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Design Suggestions from an F1 Fan — Thank You for Creating F1 Cosmos

Feature Request

Hi Conrad, this is a long message. Thank you for your time.

I love F1 deeply. I even joined my university's Formula Student team as the first cross-city, cross-campus recruit. So when I found F1 Cosmos — free, professional, no registration — I was thrilled. I admire your skill and passion. Every race weekend, this tool brings me joy. Thank you.

Because I love it so much, I noticed a few things that could be even better, and I want to share them with you as a design-loving fan.

1. Two Core Problems

I see a systemic color differentiation issue at two levels:

Problem A — Teams clash:

· Ferrari's red vs Audi/Cadillac's red — nearly identical.

· Aston Martin's green vs Mercedes' teal — too close.

The gradation isn't wide enough. Your blue-team differentiation (Red Bull, RB, Williams) is excellent. I suggest applying that same logic to the red and green teams.

Problem B — Teammates share the exact same "p2" style="margin: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; font-width: normal; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variant-emoji: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal; min-height: 22px; caret-; ; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-tap-highlight-; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;">

· Norris and Piastri: identical papaya orange.

· Antonelli and Russell: identical Mercedes teal.

When comparing teammates, the identical colors blend together. This affects lap time charts, standings, and all other modules.

2. My Solution: A Two-Tier Color System

Priority: Teams distinguishable first → Teammates distinguishable second

Tier 1 — Unique team primary colors:

· Ferrari: deep red

· Audi/Cadillac: silver-gray (avoid red entirely)

· Mercedes: teal

· Aston Martin: deep British racing green

· Red Bull: muted blue

· RB: deep navy blue

· Williams: bright cyan-blue

· McLaren: papaya orange

Tier 2 — Light/dark shades for teammates:

· Smaller car number → dark shade

· Larger car number → light shade

Example: Norris (#4) dark papaya, Piastri (#81) light papaya.

Requirements:

· At least 20-30% brightness difference between shades.

· Subtle hue shifts are okay (e.g., dark red toward burgundy, light red toward orange-red).

· Avoid saturation-only differentiation — brightness is the primary dimension.

3. Why Car Number?

I considered age (fair but unintuitive) and #1/#2 status (intuitive but unfair to drivers like Piastri). Car numbers are FIA-registered, completely objective, and every fan knows them. Zero cognitive barrier, absolutely fair.

4. Hover Interaction

When hovering a driver's lap time line, could you also show their headshot icon? It's a small progressive disclosure that gives instant confirmation without checking the legend.

5. Collaboration Request

I know F1 Cosmos is your independent project — that deepens my respect. My coding is limited, but I have a strong passion for data visualization and interface design. If you're open, I'd love to contribute as a design collaborator: unified color schemes, chart visual polish, UX suggestions. Of course, this is entirely up to you. Either way, I'll keep using and recommending F1 Cosmos.

Summary

This is a systemic proposal: first make teams distinguishable, then teammates. The system is logically unified, fair (car-number-based), and applicable site-wide.

Thank you again. I wish F1 Cosmos continued success.

Cheers,

A devoted F1 Cosmos fan and design enthusiast

(English is not my native language; I used a translation tool. I hope it reads well.)

Posted by Cathy ·
Status: Completed4 comments

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Comments4

  • conradev

    Team•

    May 21

    Hello, @Cathy

    First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to send such a thoughtful and detailed message.

    I was genuinely moved while reading it. It means a lot to know that F1 Cosmos brings joy to your race weekends, and I really appreciate that you shared not only what could be improved, but also a clear and well-reasoned direction for how to improve it.

    To be honest, I was already aware that there were some issues around color differentiation. In particular, the teammate color problem has been something I have been thinking about for a while, especially in lap time charts and comparison views where two drivers from the same team can easily blend together.

    But because this is a system-wide design issue, I think I had been avoiding it a little. It felt like a big problem to solve properly, and I wasn’t sure where to start. So I’m really grateful that you not only pointed it out directly, but also proposed such a structured solution.

    Your idea of prioritizing team differentiation first, then teammate differentiation second, makes perfect sense to me. The car-number-based logic also feels very fair, objective, and easy for fans to understand. I also really agree with your point that brightness should be the main differentiator, not just saturation. The reasoning behind your proposal is excellent, and honestly, I think the overall approach is close to perfect.

    I don’t want to just “take this into consideration.” I would really like to implement this direction in F1 Cosmos soon and improve the color system properly. I think the first areas to improve would be the lap time charts and comparison views, where teammate differentiation matters the most.

    The live timing design is also one of the areas I have been wanting to improve for a while. It is useful functionally, but I still feel there is a lot of room to make the visual density, information structure, driver recognition, and real-time readability much better. Haha.

    Thank you as well for your collaboration offer. That part also means a lot to me.

    F1 Cosmos is an independent project that I run mostly by myself, and I also have other projects that I’m working on at the same time. Recently, I have started to feel that continuing to grow F1 Cosmos alone is becoming a little overwhelming. So receiving a message like yours is very encouraging.

    That said, I’m still not completely sure what the best form of collaboration should be. I have been thinking about whether I should open-source parts of the project and manage it as a community project, or whether it would be better to first create a smaller space for design feedback, UX suggestions, and visual improvement ideas.

