THE DRIVERS.
Let’s talk about the superhumans operating the cars.
a different league
Before you understand the sport, you need to know the cars.
all about speed.
An F1 car is not simply a road car made faster. It is an entirely different category of object. It is built from the ground up with one singular purpose: to go around a racing circuit as fast as physics will allow. Everything exists in service of that goal.
They are absurdly fast.
A Formula 1 car accelerates from zero to 100km/h in under 2.5 seconds. It reaches top speeds of over 350km/h on certain circuits. But raw speed is only part of the story. What makes these cars truly extraordinary is how fast they go through corners, because of something called downforce.
Downforce: the invisible force that makes everything possible.
As an F1 car moves, its aerodynamic design causes air to push it down onto the track rather than lifting it like a regular vehicle. This invisible downward pressure, called downforce, is what allows drivers to drive around corners at speeds that would send any ordinary car flying off the road. The faster the car goes, the more downforce it generates and the harder it grips the track. At high enough speeds, an F1 car theoretically generates enough downforce to drive upside down on a ceiling and stay there.
The materials are extraordinary.
F1 cars are built primarily from carbon fibre, a material that is simultaneously lighter than aluminium and stronger than steel. The entire car weighs less than 800 kilograms, including the driver. Your average road car weighs more than twice that. Every gram is accounted for. Every component is engineered to be as light and as strong as possible.
NON-STOP ENGINEERING.
The engine (now called a power unit) is unlike anything else.
Modern F1 cars run on hybrid power units that combine a turbocharged internal combustion engine with sophisticated electrical systems. Together they produce over 1,000 horsepower. For context, a typical family car produces around 100 to 150 horsepower. The power unit is so complex and so valuable that it costs more than most people's homes!
They are rebuilt almost entirely between races.
An F1 car is not a fixed object that gets serviced like a road car. Between race weekends, teams strip the car down, analyse every component, make upgrades and effectively rebuild it. The car that races in Monaco is quite different from the one that raced in Miami two weeks earlier. Development never stops.
The cockpit is no place for the claustrophobic.
The driver sits in an incredibly tight cockpit with legs stretched out almost horizontally in front of them. They wear a helmet, a special device to protect their neck, fireproof overalls, gloves and boots. During a race, the cockpit temperature can exceed 50°C. Drivers can lose up to three kilograms in sweat over a single race distance. And they do all of this while navigating 300km/h corners and managing a machine of extraordinary complexity through a steering wheel that has more buttons and switches on it than some aircraft.
These cars are works of art.
Beyond the engineering, F1 cars are visually stunning. Each team designs and paints their car in their own livery, showcasing their colours and sponsor branding, which changes and evolves across seasons. Some liveries have become iconic.
LEARN MORE.
Formula 1 has a place in it for everyonewhether you care about the racing or not. If you’d like to learn more, let’s proceed.
