And it's lights out and away the memes go!
Please add entries in the following format:note This notice is just here so we won't get fined.- The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme.[[/labelnote]]ExplanationLike this.
Due to the absurd length of meme entries for the drivers, they can now be found in their dedicated page. Also, remember that Web Links Are Not Examples.
- The German national anthem: the official song of Formula One. Explanation After every Formula One race, the national anthems of the winning driver and constructor are played. This has resulted in a very long streak of races where the German anthem has been played, either for Sebastian Vettel, or for the AMG Mercedes F1 Team (who also at the time had a German driver in Nico Rosberg). It was also extremely common back in Michael Schumacher's day.
- Formula One: James Bond Edition. ExplanationOut of the intros used for F1 broadcasts, one in particular
(used in the mid-late 2000s) stood out for featuring (among other things) an apparently nude woman covered with a race flag, scantily-clad women waving race flags, and David Coulthard in a tuxedo. While admittedly one'll find its fair share of fans from people who watched F1 at the time due to nostalgia, others are more likely to joke that it looks less like the intro for a racing competition and more like the elaborate opening credits of a James Bond movie. - BUT GRO PERExplanationDuring the the Friday Free Practice session for the 2014 Malaysian GP, drivers Jenson Button, Romain Grosjean, and Sergio Perez ended up taking the top three spots on the timesheets. Considering that the on-screen graphics use the first three letters of their respective surnames...
- Gentlemen, a short view back to the past... Explanation During the pre-race press conference of the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, reporter Walter Koster asked a ridiculously long and detailed question related to steering wheel buttons and modern Formula 1 racing in general. The segment became memorable in part due to his heavy Saarland accent, and the reactions of the drivers present during the said conference.
- You didn't listen. Can you repeat the question? ExplanationSebastian Vettel's joking response towards the presscon coordinator once Koster finished his question.
- NO ONE CAN BREAK THE WINKELROCK, MASTER OF STRATEGY! Explanation This quote from Mystery Science Theater F1 has stuck around to describe the incredibly chaotic 2007 European Grand Prix and the suprising lead by Markus Winkelhock in his only race in the sport. His Spyker team had brought him into the pits to change onto wet tyres on the formation lap, which ended up proving to be the right move; especially after several drivers (including then-rookie Lewis Hamilton) aquaplaned into turn 1 on lap 3. Hydraulic failure ended Winkelhock's race after it was restarted.
- IS THAT GLOCK? Explanation Martin Brundle's very memorable commentary line from the very dramatic 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix, where the title was decided after Toyota's Timo Glock (who stayed out on dry tires) was passed by Lewis Hamilton (using intermediates) on the very last corner as rain fell down in the closing stages of the race.
- That's Raidillon, actually.ExplanationSpa-Francorchamps's infamous downhill Eau Rouge left-hand corner is often confused for Raidillon, the uphill right-hander that comes right after it. The quote came from this video from the WTF1 youtube channel.
- Mission Next Year ExplanationIn 2018, longtime Ferrari sponsor Philip Morris International returned to the team's liveries through their "Mission Winnow" subliminal advertisements aimed to promote their smoke-free products. The name was clearly meant to be a Double Entendre between "mission: win now" and the winnowing of tobacco to produce cigarettes, but it quickly became the butt of many jokes due to Ferrari's troubles in knocking Mercedes off the top of the grid between 2018 and 2021 - the aforementioned "Mission Next Year" being the most prevalent. The sponsorship was quietly dropped from the team livery ahead of the 2022 season due to PMI's sponsorship deal reportedly ending, which also signaled an uptick of fortunes for the Scuderia thanks to the rule changes; this led many to joke that the sponsorship was cursed... Only for the sponsorship to return once again on May, possibly heralding Ferrari's mishaps that plagued them for the remainder of the season.
