TALK LIKE THE PIT WALL
Every number in this game is measured from the race's own timing data, and every mode plays by the same rule: everything else stays exactly as it happened — only your calls change. Here is the vocabulary the pit wall argues in.
box
The radio call to pit this lap — “box, box.”
From the German 'Boxenstopp'. When you hear it doubled, the team means NOW: the driver commits to pit entry at the end of this lap.
the cliff
Past a tyre's useful life the loss stops being gradual — pace falls off all at once.
In Strategist mode the sim adds the cliff beyond the longest stint anyone really ran that day: stretch past what the data can back and the lap times let go. The briefing's “longest that day” column is the frontier.
compound
The tyre spec: soft is fast but fades, hard lives long but starts slower, medium splits the difference.
Three dry compounds come to each race. The colours on every chart here match the real sidewall markings — red soft, yellow medium, white hard.
covering
Answering a rival's stop with your own, so their fresh tyres can't jump you.
In Strategist mode rivals do this to you: threaten an undercut inside ~4s and the car ahead pulls its stop forward. Track position defended, but on their schedule, not the ideal lap.
crossover
The lap where fresh rubber on one compound starts beating worn rubber on another.
Every undercut and overcut is a bet on where the crossover sits. Before it, the old tyre holds on; after it, the fresh one pays back its pit loss lap after lap.
degradation (deg)
Pace lost per lap of tyre age — the slope your stint slides down.
Measured here from the race's own timing data: each driver-stint is fitted separately, so the number is this track on this day, not a brochure figure. Deg is why a 20-lap-old soft loses to a 5-lap-old hard.
delta
A gap or lap-time difference, in seconds — the pit wall's favourite unit.
“Plus one point two” is a rival's gap; a target delta is a lap time to hold. Under SC and VSC every driver must run to a positive delta — slower than the reference lap — which is what freezes the field and makes the stop cheap.
dirty air
Following closely costs pace — the car ahead's wake robs your front end.
The sim charges a following penalty inside ~1.2s. It's why the undercut exists: better to stop, run in clear air, and jump the queue than to sit in the wake.
double stack
Both of a team's cars pitting on the same lap, served one behind the other.
A safety-car special: the stop is cheap for both, but the second car queues in the box and loses a couple of seconds. Worth it when the alternative is a full-price stop a lap later.
downforce
Aerodynamic grip: the wings and floor press the car into the road, so it corners faster.
The trade is drag — more wing means quicker corners but slower straights. It's also where dirty air comes from: the wake that makes the car behind slide is the price of the leader's grip.
DRS
Drag Reduction System — the rear wing flap opens on the straights when you're within a second of the car ahead.
Less wing, less drag, more top speed: DRS is what turns 'close behind' into a pass. It shapes strategy too — where DRS is strong, track position is worth less, because fresh tyres can actually get the move done.
ERS
Energy Recovery System — the battery half of the power unit, harvested under braking and deployed for extra power.
Roughly 160 extra horsepower, but only for so many seconds a lap. Drivers spend it attacking or defending; when it runs out mid-straight the car 'clips' and the speed trace visibly sags.
fuel effect
The car gets quicker as fuel burns off — a few hundredths per lap.
Roughly 0.03s/lap here, measured per race. It hides tyre deg on the stopwatch, which is why the sim fuel-corrects before fitting deg curves.
in-lap
The lap that ends in the pit lane — where the overcut is won.
Worn tyres, but clear air if you've timed it right. A strong in-lap before the stop is the overcut's whole trick; a slow one hands the place to whoever stopped first.
one-stop / two-stop
The shape of a strategy: how many pit stops, and so how many stints.
Fewer stops means less time in the lane but longer, slower stints; more stops buys pace and costs pit loss. Deg decides — low-deg days reward the one-stop, high-deg days pay for the extra visit.
out-lap
The first lap out of the pits, on fresh but cold tyres — where the undercut is won.
Fresh rubber takes most of a lap to come up to temperature, so the out-lap is quick but not free. The undercut lands when your out-lap on new tyres still beats your rival's lap on worn ones.
overcut
Stay out LONGER than your rival: clear-air pace before your stop wins the swap.
The counter-intuitive one. It works when tyres hold on and your rival exits into traffic — your in-laps in clear air beat their out-laps in dirty air.
pit loss
Total time a stop costs versus staying out — pit lane transit plus the stationary seconds.
Measured per circuit (about 20s at most tracks, more where the lane is long). Under a safety car it roughly halves, because the field is crawling while you're in the lane — which is why the pit wall lights up the moment the SC board comes out.
pit window
The span of laps where a stop actually works.
Open too early and you run out of tyre at the end; too late and the undercut has already happened to you. The briefing's real stint ranges show where the field found the window that day.
power unit (PU)
The hybrid engine: a V6 turbo plus electrical recovery — six components, all limited per season.
Exceed the season's allocation and the penalty is grid places, which is why you'll see a team take a fresh PU at a track where they expect to overtake. On Sunday it sets the straight-line speed the strategy has to work with.
push lap
A lap at maximum attack — usually just before the in-lap, to make the undercut stick.
Strategy laps aren't all equal: the laps either side of a stop decide the swap. “Push now, box this lap” is the wall spending the tyre's last life where it counts.
the replay rule
Everything else stays exactly as it happened — same rivals, same safety cars, same luck. Only your calls change.
The game's honesty rule. Your car runs a model calibrated on the race's own timing data; the other cars replay reality (in Strategist mode they also react to you). An unchanged strategy reproduces the real result exactly — so any difference you see, you caused.
safety car (SC / VSC)
The field slows and bunches; gaps evaporate, and a pit stop costs about half.
The great equaliser. Cheap stops, closed gaps, frozen order — a well-timed SC stop wins races and a mistimed one ruins them. The virtual SC (VSC) slows everyone in place without bunching the pack.
stint
The laps run on one set of tyres, between stops.
A strategy is just stints: which compound, and for how many laps. Two stints = one stop.
track position
Being ahead on the road — worth defending even on worse tyres.
Overtaking costs time and risk, so a slower car ahead is a wall. Half of strategy is deciding when track position beats tyre advantage; safety cars can hand it to you or take it away.
traffic
Slower cars you exit into after a stop — each one costs time to clear.
The pit window's hidden wall: a perfect stop that drops you behind a battling midfield can cost more than fresh tyres give back. It's half of why the overcut works, and why the wall checks the exit gap before calling the box.
tyre pool
The fresh sets provably in the garage on Sunday — each stint in your plan costs one.
Counted from the weekend's public data: sets the driver really raced, plus factory-fresh sets not yet consumed in practice or quali. Used sets a team MIGHT have kept aren't credited — the sim prices every stint as new rubber, so your plan only gets sets it can prove.
undercut
Stop BEFORE your rival: fresh-tyre pace on your out-lap steals the place while they're still out.
The classic attacking call. It works when fresh tyres are much faster than worn ones — high-deg days. The defence is to cover: pit the same lap, or the one after.
upgrades
New parts bolted to the car across the season — a new floor or wing that shifts a team's baseline pace.
Why the pecking order drifts race to race. Upgrades don't matter inside a single Sunday — which is why the sim can calibrate your car from that race's own timing data — but they're why last month's form guide lies.