F1 driving requires intense strategy, endurance, and strength

F1 drivers today are in peak physical shape

Formula 1 drivers today are in top physical condition, with reaction times on par with Olympic sprinters and strength programs specifically for their neck to withstand the immense g-forces experienced in racing.

What it feels like to crash an F1 car

Crashes are common in Formula 1, but due to improvements in safety measures like the HANS device and the Halo, driver deaths are far less common. But what does it feel like to crash? This video features the world's top drivers talking about specific crashes and their thought process as they head toward the wall at 150 mph.

F1 cars have evolved through the decades

Formula 1 has continued to evolve since its first race in 1950. Early cars featured front-mounted engines, narrow tires, and speeds of up to 180 mph. In 1958, rear-engine designs, like the Cooper T43, improved handling and balance. The 1960s brought lightweight materials and wings, which enhanced stability by generating downforce. Ground effect designs of the 1970s revolutionized grip and cornering but were banned in 1982 due to safety concerns. By the 1990s, hybrid turbo engines and energy recovery systems emerged, improving performance. Today’s F1 cars integrate advanced aerodynamics and hybrid technology, reaching speeds of over 220 mph.

F1 is a billion-dollar industry

...but that money doesn't come easily. Team principals have to constantly ensure money is coming in to fund their million-dollar cars every weekend. This CNBC video explores all the costs of running a team. It also shows how team principals woo sponsors and find ways to maximize their technology with a cost cap.

Why F1 cars don't have cockpits

F1 racing cars go over 200 mph, making fatal crashes inevitable throughout its history. Car models have changed many times to make them safer, but the sport has never adopted a closed cockpit, a perhaps obvious solution to protecting drivers from fast-flying debris. Instead, F1 cars have a halo-shaped top, which helps cool drivers, allow for quick escape, and more. Watch a breakdown here.

Over 120 cameras are used to film a single F1 race

Watching a Formula 1 race today is an immersive experience: Every car has onboard cameras; there are helicopter, drone, and lift shots; nearly every corner has a camera to document drivers jockeying for position; and over 120 cameras are used to film a single race.

Formula 1 cars are the world's fastest regulated road-course racing automobiles

F1 is the highest international level of open-wheel racing, where the wheels are not covered by the car’s body, differing significantly from NASCAR, which have covered wheels.

A Netflix docuseries turned the sport into a national obsession

Throughout much of its history, Formula 1 racing was a European sport that failed to ever find a major audience in the US. That changed with the “Drive to Survive,” the Netflix docuseries that premiered in 2019. This analysis from two communications professors unpacks how the series has successfully presented the sport for an American audience and cultivated a dedicated fanbase in the process.

F1 pit crews change tires in less than 3 seconds

Roughly 16 people cooperate in a highly coordinated sequence of events to swap tires mid-race without losing the driver any time. Watch a slowed-down explanation of each person's job in the crucial pit lane moment.

A list of every F1 team

This FIA interactive lists all 11 Formula 1 teams and is organized by team points during each season. Learn who the drivers are for each team and see what their car looks like. Click into the team and get a profile and history. Each driver has a profile page that includes biographical information and the latest news.

Self-driving formula cars race in the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League

The league and high-speed versions of traditional cars help to showcase the capabilities of driverless vehicles and the reliability of their AI systems. Leonardo da Vinci first imagined the idea for such machines in the 16th century.

Every Kentucky Derby-winning horse

Racing a thoroughbred isn't just about riding a horse as fast as you can. There is a complex racing strategy that forces jockeys to balance aggression and patience, conserving energy for that final stretch. This Kentucky Derby Winners article explores the split-second decisions jockeys make during high-pressure races, the moves they make to outsmart their opponents, and the importance of connecting with their horse.

Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost had one of the sport's most intense rivalries

The men were teammates at McLaren in the 1980s, but you wouldn’t know it watching them on the track. Senna dominated the sport from 1984 to 1994, but Prost, who retired in 1993, is considered the best in F1 history.

Hysterical strength allows someone to lift a car off their child

When the body responds to an acute crisis—say a family member trapped under a car—people can sometimes perform seemingly superhuman feats. This is more than an urban legend: In 2012, a 22 year-old-woman lifted a vehicle off her father, and seven years earlier another man lifted a vehicle off a trapped cyclist. Yet scientists are still unraveling details about why this can occur.

'The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.'

- Roger Bannister (1929-2018)

Why professional tennis players are so picky about balls before serving

Just as swimmers shave their bodies before competitions to swim faster, experiments show that tighter, less fluffy balls experience less drag forces when moving through the air and thus produce faster serves at the cost of less control. Players may select a fuzzier ball in scenarios that call for safer, more cautious play.

Endurance art strains and exhausts the body

Artists like Marina Abramović are known for testing the limits of human endurance. Endurance art can involve carrying heavy objects or posing uncomfortably for long durations. (This resource contains some artistic depictions of violence.)

The impact of gravitational force on our bodies surprised early coaster riders and engineers

There is only a certain amount of gravitational force that the body can handle before dealing with consequences like short-term vision loss or unconsciousness. Increased scientific understanding has largely reduced these impacts, with engineers combining periods of intense pressure with periods of relief.

The formula behind super agers—those possessing health and cognitive skills of people decades younger

A study of about 1,400 super agers did not identify any underlying genetic mechanism for longevity. While researchers instead emphasized that sustainable habits involving positive social connections, sleep, mood, diet, exercise, and personal fulfillment help reduce long-term risks, there is no one-size-fits-all formula for everyone.

The physics behind opera singing

How can opera singers project their voices to audiences in huge auditoriums without using microphones and overpowering the orchestra? This video explains this phenomenon, using animation to demonstrate the physics of the human voice and how opera singers hone their technique to hit higher frequencies and a distinctive ringing timbre known as their squillo.

Efforts to build touch-enabled machines highlight the complexity of human touch

The challenges that engineers are facing as they try to reproduce a human's ability to touch and also give robots the ability to interpret that kind of sensory flow are furthering our understanding of the myriad intricacies of human touch—and the challenges in emulating it.

Fantasy sports can have adverse health effects

Experts warn that fantasy sports, including fantasy football, can encourage obsessive use because they offer hits of dopamine. Daily fantasy games, which function more like gambling, are especially problematic.

How to win a negotiation

Chris Voss, former FBI hostage chief, explains how logic and argument rarely convince someone; instead, he claims emotional intelligence is the most important factor. Watch this brief video where the expert lays out the three most important skills...

A beginner’s guide to the brain

Small but powerful, the brain constitutes only about 2 percent of the human body. However, it runs jus about everything, day and night, all year round. Learn about the different parts of the human brain, as well as its unique defenses, like the blood brain barrier in this four-minute video.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

A look at how fish less than two inches long climb up 50-foot waterfalls

Shellears use tiny hooks on their front pectoral fins to grip rock like Velcro and take many pauses to recover energy between bursts of movement. Their pectoral girdle—an arch of bone—supports the muscle system needed for the roughly ten-hour climb.

How fusion—which releases energy when two lighter atoms combine to form a heavier atom—differs from fission

Hedge funds, the private investment firms that trade a wide swath of financial assets, make money by imposing steep fees on investors and from the fund's investment performance.

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Apeirophobia is an overwhelming fear of living forever, perhaps stemming from the brain's inability to conceptualize an infinite life.

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.

Watch the cumbersome, but necessary, precautions healthcare workers must take to care for and protect themselves while caring for Ebola patients.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Use this calculator to find the dollar value of your mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care for your children.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Hurricanes, which rely on air consistently spinning in the same direction, cannot cross the equator because air curves in opposite directions north and south of it.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.