F1 has only grown in popularity over the years, and as someone who has been a fan of the sport for a bit, it’s been an absolute blast. But no fandom comes without its faults, especially one this huge, where conversations and opinions exist primarily online.
So here’s a look at the highs and lows of being an F1 fan over the past 2.5 years.
Image credit: Reddit
Before I carry on, I thought it’d be best to explain some of the F1 jargon that’ll be dropped along the way. Here’s a quick breakdown of what they all mean:
| Term | Meaning |
| Hard tyre | Sturdiest tyre compound that lasts the most laps, but is the slowest of the 3. |
| Medium tyre | Somewhere in between the hard and soft tyre compounds. |
| Soft tyre | Fastest tyre compound, but wears down the quickest. |
| Drag Reduction System (DRS) | The flap in the car’s Rear Wing that opens to reduce drag. Happens when a driver is less than 1 second behind another driver to help with overtaking. |
| World Drivers’ Championship (WDC) | The big prize awarded to the driver with the most points at the end of the season. Only 35 drivers have received this honour in the sport’s 75-year run. |
| World Constructor’s Championship (WCC) | Prize given to the fastest team, after adding the points achieved by the 2 drivers. |
| Drive to Survive (DTS) | Netflix documentary series that unveils behind-the-scenes events from the racing seasons that began in 2019. |
| Chequered Flag | The flag that is waved at the end of racing sessions to indicate that the session is over. |
Now that we’ve got the jargon and what it actually means out of the way, let me set the scene and explain how I even became an F1 fan in the first place.
Back in 2019, my brother-in-law tried to get me to watch F1, but I refused, saying that it was boring to watch “cars go around in circles.” All I really knew about the sport was Lewis Hamilton, like most people, so I didn’t think much of it.
Fast forward to 2023, TikTok started serving me edits of Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris on my For You Page. The edits were mostly collages of the guys looking good in their racing suits, but I got curious and started Googling to learn more about who these guys were. That’s when I discovered that Lando hadn’t won a race yet, despite being in the sport for 5 years by that point, and I found myself rooting for the underdog.
FOMO slowly crept up on me, and I got sucked into all the race weekend chatter, so I started watching the races live.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Like any fan space on the internet nowadays, you can’t get away from online drama. I’ve found my spaces in the online community, but some corners of this fandom have been quite challenging to navigate.
Remember how I mentioned that Lando hadn’t won a race? Well, that fact led him to receive a ton of online hate, including the nickname “Lando Nowins”. Every time Lando didn’t have a good weekend, the comments would flood with this nickname, along with claims that he didn’t have the mental fortitude to be a race winner. And when he did start winning races, apparently, he was just “lucky.”
2025 was when it got absolutely maddening as he and McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri were essentially head-to-head fighting for the World Drivers’ Championship (WDC). Fans from both sides were at each other’s throats the entire year, right up until that final race. Winning the WDC in 2025 didn’t stop the Lando hate train either. Many comments continuously reiterated how he was “gifted” race wins, that Oscar or Max Verstappen were more deserving of it, and that McLaren was playing favourites.
Some of that bullying had bled onto the fans, with many of us getting judged left and right for being a fan of his simply because they didn’t believe he met the standard of what a good racer or World Champion should be.
Lando filming a video for World Mental Health Day in 2024.
Image credit: McLaren via YouTube
As a fan of Lando, I know he’s not Max or Lewis. They are generational talents on a whole other level, and you can’t really compare them to someone like Lando, who, like most drivers, took much longer to find his footing in the sport.
But I like Lando for reasons of my own, mainly his openness about his mental health struggles, his loyalty to his team, and his appreciation towards his fans. So, I’ve held on to these ideas to help myself leave the negativity behind and enjoy watching my favourite driver succeed.
The older fans I know IRL were really excited to know I was starting to watch the sport, but that has not been the case online. Ever since the release of Drive to Survive (DTS) on Netflix in 2019, there has been an increase in fans who discovered the sport through the documentary.
And not all veteran fans have been thrilled about it. Some get quite passive-aggressive and constantly want new fans to prove themselves as “real” F1 fans. If they aren’t able to meet this standard, then they’re just a “DTS fan”.
To preface, not all of the veteran F1 fans do this. A handful of them are quite open to teaching new fans about the sport and are very encouraging. But with the nature of the internet, many of these commenters are ruthless and target these newer fans behind a screen, so many of us have had to wade through a lot of negativity to find spaces in the online fandom for ourselves.
Female fans also get a similarly bad rep, as we’re often accused of only liking drivers for their looks. As a fan who also happens to be a girl, it’s really more than that. It takes time to keep up with races week after week, learn significant events from past eras, and understand the different on-track rules that affect the outcome of the races.