- S🅱innalaExplanationA faux-Italian corruption of "spin it" originating from the r/formuladank subreddit (preferably with the "B" almost always typed with the "blood type B" emoji, or in capital letters.) Originally made to poke fun at Valtteri Bottas's spinout and crash in the 2019 German Grand Prix, it quickly became associated with Sebastian Vettel's time with the Scuderia, due to his frequent (and infuriating to the Tifosi) habit of spinning his car in the worst circumstances possible; it has since expanded to other drivers ending up off-track in a similar fashion. In addition, usage of "il vento d'oro" (aka Giorno's theme from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind) is mandatory, preferably beginning with the track's Piano solo.
- By way of association to the above: S🅱inotto.ExplanationA portmanteau of the said term and then Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto, usually portrayed as the mastermind behind drivers spinning out of control during races.
- Pronto, (Driver)?ExplanationS🅱inotto's greeting whenever he calls or is called by another driver, usually accompanied by this photo of Binotto◊ on his phone.
- "Is that a rude word?"ExplanationDuring the race weekend of the 2020 Italian GP, Claire Williams (then on her final race as Williams F1 Team's Deputy Team Principal) was briefly asked by some fans at the venue to say the infamous word. The quote was her immediate response afterward.
- The Great (insert Team Name here) Masterplan™ ExplanationAnother /r/Formuladank-sourced meme, it is typically used whenever any F1 team shoots themselves in the foot on strategy calls. Saw first usage via the term "The Great Ferrari Masterplan™", usually uttered by the abovementioned Binotto.
- S 🅱 I N A N OExplanationThe online video game Azur Lane released a special Race Queen CG for Shinano, which featured, among other references to the sport, the infamous Meme itself in the background.
- "Understood, we are checking..."ExplanationA catch-all response interpreted by fans as the usual communication from Ferrari's pit wall whenever any of its drivers are reporting of any issues in their car, mostly during race days. Reportedly started seeing use during Ferrari's 2020 season.
- The 2017 Singapore Grand Prix never happened. ExplanationOwing to the fact that both Ferraris crashed at the start and retired from the race, Ferrari fans like to pretend the championship skipped the Singaporean round of the championship altogether that year. Wet weather in Singapore and an impromptu sandwich of Max Verstappen (also taken out in the first-corner crash) didn't help.
- The 2021 Belgian Grand Prix never happened ExplanationHeavy rain during race day meant that the "race" ultimately consisted of just enough laps behind the safety car to count for half-points. Unamused fans quickly started joking about how the race wasn't held that year. The FIA proceeded to rework their policy for races that don't go the scheduled distance.
- Oh, so close! / They touched! They touched, Martin! ExplanationSomeone got the bright idea of slowing down the commentary from David Croft and Martin Brundle during the 2018 Italian Grand Prix, when Vettel crashed into Hamilton on the Variante della Roggia chicane. As a result, their almost drunken-sounding commentary made it hilarious. The animated version has also become popular in its own right.
- Renault's 2018 season posters ExplanationRenault attempted to imitate Ferrari's idea of producing posters for each race, but the results range from mediocre to painful to look at, and jokes that they are made by an intern learning their way around image manipulation software are common.
- "I think Ericsson hit us." Explanation During the 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Haas driver Romain Grosjean crashed during the safety car period. Despite the incident clearly being his fault, his race engineer (not Grosjean himself, as is commonly believed) blamed Sauber driver Marcus Ericsson, who was behind him, which lead to Ericsson getting jokingly blamed for pretty much everything that goes wrong since.
- Will Buxton's Haas puns Explanation F1 Paddock Pass presenter Will Buxton made a point of making a forced pun based off of Haas F1's name every race, and in response to several fan-made videos, the official F1 channel made a compilation themselves.
