F1 telemetry data is publicly available, but turning raw traces into something meaningful isn’t straightforward. What does a speed trace actually tell you? Where exactly did a driver lose time, and why?
I built a tool to answer those questions clearly, corner by corner, in plain English, with the delta attached.
How it works
Data comes directly from the official F1 live timing feed at ~3.7Hz speed, throttle, brake, gear, DRS, and car position. The lap events breakdown is where the interesting engineering happens.
A few things the raw feed doesn’t give you that I had to approximate:
Racing lines — no reference geometry exists publicly, so I derive them from the fastest laps of each session. Good enough for cornering analysis but understeer detection isn’t comprehensive as a result.
Braking zones — not in the data directly. I approximate markers from reference laps, which I think is actually a reasonable approach since it gives you a driver-relative baseline rather than an arbitrary fixed point.
Wheel spin — approximated from RPM spikes without corresponding acceleration. Works well for obvious cases, less reliable for subtle ones.
Being upfront: some detections are estimates. But the goal is meaningful signal, not false precision.
Happy to go deeper on any of it. Feedback welcome.