While it may look like a car race, Formula one is a highly nuanced sport, with small changes making enormous impacts on the outcome of the race. The sport also uses words that many new fans may not know. Here’s the Formula one glossary that you need to understand the sport.

Apex

The Apex is the innermost point of a corner. This is the part of the corner that the drivers aim to drive through in order to optimize their speed through the turn.

Just like when driving a car or riding a bike, you need to slow your speed when going through a tight corner, Formula one drivers need to do the same. However, they attempt to optimize their speed through the turn to keep their race pace as fast as possible and maximize their chances of winning.

This image from Las Motorsport outlines the way drivers try to go through a corner. They keep their speeds high as long as possible before the turn, then coast their way through the corner, trying to stay as tight as possible to the inside of the corner. This way, they keep the turn as straight as possible, allowing for the highest possible speed.

The line through the apex is nearly completely straight, unlike the corner itself, allowing the driver to go through the corner at a rapid pace. Hitting the apex also reduces the distance the driver has to go, limiting wear on the tyres.

Chicane

A chicane is an s-shaped curve that exists on the track. These turns break up the straight sections of the race, allowing for more challenge on the race, but also provide opportunities for overtaking. These sections are where most of the action happens in a race.

Cockpit

This is where the drivers sit in the Formula one car. Unlike in most cars, the cockpit in the Formula one car is in the middle, with one seat and one driver.

Downforce

Just as the name suggests, downforce is the force acting on the car that pushes it downward, providing for greater grip and traction, particularly around corners. The wings and body of the Formula one car acts the opposite way from an airplane, pushing the car downwards as opposed to lifting it up.

When air moves over the wings of the car, the faster moving air moves over the top of the wings, while the slower moving air moves below. Faster moving air has higher pressure, with lower pressure below. High pressure pushes towards lower pressure, forcing the car downwards, allowing it to better grip the track.

Drag Reduction System (DRS)

The Drag Reduction System or DRS is an integral part of the Formula one car, and a key part of race strategy. It is a flap on the back of the car that can be opened up on straight sections, to allow the car to go even faster down these sections.

This is the only part of the Formula one car that can move mid-race, and can increase speed by 10–12 km per hour. 2025 is the final year that the DRS system is active, and will be replaced in the 2026 system by an “active aerodynamics” system.

FIA

The  Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile or FIA is the governing body that owns and oversees Formula 1. It has leased the commercial rights to Formula 1, who are responsible for the commercial aspects of the sport.

The FIA manages the rules and technical regulations of the sport. This includes which teams are engaged in the sport, all licensing for drivers and teams, the technical regulations of the sport, ensuring fair play, and more.

Formula 1, as owned by Liberty Media, is responsible for the business side of F1, including sponsorships, media rights, commercial sales, and more. Basically, they are responsible for making money.

These two entities are inextricibly linked, and there is no real way to separate the two. They each manage their respective part of the sport to ensure that things move smoothly.

Halo

The halo is a crash protection system that goes around the outside of the cockpit to protect the driver in case of an accident. This tubular system is like a circle that goes around the cockpit and connects right in the middle of the cockpit as well as on both sides of the driver. You can see the halo in the below image in grey.

This system has saved a handful of drivers’ from either serious injury or death as it has deflected major pieces from hitting drivers.

Overcut/Undercut

In Formula 1, drivers are required to stop at a pitstop during the race. However, the teams are able to determine when they want to make that stop, and this is a strategic decision based on how the car is doing versus, the race state, and more, with the ultimate objective of gaining the greatest advantage.

Overcuts and undercuts are one of those key decisions. An overcut is where a driver stays out on the track longer than their opponents to try and gain more of an advantage. When drivers come out of a pitstop with new tyres, it takes a few vital seconds to warm them up and can lead to a slowdown on the track. This can create an advantage for the drivers that stay out.

Conversely, an undercut is where a driver takes a pitstop earlier than their opponents to try and create a greater advantage. While they may start slower, fresher tyres are smoother and faster than older tyres and will create greater advantage once warmed. Drivers racing on older tyres tend to struggle against those with fresher ones.

Oversteer/Understeer

Drivers going through turns very quickly, and immense forces exert pressure on the car as they go through these sections. An oversteer occurs when the rear wheels of car lose their grip more quickly than the front wheels, making the car harder to control, and often lead to the car swinging further on the turn than expected.

Conversely, understeering is where the front wheels of the car lose grip before the rear wheels, this makes it harder for the car to turn and keeps the car going straight longer than anticipated.

Understeering is a major disadvantage for drivers. Given drivers need to be nearly flawless through turns, if they need to go slower through turns because the car will not turn as the driver wants, they lose precious seconds on their time.

