Using the site
How to read an F1 lap chart
The result tells you who won. The lap chart tells you how. It's one of the oldest tools in motor racing: team managers drew them by hand on paper for decades. Ours is drawn from the official lap-by-lap timing.
What you're looking at
Each line is one driver, in their team's colour. Across the bottom is the lap number, starting from lap 0, the starting grid. Up the side is the running position, with the leader at the top. A line that rises is a driver gaining places; a line that drops is a driver losing them.
By default the chart shows the top ten finishers, so it's easy to read. Switch to Everyone to see the whole field, and tap a name in the key to hide or show that driver.
Five things to look for
1. The start
Compare lap 0 with lap 1. Big jumps here are the start and first corners, often where races are won and lost. A driver who's several places lower after lap 1 has usually had a poor getaway or been caught up in contact.
2. Pit stops
A pit stop shows as a sudden drop of several places, followed by a climb back up over the next few laps as the cars that haven't stopped yet make their own stops. When most of the field drops and recovers around the same few laps, that's the pit window.
3. The undercut
Find two lines crossing just after one of them dips. If a driver stops first, then comes out ahead of the rival once the rival has stopped too, that's a successful undercut.
4. Safety cars
A safety car often triggers a cluster of stops on the same lap, with many lines dipping at once. Positions behind the safety car rarely change while it's out, so you'll see a stretch of flat, parallel lines afterwards.
5. Retirements
A line that simply ends is a driver who retired. Check the result table for the reason; hover over a retired driver's gap in the result to see it.
Where to find it
Open any race from 1996 onwards and choose the Lap chart tab. Lap-by-lap timing isn't available for earlier races. For true speed rather than position, the Race pace tab is the next stop; see race pace explained.
