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Old 6 May 2012, 17:25 (Ref:3070292)   #7
IceMan_PJN
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Originally Posted by S14 View Post
So I've never really followed F1 before. I've been bitten by the bug, though, and I find myself trying to learn as much as I can. But while there is a wealth of information out there, there doesn't seem to be any guide to what a new fan "needs to know" - not in the sense of how race weekends work, flags, tyres, etc., but rather where do I watch F1, where do I get commentary, are there any particular races or incidents from the past that would be worth checking out (you can find a lot of amazing stuff on youtube these days), and that sort of thing. So what do you, people of 10 Tenths, think a new fan needs to know or might find valuable in enjoying F1?
Everybody is new at one point. I was new in 2008, and wondering some of the same things.

To watch F1 with commentary, the Speed network is your friend. They don't have the full coverage that you would expect in Europe, but they do run live coverage of the second round of Friday Practice, Saturday qualifying, and the race on Sunday. Here in the States they're typically on early in the day, so a DVR is your friend, unless you can drag yourself out of bed early enough (or stay up late). I think Speed tends to rerun them later into the week during the afternoon, too. Their website also streams live coverage of the other practice rounds, although with no commentators.

To start brushing up on your F1 history, there's always Wikipedia. You don't need to learn everything all at once. If you're going to be following this for the long haul, you'll have plenty of time to learn bits here and there along the way. The Wikipedia article about F1 in general could be a good place to start, and then down at the bottom of the page is a list of "Formula One World Championship seasons". You can click on them to go to articles for each of those seasons. There's also plenty of books out there that cover the sport's history, like The Complete Book of Formula One which will take you through half a century of seasons, the teams, and their drivers, complete with loads of photos. Discussing the sport with other fans on boards like this one is another great place to ask about F1.

Some of the teams, like Ferrari and McLaren, have been in the game for a very long time (several decades) while others are relatively new (Red Bull), but then some of them have more confusing histories, having been one team before becoming another. For example, the current Mercedes team was previously Brawn GP in 2009, and Brawn GP came from Ross Brawn purchasing the older Honda team. The current Lotus team was previously Renault, and Caterham was Lotus last year. If you look through the past several decades, you see team names spring up and vanish into the history books along the way. Some of the key people at the various teams have also had interesting histories, going from team to team throughout their careers.

One driver that you need to know about is Ayrton Senna. There is a must-see film about him that came out a little while back. Another good film to watch is Grand Prix, which is an older film and focuses on a much older era of the sport, but you get to see some of the really old cars and older tracks, some of which we still race on today but in a different form. Grand Prix follows the story of some fictional drivers, but it included some real-world drivers.

Last edited by IceMan_PJN; 6 May 2012 at 17:41.
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