Features

Every Slipstream feature in one place: practice, knockout qualifying, sprint weekends, tyre strategy, weather, safety cars, penalties, car development, contracts, four play modes and broadcast racing.

Race weekend: From first practice to the final point

A 24-round season built around the original 2026 calendar, with 6 sprint weekends. Watch qualifying and the race live, or simulate straight to the results.

  • Three practice sessions: Give each car a job: setup, short runs, long runs, a tyre test or rookie mileage. What you learn carries a small bonus into the rest of the weekend.
  • Knockout qualifying: Q1, Q2 and Q3 with two attempts per session. Track evolution rewards a late run, and one messy out-lap can end your weekend early.
  • Sprint weekends: A short Saturday race with its own qualifying and points for the top eight. Sprint results stay separate in the record book.
  • The Grand Prix: Full race distance, a formation lap and start lights that matter. Reaction time, anti-stall and first-lap contact are all simulated.
  • Weekend preview: See the rules, tyre allocation, weather forecast, circuit history and likely strategy before a wheel turns in anger.
  • Results and stewards: Podium, highlights, stint bars, fastest lap, laps led, retirements and every steward decision, kept in the season record.

Under the skin: A race engine you can trust

A fixed-step, seeded simulation. The speed buttons change how fast you watch, never what happens. Every system below feeds the same lap-time model.

  • Same seed, same race: A seeded generator and a fixed 30 Hz timestep mean the same seed and the same calls produce the same race. Rendering speed cannot change a result.
  • Circuits built from shape: Each track is fitted from control points, sampled by arc length and turned into a speed profile. Corners, straights and overtaking zones come from the shape.
  • Tyres with a cliff: Soft, Medium and Hard dry tyres plus Intermediates and full wets. Softer rubber is faster but wears sooner, and every dry race requires two compounds.
  • Tyre life, not just wear: Warm-up, working windows, overheating, graining, blistering, heat cycles, flat spots and punctures all change grip and pace.
  • Weather that changes the race: Forecasts can be wrong. Rain wets the track, a dry line forms, rubber washes away, and the crossover to intermediates is a genuine gamble.
  • Fuel and battery: Fuel load affects pace, lift-and-coast saves fuel, and battery deployment powers overtakes and defence. Run dry and your race ends.
  • The track rubbers in: The racing line gains grip, marbles build off-line, and rain resets the surface. Running wide costs grip and makes a pass harder.
  • Dirty air and slipstream: Following closely costs corner grip, while a tow on the straight helps. Circuit character decides which effect wins.
  • Racing moves and defence: Lunges, switchbacks and outside moves, with defence, aggression, composure and tyre grip deciding whether a pass sticks.
  • Contact and damage: Failed moves can produce contact, front-wing and suspension damage, spins, gravel, barriers and debris punctures. Repairs cost time.
  • Flags, safety cars and restarts: Local yellows, blue flags, safety cars, virtual safety cars, red flags and restarts, with a full race-control log that survives a save.
  • Penalties that stack: Track-limit strikes escalate from time penalties to drive-throughs and stop-gos. Unserved penalties convert at the flag and licence points are recorded.
  • Race starts: Reaction time, anti-stall, stalls and first-lap contact. A good launch can win three places before the first braking zone.

Your job: The pit wall is where races are won

You are the strategist. The engineer gives advice, the board gives targets, and the clock never stops.

  • Five driving modes: Attack, Push, Balanced, Manage and Conserve trade pace against tyre wear, tyre heat, fuel, battery and risk. Attack is a burst, not a default.
  • Pit stops with consequences: Choose the lap and the tyre. Wheel-gun trouble, cross-threads and double stacks can turn a good stop into a long one, and the pit crew upgrade makes them rarer.
  • Undercut, overcut and traffic: The engineer warns when a stop drops you into traffic, when staying out is better, and when a rival has just pitted.
  • Scheduled stops and free tyres: Set a stop for a specific lap and the car boxes automatically. Safety cars, red flags and urgent damage can rewrite the plan in seconds.
  • A race engineer beside you: Advice on tyres, modes and fuel, with urgent calls when something is about to go wrong. In Rookie and Strategist the engineer handles fuel and battery.
  • Team orders: Hold a position, let a faster teammate through or let them race. Lapped cars and nearby rivals limit what you can ask.
  • Live timing tower: Gap, interval, last lap and best lap, with purple for the fastest lap, green for a personal best, and live championship points underneath.
  • Every answer in one place: Choose what each side of the desk shows: Race control, Commentary, Radio, Battles, Tyres, Plans or Weather. Your layout is remembered.
  • Race distance and time scale: Every Grand Prix runs its real lap count. Pause, step from 1x to 128x, and use keyboard shortcuts. Speed changes how fast you watch, never the result.

