How to use F1 Telemetry
Everything here works from one loop: pick a session → pick drivers → pick an analysis. Results update automatically whenever you change any of the three. This guide covers the layout you're on (phone/tablet)(desktop), every analysis type, and how the data pipeline works.
Getting started (desktop)
- 1Open the analyzer
From the landing page, click any feature card (it jumps straight to that analysis) or the Launch Analyzer button.
- 2Session Controls sidebar
The left sidebar holds Season → Grand Prix → Session. The chevron in its header collapses it; a slim button brings it back.
- 3Pick drivers
Search by name, code or team. Add as many as you like — quick presets: Top 2, Teammates, Top 4, Top 6, All, Clear.
- 4Choose an analysis
The Analysis list at the bottom of the sidebar switches views instantly. Previously visited views re-open instantly from cache.
Getting started (phone & tablet)
- 1Open the analyzer
From the landing page, tap any feature card or Launch Analyzer.
- 2The Controls sheet
There is no sidebar on small screens — tap the Controls button in the header to open the session panel as a drawer.
- 3Pick session & drivers
Season → Grand Prix → Session, then add drivers (any number). Close the sheet; the analysis is already loading.
- 4Scroll the results
Charts, tables and panels stack vertically in one column. Switching analysis types happens in the same Controls sheet.
Live sessions
When a session is on, a LIVE banner appears with a one-tap jump to it. The analysis then refreshes itself every 15 seconds, with a provisional-data notice.
Open the Track Map during a session and hit Go live: the full field animates in near-real-time (the F1 feed itself runs ~3 seconds behind the cars).
Mid-session stint, strategy, and pace figures can shift until the chequered flag — treat them as provisional until the session ends.
The 16 analysis types
The whole field animated on the real circuit (GPS-derived). Scrub lap by lap, play at up to 16×, toggle corners/sectors/trails/timing tower, and watch purple-sector, radio, and race-control moments surface as the replay clock passes them. Goes live during sessions.
Fastest laps side by side: sector table, corner-performance deltas, head-to-head banner.
Speed, throttle/brake, gear and delta traces over lap distance, plus a speed-heatmap track map and a 2-car animated lap replay.
Lap-time progression, pace distribution box plots, and a lap-by-lap position tower you can replay.
Per-compound degradation rates (fuel-corrected), stint timelines, undercut estimates.
Pit stops, stint compounds, and what-if strategy comparisons.
Track/air temperature, rainfall and how conditions moved the session.
One driver's form across FP1→Race in a weekend.
Per-driver deep dive: pace, consistency, sector strengths.
Team-vs-team pace ranking with gaps.
Team-principal view: intra-team battle and strategy notes.
Season standings and points progression — works mid-season.
Two drivers across a full season: win record, average finish.
Podium, fastest laps, result table — the whole session at a glance.
Official flags, incidents, penalties and DRS messages.
Real driver/pit-wall audio clips, tagged to the lap they aired on.
How it works — data sourcing
Real mode pulls from the OpenF1 API (openf1.org), a free wrapper around the official F1 live-timing feed: sessions, laps, sector times, car telemetry, GPS positions, weather, race control, and team-radio audio, from 2023 onwards. During a live session, data lands with roughly a 3-second delay. Note: OpenF1 restricts free API access while a live session is in progress — if real data briefly errors during a race, that's why; it recovers when the session ends, and configuring an OpenF1 paid account lifts the restriction entirely.
Everything fetched from OpenF1 is cached in a local SQLite database. Finished seasons are treated as immutable; the current season refreshes every few minutes; a live session refreshes on a ~10-second cadence, and just-finished sessions stay on a short leash for six hours while results settle (penalties, deleted laps). Your browser also keeps a five-minute cache of computed analyses so switching views is instant.
The Simulated toggle (header) switches to a deterministic physics-informed engine that generates plausible telemetry from hand-traced circuit geometry — useful offline or for seasons OpenF1 doesn't cover. Same UI, synthetic numbers; the Track Map, Race Control and Team Radio need real data.
Insight reports and the Ask box are generated by deterministic, rule-based analysis of the actual session numbers — sector deltas, degradation fits, strategy models. No language model is involved by default (an optional LLM path exists but ships disabled).
Track Map outlines are derived from one clean GPS lap (not survey data); corner numbers are curvature-detected, not official; sector marks are placed by replaying sector times; team-radio lap tags use broadcast air time, which can lag the moment the driver spoke; tire-degradation fits assume clean laps and can be skewed by safety cars and traffic.