    There is also the language barrier to think about. English is not my native language either, so I’m also not always fully confident with it. Haha.

    At this point, I feel like I should probably open a community space such as Discord sooner rather than later. It could be a place where people who care about F1 Cosmos can share feedback, suggest ideas, and discuss small design or UX improvements together.

    If you have any ideas about what kind of collaboration format would work well, or what kind of contribution structure would feel easy and comfortable for people to participate in, I would be very grateful to hear them. For example, I would especially appreciate thoughts about how a Discord-style community space could be organized, how feedback and discussions could be collected and managed, or what kinds of lightweight collaboration formats might encourage people to naturally participate and share ideas.

    Thank you again for such a kind, thoughtful, and motivating message. Knowing that someone cares about F1 Cosmos this much gives me a lot of energy to keep improving it.

    I’ll do my best to make it better.

    Best,
    Conrad

    • Cathy

      •

      May 21

      I'm truly overjoyed to receive your reply. Seeing how seriously you've taken it and that you wrote me such a long message really touches me. At the same time, I'm thrilled that my suggestions have gained your recognition, and I feel like I've been able to contribute and play a small part in making F1cosmos better and better. Or maybe I should say, F1cosmos is not just a website — it's a shared data platform you've built for all of us F1 fans. I'm so grateful for your great love and dedication, and I sincerely hope that my little efforts can help you, help F1cosmos, and help everyone who uses this site.

      To be honest, sending this message wasn't easy. Due to certain restrictions in my country, I haven't been able to log in at all. I've tried many solutions, but none of them seemed to work, so I was quite lucky this time. Later on, I have some good ideas about the collaboration and contribution structure, but I'm not sure how to contact you. I wonder if you would be comfortable sharing another way to reach you so we can stay in touch? Whatever is most convenient for you works for me! Thank you once again, and I wish you happiness every day and all the best! (In my country, this is the best blessing I can think of 🥳)

      Seeing that you said you run this website all by yourself, I can only imagine how much pressure and workload you're under. My suggestion about collaboration came very much from wanting to help share some of that burden — and of course, I'm deeply passionate about this myself. So please don't hesitate to reach out anytime if there's anything I can help with! I'm more than happy to make a little contribution!

      By the way, I'd like to share a piece of good news with you. Although I'm a 19-year-old second-year university student majoring in public administration, I've been teaching myself mechanical technology. I communicated with a student from another school and provided them with ideas and a plan to improve the performance of their aerodynamic package — helping them optimize the airfoils, reduce the wing angle of attack, and add flow deflectors to manage turbulent flow, all to increase the car's CLA and lift-to-drag ratio. My proposal was recognized and accepted by them. I'm really happy that I could help others, and also happy that I could put what I've learned to practical use!

      Thank you for your dedication, passion, and great love. Cathy

    • Cathy

      •

      May 21

      Hi Conrad,

      Thank you so much for your reply — I can't tell you how happy I was when I read it. Honestly, just knowing that you read my message so thoroughly already means the world to me. The fact that you're willing to actually implement this direction is more than I ever expected.

      And please don't worry about having "avoided" the color problem. I totally understand — it's a system-wide thing, not a quick fix. The important thing is you're going to tackle it now, and I'm really excited to see how it turns out. The lap time charts and comparison views are definitely the best places to start.

      About the collaboration part — I've been thinking about what you asked, and here are a few thoughts. They're just ideas, so please take whatever makes sense and ignore the rest.

      On Discord:

      I think opening a Discord server is a great idea. It could be lightweight and simple to start — maybe just a few channels like:

      · #feedback — for design and UX suggestions

      · #color-discussion — specifically for the color system refinement

      · #bugs — for reporting issues

      · #general — for casual discussion among F1 Cosmos fans

      Starting small would be better. You don't need a big, complex server right away. A cozy space where a few people who genuinely care about the project can share thoughts would already be very valuable.

      On collaboration format:

      I think for now, it might be better to start with a small design feedback group rather than jumping straight into open-sourcing. Open-source is a big step and comes with its own overhead. A smaller, more focused space for visual and UX feedback would be lighter for you to manage, and still very impactful.

      As for me, I would love to help in whatever way makes sense — whether that's contributing color scheme mockups, organizing user feedback, or just being someone who gives thoughtful design input regularly. The "design collaborator" role I mentioned doesn't have to be anything formal. I'm just genuinely passionate about making F1 Cosmos visually better, and I'd be happy to help wherever I can.

      One more thing — you mentioned that English isn't your native language either. Please don't ever worry about that with me. I'm using translation tools myself, and what matters is the ideas, not perfect grammar. Your English is perfectly clear.

      Thank you again, Conrad. Your reply gave me so much energy and encouragement. I'll be here cheering for F1 Cosmos no matter what.

      If you decide to set up a Discord server or any kind of community space, please let me know — I'd love to be one of the first to join.

      Cheers,

      Cathy

      (A devoted F1 Cosmos fan and your design friend)

  • Cathy

    •

    May 17

    I‘m really looking forward to your reply！🥳🥳🥳