A formation lap is the warm-up lap before the race actually starts. The cars line up in the right order, and it helps tires and brakes get ready so the race can begin safely.
Operational temperatures are the “working range” temperatures that parts need to perform well. In F1, tires especially have to be warm enough to grip, otherwise the car won’t behave correctly.
In this context, “tyres” means the race tires on the car. If they’re not warm, they don’t grip well, so the car can’t drive fast or safely in corners and braking zones.
When a driver says "more power" on the radio, they’re asking for a specific kind of extra speed. The team can’t always just crank the engine higher, so they may instead change how the car uses its electrical energy. It’s a targeted request for how the car delivers power.
An "engine mode" is like a power setting the team programs for the race. It decides how the car is allowed to make power while you’re driving. The team picks the setting to be fast but also safe for the engine.
"Energy deployment" means how the team uses the car’s stored electrical energy during the race. They decide the timing and amount to get extra speed when it’s needed. So when a driver wants more power, it can be about using that energy differently.
"Engine mapping" is the car’s computer settings for how the engine should behave. It affects how the engine responds and how power is delivered. In this case, the team may keep those settings steady and change how the electric energy is used.
A headwind is wind coming straight at the car. It makes the car work harder because the air pushes back, so the driver/engine strategy may need to use energy differently to stay fast.
Drag is the force of air resistance that tries to slow the car down. If the airflow ahead changes because of the car in front, it can make you either lose less speed to the air or struggle more.
Fuel strategy is about using your fuel in a planned way during the race. If you burn it faster, you may get more power, but you risk not having enough to finish.
The steering wheel isn’t just for turning—it’s also the driver’s control panel. Drivers use buttons and switches on it to change race settings while driving.
A rotary switch is a knob you turn to choose different settings. In an F1 car, it’s built into the steering wheel so the driver can change race settings quickly while still driving fast.
Silverstone is a well-known race track in the UK where Formula 1 cars compete. It’s also a place teams use for work and development, so it makes sense they’d show facilities there.
In Formula 1, the paddock is the secured area where teams park their transporters and motor homes and where cars and equipment are managed between sessions. It’s where drivers and staff move around during a race weekend, including access to driver rooms and support spaces.
A cool-down room is a dedicated space in the team area where drivers can recover after a stint—typically to manage physical and mental reset. The speaker clarifies this isn’t the cool-down room, but a similar “little room” used for changing and getting out of the way.
Toro Rosso was the Formula 1 team name used by Red Bull’s junior team for many years. The speaker contrasts Pierre’s steering wheel setup at Toro Rosso with his move to Alpine, highlighting how driver equipment can change between teams.
“Lock up” means the wheels stop rotating while braking, usually because the brakes are applied harder than the tires can grip. In F1, that can cause the car to slide wide and lose steering control into the corner.
Bahrain is where the Bahrain Grand Prix is held. The track has more paved space around the edges, so if a driver makes a mistake, there’s more room to slow down and get back under control.
Monaco is a very tight F1 track built on city streets. Because there’s very little space to run off the track, drivers have to be extra careful—one mistake can be hard to recover from.
Oscar Piastri is a Formula 1 driver. In this segment, they mention he had trouble in Monaco, which highlights how difficult that track can be.
Term
confidence in it
“Confidence” means the driver feels sure the car will do what they expect. If they don’t trust the grip or handling, they’ll drive more cautiously and won’t be as fast.
“Eke out performance” means extracting the last small gains from the car and driver’s technique when everything is already close to the limit. In Monaco, that often comes down to tiny steering/braking adjustments because there’s little room for error.
In this context, “compliance” refers to how much a barrier (or other surface) can flex or absorb impact. Drivers use that knowledge to understand where the car can brush the wall safely versus where contact will upset the car or end the lap.
Pole position means starting first on the grid in Formula 1. The driver who earns it starts at the front, and that spot is chosen to help them get the best grip and position right away. This episode explains how officials decide which side of the track that front spot should be on.
“Grippier” just means the track has more traction. Tires can stick better there, so the car can turn and accelerate more confidently. The episode is saying pole is usually placed where the track is most grippy.
Suzuka is a well-known Formula 1 race track in Japan. The hosts are using it as an example while talking about where pole position should be relative to the racing line.
In F1, the “dirty side of the grid” refers to the side of the starting grid that tends to have worse grip because rubber and airflow effects are less favorable there. At street circuits like Monaco, small grip differences can strongly affect traction and braking into the first corner.
The “first corner” is the very first turn after the start. It’s where cars are closest together, so crashes and collisions are more likely.
Person
Christian Hugo
Christian Hugo is the person mentioned as being involved in the disagreement about where the cars should start on the grid. That kind of dispute can affect who gets the better grip for the first corner.
