New: Hot Lap, a free F1 time-trial game on F1 Helper

F1 Helper now has a game. Hot Lap is a free F1 time trial that runs in your browser: pick a 2026 team, drive three laps of the Helper Ring in 3D and set a time for the leaderboard. A clean run takes about a minute and a half, there is nothing to install, and it works on a phone as well as on a computer.

How do I play Hot Lap?

Open Hot Lap from the main menu or the link on the dashboard, choose your team and press Start. Five red lights come on, and when they go out the clock starts. You drive three laps of the Helper Ring, a compact circuit with a long main straight into a hairpin, fast esses, a tight chicane and a sweeping final corner. Your time is the total for all three laps.

On a computer:

• **W** or **↑**: throttle
• **S**, **↓** or **Space**: brake
• **A** / **D** or **← / →**: steer
• **R**: restart, **C**: switch between the chase and TV cameras, **L**: show or hide the racing line

On a phone you steer with the buttons on the left and brake with the button on the right. The throttle is automatic, so you only need to think about braking and steering; you can switch that off if you prefer. Gamepads work too, with analog steering, throttle and brake.

What is the ghost?

Every run races against a see-through ghost of the fastest verified run on the leaderboard. The ghost never gets in your way, and the timing display shows how far ahead or behind it you are at every sector, with your sector times in purple, green or yellow like on F1 timing screens.

How does the racing line work?

The arrows painted on the track are a recorded lap by a quick reference driver: green where it was flat out, yellow where it lifted off the throttle and red where it braked. They never change colour, so if you are carrying more or less speed than the reference, adjust your braking yourself. Follow the line and you will stay on the tarmac; to beat the leaderboard you will need to brake later and carry more speed than it does. Press L to hide it once you know the track.

The dial in the corner of the screen shows your speed, gear, throttle and brake, so you can see exactly what the car is doing.

Which teams can I race as?

All eleven teams on the 2026 grid: Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin, Williams, Racing Bulls, Alpine, Haas, Audi and Cadillac. Your car wears that team’s 2026 colours, the same liveries as in the 3D race replay, and the leaderboard shows which team every driver raced as. The choice is cosmetic: every car handles the same.

How is the leaderboard kept fair?

Your browser never sends a lap time. It records your throttle, brake and steering inputs, and F1 Helper’s servers drive the whole run again from those inputs on their own copy of the track. The time on the leaderboard is the one the server worked out, so it cannot be edited. Runs also have to be driven in real time and each run can only be submitted once. The leaderboard keeps every driver’s best time, and names are checked for bad language before they appear.

Give it a go on Hot Lap, then come back to the F1 calendar for the next real race.