I have been thinking about joy a lot over the last week. Turns out, JOY is not a dead idea. Yay! It may be that I am still riding the high from an immensely joyful Democratic National Convention in Chicago, at which the roll-call of delegates felt like politics of old, and where Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and innumerable other patriotic Americans from both sides of the aisle reminded us that America is a good and unifiable place worth fighting for. My urge to move to Canada has been joyously derailed. There is a pinpoint of light again at the end of a previously-endless dark tunnel.
By happy accident, this past weekend marked another event that brings me unbridled joy. The Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort, Netherlands, brought an end to the 2024 Formula 1 racing season’s Summer Break. It was a rough three weeks for racing fans who have felt a serious void in their mental activity from Thursday to Sunday each week.
I turned 51 during the break, on August 2. It is kind of a non-year in the birthday catalogue. It’s the third time I’ve turned 17? Been there, done that. I don’t often want or ask for birthday gifts. But this year, my family took my hints and bought me the limited edition Mercedes Benz hat that commemorates Formula 1 GOAT Lewis Hamilton’s 105th race win after 344 career race starts and the end of a three-year drought since his last win. The hat’s sunshiny yellow and Mercedes turquoise stitching tickles me, and reminds me of an ebullient moment in my favorite new fan pastime.
People who know me well stare at me blankly when they learn I have become obsessed with Formula 1 racing — not quite sure whether I’m joking or they should inquire after my mental health. I am not a car person. I am not a particularly avid sports fan. I have very few physically-competitive bones left in my aging body. Those same people know me as a nerdy/artsy dancer/former competitive badminton player (which they don’t usually believe is a sport) who would choose museum or library over major sports venue hands down.
And, American sports fans usually envision NASCAR, or maybe Indy Car, when you mention car racing under any circumstances. They tend to imagine cars turning left on an oval for 500 miles. To be clear, I am not a masochist. I do not do NASCAR. I will grant that Indy Car is a valuable venue for former or hopeful Formula 1 drivers to land when they can’t cut it on The F1 Grid anymore. Truth be told, Formula 1 is the Dom Perignon of racing, while NASCAR is more like the Duff Beer. I realize that makes me a racing snob, and I am comfortable with that status.
I also acknowledge that some people’s surprise comes, in part, from the misguided notion that car racing is not a typical passion for a woman of my middle years. While a full 40% of the Formula 1 fan base is now women (up from 8% in 2017), the average age of those women is closer to 30. Much of that shift has come from the popularity of the Netflix reality show, Drive to Survive, which has, for six seasons, manufactured high interpersonal drama in a sport that is actually most often collegial across competitors and teams. It’s a legitimate opening question when you meet a fellow fan: Are you a DTS adopter, or not? I am not. My daughter made sure of it.
The legacy of fandom in our family is this: My daughters became fans through their best friend, who has been watching for years with her older brother. When I got curious about why my kids were getting up at 6am on Sundays in the middle of winter, I got an earful about how to become a proper fan. I had to do research. One daughter made me a team spreadsheet and a PowerPoint presentation. I couldn’t just decide I liked a driver because they were cute (they’re all cute), or because I liked the team colors. I had to know the technical aspects, as well as the sport’s lore and deep traditions. Never one to reject interesting homework, I followed directions, watched a few races, and was hooked.
So why does this sport bring me so much joy? Easy. It scratches places in my brain that few, if any, other sports do. It is both simple and complex. It is wildly death-defying. It is scientifically precise. It is unpredictable. And it is oh, so earnest.**
The Teams
There is an elegance to Formula 1’s exterior simplicity. There are only ten teams to remember in the whole sport. They all compete in the same 24 races from March to November. With only two drivers each, the ten teams make up what is called The Grid — the array of 20 drivers who line up each race day in order of qualifying time, and wait with hair-trigger responsiveness for the five red lights to turn green. The familiar sound of David “Crofty” Croft (the 18-year voice of F1) shouting, “It’s light’s out and away we go!” gives me heart palpitations every time. The teams are not only competing for which individual driver will win each race and score the most individual points. They are also competing for team points in The Constructor’s Championship — the team with the most points over the entire season. No leagues, no brackets, no crazy calendars, no nonsense.
But the teams themselves are not just two drivers, two strategists, and a handful of guys in coveralls. Running an F1 team requires a level of workplace synergy that few other workplaces have. There is no time to figure out where the slackers are slowing down workflow. There are no slackers. Tenths of a second lost could mean winning or losing the race, the season. Even between races, there is little time to noodle a problem back in the home office. Engineers are troubleshooting data and iterating parts all the time. Each paddock is like a perfectly humming hive. Each driver is more like a celebrity drone than the queen bee.
The Drivers
Every driver on the grid, P1-P20, has to be in phenomenal physical shape. This is not just being strong enough to take a tackle, or swing for the lights. This is sitting in a tight 115-degree cockpit while withstanding 6Gs of force pulling on your neck and core at 200mph for 90 minutes. And you have to steer the car with your race engineer yapping strategy into your ear and respond accordingly in a split second. Drivers lose six pounds per race on average, just in sweat.