- Speaking of puns, "My Heart Will Grosjean"ExplanationA play on the song of the same name, but instead using Haas F1 driver Romain Grosjean's name, usually with the iconic scene from Titanic (1997) and with the interposed faces of Grosjean and his boss Guenther Steiner as Rose Bukater and Jack Dawson, respectively. The team has since acknowledged the same via this tweet. Became both Harsher and Heartwarming in hindsight after Grosjean survived a fiery crash on the first lap of the 2020 Bahrain GP, especially after an actual parody of the same song was released 4 days before the race.
- Well done, Baku! Explanation The Baku circuit was decorated with the self-congratulatory slogans "Well done, Baku!" and "Baku welcomed all of us." Fans started using it sarcastically after multiple examples of incompetence from the circuit or marshalls, most notably in 2019, after a manhole cover (normally supposed to be welded down) kicked up by Charles Leclerc destroyed Williams' George Russell's floor. After which, the flatbed carrying the car back to the garage hit a pedestrian bridge with its crane, bursting a hydraulic line, and forcing Free Practice 1 to be cancelled.
- Formula 1.5 ExplanationAn unofficial class for the "Best of the Rest" teams (i.e.: any team that isn't Mercedes and usually Red Bull and Ferrari). Sometimes expanded further to Formula 1.25 (the two Top Three teams that aren't Mercedes), and a special, even lower category for Williams during their disastrous 2018 and 2019 seasons.
- Tracing Point ExplanationRacing Point/Aston Martin's 2020/2021 car is suspiciously similar in design to the 2019 championship-winniing Mercedes F1 W10, thus earning it the nickname "Pink Mercedes."
- "I am extremely angry."ExplanationIn light of the "Pink Mercedes" controversy surrounding Racing Point in 2020 (particularly over "copied" brake ducts as raised by rival teams,) owner Lawrence Stroll made a public statement, vehemently denying said claims, and urging the other teams to reconsider their actions against them. Curiously, his delivery of the said line became memorable for being near-monotone.
- Green Bull ExplanationReminiscient of the 2020 Pink Mercedes controversy, Aston Martin showed up at the 2022 Spanish Grand Prix with a new sidepod design that was very similar to that of the Red Bull cars. Fans wasted no time with the nickname.
- Rawe Ceek ExplanationFor the 2020 British Grand Prix, Ferrari produced a poster commemorating the start of race week. However, its design made it a perfect example of "Don't Dead Open Inside".
- Formula One's "Twitch Generation"ExplanationA collective nickname coined in 2020 for drivers Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), Lando Norris (McLaren), George Russell (Williams, now at Mercedes), and Alexander Albon (Red Bull, now at Williams), (thus the initial term for then as the "Twitch Quartet",) due to all four of them having showcased their prowess (and ocassional candidness) in racing games (F1-based games or otherwise) via Twitch during the Pandemic-induced pre-season break at the time. Has occasionally included both Max Verstappen and Russell's teammate at the time Nicholas Latifi, having raced alongside them previously in video games on separate occasions.
- Haas F1 Team Principal Guenther Steiner became quite the Fountain of Memes himself, for a number of reasons.
- "We fokking looked like rockstars. Now we are a fokking bunch of Vankers!" ExplanationSteiner speaking to his boss Gene Haas on the phone after the team floundered in a random race weekend, despite having excelled in a previous race. Thanks to this, which was one of the more memorable moments from him in Netflix's Formula 1: Drive to Survive, his popularity grew quite a lot.
- "He does NOT Fok Smash my door!"ExplanationIn one episode of Drive to Survive, Steiner grilled Haas F1 drivers Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen for another dismal result during a certain race weekend. Magnussen did not take this too well and slammed the office door on the way out. Understandably, Steiner got pissed and threw a Cluster F-Bomb when he followed him out.
- Toto Wolff, Emperor of the Great Mercedes EmpireExplanationDuring the 2020 Styrian GP Race weekend in Austria, Mercedes F1 Team Principal Toto Wolff was seen having a conversation at the paddock with then Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel. Considering how he was dressed at the time (wearing a hooded jacket due to the rain), and thanks to the predominantly-black color scheme of his team, fans took to memeing his appearance as that of the stereotypical Sith Lord, moreso as Sheev Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious.