“Leaping off the line” means the car gets a really good start and accelerates quickly right away. Starting from pole can help you do that and reach the first corner better.
The apex is the closest point to the inside of a corner on the racing line. Racing drivers aim to hit it because it helps them set up a better exit. In Monaco, being first to that inside line can make it hard for others to pass.
Graining is when an F1 tyre starts to wear in a rough way, breaking the tread into tiny bits. That makes the tyre not grip as well as it should. It can also change over time as the tyre surface keeps getting worn.
Understeer is when you turn the steering wheel but the car doesn’t turn in as much as you want. It usually happens when the front tyres lose grip first. The car feels like it wants to go wide in the corner.
In F1, “marbles” are little rubber balls that build up on the track after tyres shed material. If a driver goes off the racing line, they can hit that slippery rubber and lose grip. That’s why drivers try to avoid running wide.
Downforce is the “suction” effect that presses the car down onto the track. More downforce usually helps the tires hold the road better in turns. F1 wings are designed to create that force.
The gearbox is the part that helps the car use the engine’s power efficiently by changing gears. In an F1 car, it’s typically located toward the back of the car.
The rear wing is the big wing on the back of an F1 car. Its job is to push the car down onto the track so the tires can grip, especially at high speed.
This is about how air moving around the car creates forces. In this case, the wing is working hard because of the airflow, so it has to be attached very securely.
F1 has rules that control how cars must be built and safety-related requirements. Here, the wing has to be mounted firmly because the rules require it.
Carbon fiber is a strong but very light material used a lot in race cars. Here, a small part of the rear wing can crack off, but the wing can still be safe enough to keep racing.
Structural integrity means the part is still strong enough to do its job safely. So even if a small piece breaks off, the wing might still be okay to keep racing.
That flag means the race officials think your car is in a dangerous condition. You’re expected to bring it into the pits so the team can check what’s wrong.
In F1, the power unit is the car’s main engine system. It’s not just the engine—it also includes the hybrid parts that store and reuse energy, and F1 rules limit how much teams can change it.
The FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) is the governing body that writes and enforces F1 technical rules. In this context, it controls which engine upgrades are allowed and which teams must keep their power units unchanged.
Barge boards are small aerodynamic parts on the sides of an F1 car. They guide air around the car so the floor and rear can work better, improving grip.
These are aerodynamic shapes under the car that help steer air in the right direction. Because the floor helps “suck” the car to the track, changing these vanes can improve cornering grip.
The cost cap era means F1 teams have a budget limit for development and upgrades. So they can’t just try everything—they have to spend money on changes that will actually make the car faster.
LIVE
Hello everybody, welcome to F1 Explains, the official Formula One podcast that is here
to explain the sport we all love so much.
My name is Christian Hugill and it is about time we rounded up a few of the more random
questions that have come into our inbox in recent weeks.
They are on all sorts of topics so we need an all round F1 expert to answer them.
We call these episodes our quick fire episodes and as for our guest this week, if you looked
at his Instagram over the Canadian Grand Prix weekend you'd think he was a restaurant critic.
He's actually F1 TV, Channel 4 of an Apple TV commentator, Alex Jakes.
Alex, in Canada, did you enjoy some fine cuisine?
I did indeed.
Yeah, one of the things that sometimes happens when you go to a week of Formula One is that
you find yourself going to an exciting place and then you don't see any of it because it
can be especially a sprint weekend, very, very busy.
So I made it a mission of mine to go and try the local food which included smoked meat
sandwich with lots of mustard and poutine, that Canadian classic.
So thoroughly enjoyable, wonderful city, yeah, glad I finally got to see it properly.
We'll talk about some Formula One in a moment, what with it being an official Formula One
podcast but before that.
I'm not sure, listen, forgive my naivety here, I might be about to be roundly marked.
I'm not sure I fully understand the difference between poutine and chicken.
Poutine and chicken?
Yeah.
Okay, let's get into it.
Yeah, so poutine is essentially chips and gravy with cheese curds.
Oh, I thought poutine was one of the, like, it was a chicken.
No, you're thinking poulet, aren't you?
You're thinking poulet.
Say I'm not a very cultured man, I am thinking poulet but poutine is different, is it?
Yeah, so poutine is chips, gravy, cheese curds, so not cheesy chips in the sense that we'd
have it in the UK but close, sort of a distant cousin and there are different standards of it.
So I went in search of some, I went to Little Portugal actually and found a very highly
rated poutine place that was very intimidating to order from.
So yeah, there you go.
All looks fun on Instagram but I was more nervous about ordering from that place
than I was for doing the Grand Prix.