To get to Formula 1, it means you’ve been able to hang with the same other elite level drivers since about age nine. The current grid of drivers ranges in age from 22 to 43. The newbies are racing with the drivers they idolized when they were just getting into carting as kids. It is a very tight community. It’s a whittling process each year to see who has what it takes to get one of 20 seats. As in most professions, there are many more aspiring drivers than there are teams with seats to fill.
Although many fans will claim their die-hard allegiance to the high-profile winners like Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen, or the legendary teams like Ferrari and Red Bull, it is really difficult for my own mom-self to not want all of the children to do well in their races. They each go out there, no matter what their qualifying position, and give it their best, with hope, true grit, and the set of tools they are provided. They all have unique personalities, strengths, and weaknesses. There are weeks when Daniel Ricciardo for sure needs a hug (maybe every week lately), or Max Verstappen needs a little less alone time with his cats and his simulator, or Lando Norris needs some impulse-control reminders, or Charles Leclerc needs a good therapist to improve his self-talk. I have no favorites. I love all 20 of them equally but differently, and even some of the reserves. Maybe that means I fail Fandom 101, but I’m also okay with that. Winning is not just about the driver. That is part of the sport’s beauty. They are all fiercely competitive with themselves and each other, and they each have immense respect for their 19 compatriots (and excellent PR teams). They do not serve Haterade on The Grid.
The Cars
All F1 fans know that the driver is only as good as the car he’s been given. Would Max Verstappen be as untouchable if his Red Bull car wasn’t so flawless? We are starting to see this season that the answer is no. Fans have long wanted to see the fiery and foul-mouthed (but adorable) Yuki Tsunoda in a better car than the one his team, VCARB, has given him, to really see what he is capable of. And the Williams team engineers better have some serious magic up their sleeves if they are going to have a car for 2025 that is worth Carlos Sainz’s driving prowess.
But the cars themselves are a moving target. They are modified regularly within the ever-changing rules of the FIA, F1’s governing body. Races have been won and then promptly lost due to minuscule post-race violations of obscure rules, or the timing of part replacement over the course of a season. Just as often, drivers experience major equipment failures mid-race — flaming brakes, a failed gear box, leaking cooling systems — leading to the dreaded DNF. Engineers can control some of these factors from the pit wall, and the best pit crews are ready with a quick fix, but broken is broken. Formula 1 is as much of a weekly science fair championship as a test of driving ability. So cool.
The Wild Cards
If the complex cocktail of human ingenuity, physical grit, supreme workplace synergy, and cunning strategy isn’t enough to draw your interest, there are other factors that make this sport a joy to follow, and a heart-in-your-shoes rush with the rollout of every formation lap. Even in a perfect car/driver world, race outcomes can be determined by weather and track temperature, the number and speed of pitstops a car takes, the kind of tires (soft, medium, hard, intermediate, or wet) a team chooses and when they rotate them, track penalties for driver conduct, or any number of other unpredictable possibilities.
Note: If you like any degree of certainty in your sports viewing, this may not be the sport for you. If you think the “best” driver should win every time, you should maybe reexamine your attachment to winning, and this may not be the sport for you. But if you like to be kept on the edge of your seat, untangling an endless knot of unknown variables, welcome!
And did I mention the locales? Monaco! Monza! Barcelona! Rio de Janeiro! Suzuka! Abu Dhabi! Montreal! (and Austin, Miami, Vegas — ppphhht) The price of entry for a race weekend is steep, not to mention travel costs. Luckily, absent the gloriously soul-vibrating sound of revving, turbocharged V-6s at an in-person race, it’s better viewing on TV.
A Nod to the Women
Women have been racing cars for as long as men have, including five in mainstream Formula 1 since 1958. But only recently did they get a grid of their own in F1 Academy, the development league for women drivers to compete in single-seater racing and work their way up to full-time Formula 1 competition. Despite slightly slower cars (a point of criticism for many), it is just as exciting to follow as the dudes. Every Formula 1 team has one F1 Academy driver. And, women are already well-established in Formula 1 as race engineers, strategists, team owners, and team principals, as they should be. But there is always room for greater equity.
**That was a very long explanation of joy. I am certain I lost many people paragraphs ago. For those who have stayed to share my joy to the bitter end, big thanks. My main point is this: Find what brings you joy. Life is too short for not exploring things that fascinate you. Joy is hard to come by most days. But it’s out there. Find what tickles you, whether it is deemed “appropriate” for 51, or 16, or not. Do it.
And, if any of you has read this far and feels the turbocharged, V-6-level inspiration to become a “proper fan,” ask me in the comments where to start. My daughter is updating her PowerPoint for the 2025 season. Plus links below.
Have a great week.
— IWW
Washington Post Formula 1 Infographic
P.S. I don’t really know where this Subscriber chat button takes you. Click it. You know you want to. I’ll respond, I promise! We can talk cars, or joy, or whatever you want.
Wow, I knew nothing about Formula 1 before and your enthusiastic intro taught me so much! I too have been accused of liking things because there are cute boys. My joy is watching figure skating - ever since I was a teenager. Excited that it’s almost time for the new season to start!