Formula 1 drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri of Team McLaren answer your questions about F1 racing from Twitter. What is the hardest track in F1? Why are drivers weighed before each race? How do drivers know it's time for a pit stop? Answers to these questions and many more await—it's Formula 1 Support.
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00I'm Landon Norris and I'm Oskar Piastri and we're from Team McLaren.
00:03And today we're going to answer some questions from the internet.
00:06This is Formula One Support.
00:12We've got a little question from at the ulterior kid.
00:16Is it true that F1 drivers can tell what course it is from just hearing an audio recording of it?
00:21I've seen people do it before.
00:22I feel like I'm going to be terrible at this.
00:24Well, this is coming down the pit lane.
00:32Long pit lane.
00:33Okay, this is a very slow corner.
00:36I reckon it's Bahrain.
00:38Yeah, quick turn to...
00:40I think Bahrain.
00:41I think Bahrain.
00:42You're right.
00:43It is.
00:43There you go.
00:44It's true.
00:44It's possible.
00:45The ulterior kid is true.
00:47Yeah.
00:47So that was just done via our knowledge of distance of pit exit.
00:52Yeah.
00:52To turn one.
00:53The distance from the pit lane to the first corner is always different depending on the track.
00:58It sounds like we got up to like, I don't know, fifth gear or sixth gear.
01:00And then we went down a lot of gears, which means it's a slow corner.
01:03And then the next corner seemed pretty quick.
01:06I thought it would be Bahrain.
01:09So there you go.
01:09From at JS Wallow123.
01:13I wonder why F1 drivers have to get weighed after a race.
01:17Do you know why?
01:18So we have a minimum weight limit of 798 kilograms, including the car.
01:23That's why we get weighed.
01:24Just to make sure that we're not under the weight limit.
01:26Because obviously that's an advantage.
01:27We do lose weight because we're sweating.
01:29We're working hard.
01:30It doesn't always look it, but we are.
01:32Sometimes you have a very hot race.
01:33You can lose a lot.
01:34You can lose easily three, four kilograms.
01:37The most weight I've ever lost is probably, yeah, three, three and a bit kilos.
01:42And yeah, often we weigh ourselves before the session as well.
01:45Because then the engineers have a good idea of what we're going to weigh.
01:48So that we're not underweight and disqualified.
01:50From Juan14.
01:52What do you think is the hardest track in F1?
01:55I think Monaco.
01:56Probably Monaco.
01:57Monaco or Singapore.
01:58Easiest one to crash.
01:59Yeah.
02:00Easiest one to make mistakes.
02:02Yeah.
02:02Most demanding.
02:04You just can't make a mistake.
02:05Simple as that.
02:06You make one little mistake, you're on the wall.
02:08It's game over.
02:09From at Ashlikesracing.
02:11What's your favorite F1 rivalry?
02:14I think for me, probably Senna versus Prost.
02:16I think it's probably the most famous one.
02:18We are rivals.
02:20We are rivals, yeah.
02:21I want to beat him and he wants to beat me.
02:24But we have to pretend that we're besties.
02:26I think we both have the same goals.
02:28We both want to win.
02:29The quickest way into achieving that is by working together.
02:33Helping one another.
02:34Just helping the team score the most points possible.
02:36As soon as you put the helmet on, you kind of fight for yourself.
02:38But you also fight for the team.
02:40You just have to get that balance correct.
02:42Points, you get 25 if you win.
02:44You get 18 if you're second.
02:4615 if you're third.
02:4712 if you're fourth.
02:48And then once you get to fifth, it's 10.
02:50And then it keeps dropping by twos.
02:52Until you get to tenth, you get one point.
02:54And then anyone finishes from 11th to 20th, they don't get any points.
02:57You also get a fastest lap point if you get the fastest lap.
03:00Sometimes you'll see us make a bit of an unexpected pit stop.
03:03Or push really hard for one lap.
03:05That's because we're trying to get an extra point for the fastest lap.
03:08Points mean prizes.
03:09And points mean prizes.
03:10More points you get.
03:11More prizes you get.
03:13More money you get.
03:14At Nick Scottney, how critical is a front wing in today's F1?
03:19Very.
03:20Yes.
03:20It's huge.
03:21Yeah.
03:21It's like as soon as you have a little bit of damage.
03:24You know about it.
03:25Oh, you know about it straight away.
03:27This is it.
03:28This is the front wing.
03:29Yep.
03:29Bit of the front nose.
