Reddit mentions of 1

I'm from the US too and got into it about 4 years ago. I saw a crash at 100 mph one day (Massa & Checo) as I flipped through the channels and was like, how do these guys just get up and walk away like nothing happened? My advice is to just learn the teams and the drivers, then you'll be able to identify exactly who is doing what just by looking at the cars and car numbers. There are only 10 teams and 2 drivers per team so it's pretty easy to memorize all 20 of them all pretty quick compared to 20-30+ guys in Nascar or Indy etc...

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Watch this trailer for a documentary called 1 that was made in 2013 about F1. Then find the movie somewhere. https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B00FL0CN4U/ref=atv_dl_rdr

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There are two championships each year determined by points scored during the 20-21 races throughout the year. There is the driver championship for the specific driver with the most points and the constructor championship which is the team who has scored the most points by its two drivers during the season. Mercedes has be dominating BOTH ever since I've been watching in 2014. I really want someone else, anyone else to beat these guys so the results of the 1st and 2nd place of each race isn't so expected.

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It's always fun to have a favorite team or driver to root for, maybe you guys could each start the year and pick a favorite team and driver (not on the same team) I like Daniel Riccardo, he's Australian and is a total jokerster fun guy with a smile on his face and someone that seems like you'd have a beer with. He just switched from Red Bull to Renault this year as Red Bull has been favoring Dutch 21 year old kid Max Verstappen instead of Danny. Also, Kimi Räikkönen, the Iceman, got released from Ferrari (even though he is a world Champion) and now drives for the lowly Saber (now Alfa Romeo). He's a complete stoic character, he's from Finland and hardly talks at all to reporters. On the radio if his team is telling him too much stuff he is famous for saying, “Leave me alone, I know what I'm doing”. LeClerc is another young kid who just moved to Ferrari from Sauber, keep an eye out on him, I think he might surprise us this year (especially with a better car & team).

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Some things to know: You can only move once in one direction to block a driver who is coming up to pass you. You must change your tires to another hardness at least ONCE during a race. DRS are passing zones (straights) on the track which you can open your rear wing which reduces drag and speeds you up for a pass. You must be within 1 second of the guy in front of you to be able to activate DRS for the pass. The top three teams since I've been watching have ALWAYS been Mercedes, Ferrari and then Red Bull. It's kind of sucky that the teams with more money and resources can build better cars. You might find the three practices a bit boring on Fri/Sat, but qualifying is fun to watch on Saturdays and then the Grand Prix's are on Sundays. Here is a pretty good video beginners guide from 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qou3VYvOR3I

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Also, Real Racing is a pretty cool free ipad game. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/real-racing-3/id556164008?mt=8 You can't drive F1 cars until way later or if you pay, BUT you can drive some of the f1 tracks that they race on like Suzuka (Japan), Silverstone (UK) and Curcuit de Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium), Hockenheimring (Germany) and non F1 tracks like Le Mans and Brands Hatch, Laguna Seca in Monterey, CA, Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya (F1 testing) etc... Once you learn the tracks, which have been scanned for the game, then it's even funner to watch live racing because you know exactly where the drivers are in relation to the finish line and what is coming up. If someone in your crew really gets into it they can buy the F1 2018 pc game now (another one is iRacing that Max even uses), or wait until later in the year around August when they release F1 2019 (has all current drivers and tracks for the year, even though half the year has already past). If you don't want to fork over $60 for 2019, then buy a previous season like 2016-18 for half the price, just to see if you like it. You'll want to buy a decent or good race wheel/pedals though and have a fast graphics card and net connection.

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There is also fantasy F1 to play (like fantasy baseball or football) as well (https://fantasy.formula1.com/ & https://fantasygp.com/). They have a lot of old races and official f1 season reviews on Vimeo.com (try other searches by year besides this search "F1 Season Reviews") and seach for this post f1_season_reviews_on_onedrive_1970_to_2013/ . Also, the Senna documentary and the documentary 1 (2013) are pretty dope. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it. It's fun to watch them hit 220 mph down the straight at Monza (Italy)! It's hard to find other American's who like F1 but usually in big cities there are meetups or a F1 club that you might go to, to watch races on Sunday mornings.

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In order to ease some of my friends into it without jumping head first into technical details, strategy, etc. and risk them becoming disinterested before they even have a chance to understand the sport, I've recommended that they start with an approach toward entertainment. This allows them to digest some history and nuance in an easily digestible format. I tell them to watch the following 3 films.

RUSH
= Hollywood big budget entertainment depicting the 1976 Formula 1 season.

ONE = Really interesting documentary with lots of great content done by the same people that did "Riding Giants" and "Dogtown and Z Boys" (surf and skate documentaries)

Senna = Critically acclaimed documentary about Ayrton Senna.

I start with Rush because you don't even have to be interested in F1 for it to be entertaining. As is in Hollywood, things are exaggerated, but other things are realistic. It's a good way for a non-fan to get their interest piqued.

Both "1" and "Senna" are fantastic documentaries and you'll learn a lot about the history of the sport and the figures, thus setting a decent foundation to continue your immersion. Good Luck! Your addiction will only get worse from here. ;-)