So yeah, lots of fun, great city and yeah, there's just a couple of places that I've
only been to a few times just because of the way the calendars worked out through the years
and Montreal I'd never seen properly so I decided to put that right.
End of story.
Excellent, no, it's a great city.
I've done the Canadian Grand Prix twice.
The previous two years, this was my first not on the ground in Canada for a while,
so it's a wonderful city.
I really do like Montreal and Alex, we got a great race as well, didn't we?
Lots of fun.
I feel slightly, I feel like a spoiled child at Christmas who unwrapped a bike
but was hoping for a bike and a drum kit because I really did like the race and enjoyed it
but I also feel a bit robbed that George's battery went and therefore we were robbed of
more laps of that brilliant battle between Kimmy and George.
That must have been a lot of fun to commentate on.
It's unbelievable.
It's the sort of racy dream off.
I have to admit, halfway through I was thinking, is this really going to go to the end?
Because if it had gone to the end with those two scrapping all the way through,
it would have been one of the greatest Grand Prix of all time.
I think it would have been, yes.
It was fairly astounding to see battling like that for the Grand Prix win anyway
but the fact that they were pushing each other so much, it was so easy to make a mistake
and then the fact that we got to, it was just, I love it when you see a driver having to access
something new.
Russell's been so good for so long and yet Kimmy's taken such a leap forward this year
that he's having to push to the 99th percent
in a way that he hasn't in the past and he's fallen on career.
It's just, just delirious.
And yeah, it's like a great film, wasn't it, that went off a cliff halfway through.
Yes, it's such a shame, the battery, but this is motorsports.
It was like, oh, that was nearly an old timer and instead it was a glorious 30 lap battle
but yeah, thoroughly enjoyed it.
Absolutely, lovely to see the two teammates battling in a similar way to, of course,
Oscar and Lando pushing each other last year but it already feels like
there's more on track battling between Kimmy and George this year, which is lovely.
A great Grand Prix and our first question this week is, well, certainly linked to the last race in Canada.
Hi, my name is Kylie from Brisbane, Australia.
My question today is, what is the point of the formation lap?
A good question.
These are my favourite F1 explains questions because if you knew to Formula One,
you can just think, oh, this just happens and sometimes we never question why.
I should just say before Alex answers the question,
this is the second time we've used one of Kylie's voice notes,
proof that if you send us a voice note, ladies and gentlemen, you're far more likely to get on.
We've still had no confirmation as to whether it is actually Kylie Minogue,
which we speculated on last time Kylie sent us a voice note.
Regardless, either way, Kylie, you're very welcome.
So a timely question, Alex, because formation lap fans, it was a great race for you.
We have three of them at the Canadian Grand Prix.
Firstly, Alex explained why and then secondly, explain as Kylie asks,
why on earth do we need them in the first place?
Okay, we had three formation laps because poor old Arvid Lindblad,
he's had a great weekend, couldn't get off the grid.
So there's a variety of different routes the race director can take in that situation.
They can do a classic 10 minute reset and bring everyone or the mechanics back onto the grid
and then count down as if we'd gone back in time to 10 to four and just reset it that way.
Or you can just send the cars around multiple times and then take those laps
off the total of the Grand Prix.
That's what Rudy Marquez decided to do.
Why do we have a formation lap in the first place?
Well, it's to allow the mechanics that I mentioned to clear from the grid in a safe manner.
That's something that's very, very important.
But mainly the reason that we have it is for the operational temperatures.
The cars simply don't work if the tyres don't have temperature
and the brakes don't have temperature.
So we have a lap to get everyone into a workable range, a workable window,
where the car can operate in a thrilling first lap fashion that we know and love.
But without the formation lap, it would look all kinds of wrong
and we wouldn't get anywhere near the aggressive overtaking drama that we get on a first lap.
So it's purely so that the cars work how they're meant to temperature-wise
with the tyres and the brakes.
And just to pick up on something you said there,
Alex, I mentioned earlier, I wasn't at the Grand Prix,
which meant I got the pleasure of watching with my dad and my fiancé,
which was very nice.
I very rarely get to sit and watch the race with family nowadays.
So that was absolutely lovely.
It did mean I felt like I was doing an episode of F1 Explains as we went along.
There were lots of questions.
And one of them was from David, my fiancé,
who stopped himself initially asking the question.
And he went, because he saw all these extra formation laps,
he went with the fuel, then he went, no, no, don't worry about it.
Don't worry about it.
And I went, what?
Go on, go on.
He'd gone there.
He'd rushed it out.
And I said to it, well, he hadn't.
He thought it was a stupid question.
But I said, no, go on.