03:31Yep.
03:31And the front wing.
03:32Everything on the car is pretty much aimed at trying to push the car into the ground.
03:35That's downforce.
03:36That just pushes the car down.
03:38That pushes the tires down.
03:39Gives you more grip.
03:40Yep.
03:41Basically makes you go quicker.
03:42So this is crucial when you're steering.
03:44Yep.
03:44You take this off.
03:45You'll turn into a corner.
03:47There's no load.
03:48There's no grip on the front tires.
03:50You'll just go straight on.
03:51Just as important as this is, the rear wing, which Oscar's pre-prepared.
03:56Basically that does the same thing, but at the back of the car.
03:59Yeah.
03:59Pitches the car down.
04:00Gives you a lot more rear grip.
04:02It'll be difficult to even complete the lap.
04:04You would spin a lot and probably crash a lot.
04:05These are like everything to us.
04:08Yep.
04:08These are magical.
04:09The other thing is the car is designed to have a front wing on it.
04:12So the rest of, if you take the front wing off, the rest of the car doesn't really work either.
04:16But the air goes through the front wing first, obviously.
04:19And then it goes like to the floor.
04:21It goes to the rear wing.
04:22So if you lose the front wing or the air doesn't get directed where it needs to go.
04:27And then you have even more problems than just losing the front wing.
04:30Adnani Medium asks, what's the driver's visibility like?
04:33Pretty bad.
04:34You see your car?
04:35Yep.
04:36The first bit of like ground that you can see like probably 10 meters ahead.
04:39When you're driving, you're kind of just focusing on what's ahead of you.
04:42Even like, you know, we have the halo.
04:44Protects our head.
04:45But you don't really see it because similar to like your nose.
04:48You're looking far enough ahead that it kind of your mind just blurs it out.
04:51But because you're looking 20 meters ahead, 30 meters ahead.
04:54And you get your own sense of gears.
04:55Like we have the gear number on our screen.
04:58Maybe you do.
04:58I never look at it.
04:59I know.
04:59Like you just do it off of sound.
05:01You do it off of memory, off of feeling.
05:04When we pull up to the pit stop sometimes.
05:05We have people all around the car.
05:07You don't hurt anyone.
05:07But you also want to gain every little bit of lap time possible.
05:10So you push it as much as you can.
05:11But we still make mistakes.
05:13We misjudge you sometimes.
05:14Sometimes you kind of lock up.
05:16You hit the guy.
05:17But he's ready to kind of absorb a bit of the impact.
05:20And then he jacks the car up to change the tires.
05:22Put it back down and you go.
05:23Like the first time you do it, you know, you enter very slowly.
05:26And you kind of slowly start to learn how much you can push you.
05:28And exactly how long and wide the car is.
05:31But that's something that takes time.
05:32We also have like a board that we kind of line our tires up with.
05:36So we have like a good reference.
05:38And we can't see much out of the car.
05:40But we can see a little bit sort of the top of the tires.
05:43And a little bit above that.
05:44Otherwise you probably see a lot more people getting hurt.
05:47So our next question is from at before we kiss.
05:51How do you drivers know that it's time for a pit stop?
05:54Our engineer just tells us.
05:55Ultimately we can decide if we don't want to or not.
05:57Usually there's a pretty good reason why they would call us into the pit lane.
06:00You can't pit for two reasons.
06:01Actually you can have three reasons.
06:03One, you got damaged.
06:04Two, the tires are wearing out.
06:07The tires are made of rubber.
06:09Over time that wears down.
06:10The less rub you have, the less grip you have.
06:12So at a certain point it's better to come into the pits.
06:15Put new tires on.
06:16They're always talking to us about how our tires are going.
06:18Whether we think we can keep going.
06:20And if it gets really bad.
06:21Whether we can keep the car on the track.
06:23Sometimes you might just pit because the guy behind you's pit.
06:26Undercut is when someone pits before you.
06:28Puts on fresh tires.
06:29And then by the time that you pit, you actually come out behind them.
06:32Overcuts, which is actually the opposite of that.
06:34You put on fresh tires.
06:35But really the fresh tires aren't that much better.
06:37Or maybe they're difficult to warm up.
06:39It's actually better to go for a bit longer.
06:42Pit later.
06:42And maybe you overtake someone that way.
06:44That's when you get into the more technical stuff with strategy.
06:46Which is a big part of racing.
06:48So there's a lot of communication around that side of things.
