LOADING GRID…
One lap, built up term by term: circuit, car, driver, fuel, tyre compound and age, engine mode and wing. Move a dial and watch the tenths move.
A lap time on a timing screen is one number. Underneath it is a sum, and this F1 lap time simulator shows every term of it. Start from the circuit's base lap. Add what the car and driver give away to the best package on the grid. Add the race trim — engine turned down, brakes and fuel being managed. Add the compound, the fuel still on board, the wear on the tyres, the wing level. What comes out is the lap this car would do on this lap of the race, and the gap to the lap it would do in Q3 with nothing on board and fresh softs.
It is the same lap model that runs every game on this site — the race sim, the season, the strategy tool — exposed one term at a time.
The same terms, measured for all 24 circuits with a mid-grid car on mediums. A full tank costs most where the lap is longest — 2.2 seconds at Spa and Baku, 1.4 at the Red Bull Ring — because fuel is a percentage of the lap, not a fixed number. The compound step and the wear column are scaled to how much tyres matter at the circuit, which is why twenty laps on a medium costs 2.6 seconds a lap at Bahrain and 0.4 at Monaco. The last column is how far a race lap sits behind a Q3 lap for the same car: fuel, race trim and the medium tyre, added up.
| R | Circuit | Base lap | Full tank | Soft → hard | 20-lap wear | Medium stint | Race vs Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Albert Park | 1:15.500 | +1.66 | +0.75 | +0.79 | 31 laps | +2.64 |
| 2 | Shanghai International | 1:31.000 | +2.00 | +1.14 | +1.77 | 25 laps | +3.19 |
| 3 | Suzuka | 1:28.000 | +1.94 | +1.24 | +1.95 | 24 laps | +3.08 |
| 4 | Bahrain International | 1:29.000 | +1.96 | +1.47 | +2.61 | 21 laps | +3.12 |
| 5 | Jeddah Corniche | 1:27.500 | +1.92 | +0.70 | +0.83 | 32 laps | +3.06 |
| 6 | Miami International | 1:26.500 | +1.90 | +1.04 | +1.46 | 26 laps | +3.03 |
| 7 | Gilles Villeneuve | 1:10.500 | +1.55 | +0.87 | +0.91 | 29 laps | +2.47 |
| 8 | Circuit de Monaco | 1:10.000 | +1.54 | +0.50 | +0.41 | 37 laps | +2.45 |
| 9 | Circuit de Barcelona | 1:10.500 | +1.55 | +1.34 | +1.77 | 23 laps | +2.47 |
| 10 | Red Bull Ring | 1:03.500 | +1.40 | +1.10 | +1.18 | 25 laps | +2.22 |
| 11 | Silverstone | 1:24.500 | +1.86 | +1.27 | +1.96 | 23 laps | +2.96 |
| 12 | Spa-Francorchamps | 1:42.000 | +2.24 | +1.17 | +2.07 | 25 laps | +3.57 |
| 13 | Hungaroring | 1:14.500 | +1.64 | +1.20 | +1.58 | 24 laps | +2.61 |
| 14 | Zandvoort | 1:09.000 | +1.52 | +1.07 | +1.22 | 26 laps | +2.42 |
| 15 | Monza | 1:19.000 | +1.74 | +0.74 | +0.80 | 31 laps | +2.77 |
| 16 | Madring | 1:22.000 | +1.80 | +0.97 | +1.25 | 27 laps | +2.87 |
| 17 | Baku City Circuit | 1:40.000 | +2.20 | +0.67 | +0.88 | 33 laps | +3.50 |
| 18 | Marina Bay | 1:29.500 | +1.97 | +1.14 | +1.74 | 25 laps | +3.13 |
| 19 | Circuit of the Americas | 1:32.000 | +2.02 | +1.24 | +2.04 | 24 laps | +3.22 |
| 20 | Hermanos Rodriguez | 1:16.000 | +1.67 | +0.84 | +0.93 | 29 laps | +2.66 |
| 21 | Interlagos | 1:09.000 | +1.52 | +1.20 | +1.47 | 24 laps | +2.42 |
| 22 | Las Vegas Strip | 1:32.000 | +2.02 | +0.60 | +0.70 | 34 laps | +3.22 |
| 23 | Lusail International | 1:22.500 | +1.81 | +1.54 | +2.60 | 21 laps | +2.89 |
| 24 | Yas Marina | 1:23.500 | +1.84 | +0.90 | +1.14 | 28 laps | +2.92 |
It adds terms to the circuit's base lap: the car-and-driver deficit to the fastest package (scaled to the lap length, so Spa spreads the field more than Austria), a race-trim tax, the engine mode, the compound's pace offset scaled to how much tyres matter at the circuit, the fuel load, the tyre wear including a steep drop-off below the cliff, and the setup edge or penalty. Each term is listed so you can see which one is costing you.
Fuel, tyres and trim. A qualifying lap runs with an empty tank, a fresh soft tyre and the engine turned up. A race lap carries fuel worth up to two seconds at the start, a tyre that loses time with every lap, and an engine being managed. Real fastest laps sit one and a half to three seconds off pole, and so do these.
In this model a full tank costs about 2.2% of the lap — roughly 1.7 seconds at Monza — and it burns off linearly, so a car is a little quicker every lap for the same tyre.
Below about 15% remaining life the loss stops being gradual. Each further lap costs more than the last, which is why a stint that runs two laps too long can cost five seconds rather than one.
On a fresh set, between half a second at Monaco and a second and a half at Lusail and Bahrain: the compound offset is scaled to how much tyres matter at each circuit. The soft gives that time back as wear within a dozen laps at a high-degradation circuit, which is the whole trade.
Two things move it in opposite directions. Fuel burning off makes the car quicker by a few hundredths every lap; tyre wear makes it slower, gently at first and steeply past the cliff. Early in a stint fuel wins and the laps get faster; late in the stint wear wins, which is the point at which a pit wall starts talking about the undercut.
No. The circuits, base laps and car and driver ratings are our own model, calibrated so that qualifying spreads the field by roughly 1.5 to 3 seconds and the strategy split matches the real calendar. It is for understanding a lap, not for reproducing one.