- Darth Hamilton the Blessed and General BottasExplanationPredictably, the meme quickly spread to his team's drivers, with fans memeing them as the Vader and Grievous, respectively, to Toto's Palpatine.
- On a somewhat related note, Toto's knack for causing property damage, particularly towards tables.ExplanationWhenever something bad happens to the Mercedes Team during a race (particularly with Hamilton,) and the live camera feed cuts to the crews and staff at the paddocks, Wolff is sometimes seen venting his frustration, usually by slamming his fists on his desk or throwing headsets.
- In relation to the above, "The Totonator"ExplanationWolff, being an Austrian-born baritone, have elicited some comparisons to Arnold Schwarzenegger, particularly the latter's iconic role. Wolff himself has taken this meme in stride, especially since he is known to have had metal plates implanted to stabilize some of the bones he broke in 2014 from a bicycle pileup crash with some members of the Mercedes F1 team.
- Pumpernickel ExplanationIn S4E3 of Drive to Survive, Wolff asks for pumpernickel - a traditional German version of dark rye bread - for breakfast. The word quickly reached memetic status in F1 circles due to being an Inherently Funny Word, and since then many jokes about pumpernickel being Wolff's Trademark Favorite Food have ensued.
- "Michael, I just sent you an email, with diagrams with where the car should be, did you receive that?" ExplanationAfter Hamilton and Verstappen collided at the 2021 British GP, Wolff sent an email to race director Michael Masi, presumably to make the case that Hamilton did not deserve a penalty for the collision (Hamilton ultimately received a ten second penalty, but managed to win the race.) Fans memed it as Wolff spamming Masi's inbox for any reason.
- "Toto, I don't access my emails during a race..." ExplanationMasi's response led to the companion meme of Masi deliberately ignoring Wolff.
- "NO, MICHAEL! NO, NO, MICHAEL! THAT WAS SO NOT RIGHT!"ExplanationTowards the finish of the 2021 season title decider in Abu Dhabi, Nicholas Latifi's crash caused the deployment of the safety car with 5 laps to go with Hamilton leading against Verstappen and separated by lapped cars. Race director Michael Masi at first forbade lapped cars from overtaking the safety car, only to then allow only the cars between Hamilton and Verstappen to unlap themselves, and called in the safety car immediately after (when it normally takes another lap or two to do so), likely to ensure the final lap was held under green flag conditions. This resulted in Hamilton (left out on old hard tires) having no defense against Verstappen (who had pitted for fresh softs), who quickly passed Hamilton for the win and the championship. The quote is from Wolff's anguished outburst against Masi, accusing him of breaching the sport's rules to stir up drama.
- "Toto, it's called a motor race. We went car racing."ExplanationMasi's deadpan post-race response to Toto's request to reinstate the lap before the safety car's end. Masi subsequently lost his position as chief steward for the 2022 season onward.
- "No heroics into Sainte Devote, please." ExplanationIf you qualify near the back of the grid for Monaco in the official Formula 1 games since the 2016 installment, in-game race engineer Jeff Nelson (whose surname, along with that of the in-game interviewer Claire (who debuted in the 2018 installment), was revealed during the Braking Point mode of the 2021 installment) opens the pre-race briefing with this. It doesn't always stick in real life, as Johnny Cecotto Jr once caused a pileup there off a front-row start trying to keep another car (who was to his left) behind him.
- How Netflix would have portrayed... Explanation Following criticisms of Netflix creating fake drama for its documentary series Formula 1: Drive to Survive, fans have now taken to creating outrageous stories of how they believe Netflix would end up portraying some of the most random occurrences in the paddock, usually framed as two drivers having some sort of animosity.