Ask the question.
He went, well, I was just wondering, do they have the fuel for these laps
when there's extra formation laps?
And I said to him, no, actually, you thought you were being silly.
And he thought, oh, a couple of laps won't make a difference here or there.
But it does, doesn't it, Alex?
And that's why you mentioned there that they take those extra formation laps
off the race distance.
Yeah.
So you fuel the car to the duration of the Grand Prix, sometimes a little bit under.
And if you carry more fuel, weight, your car is slower.
So as a result, you are constantly fueling for the exact amount that you need and no more.
So when we get extra formation laps, like we've just described,
because everyone has already preset the amount of fuel in the car when allowed to refuel mid-race,
you just have to take the laps off.
Otherwise, you would get cars conking out before the end.
And it's the precision of Formula One.
There's David, who buys his own admission, isn't a Formula One fan.
And listen, that's fine.
Not everyone is.
You know, we don't judge you here.
I mean, we do a bit.
It's an official F1 podcast.
But still, David's thinking, ah, the extra few laps aren't going to make a difference.
But it does, such is the precision in Formula One.
Kylie, thank you.
We just can't get your voice notes out of our heads.
We appreciate your contributions to F1 Explains.
Let's move on.
Ben Thomas from Dayton in Ohio.
And Nina from Table Rock Lake in Missouri.
Both have the same question.
When a driver asks for more power during a race, what can the team do for them?
Brilliant question, Alex.
Yes, it is.
And it was it was pertinent for what we heard in the Grand Prix as well.
It's become even more of a thing this year.
So you have to lock yourself into the engine mode that you run for the Grand Prix.
In previous years, you used to be able to turn the engine up.
Nice and simple.
Everyone understands that as a concept.
More power, but risk of the thing blowing up.
Easy.
Now this year, with the energy deployment that they've got,
your engine mapping might stay in one mode,
but you can choose to deploy your electrical energy in different ways.
So when we'll hear a driver on the radio asking for more power,
they might they're asking their engineer to look at where they are deploying
the energy across the course of the lap.
So say you've got a massive headwind in one place.
That might not be the case at the start of the race.
Might the wind direction might have changed halfway through.
You would then want to deploy more power to combat the headwind.
You would also know that the car in front was punching a bigger hole in the air,
more drag for them.
So you would change where you hammered the battery, essentially.
You would also change where you recharged.
That is what you can alter.
And then you can change the fuel.
We were talking about the fuel before.
You can change how much fuel you consume throughout the race.
That the rate is consumed, but you can consume a little bit more.
So realistically, it's this year, more than anything else,
when you hear a driver asking about power, it is purely,
where can I deploy more of the energy?
And where can you help me recharge by a certain point?
Yeah, and of course, if the engine gets thirstier and uses more fuel,
it might give you more power, but that's up to the race engineer to say,
yeah, but mate, problem is, you might not get to the end of the race on that,
which is a negative, net negative.
Not finishing the race is not what they aim for.
And Alex, we should clarify, shouldn't we?
These are things that the drivers are changing on the steering wheel, right?
Yeah, so this is all done and they're hugely complex,
and they have menus upon that they're tabbing across.
Usually on a rotary switch, you'll see the circular switches
on the steering wheel, and it's not a simple thing.
It's not a simple thing to be able to get more power,
and driver and engineer has to work in conjunction.
This is the sort of thing they have to learn at the start of the year,
especially if you switch teams.
It can be a totally different steering wheel layout in front of you.
So yeah, a lot of homework has to be done over the winter,
but yeah, getting more power is possible.
You're just going to have to give it up at another part of the lap.
On that, you raise a really good point, Alex.
I mean, the steering wheels baffle me in Formula One,
because I don't know about you.
I struggle to change the digital radio on the car if I'm driving.
It's just so much more complicated than when it used to just be one,
2345 and six.
So that's my level of multitasking skill.
But you mentioned drivers changing teams.
If you'll allow me a little anecdote.
I mean, we're on a podcast, why not?
When Pierre Gasly had just changed teams,
he'd left whatever Red Bull's B team was called at the time,
and he'd gone to Alpine.
I was given a little tour of the Alpine facilities at Silverstone.
And the drivers, for those that don't know,
have little rooms within the motor homes that are in the paddock
over the course of a race weekend.
And it's quite literally, it's not the cool-down room,
but it's a little cool-down room.
It's a place to change.
It's a place to just be for a bit and get out of the way.
It's just my space.
And in that, there was a model steering wheel.
And the person giving us the little tour around had said that
such was the difference between Pierre's steering wheel at Toro Rosso,
I think at the time, to moving to Alpine.
He'd requested two model steering wheels.
