't wait to talk about this with you.