06:50So you kind of want to be able to communicate with your team.
06:52Without giving away too much information.
06:55Because all the other teams can listen to each other's radio.
06:57That's why you never hear anyone say what lap they're going to pit.
07:00Because then you tell the whole pit lane what your strategy is.
07:03From Amber Lounge Limited.
07:05What's your favorite F1 car shape?
07:08Well, we grew up watching like 2010s or late 2000s.
07:12So the old cars like Lando's holding look really cool.
07:15Much more simple than what we have now.
07:17The McLaren MP4 2B 1985 Frost car.
07:21I think I've driven this one.
07:23I think I drove it in Sonoma.
07:26Just everything is cool about it.
07:28Everything.
07:29The colors.
07:30The look.
07:31Sounds incredible as well.
07:32For me sound is a big part of everything.
07:34Cars nowadays sound terrible.
07:37These sound way better.
07:38Very little technology.
07:39Everything here is to do with technology.
07:41How they build it.
07:42How they design it.
07:43Make it.
07:44It just drives differently.
07:45Very different.
07:46Like no power steering.
07:47Now we have power steering.
07:48So from step one to the end.
07:50Basically everything has changed or a lot more advanced nowadays.
07:53From at Maybelline Grace.
07:55Do all F1 drivers have a max speed of 241 miles an hour?
08:00Fastest clocked has been 241 miles an hour.
08:04It feels pretty quick going at that speed.
08:06Depends on the car you're in.
08:07Depends on the track.
08:08Depends if you're in a slipstream as well.
08:10If you've got a car in front of you.
08:11Literally punches a hole in the air for you.
08:14So you have less drag and you can go faster.
08:16You don't really realize how fast you're going until you see.
08:19Like on your dash.
08:20We'll just hit the throttle pedal as hard as we can.
08:22It's not down to us.
08:23It's down to the car.
08:24Depends a lot on the track as well.
08:26How long the straight is.
08:27So when we race in Monaco for example.
08:29We race with the most amount of downforce on the car.
08:31So the top speed is very low.
08:33But when we go to somewhere like Monza.
08:35We run the lowest amount of downforce.
08:37We go much faster on the straights.
08:39From T. Ange.
08:40Hi London RS and Oscar Piastri.
08:41I have a question for both of you.
08:43What are your rituals or warm-ups you do before going onto the race?
08:46I always do like a physical warm-up before the race.
08:49Some skipping.
08:50Some stretches.
08:52I lie on my bed.
08:53I have a little massage.
08:54I listen to some music.
08:55The more chilled I can be the better.
08:56One other thing we do a few days before the race is walk the track.
09:00To see if there's anything new that's changed from the year before.
09:02Or if it's a new circuit or a track we haven't been to.
09:04Just looking at the curbs.
09:05What things to avoid.
09:06What places you definitely don't want to over push.
09:09What places you can push.
09:10Places you don't want to make mistakes.
09:12Or you can afford to make mistakes.
09:13Different things like that.
09:14We talk a lot about the strategy before the race.
09:16So we have some plans about what we might want to do in the race.
09:20There's one pit stop or two or three.
09:22We'll have plans that might have different amount of pit stops.
09:25Next question we got from Ax.
09:26I'm alright so free.
09:27How does one train to become an F1 driver so that they can also have cat-like reflexes?
09:32We train from a very early age.
09:34But luckily I got a pair of balls.
09:37Let's put it to the test.
09:38I'm going to test you.
09:40There's many different ways of doing things.
09:42Here's one of them.
09:43Yeah.
09:43Are you ready?
09:44As ready as I'll ever be.
09:48There you go.
09:49Oh!
09:51Three.
09:54You got it!
09:56Every driver does something different.
09:58I use these lights which come on.
09:59You have to react to the lights.
10:01You can also get these glasses which like flicker.
10:03Oh yeah.
10:03This also helps your reactions a little bit more.
10:06Next question is from at by Brandon White.
10:09Do F1 drivers accelerate or brake on curves on corners?
10:14What's the strategy with that?
10:15Normally you brake before the corner.
10:17If you're coming from a really long straight into a slow corner you need to brake a lot more
10:21than if you're coming into a fast corner or you know you're coming out of a slow corner
10:25and then you've got another corner.
10:26That's why you see us lock up because we're trying to brake as much as we can.
10:30That's the strategy with that one.
10:32So those are all the questions for today.
10:33Thank you very much for watching Formula 1 Support.