One he had at his home, and one he had in his little room,
because he just, at all points while he had five minutes,
was just playing with it to get the adjustments,
because it was such a big change.
These are the things we don't even think about
with sort of driving a Formula One car
that these guys have to contend with.
Yeah, that is, there you go.
But there are different classes of homework, aren't there?
Let's be honest, this is luxury homework
to have learning a Formula One steering wheel.
So I won't take any complaints from the boys about that.
It's better than maths or chemistry, isn't it?
It really is.
Right, we'll squeeze in one more question before we take a break.
So as you're listening to this,
the Monaco Grand Prix weekend will be underway.
Of course, you can watch that on F1 TV
with Alex and the gang in selected countries
and on Apple TV in the US.
And Peter from the US, from Scottsdale in Arizona,
to be precise, has a question on the Monaco Grand Prix.
Hi, Peter. Peter says,
I once walked the Monaco F1 track.
Look at you.
I was shocked to find the hills steeper, the corners tighter,
and the track narrower than I imagined.
I thought the same when I walked Zandvoort,
but yeah, absolutely.
I kept asking myself, how do those guys possibly
get the cars around this track?
Alex, it's such a good question, isn't it?
Because we take for granted, I think, Monaco nowadays.
There's the age-old question of what you think
of the Monaco Grand Prix nowadays,
considering it is difficult to overtake.
I've come to really love it.
It's a different...
We take one race out of the 24 or 22 this season
to do something completely different.
And it is a test of endurance,
because Alex, we shouldn't underestimate
just what that test of endurance is, should we?
No, not at all.
I think the thing with Monaco...
I'm not surprised that it felt different on site.
All of our images for a long time of the Monaco Grand Prix
were defined by quite historic camera places,
and Formula One's brilliant TV department
have only taken it over in recent years,
trying to show some of the inclines,
trying to get the helicopter shots out there.
So there can be, sometimes, across the world,
a disparity of what the camera does,
which always flattens it, always shortens the shot,
and the incline.
That run up the hill to Casino Square.
You wouldn't want to run it, Christian, would you?
It is a very, very dream climb up the hill.
I don't really know how the drivers do what they do
around Monaco.
The barriers are very, very close,
and they are barriers throughout.
There's one part of the track where you can bail out,
but the best way to describe Monaco,
for some of our newer fans,
there is no way that we would start this event
from scratch now.
If Monaco had never hosted a motor race
and applied to the Formula One calendar,
they would be laughed out of the meeting.
And yet, that impracticality, the thinness of the track,
the inclines, the historic nature of it,
is why every driver wants to win.
Because you are performing with no margin for error,
lap after lap after lap.
And I think these new cars, slightly thinner,
slightly lighter, slightly shorter,
they are going to fly around Monaco.
The previous ones were a bit cumbersome
for a street circuit like a Singapore or a Monaco.
These cars are going to be magic to watch trackside.
And if you ever get fortunate enough,
and I know not everyone can be,
but if you ever get fortunate enough
to go trackside at Monaco, you will not believe your eyes.
It's one of the coolest experiences in sport.
Couldn't agree more with Alex.
It was my first experience of it last year,
and I absolutely loved it.
And Alex, you and I sit and watch practice sessions.
You talk during practice sessions more than I do.
I tend to be sat on my own watching them.
You're broadcasting them to the world.
But we see the drivers throughout those practice sessions
get up to speed.
They are working out where they can break
half a tenth of a second later into a corner.
They're getting up to speed.
And sometimes if they get that wrong,
they lock up and go wide.
And on a track like Bahrain,
it's not a problem where there's lots of tarmac runoff.
Even on other old-fashioned circuits,
older circuits, I should say, like Australia,
you might just trundle along the grass and be fine.
But in Monaco, those...
I think I only actually fully appreciated this
talking to Oscar Piastri after free practice last year.
So Oscar struggled in Monaco last year.
And I interviewed Oscar straight after free practice too.
And he was saying he was just struggling to get the feel of the car,
to get the confidence in it,
but also trying to get quicker and quicker
because he knew his teammates was faster than him.
That balance at Monaco is insane, isn't it?
Because if you're having one of those weekends
where your car is slightly tricky to dial in,
and yet you're trying to eke out performance
because you know your teammate or your rival,
whoever is quicker than you,
if you get it even fractionally wrong in Monaco,
sometimes your weekends can be done.
That balance between poshing and poshing too much,
which is non-existent,
there are very few other sporting tests like that, isn't there, Alex?
Yeah, in terms of the narrow nature of the track,
and in terms of you get three hours to find the absolute limit,
and the limit is on the edge, confident driving.
And we've seen some astounding laps.
