What air was each driver running in, lap by lap?

A lap-by-lap grid of the aerodynamic environment every driver experienced free air, dirty air, tow, or DRS train across a whole race.

The lap air map shows the aerodynamic story of a race as a grid: one row per driver, one cell per lap, coloured by the air they were running in. It makes the invisible visible where a driver was stuck in a competitor’s wake, where they caught a tow, and where they sat in a DRS train unable to break free.

What it shows

Each cell classifies one driver’s lap into an air state:

• Dirty air (red): gap to the car ahead < 1.5s in the middle-third sector. Thermally loaded air disrupts downforce and overheats the tyres.
• Tow zone (green): gap < 1.0s on a straight sector without active DRS slipstream benefit without full aerodynamic interference.
• DRS train (amber): gap < 1.0s with DRS active a speed benefit but still constrained by the car ahead.
• Free air (grey): gap > 2.0s or gap unavailable clean conditions, the baseline.

Drivers are sorted by total dirty-air laps (most affected first); lap numbers run left to right.

Gap estimates are telemetry-derived. Laps with missing telemetry are shown as free-air (grey), so a grey cell can mean clean air or absent data read it alongside the dirty-air totals.

How to use it

1. Select a race from the filter bar; the grid loads with drivers ranked by traffic exposure.
2. Scan a driver’s row to see their race shape long red runs are extended stints in traffic.
3. Look for amber blocks to spot DRS trains where nobody could pass.
4. Hover a cell for the thermal-load index and the closest gap reading on that lap.

Reading the signal correctly

The air state is a gap-and-sector heuristic, not a wind-tunnel reading a 1.5s gap is the threshold, so a driver hovering just outside it reads as free air despite some wake. The map shows exposure, which is mostly driven by track position, not driver choice.

Because missing telemetry defaults to grey, a driver with sparse telemetry can look like they ran in clean air all race. Cross-check with the dirty air cost leaderboard, which only taxes laps with a valid gap.

Data source

The chart queries int_lap_air_state via DuckDB-Wasm in the browser, for a single race.

Column	Meaning
air_state	The lap’s classification: dirty air / tow / DRS train / free air
gap_to_ahead_s	Closest gap reading used for classification
thermal_load_index	Estimated thermal load from the wake (cell hover)

This is a single-race view across 2018–2024 data.

For the full model definition, see the int_lap_air_state reference.