Guides
Formula 1, explained
How the weekend is structured, how points are awarded, and how to turn all of that into a better prediction.
Formula 1 is unusually hard to follow from the outside. The result you see on Sunday is the end of a three-day process, and most of what decides it happens before the race starts: a knockout qualifying session that sets the grid, a tyre choice locked in hours earlier, a car that suits one circuit and not the next. None of that is explained on screen, which is why a new viewer can watch a full weekend and still not know why the fast car finished fourth.
These guides are written to close that gap. They cover the shape of a race weekend and how it changes on a sprint weekend, how the sport awards its own championship points, and how to read the signals that actually predict a finishing order. They are deliberately plain-English: no lap-time tables, no engineering jargon left undefined.
If you play Grand Prix Picks, the last one is the useful one. Picking a top five well is a different skill from knowing which car is quickest, because the points reward getting the order right rather than picking winners. If you are just here to understand the sport, start with the weekend format and work down.
The guides
How F1 sprint weekends work
Six times a season the schedule changes shape. Here is what actually differs, and why it matters if you are predicting results.
Read the guideThe F1 points system explained
How Formula 1 itself awards championship points, and how that differs from the way a prediction game scores you.
Read the guideHow to predict an F1 top five
The signals worth trusting, the ones that mislead, and why the back half of your top five is where positions are won and lost.
Read the guideWhat happens across an F1 race weekend
A session-by-session walkthrough for anyone who wants to know what teams are actually doing on Friday.
Read the guide
Looking for the rules of the game rather than the sport? How to play covers Top 5 scoring, Head-to-Head picks and session deadlines.