Oversteering can actually be a major benefit to a driver who knows how to use it. Because the oversteer causes the rear wheels to lose grip quickly, it can allow drivers who can use it effectively to actually gain an advantage. This is because the driver can push the rear wheels out to allow the car to turn more effectively than they otherwise would have. This is tricky to accomplish effectively, and can have dangerous results if not executed well, but if it is done well, it can create major benefits for drivers.

Parc Ferme

Literally meaning “closed park”, parc ferme refers to the area in which cars are kept, effectively locked up, to limit what teams can do to their car between practice and the race.

Pitstop

During the race, drivers are required to make at least one stop to change their tyres. They can make as many stops as they deem necessary to do this or to make other tweaks, but this slows down their time during the race.

In a pitstop, the pit crew for that team takes mere seconds to do the necessary changes and then send the car back out to the race. Each member of the pit crew has a specific role, and these stops take a matter of seconds in order to keep the drivers racing as quickly as possible.

Pole

Pole position refers to first position to start a race. The driver who finishes first in qualifying earns pole position in that race. This is a term that comes from horseracing, where the fastest horse in a race started next to the pole on the inside line of the race. Motorsports adopted this term.

Practice or Free Practice

These are sessions that happen before first in a race weekend, that give drivers and teams a chance to get familiar with the track and test any changes made to the car setup. Most race weekends have three free practices on the Friday of race weekend (FP1, FP2, and FP3) before the Qualifier on Saturday.

Qualifier

After practice, qualifiers happen to determine the race order for race weekend. The race occurs in three stages, with teams racing around the track to set the fastest time. The slowest five teams are disqualified after the first qualifier (Q1) and the next five are disqualified after the second qualifier (Q2), with their times determining their seeding in the race.

The final qualifier determines the order for the top-10, with the fastest driver in qualifying earning pole position. The first qualifier is 18-minutes, the second is 15-minutes, and the third qualifier is 12-minutes. Drivers will try to get the fastest race times in as few races around the track to minimize wear on their cars as well as the risk of something going wrong.

Safety Car

When an accident or other extreme circumstance happens during the race, a safety car can be employed to slow the speed of the race and the drivers until it is safe to restart. Currently, the safety car used is a Mercedes-AMG GT R driven by Bernd Maylander, who has been in the role since 2000. F1 also has a Virtual Safety Car, which forces drivers to reduce speeds by 35%, and is employed in less serious instances.

Slipstream

A slipstream is a physics term for an area behind a moving object where the air or water is moving at a speed comparable to the object in motion. In F1 terms, when a driver is able to drive behind another driver, they can use this area to their advantage, as they don’t need as much power to maintain their forward momentum as they are not facing the same amount of resistance in front of them.

This is useful as it allows drivers to use less fuel and power, but also provides them with an opportunity to overtake on a straight section.

It is worth noting that this does not work around corners as the cars going around the bend creates turbulence in the air, disrupting the aerodynamics of the cars behind it. This is called “dirty air”.

Sprint

Six Grand Prix weekends have an extra component called a sprint. Sprints are exactly as the name suggests: races that are shorter than the Grand Prix but equally if not more exciting. These races are meant to be simply races, with the strategy of stops taken right out of the equation. There are no mandatory pit stops and no real advantage to changing tyres in the race.

The Sprint races are 100km in length and typically take an hour. Given the length, it makes them simply just about the cars going around the track as quickly as possible. Sprints take away two of the practices from the weekend (FP2 and FP3), which limit the time the teams have to tweak their setups.

Tires or Tyres

Just like in your car, the tyres (spelling used by Formula 1) make a major impact on the outcome of a race. Drivers will often complain about the wear or performance of their tyres on the radio mid-race, and proper utilization and changes impacts outcomes. Here are the tyre terms you need to know:

• Tyre compounds
  • Compounds are the types of tyres that are used in a race, and are supplied exclusively by Pirelli. They supply five types of tyres (C1-C5), with C1 and C2 denoting harder compound tyres, C3 denoting medium compound tyres, and C4 and C5 denoting softer compound tyres. Harder compound tyres tend to be more durable and long-lasting, but take longer to warm up and are often slower, while softer compound tyres are faster, but tend to last less long. Teams will take track conditions, weather, and their own strategy into account when determining which tyre to start with and which to change to in the race. Drivers must change tyres at least once in a race.
• Degradation
  • In short, it’s the loss in performance from a tyre being either too warm or too cold.
• Blistering
  • Just like with skin, blistering happens when tyres overhear and the rubber softens and breaks off mid-race. This happens over time due to multiple factors including the heat of the road, tyre pressure, running for too long, weather, or other factors.
• Graining
  • When cars slide around on the track too much, it causes uneven wearing on the tyre. Small granules break off from the grooves and affix themselves to one side of the tyre, making it harder to steer.
• Lock-up
  • A lock-up is when a tyre stops turning during a hard stop, which causes a plume of smoke to come from the back of the car. This causes uneven wear on the tyre, and makes it harder to control.