I think back to Max Stappen's pole position effort
a couple of years ago,
where he was literally bouncing off the walls.
He was using the barriers,
and he knew where the compliance in some barriers would be
and where you couldn't.
To get to the point where you are literally bending the circuit,
you need total confidence in the car.
So exactly as you said, Christian,
if you're not in a place where you feel confident
and you're chasing it and you're waiting,
you're just never going to be quick at Monaco.
Lovely Ernesto, Linden and Jonah.
We are answering your questions
in just a couple of minutes' time on F1 Explains.
Hello, welcome back to F1 Explains.
I'm Christian Hugill.
We are doing a quick fire special this week,
putting random potted questions that have popped into our inbox
over the course of the season
to F1 TV and Apple TV commentator Alex Jakes.
Alex, we're now going to Ernesto,
who is Spanish but lives in Munich in Germany,
and we wish him well.
Ernesto says,
I've been following the show since episode number one,
and you guys do an incredible job of breaking down
the technical side of the sport,
making the show a must-listen for me every week.
Ernesto, if you'd like a job in F1's marketing department,
I would strongly suggest you apply,
because that's a lovely write-up.
I'd like to thank you for it.
Ernesto says, my question is,
how do they decide which side of the track
pole position is on?
Lovely question.
F1 Explains gold question,
that the things you'd never thought of.
Love it.
Alex Jakes.
I do love that question,
because that's one where I had to...
I do like the questions where I have to think for a moment
and access the old archive in my head,
and I'm like, the reason for that is that traditionally,
traditionally, they would place it on the racing line.
Now, there are some exceptions to the rule.
If it's more beneficial to have the inside line for a corner,
sometimes they would place it away from the racing line,
but the hard and fast rule is,
it is traditionally on the grippier racing line
that has been used and rubbed in across the course of the weekend.
That is your advantage of taking pole position.
Yet, it's not uniformly that around the world,
but it is traditionally where you would place pole position.
Is the part of the racetrack cleaned up by the cars
using the racing line all weekend?
I believe, and I've been trying to just double check this.
I've accessed my own archive,
and I'm not as confident in my archive
as I am in your archive, Alex.
Suzuka, is that one of them where it's on the other side?
Let's think where...
I'm trying to...
Okay, Oscar was in third and he went into the lead.
Now, I think it's on the racing line.
Of course, historically, this caused a massive argument
in days gone by because Etten Center wanted it changed.
Did it? I didn't know this.
Yeah.
Go on.
Why did he want it changed?
Why Japan gets mentioned in relation to pole position
is that Etten Center once advocated
that pole position should be on the racing line.
He was very, very unhappy that it wasn't on the racing line.
And just traditionally,
some circuits used to put pole position on the inside line
because you go in the inside turn one better.
Anyway, the grip on the racing line
was traditionally in the early 90s where you wanted to be.
Center asked for pole position to be moved.
It wasn't moved.
It was left on what he perceived
to be the dirty side of the grid,
leading to one of the most dramatic first corners
in Formula One history,
where he was like,
if you're going to play political games
and I'm the fastest car
and I'm not starting in the fastest place,
I am going to crash into our land cross.
Etten Center is trying to go through on the inside
and it's happened immediately.
This is amazing.
Center goes off at the first corner,
but what has happened across?
He has gone off too.
Well, that is amazing,
but I fear absolutely predictable.
And one of the most dramatic first turns in the history
of Formula One,
and it won him the world championship,
and it was all Christian Hugo
over a dispute of which side of the grid
pole position should be on.
Didn't know that.
I was aware of the famous first corner.
I was aware of the ramifications and the championship,
but I didn't know it was about a row over which side
of the grid pole position should be on.
Hello, producer Chris here,
just popping in if that's okay,
because there's something I'd like to add to Christian
and Alex's excellent explanation
of which side of the track pole position is on.
If turn one is a right-hand corner,
pole position will usually be on the left side of the track.
And if turn one's a left-hander,
pole will usually be on the right side.
And that means the driver on pole can have a better,
faster entry to the first corner,
because they're turning in from the opposite edge of the track.
That is the racing line that Christian and Alex have mentioned.
One exception is Monaco,
where turn one goes to the right,
but pole position is also on the right.
And that's so the driver on pole has the best chance
of leaping off the line,
making that short run to the first corner,
getting to the apex first,
blocking their rival and keeping the lead.
It's not so much about corner speed at the start in Monaco.
It's just about getting there first
and keeping everybody else behind you.
So that's a way of working it out.
Look at which way turn one goes.
Pole is usually the opposite.
Just wanted to add that to the words of wisdom.
Lovely stuff. An excellent question, Anesto.
