Of all sites which is dedicated to motor sports, this official site of Formula One is really a classic reflection of the sports, high on technology as much as the cars they race there on the tracks.
Right from the home page to the minute details in the technology section, from the interactive tracks to the entire gallery, it is a navigator’s delight. It has a cool, though not so racy, color scheme of white and grey and red splattered here and there.
The news section is a neat presentation with a topical picture to complement the story. And the photo gallery is a great feature with additional zoom in to see the larger picture. The best is the statistics and it boasts of almost 55 years in history. An archive well maintained right from the first Grand Prix to the last one. The yearly calendar in the front page gives a great deal of information with the designer having played up with the circuit design as the rollovers.
The interactive section on the site about the tracks is one of the salient features which actually gives a first hand information on the track for a novice and the learned in a lucid presentation of the track features with the scenes taken from different cars and fitted in the most appealing way at that specific corner. It also gives details of the speed attained and the speed at which cars could rev up or down the track.
The results like I mentioned earlier has a lot of archiving and you could cross over to any specific information out there on the lines of driver, team, track or the season. It has a bid database and you could surf on all the details. Really amazing that they have such a neat and explained database as that.
Another section is the technical analysis which throws light on minute and detailed design cum mechanical improvements on the cars of all the teams which present changes on the grid for a race.
This helps the reader understand the basics and the implication of such design changes on the performance of the car.
Click on to the Insights section you will find a treasure of information on the sport and all those involved in that. There is a sub section on drivers and teams, then one on Understanding the sport which again is a mine of information for geeks and also for techies from Mechanical background. Then there is glossary and etal. It has a clear and pretty non technical presentation of the technical facts of racing.
The there is Rules and regulations, quite a bit of real technical and non technical issues but presented to the effect of making it known and then understand the sports much easier.
The best part of the website is its live timing feature which is pretty graphic in nature with the times changing as the cars change the position and it getting updated by the millionth of a seconds. Absolutely a great interactive stuff and a case in point of using technology to the max.
It has a set of very distinctive features almost enabling the surfer to know the best of a driver’s performance. On the Practice days that is on Fridays and Saturdays there are no commentary but there is live commentary which is as close to television watching except that you cant see the cars being there on screen.
So just sit back and enjoy in case you have no access to TV images of the same. All in all, a great site for a great sport. That’s formula1.com for you.