The words

Formula 1 jargon, one sentence each.

The broadcast assumes you know these. The app does not: every term below is offered under the caption that uses it, and can be spoken the first time it comes up — switch it on in Settings, under Sound.

Flags, and when the racing stops

Safety car: A road car leads the field slowly, nobody may overtake, and the gaps between cars close up. It comes out when the track is unsafe to race on at speed — a crash, debris, heavy rain. When it pulls in, the race restarts with everyone bunched together.
Virtual safety car: Every driver must slow to a set pace and hold their gap; no overtaking, no car on track leading them. Used for smaller incidents. Unlike the real safety car it keeps the gaps as they were, so nobody gains or loses much.
Red flag: The session is stopped; every car returns slowly to the pit lane and waits. A crash that blocks the track, a barrier to repair, rain too heavy to see through. The race resumes from the pit lane in the order the cars were running.
Yellow flag: Danger ahead in that part of the track: slow down and no overtaking until the green. A single yellow means caution; double yellows mean be ready to stop. Both are shown by sector, so the rest of the lap is still racing.
Green flag: Racing is on: at the start, or once a danger in that part of the track has gone. After a yellow, "sector clear" is the same thing said for one stretch of the lap.
Blue flag: Shown to a slower car about to be lapped: let the faster car through. It is not a penalty, but ignoring it repeatedly is.
Chequered flag: The end of the session; the race is over when the leader crosses the line under it.
Formation lap: One slow lap before the start, to warm the tyres and line up on the grid. An extra formation lap is called when the start has to be delayed — a stalled car, or rain — and the race is shortened by a lap.
Standing start: The race starts from a standstill on the grid when the lights go out; a rolling start begins behind the safety car at speed. After a red flag the resumption order is the running order at the stop, and the restart can be either kind.

Pit stops and tyres

Pit stop: The car comes into the pit lane for new tyres, a stop of two to three seconds, and loses around twenty seconds against the cars that stay out. "Box" is the radio word for it. A race needs at least one stop, because two different tyre types must be used.
Stint: The laps a car runs on one set of tyres between stops; fresher tyres have done fewer laps and grip better. When the app says a car rejoins "eight laps fresher than the car ahead", it has a tyre advantage worth attacking with.
Undercut: Stopping before a rival and using the new tyres' pace to be ahead when they stop later. The other way round is the overcut: staying out longer and hoping clear air is worth more than new rubber.
Overcut: Staying out longer than a rival who has stopped, and hoping to come out ahead of them after your own stop.
Rejoins: Where a car comes back onto the track after its stop, and who it comes out behind.
Pit lane open: Whether cars may leave the pit lane; it closes before the start and during a red flag.

Timing, gaps and sectors

Sector: The lap is timed in three parts, so you can see where a car is fast and where it is not.
Purple sector: The fastest anyone has been through that part of the lap all session. The timing screen shows it in purple. Green is a driver's own best; the app says "improves" for that.
Fastest lap: The quickest single lap of the race so far, by anyone.
Gap: The time between a car and the one ahead of it; under a second is close enough to attack. The gap to the leader is the whole deficit; the interval is just to the next car.
DRS: A flap in the rear wing that opens on the straights when a car is within a second of the one ahead, for extra speed to overtake. Race control switches it on a couple of laps into the race — the wire calls that "overtake enabled" — and off when it is wet or under a safety car.
Lapped: A car the leader has passed a whole lap ahead of; it no longer races the leaders directly.
Retirement: The car has stopped for good — a failure, a crash or damage — and takes no further part.

Stewards and penalties

Track limits: All four wheels went beyond the white line at the edge of the track, so the lap time does not count. In a race, repeated offences earn a warning, then a penalty.
Incident noted: The stewards have seen something and will look at it; "under investigation" means a decision is coming, "no further action" means it is closed.
Time penalty: Seconds added to the driver's race time, served at their next pit stop or at the finish.
Drive-through penalty: The driver must drive down the pit lane at its speed limit without stopping, which costs around twenty seconds. A stop-and-go is the harsher version: ten seconds stationary in the box first.
Grid penalty: The driver starts further back than they qualified, usually for changing engine parts beyond the season's allowance.
Black and white flag: A warning for driving standards; the next offence is a penalty.

The weekend

Practice: Three sessions before qualifying where nothing counts; teams try set-ups and tyres.
Qualifying: Three knockout rounds that set the starting order; the fastest in the last round starts from pole, at the front.
Sprint: A short race on the Saturday of some weekends, about a third of a Grand Prix, with points for the top eight.
Grip: How well the tyres hold the track; low grip means a cold, wet or dirty surface and slower, more careful laps.
Awnings may be used: Rain is expected: teams may put covers up over the cars in the pit lane.

Hear them used

Open the player Or replay a past race