Thank you very much.
Lyndon from Dallas in Texas says,
I've heard the F1 TV gang mention
graining in reference to the tyres.
What is graining?
Alex, this is always good to remind ourselves.
Yeah, so graining is the tearing of the tyre tread
into tiny little rubber balls.
So the surface of the tyre shreds
and it doesn't discard the rubber on the surface of the tyre.
So you get tiny rubber balls on the surface of the tyre.
And as a result, that massively affects your grip.
The tyres don't perform in the way that they're intended.
It tends to generate understeer,
but it can clean up because the surface becomes a
almost a living thing, a movable thing.
And the rubber balls can get discarded.
So graining often happens in the cool temperatures
like we had in the Canadian Grand Prix.
It shreds the tyre surface,
creates little rubber balls on the surface.
The tyre then doesn't perform as it's meant to,
but then you can effectively go through that surface.
And then it can clean up
and then your tyres work perfectly again.
But it is something the drivers hate
and it is best avoided at all costs
because it does cost you performance.
And what we often then hear is the term marbles,
because then what happens is those little balls of rubber
that Alex mentions get discarded by the tyre,
thrown off to the side of the track away from the racing line.
You can sometimes see it on the television coverage.
You can certainly see it when you're in the grandstands.
You can see off the racing line,
all these little discarded bits of round rubber.
And if the drivers run wide, of course,
that affects their grip.
Rather than getting the sticky hot track,
they're getting these messy discarded balls of rubber.
And that's why you'll often hear commentators
like Mr. Jake say getting out on the marbles.
Lovely stuff.
Lyndon, thank you very much for your question.
We're going to Rhode Island now in East Greenwich to Jonah.
Jonah says,
what's unique about the rear wing
that makes it impossible to be replaced during a race?
We've said this on F1 explains a lot, actually.
This is a really good point,
that if you break your front wing in a race,
you can have that change.
You're going to lose some time,
but it's not race ending.
Whereas if a rear wing goes 99.9% of the time,
your race is done.
Jonah asks,
does the angle of the wing create more downforce
that requires a more rigid or permanent attachment to the chassis?
Or is the thinking that if the rear wing is damaged enough
to warrant replacing,
then the gearbox is also damaged?
He then says in brackets,
I've no idea where the gearbox is.
I'm an F1 car, by the way.
But F1 commentators often say he's right on his gearbox,
which makes me think it's at the rear of the car.
Jonah's doing some good speculating there, Alex.
But yeah, why does a rear wing breaking
mean probably the end of a race,
because it can't be replaced?
Yeah, first of all,
gearbox is at the back of the car.
It's out the back.
It's attached to the rear of the car.
The rear wing is because the amount of load it is taking
aerodynamically means exactly as you've guessed, Jonah,
that it has to be far firmer than just a couple of bolts
that we can unfix at the front of a F1 car for the front wing,
because it is simply taking so much load,
and it is so important and mandated by the regulations
that it is firmly in place,
because obviously if you lose the rear wing
through a high speed corner,
it's very dangerous for the driver.
And while safety standards are lofty and brilliant
and very, very strong in 2026,
it wasn't always the case.
So you would get designers try and fix the rear wing
in the past as lightly as possible.
If you lost a rear wing in the 70s,
you were at risk of having a fake lax stem.
So how the rear wing is attached
and the strength of attachment
is absolutely mandated in the safety regulations.
And it means that if you damage it, it is game over,
because it's no easy fix,
just purely because of that attachment,
just down to the amount of performance
that it generates at the back of the car.
Yeah, we very rarely do see people able to damage the rear wing,
but carry on.
There might be a little bit of a rear wing piece of carbon fiber
that has broken away,
but actually its structural integrity is fine,
so the drivers can carry on with the race.
But also in that situation,
what you often see is drivers behind saying,
this person in front of me has got a flailing little bit
of rear wing, that needs to be fixed.
And a lesser spotted flag in Formula One,
welcome to Neesh Flags on F1 Explains,
is the black flag with an orange disc,
which means it's a great flag, isn't it?
One of the great flags.
One of the great lesser...
Sorry, I just dawned on me how sad we are.
One of the great lesser spotted flags,
by Motorsport Geeks, for Motorsport Geeks.
It's like we got an email in the other week, Alex,
I can't remember the listener's name,
I really would like to apologize,
who emailed us just to say,
I never thought I'd find myself as a 40-odd year old mother of two,
listening to a whole episode about tyres,
but I really enjoyed it.
Yeah, the black flag with an orange disc,
if that's shown to you,
that means your car is dangerously damaged,
you need to come into the pits for further assessment,
so you'll sometimes get that.
