The legendary System 1 is studying from one in every of its long-time imitators. A characteristic that has been an integral a part of video video games for many years has just lately been launched.
Each gamer is aware of so-called ghost vehicles – whether or not from Mario Kart, Gran Turismo, Forza, or Assetto Corsa. These clear rivals within the pursuit of one of the best instances are omnipresent in racing video games.
In System 1 video games, too, they function racing benchmarks in quick qualifying rounds. For the reason that 2025 season, the actual racing collection has been utilizing this software to visually seize the tiny gaps of typically solely fractions of a second on the display screen.
After many years, the prospect to essentially perceive the tiny variations that set the highest drivers aside is inside attain for the primary time.
Ghosts deliver the clock to life
Even in its 76th 12 months, System 1 qualifying nonetheless represents the pursuit of absolutely the restrict. Solely right here will we see the utmost symbiosis of man and machine. With solely the clock as their opponent, every of the present 20 (22 from subsequent 12 months) drivers makes an attempt to set the quickest lap of the weekend.
However what do variations of 0.30 seconds (three tenths of a second), 0.02 seconds (two hundredths of a second) and even 0.001 seconds (one thousandth/millisecond) truly imply?
It seems to be clear in a desk, however what would it not seem like on the monitor if each drivers began on the similar time with out hindering one another?
How lengthy are…?
0.30 seconds is roughly how lengthy it takes a chameleon to totally lengthen its tongue.0.02 seconds is roughly equal to the beat of a hummingbird’s wings. No different species flutters quicker, at round 50 to 80 instances per second.0.001 seconds is 300 instances quicker than the common human blink (0.3 seconds).Typical gaps between the quickest laps in a System 1 area are often effectively under 0.5 seconds. After all, this additionally is determined by the monitor, however a full second has at all times been thought of an (obvious) eternity in System 1.
Precisely, to assist with this, the “ghost automobile” software was launched to System 1 broadcasts at first of the 2025 season. It’s designed to show intuitively incomprehensible numerical variations into tangible tales that assist form the race weekends.
It really works precisely as avid gamers understand it from video games: Parallel to the automobile truly being tracked by the onboard digital camera, one other automobile drives alongside it on the monitor. Relying on the hole, the automobiles race nearer collectively and even actually merge into one another across the circuit in Melbourne, Abu Dhabi, Spa-Francorchamps, or wherever else on the earth.
If the lead automobile is forward, the ghost naturally stays invisible, however due to the shut competitors on the high of the sphere, a cat-and-mouse sport often ensues.
On the straights, the primary automobile is actually proper on the tail of the ghost automobile, solely to then take the nook higher and pull forward. Nevertheless, the benefit shortly reverses, because the clear competitor accelerates barely earlier and visually pulls away by a number of meters on the perfect line – that is how spectators expertise ghost vehicles.
Ghost Automotive reveals how insanely shut the battle for pole was 🤯🍿#F1 #DutchGP @McLarenF1 pic.twitter.com/GGOmMZC8bF
— System 1 (@F1) August 30, 2025
The positions at all times correspond to the road adopted on the precise lap across the monitor. The sources of data are GPS information and the onboard digital camera(s) connected to the automobiles. The perfect recognized of those is actually the everyday perspective over the helmet, trying barely down towards the nostril of the automobile.
Regardless of flood of information, guide work
With exact GPS and timing information, two vehicles may be superimposed within the replay, as Dean Locke, F1’s Head of Broadcast, explains in an interview with Motorsport.com:
We take the GPS information and overlay it on the video footage, tag it, after which examine it with the onboard footage. That is largely guide work accomplished by excellent editors who’re quick and pay shut consideration.
Though this sounds easy, there are a number of pitfalls which have prevented the thought from being carried out prior to now. For one factor, the information was too inaccurate for a very long time, and the processing took far too lengthy for it to be of any use to System 1 tv stations or social media groups.
In any case, a number of days after qualifying, nobody feels the necessity to watch such a particular replay of a lap.
The hurdle was overcome due to new software program developed particularly for System 1, and now it takes a most of two hours from the tip of the quick laps. “A few of our broadcast companions say that’s tremendous as a result of they will use it of their pre-shows the following day,” Locke reveals, giving an perception into the considering behind the scenes. “However I’d prefer to have it quicker. Our purpose is half-hour after the tip of the session.”
The rationale for this ongoing strategy of comparability remains to be variance. As a result of:
We’re very assured in regards to the GPS positioning of the automobile entrance to again, however our left-right positioning is much less dependable.
Moreover, the digital camera angles should not an identical from automobile to automobile: “There’s a tolerance of 5 p.c for horizontal and vertical picture variations within the onboard cameras. That sounds small, however it makes an enormous distinction whenever you examine information.”
That’s why each single meter of the lap nonetheless must be recorded manually so as to synchronize the GPS and digital camera photographs by way of time and site. This enables the deviations within the GPS coordinates to be compensated for all the way down to the centimeter.
Nevertheless, based on Dean Locke, the information groups on the Grand Prix are consistently engaged on enhancements, for instance, to wash up indicators from interference and thus present the employees chargeable for the ghost automobile with even greater information high quality as quickly as doable.
As well as, System 1 officers may additionally take a look at AI within the close to future to automate at the very least a part of the method and thus scale back the ready time between the end line and the printed of the ghost lap.
Only a borrowing from video video games
In the meantime, the ghost automobile is certainly not the one reminder of video video games. Concepts from gaming now additionally play a decisive function in how viewers on TV or on-line comply with the person classes, from observe and qualifying to the race.For a while now, System 1 broadcasters have been displaying a game-like HUD in the course of the viewers’ visual field, extra exactly on the halo safety ring, which kinds a sort of dome over the driving force’s cockpit. This shows far more data than simply the pace. It additionally exhibits positions, throttle/brake, DRS standing, and RPM, for instance.
The distinction between the visible presentation and the official sport (F1 2025 from Codemasters), which is reissued yearly, is turning into more and more blurred. What would as soon as have been thought of absurd is now the usual. It’s because viewers merely anticipate extra data and extra storytelling than they did within the heyday of Michael Schumacher.
Subsequent chapter 2026 – the System 1 of tomorrow
In the meantime, the following main technological revolution in System 1 is scheduled for 2026. When the season begins in March subsequent 12 months, utterly new vehicles might be racing across the tracks – recognizable, in fact, however with numerous new options each in and out.
For instance, within the engine, entrance and rear wings, and the automobile’s electronics. This may give drivers entry to a time-limited increase mode. Showcasing this successfully would be the subsequent problem for the minds behind the trendy photographs.
These modifications create new challenges, however additionally they open up recent alternatives to play with digital shows. Additional motivated by Apple’s F1 movie, which was a success in cinemas this 12 months, the course is evident:
We’re already sitting in workshops to search out out what information we may have and what tales we are able to inform from it.With higher connectivity within the automobile, we are able to present greater than we’re in a position to in the present day.The goal in the present day is to attraction to each die-hard followers from previous many years and a youthful, broader viewers. This begins with the Halo HUD and now ends with the ghost automobile for qualifying rounds – at the very least to this point.
A ghost automobile works for everybody. Die-hard followers can see who was barely off the perfect line, whereas informal followers can perceive why the McLarens aren’t on pole this time.
