The drivers are of course the athletes - they have to spend a couple of hours driving cars at up to 200mph through lateral and longitudinal forces that can exceed 5G, or race in conditions where they can lose 4kgs (9lbs) of weight in sweat - but the edges, the performance gains, it's all in the engines and aero departments back at the factory, the crews getting setups right, the pit stops down into the sub-2s, and so much more.
If you were to ask a casual fan who has won the most World Championships they might suggest in recent history that is Max Verstappen (he's won four). A more serious fan will tell you that Lewis Hamilton (still driving today) is tying with Michael Schumacher (who isn't), with 7 drivers' championships, which is the all-time record.
But a more serious fan might suggest it's Adrian Newey - an engineer who has designed cars that have won 12 constructors' championships and 14 drivers' championships. He is now working at Aston Martin on their 2026 car, when all the regulations are changing and Cadillac is joining as an 11th team.
There is ample geekery on YouTube about various design aspects (Phase changing materials to change airflow over inner brake drums? Rear wings that flex "illegally"? Technical regulation deep dives? It's all there), and there is a sofa-friendly series to get partners interested in "Drive to Survive" on Netflix where you'll get to know all the human personalities, and even a - frankly absurd, but popcorn-worthy fun - Hollywood film starring Brad Pitt.
On race weekends there are teams of hundreds of people back at factories analysing not just their own teams' data, but what data is available from other teams: just over 1m data points a second through 3 practice sessions, a qualifying session, potentially a sprint qualifier and sprint race, and then the race itself.
There are team members who specialise in strategy, some who do nothing but figure out the likelihood of rain and understanding where the prevailing wind is coming from (aerodynamics are critical), and squads of people who think long and hard about tires - the three compounds they can choose from (and they must race a minimum of two per race), pressures, and degradation - and even a few people making sure that the car (which is fuelled to not quite finish the race for weight reasons), is correctly being coasted when needed if a safety car doesn't turn up.
Then there's the simulator setups. There are sims back in the factories with dedicated sim drivers testing setups with engineers, but you can join in at home to a point. The gaming sims are now getting good enough that with a decent wedge or with a visit to one of the F1 arcades, you can get something that, g-forces aside, will give something that's about 80% accurate in terms of track layout and some car setups, which is enough for the lay person to realise how insanely hard it is to get the car setup right and consistently send it around the tracks at those speeds and tolerances.
It's a deep well. It's my favourite sport to watch, and I recommend it to all.
In the modern sport they're a weird hybrid between athlete and pilot. The cars are exceptionally complex and in addition to the forces you mention there's incredibly complicated input devices embedded into the steering wheel and it's not uncommon to have 15 to 20 different, specific, timed control changes during the course of a lap.
A comparison, and I'm not sure everyone will appreciate this, but to my elderly eyes, a major difference is in how drivers look when they get out of a car at the end of a race. Modern drivers spring out of their cars with plenty of spare energy to parade around the paddock. In previous eras drivers would come out of their cars drenched in sweat, often in visible pain, and had to be assisted to get back into the garage.
It reflects a fundamental shift in the role and use of technology in the cockpit. I love both sports; however, I do see them as almost two entirely different sports.
I guess compare the fatality rate to the classic years that made the sport. Guys were literally risking their lives every race and drivers died regularly. It’s no doubt the cars were harder to manage and stressful to push to the limits.
Technology made driving f1 cars less brutal on the body. To start of in the first seasons a lot of stuff was unknown, for example some drivers wanted oxygen bottle so they wouldn't pass out while carefully leaving a fire. Others preferred instead to have the car to be the most easy as possible to leave, if a fire happened.
Now there is also head support, while drivers back then had to just use their muscles to hold their head in place.
The list goes on... but it still is an athletic sport. When Nico Rosberg decided to win the championship, he had to heavily change his routine to so way more fitness training than he was used to. After he won the championship and immediately retired, he hinted that one of the reasons for retirement is that he didn't want to continue with the heavy body training.
> and even a - frankly absurd, but popcorn-worthy fun - Hollywood film starring Brad Pitt.
Yeah, "F1 the movie" was ridiculous; some of the lines had me laughing out loud at how corny they were. But it was certainly popcorn-worthy, and it had enough Easter eggs for actual F1 fans to keep them entertained. It was hilarious to watch one of the podium scenes where Leclerc had this look of, "am I doing this acting thing right, guys?" that was precious.
But if you want an actual good F1 movie, "Rush" is very well done. It tells the story of the rivalry between drivers Niki Lauda and James Hunt during the 1970s.
I think the British GP was the most like the film, and it was the first GP after a lot of people would have seen the film and thought "Oh, I'll check that out". If that was their first race weekend... yeah, it's not always like that.
Netherlands was good, but I actually can't think of a "bad" race this season, though. The racing is more competitive and there's a lot more going on to think about strategy and race-craft wise. It's been ramping for a couple of seasons, and I think it's really welcome: I'm glad we're not in the era of dominance that we had during the Max wins by 20+ seconds, or Lewis before him, or the Schumacher years when he was lapping half the field and the only interesting thing to watch for was other podium places. It's just so much more fun when you can't be certain who is crossing the line first in 1.5-2 hours time.
The drivers are of course the athletes - they have to spend a couple of hours driving cars at up to 200mph through lateral and longitudinal forces that can exceed 5G, or race in conditions where they can lose 4kgs (9lbs) of weight in sweat - but the edges, the performance gains, it's all in the engines and aero departments back at the factory, the crews getting setups right, the pit stops down into the sub-2s, and so much more.
If you were to ask a casual fan who has won the most World Championships they might suggest in recent history that is Max Verstappen (he's won four). A more serious fan will tell you that Lewis Hamilton (still driving today) is tying with Michael Schumacher (who isn't), with 7 drivers' championships, which is the all-time record.
But a more serious fan might suggest it's Adrian Newey - an engineer who has designed cars that have won 12 constructors' championships and 14 drivers' championships. He is now working at Aston Martin on their 2026 car, when all the regulations are changing and Cadillac is joining as an 11th team.
There is ample geekery on YouTube about various design aspects (Phase changing materials to change airflow over inner brake drums? Rear wings that flex "illegally"? Technical regulation deep dives? It's all there), and there is a sofa-friendly series to get partners interested in "Drive to Survive" on Netflix where you'll get to know all the human personalities, and even a - frankly absurd, but popcorn-worthy fun - Hollywood film starring Brad Pitt.
On race weekends there are teams of hundreds of people back at factories analysing not just their own teams' data, but what data is available from other teams: just over 1m data points a second through 3 practice sessions, a qualifying session, potentially a sprint qualifier and sprint race, and then the race itself.
There are team members who specialise in strategy, some who do nothing but figure out the likelihood of rain and understanding where the prevailing wind is coming from (aerodynamics are critical), and squads of people who think long and hard about tires - the three compounds they can choose from (and they must race a minimum of two per race), pressures, and degradation - and even a few people making sure that the car (which is fuelled to not quite finish the race for weight reasons), is correctly being coasted when needed if a safety car doesn't turn up.
Then there's the simulator setups. There are sims back in the factories with dedicated sim drivers testing setups with engineers, but you can join in at home to a point. The gaming sims are now getting good enough that with a decent wedge or with a visit to one of the F1 arcades, you can get something that, g-forces aside, will give something that's about 80% accurate in terms of track layout and some car setups, which is enough for the lay person to realise how insanely hard it is to get the car setup right and consistently send it around the tracks at those speeds and tolerances.
It's a deep well. It's my favourite sport to watch, and I recommend it to all.