- Traffic paradise ExplanationDuring Free Practice 3 of the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Yuki Tsunoda called the mass pile-up of other cars that appear to block his way this. It would became both Hilarious in Hindsight and an Ironic Echo when Valtteri Bottas uttered the exact same thing in a similar situation during Free Practice 3 of the Mexico City Grand Prix, which was repeated again in the following year's Italian Grand Prix, also uttered by Bottas during FP3 (again). Fans would parody "Gangsta's Paradise" and name it "Traffic Paradise" after the moment with Tsunoda.
- Alpine A522: Most Illegal Car Ever.ExplanationOn February 2022, Alpine launched the A522, its car for the 2022 season. The team had recently added as its primary sponsor BWT, the same brand prominently featured on Racing Point's infamous "Pink Mercedes" car (see Tracing Point above). Concurrently to the team's official launch, BWT presented an alternate all-pink livery for the season's opening races similar to that one in another event, prompting jokes that it would be deemed illegal as the "Pink Mercedes" was. The car's standard livery was revealed as being primarily blue, even if it still has a streak of BWT's bright pink.
- Hairpin Time! ExplanationBefore joining WTF1, Matthew Gallagher tended to quip this if he was close enough to another car to warrant an overtake attempt. The hairpin at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Canada is his favorite place to call it. According to Harry Jacks, "Hairpin time" means brake-checking the guy behind someone, not dive-bombing them from who-knows-where.
- "I AM SEEING THAT LAP!" Further ExplanationAnother thing Matt Gallagher tended to call out when playing Formula 1 video games was claiming he'd be seeing someone's fastest lap due in large part to suspected corner cutting. The most famous one is him calling out fellow YouTuber Championship competitor Aarav after qualifying for the round at Monza, where Aarav was on pole with a lap time of a minute twenty-one-point-nine-eight-five seconds.
- The 2022 Silly Season Piasco ExplanationHalfway through the 2022 season, Sebastian Vettel announced his retirement from the sport at the end of the season, opening up a seat for the 2023 season. To everyone's shock, Aston Martin signed Alpine driver Fernando Alonso, when most people assumed he would stick with his current team. One of the prime candidates to fill his seat was Alpine's reserve driver (and 2021 F2 champion) Oscar Piastri, and so Alpine announced his signing during the early days of the midseason summer break. Shortly after, however, Piastri would deny signing with the team, with rumors suggesting he was signing with McLaren. Cue the entire F1 community poking fun at Alpine for announcing a driver prematurely. What made it funnier was that this came on the heels of a similar kerfuffle (also involving McLaren) in IndyCar, with Alex Palou announcing a switch from Chip Ganassi Racing to the orange team for 2023, only for Ganassi to claim that Palou was still under contract to them. Ultimately the Contract Recognition Board was called in to mediate whether Piastri's contract with Alpine still applied or whether his new one with McLaren did, and ruled in favor of McLaren.
- "This is right." ExplanationLess than a day after the Piasco started, Alex Albon re-signed with Williams for 2023, with his Twitter announcement of the deal being an almost word-for-word reflection/parody of Piastri's denial.
- If Driver X flips, they might be mistaken for Driver Y.ExplanationAfter Piastri announced his career number to be 81, a possibility first described in Chain Bear's video on Formula One driver numbers (then regarding numbers 66 and 99; the former has not been used while the latter has seen both Adrian Sutil and Antonio Giovinazzi use it) has become likely to happen. If Piastri were to flip during a race, someone might confuse him for Lance Stroll (who races with number 18). Notably, the year Sutil fielded number 99, it was his teammate Esteban Gutierrez (fielding number 21) who flipped in a race.
- Sanganchao ExplanationSpanish for "He got stuck!" ("¡Se ha enganchado"!) but said very quickly. This was what Spanish commentator Gonzalo Serrano repeatedly yelled when Lewis Hamilton got stuck in the gravel in the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix, which Serrano celebrated because it gave Fernando Alonso the lead in the Drivers' Championship. Some twist the joke further and call it "San Ganchao", as the saint patron of gravel.
"Bwoah..."