The season: A career with a board, a budget and a rival

Pick a team, develop both cars and chase two championships across a full season. Everything is saved locally and can be exported.

  • Pick any team: 11 teams and 22 drivers, each with fictional ratings, real line-ups, liveries and helmets. Every team has its own strengths.
  • Drivers and constructors: Points down to tenth, sprint points for the top eight, countback tie-breaks and a full standings table that updates after every round.
  • Budget and prize money: Race income, constructor points and season prizes pay for upgrades and driver salaries. Spend now or save for a bigger step later.
  • Develop both cars: Engine, Aero, Reliability, Suspension, Pit crew and Energy recovery, with 6 levels each. Every level applies to both cars.
  • Rivals develop too: Every rival earns race income, pays its drivers and spends the rest on upgrades. The teams scoring more points can improve faster.
  • Contracts and renewals: Negotiate salary, length and clauses, with form, age, market value and team competitiveness shaping the answer.
  • The board is watching: Season objectives, confidence, a verdict and a budget modifier. Meet the targets and the board backs you; miss badly and it reacts.
  • Season rollover: Collect prize money, keep half of your upgrades, settle contracts and start the next calendar. Career history keeps every champion and result.
  • Records and statistics: Driver and team standings, form, sprint stats, classifications, a Hall of Fame and illustrated circuit records.
  • Five local save slots: Autosave, manual export and import, versioned saves and mid-race resume. A bad save never crashes the game.

Play your way: Deep enough for a principal, simple enough for a first race

The world is the same in every mode. The difference is how much of it lands on your desk.

  • Four ways to play: Rookie hands the calls to the engineer. Strategist gives you tyres, stops and modes. Engineer adds fuel, battery and tyre temperatures. Principal adds the team layer, which is still being built.
  • Earn the deep end: Engineer and Principal open after one completed season in any career in this browser. You can switch modes mid-career.
  • Three AI challenge levels: Relaxed, Competitive or Ruthless rivals, chosen separately from your play mode. A forgiving grid is not the same as a forgiving pit wall.
  • Tutorials that get out of the way: An HQ tour, a first-race guide, contextual tooltips and a help centre. Skip any of it and replay it later.
  • Help in plain English: Drivers, teams, circuits, a five-minute F1 primer, a glossary, a strategy guide and a full how-it-works page.
  • Settings for your setup: Text size, reduced motion, starting speed, car labels, commentary captions, volume, engine sound, voices and tutorial resets.
  • Local first, no account: Five local save slots with JSON export and import. No sign-up, no ads and no analytics. Accounts and cloud saves are planned, not live.
  • Free and independent: Free to play in a modern browser, with no download and no paid features. An unofficial fan game with fictional ratings.

Presentation: Built to look like a race

Pixel art, broadcast timing, a commentary desk and 24 circuits with their own sense of place.

  • Drawn for Slipstream: Cars, helmets, race suits and circuit scenery are hand-drawn pixel art. Team logos are used as identity assets; sponsor marks belong to their owners.
  • Every circuit has a view: Monaco has its harbour, Suzuka its torii gate, Zandvoort its windmill, Las Vegas its Sphere. Day and night lighting changes the whole scene.
  • A race broadcast in your browser: A timing tower, live championship, commentary lower third and driver panels, with a full-screen broadcast view and a compact control bar.
  • Follow anyone: Follow either of your cars, spectate any driver on the grid, or pull back to the whole track. Broadcast view hides the panels when you want the circuit.
  • Sound that follows the race: Recorded engine pass-bys, pit guns, rain, thunder, crowd noise and a radio beep, with commentary from Rory and Tess and captions for every call.
  • Keyboard and phone ready: Keyboard shortcuts for pause, speed, camera, broadcast, panels and mute. Responsive layouts keep the timing, strategy and results readable on smaller screens.