Sure, the thirsty TikTok edits might be the introduction, but you’ll definitely have to like more than just the hot drivers to put up with watching 1.5 to 2-hour races for 24 weekends of the year. And some of these races start as early as 4am, too. I think female fans deserve more credit than they’ve been given by the F1 fan community.
With 2 drivers in the same team, tensions are bound to happen. While the World Constructor’s Championship (WCC) is a team effort, there is only 1 WDC, and every team has different methods for handling such situations. Sometimes, they employ team orders. When a team senses that the drivers are about to race each other for position, for example, if there’s a driver in 2nd place and his teammate is in 3rd, teams get to decide if the driver in 3rd place is allowed to fight for position.
These races are highly risky for teams, as any collisions could put 1 or both drivers out of the race. More often than not, teams would tell the drivers to “hold position,” which means that the driver in 3rd is not allowed to overtake the driver in 2nd. Whether the drivers abide by these instructions is up to them, but most would.
Image credit: F1
But sometimes teams let the 2 teammates battle it out on track, and that’s when it gets interesting. You get to see them scrap with that tiny voice in the back of your head going, “They could collide at any point.” Teammate battles are some of the most exciting kinds of on-track action. Take the Ferrari battle in Monza, Italy, in 2023. For context, Italy is the home of Ferrari fans, AKA the tifosi, and the Italian Grand Prix is where they show up in full force. So the 2 Ferrari drivers are always under a lot of pressure to deliver for their home crowd.
During the Italian Grand Prix in 2023, then Ferrari teammates Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc were neck-and-neck for a majority of the race. Red Bull drivers Max and Sergio Perez were already ahead in 1st and 2nd place, leaving 1 final podium spot for the Ferrari drivers to fight for. They overtook each other, were side-by-side, and had multiple near collisions. They battled all the way to the chequered flag and ended the race with an insane gap of only 0.1 seconds, with Carlos gaining the upper hand and finishing the race 3rd.
The one-on-one battles are always the most nail-biting part of watching these races live – there are so few of them nowadays, so it’s an absolute gem when you get to witness these full-on battles as they happen.
Image credit: ‘Arifah Malik
F1 isn’t just about what happens on track – the merch game is dangerously strong too. Beyond the usual caps and team kits, they’ve also collaborated with LEGO. Yes – F1 has a few official LEGO sets that are up for grabs, including a Speed Champions set for every team that was in the 2024 F1 roster. They even have an adorable baby Duplo set. Let’s just say my LEGO collection has only grown ever since.
I also got my hands on the classic cap and team kit. Seeing people wearing F1 merch out in the wild always tickles me, but it’s especially thrilling when the race finally comes to Singapore near the end of the year.
As a September baby, I was always curious why F1 was always happening during my birthday. Now that I’m a fan, it’s been an absolute blast.
My terrible attempt at the F1 simulator in 2023.
Image credit: ‘Arifah Malik
In 2023, my birthday weekend coincided with the Singapore Grand Prix, so my friends and I enjoyed a lot of F1-related activities. We went around checking out the different F1 pop-ups, got some vintage merch, and tried the F1 racing simulator – which I evidently was terrible at. I’ll happily stay in my lane as a spectator and not a racer.
I still remember the excitement of hearing the cars up close as we walked out of the Promenade MRT station. It was insane. We decided to scout around, looking for a spot to catch the race, and ended up on a spiral staircase outside Marina Square. It overlooked a tiny portion of the track, but that was enough for us as diehard F1 fans. That race ended up being a historical one.
Image credit: F1
If you’re a fan of Carlos Sainz or Lando Norris, you’ll understand how absolutely bonkers that race was. Carlos, then in Ferrari, had pulled a master strategy to keep George and Lewis’ Mercedes cars – both with fresh Medium tyres – from catching up to him and Lando, who were 1st and 2nd place respectively. He did so by slowing down to keep Lando within his Drag Reduction System (DRS) range, which allowed Lando to defend both of their positions from the incoming Mercs.
Carlos had called that strategy on his own, securing a win for himself and 2nd place for Lando, his close friend and former McLaren teammate. This win was also coming out of a relentless Red Bull streak, where Max had broken the record for winning 10 consecutive races, and no non-Red Bull driver had won a race that entire season.
Singapore Grand Prix 2023 was the first race I watched in person, and I got to see all of this play out in real time. My best friend Alisya, who is a Carlos fan, and I were absolutely buzzing for hours after that night. To this day, she believes that I brought on some birthday girl luck for that race and, although I’m not that superstitious, I’ve accepted it as a sign of fate.
Image adapted from: Alisya Mohamed
Alisya has been my companion to the Singapore Grand Prix every year since. I’m kind of sad that the dates have been pushed to October, so no more birthday luck to spend, but the race weekend hype continues to be a must-see for us every year.