But yeah, rear wing, if it's completely broken,
your race is over.
Good question, there, Jonah.
We've never actually explained why,
so really good question.
By the way, F1explains.f1.com,
do pick us up on things.
If there's anything that you think
we've not explained well enough,
we take constructive criticism very well.
Producer Chris doesn't, he gets quite angry.
But you know, the rest of us...
He's notably angry, Chris.
I'm an angry man, man.
But you know, anything we've not explained well enough,
don't hesitate to email us.
And finally, this week,
final question from Dean in Australia,
who's one of my favourite listeners of the week,
simply because he started his email with,
HiF1explainsLegends.
I like that.
Look, thanks, Dean.
What a man.
HiF1...
He's doing like Producer Chris again, isn't he?
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
HiF1explainsLegends,
will you hear about the teams doing upgrades to their cars?
Is there a maximum amount of upgrades
they can perform in a season?
Is there a certain time of the year,
for example, race four,
that they need to be completed by?
Can they upgrade any part of the car
or is some parts off limits?
Again, a very good question from Dean.
Yes, so the chassis, you can do what you want.
You can do as much as little as you like
when it comes to upgrading the chassis.
Some parts off limits,
a part that's off limits
and you have to wait for permission to change,
would be the power unit, for example.
And that has been much discussed in 2026.
You can upgrade that with permission of the FIA,
but they have a very, very complex formula
of who's allowed to upgrade their engines
and who has to freeze their engines at that stage.
But in terms of the bits on the car,
we'll always talk about the front wing
and the rear wing and the barge boards
and the turning vanes of the floor.
All of that can be updated throughout.
You've got to do it in a cost cap era, though.
So it's gone on the days where you can just try any part,
throw money at the problem, you've got to be inventive,
and you've got to make sure that every dollar that you spend
on an update works for performance on the car.
In the past, you could bring an update,
it would fail, you could effectively do a B-spec car.
You can't do that anymore.
And it takes a long time if you go down the wrong direction.
So you can update it as much or as little as you like
but you must comply with the cost cap.
And that is the defining factor
of how much you can update a car in the modern era.
Beautifully explained, Alex.
Jake, this is why we book you for F1 Explains.
You've explained beautifully throughout
and you can hear Alex's commentary on F1 TV
in selected countries around the world,
on Apple TV in the US, and on the F1 YouTube channel.
You'll also hear him sometimes
on our sister podcast F1 Nation.
But not yet, alas, on Beyond the Grids,
the podcast Triple Crown still eludes him.
And I live for one.
Do you want me to collapse and can't afford me
for Beyond the Grids? No, that must be it.
One more thing before we go.
We'd love to know what you think of all three
of our official F1 podcasts.
Of course, F1 Beyond the Grid, F1 Nation, and F1 Explains.
You can tell us in a survey we're running at the moment.
Go to f1fanvoice.com, look for where it says F1 Podcasts,
and answer a few questions.
And as a thank you, you'll be entered into a draw
to win a Charles LeClaire poster.
Pretty good.
Pretty good, yeah.
It's a generous offer, isn't it?
I think that if you write nice things about F1 Explains,
you should be featured if you send a voice note in.
So I agree.
Be people listening, go and write nice things about F1 Explains.
Thank you, thank you, Alex.
I appreciate that.
So yes, go to f1fanvoice.com to do the survey,
and find the all-important terms and conditions,
and you wouldn't want to miss those.
Alex, thank you.
This has been a pleasure.
As ever, thank you for having me.
Do check out, of course, F1 TV's coverage
of the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend.
I'm very much looking forward to that.
Keep your questions coming to f1explains at f1.com.
We've got new episodes every Friday.
Thanks for listening.
Enjoy Monaco.
Speak to you next week.
Bye for now.
About this episode
Alex Jacques joins F1 Nation to unpack Monaco’s “mastery” from formation laps to pole-position details. They explain why formation laps exist—especially for getting tyres and brakes into the right operating temperatures—and how extra laps at Monaco force teams to adjust fuel and race distance. The conversation then turns to “more power” requests, energy deployment, and steering-wheel learning. Monaco’s tight, unforgiving layout is contrasted with grid-grip quirks, tyre graining, and why pole placement can be decisive.
Why do F1 cars need a pre-race warm-up? How do drivers master the streets of Monaco? Why does pole position swap sides at different circuits?
These are just some of the questions we're answering in our latest quickfire special. Christian Hewgill is joined by Alex Jacques - F1TV commentator and lover of Canadian cuisine.
Also answered: what do F1 drivers mean when they ask their team for 'more power'? What happens when tyres start 'graining'? Why is damaging a rear wing a race-ending incident?
