This weeks thoughts:

So today is the Australian F1 Grand Prix and it's all I have been thinking abt so I decided to dedicate a post to it (sry I know close to none of u guys rly care abt F1 but it's all that has taken up my mind this past week 🫠).

Intro:

What is F1? So Formula 1 is the highest level of motor racing (don't go away because I said car racing) where 20 drivers (10 teams) all race to win the respective drivers and constructors championships. These r determined through the accumulation of points (based on how u do in each race) over the approx. 20 races that occur in different countries all over the world. Side note, rn there r currently no female drivers but hopefully that can change with the introduction of the new F1 Academy program.

Y is there sm hype?

• The team: Unlike most other sports, F1 isn't necessarily fully abt the drivers and instead also relies on the entire crew collaborating off track. This includes:

  • Engineering + car design: Since every team must manufacture their own car, there r a lot of engineers and designers that work with the team to perfect and gain the best performance of the cars.

  • Strategy: Since there r so many factors that goes into racing, there r strategists who make a lot of decisions like deciding which tire compounds to use or when to pit. These decisions r mainly reliant on the car, track conditions (like weather and track layout) and race factors (like safety cars or car damage).

• The speeds and stats: So with motor racing, team and driver performance is reliant on who can set the fastest lap or be on pole position. This means that everyone is watching the time and position stats making the entire race rly exciting and intense to watch.

• The drama: So all the F1 rules and regulations r controlled by the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile) and there's a kinda joke abt how the rules r rly unclear and constantly changing. This means that there's added drama and rivalry between teams and drivers not only to be the best but also to take advantage of grey areas in the rule book.

• The people: So not only do u get to know the drivers rly well (because there r only 20 of them) but u also get to know the personalities of all the team principals (kinda like team bosses) and commentators, making the entire vibe feel like a cast of characters in a reality drama show.

p.s. check out this amazing article on the ✨Fangirlification of F1✨

Y u could not be an F1 driver:

Isn't it just driving around in laps? So F1 is actually a rly intense and demanding sport and drivers need to be able to endure:

• The amount of G force: So due to the high speeds and downforce, the amount of g force that the drivers face is so incredible that they literally have to do neck weights to prepare. The high g force means that on corners, drivers need to endure around 4-6g (4-6 times their weight) and in crashes drivers experience incredibly high g force with big crashes at around 50g and the record being 254g.

• The exhaustion physically: So due to the amount of concentration and effort needed to drive the cars, after a race drivers r super physically drained and they loose around 2-3 kg per race in sweat (from the high temps of an average 50 degrees Celsius). Not just that but because of the tight schedule, the drivers and travelling teams need to deal with lots of jet lag adding to the physical challenges.

• The exhaustion mentally: So since F1 is such a popular sport there is so much pressure from fans and yes like any other sport this would impact drivers mindsets but the pressure is heightened by the tiny margin of error which could mean having a major crash (costing: money, contracts, careers and obviously driver safety). On top of this there are lots and lots and lots of media commitments and although this great for fans, I think it would be rly annoying and tiring as a driver.

How to get into it:

If u wanna understand or follow F1, some great introductions r:

• The first season of Drive to Survive on Netflix

• These amazing pods:

  • Two girls 1 formula

  • F1r the girls

  • Girls in the fast lane

  • Fan behavior

  • The F1 girls

• Following the drivers and teams on socials

Side note of what book I'm reading rn:

I have recently I emerged from my reading slump!!! The thing with my reading habits is that its an endless cycle of I reading abt 4 books in two weeks and then having a break at least 2 months 🫣 Anyway....

• I read: It Ends With Us + It Starts With Us. Personally I felt that they were a little overrated but I think that's defs impacted by my rly high expectations from social media. I was also expecting more of a romance focus rather than deep character self development. 3.798/5 because it was rly interesting to see a diff focus in a romance book and was a touching rendition of a less sugarcoated love story.

• I started reading: Shatter Me (I'm always so excited to enter a new book fandom!!) and so far it's got a kinda dramatic style of writing that I like so hopefully I'll get invested into all 6 books (I feel like after the first 3 books in a series they start to trail off into boringness).

Hope you have a turbocharged week

C