You start hearing about it from both F1 fans and non-F1 fans alike, whether they’re complaining about the road closures or just curious whether anyone they know would be heading down to see it in person. It’s always fun to see the streets of Singapore come alive when F1 is in town.
Despite all the toxicity that I had to endure as an F1 fan, it was all worth it when I finally got to see Lando Norris cross the finish line as a World Champion in 2025. It’s been a wild ride to witness how far he’s come from when I started watching F1 in 2023. Since then, Lando has won his first Grand Prix, earned McLaren the WCC twice, and finally fulfilled his childhood dream to become the 2025 WDC.
I got truly emotional watching him tear up as he soaked the moment in. Seeing him prove everyone wrong, and by such a small margin at that, was absolutely satisfying to watch play out. I could finally wear my Lando merch with pride.
If my story has drawn you in, let me catch you up on what F1’s about, along with some new developments to look forward to from the 2026 season onwards.
Image credit: F1
An F1 weekend usually consists of Practice 1 and 2 on Friday, Practice 3 and Qualifying on Saturday, and ending with the main race on Sunday. Qualifying is broken down into 3 sessions, with 5 drivers being eliminated after the first 2, and ending off with the final 10 drivers battling it out for the 1st spot on the starting grid, AKA pole position.
On race day, only the first 10 drivers who finish the race are eligible for points. The top 3 finishers then get to celebrate together on the podium. Here’s a breakdown of the points allocation for an F1 race:
| Position | Points |
| 1 | 25 |
| 2 | 18 |
| 3 | 15 |
| 4 | 12 |
| 5 | 10 |
| 6 | 8 |
| 7 | 6 |
| 8 | 4 |
| 9 | 2 |
| 10 | 1 |
Additionally, there are also the Sprint weekends. The Sprint race is a newer race format that began in 2021 with fewer laps and no pit stops. During Sprint weekends, Sprint Qualifying and the Sprint race take over the Practice 2 slot on Friday and the Practice 3 slot on Saturday respectively.
The Singapore Grand Prix will be hosting a Sprint weekend for the first time in 2026 – a choice that has sparked some debate. It’s already brutally hot in the car even when the sun is down, so the thought of drivers going flat out earlier in the evening for a Sprint has fans side-eyeing the decision.
Here’s a breakdown of the points allocation for an F1 Sprint race:
| Position | Points |
| 1 | 8 |
| 2 | 7 |
| 3 | 6 |
| 4 | 5 |
| 5 | 4 |
| 6 | 3 |
| 7 | 2 |
| 8 | 1 |
Image credit: @cadillac via Instagram
From 2026 onwards, there’ll be 11 F1 teams competing for the WCC, with the Cadillac Formula 1 Team entering the sport. The current F1 team Kick Sauber will also be known as Audi moving forward.
With 1 more team comes 2 more drivers, bringing the total number of drivers competing for the WDC to 22, so we can look forward to more action on track. Here is a quick look at all the different teams to look out for in 2026 and their respective drivers:
| Team | Drivers | Driver Number |
| McLaren | Lando Norris Oscar Piastri | 1 81 |
| Mercedes | George Russell Kimi Antonelli | 63 12 |
| Red Bull | Max Verstappen Isack Hadjar | 3 6 |
| Ferrari | Charles Leclerc Lewis Hamilton | 16 44 |
| Williams | Alexander Albon Carlos Sainz | 23 55 |
| Aston Martin | Fernando Alonso Lance Stroll | 14 18 |
| VCARB | Liam Lawson Arvid Lindblad | 30 41 |
| Haas | Esteban Ocon Oliver Bearman | 31 87 |
| Audi | Nico Hulkenberg Gabriel Bortoleto | 27 5 |
| Alpine | Pierre Gasly Franco Colapinto | 10 43 |
| Cadillac | Valtteri Bottas Sergio Perez | 77 11 |
Let’s hope that there aren’t any driver changes that will drastically change this line-up. But having been an F1 fan this long, I’ve come to expect some driver changes in the mid-season. I’m looking at you, Red Bull.
Regulation changes usually mean that the upcoming season is any team’s game. All teams will have their own interpretation of the new rules, and we’ll only know which teams were successful come the 2026 season.
The main notable difference is that there would be no DRS system anymore, which is being replaced with an energy deployment system to assist in overtaking.
Despite the bad apples, being an F1 fan has been a great time. I’ve gotten to interact with fans from across the globe and create my own small community of F1 fans, both online and offline, to enjoy the sport with. Regardless of where life takes me, I see myself being an F1 fan for many years to come.
For more fandom perspectives:
Cover image adapted from: F1, Alisya Mohamed
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