Feedback

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483 responses to “Feedback”

  1. maateh Avatar
    maateh

    Hi!

    (Hopefully that Feedback page would be the right choice to post this.)

    When I read that the API will be deprecated I started to work on a project which would be able to replace your API.

    Before I started to work on it I had seen there was a fork on github which wanted to be a rewrite of the Ergast F1 API but on a NodeJS basis instead of PHP. But I saw that the project had cancelled.

    So I made a decision to start to rewrite that API but from the completely ground up. (because I have a personal project too that is based on this API and I didn’t want to cancel it)

    So what I’ve meant under “from the ground up”? (I didn’t mean like at the new Forza Motorsport game :D)
    So my first starting point was that I didn’t want to keep PHP. I’ve never work on a PHP project and I’ve never learnt much about PHP and personally I totally don’t like it. So my API is built on a NodeJS basis and uses ExpressJS for routing and handle the requests.

    I’d tried to kept the current routes default logic like as they’re structured currently. Apart from some minor changes because my hands are tied because of ExpressJS routing I think it was successful. If somebody wants to migrate their project in the future of course he will need to change some endpoints but it won’t be so hard because the base routing logic structure was kept.

    …and the main change happened under the hood and not just because I’m using NodeJS. Firstly, when I started working on this project I’d wanted to use “Sequelize” because it allows to define models and allows to work with these, but it would have required a lot of unnecessary rework on the existing SQL database structure.

    At this point I was thinking a lot what will be the best solution to handle data. Of course the DB dump was given and I had the choice to just import it for a MySQL database server and simply use it but I didn’t want it too much. Why? There are two main reasons.

    I wanted to stay the code as clear as possible (for me) and because of this it was a must for me to separate my routes, models and controllers (plus some additional services) inside of my API.

    Because the Sequelize was thrown out for known reasons I didn’t have any idea how should I modelling and handling data.
    (Of course would have been a solution if I had written models as JS classes and parse the given data for myself but I wouldn’t have wanted that because it would have required a lot of maintain and because I will work on this rewritten project I don’t want to work with write SQL queries “manually” because I don’t like it so much such as I don’t like PHP too. 😀 Sorry.)
    So I was thinking about what would be a good solution while I was watching a sprint race. I had a few project in the past where I was using “mongoose”. This is doing nearly the same functionality as “Sequelize” but using MongoDB instead of an SQL.
    So I had an idea and I made a decision while I was watching that new sprint race format: MongoDB is providing an easily scalable database format and these days when everything is changing in Formula 1 basically day to day might be easier to change something in a NoSQL database format instead of a SQL and because these personal reasons that I’ve written above I decided to write a converter which can convert your MySQL DB dumps into a MongoDB database. (Of course the data model has changed a bit – at some places not just a bit).

    So now where am I? I have a very advanced progress with all of these thing that I’ve written. Except the driver and constructor standings data I have a very well working and of course fully functional API which is able to do (nearly) all of the stuff that the Ergast F1 API can provide including everything (even your data filtering mechanism).

    When I’m done, I will plan to make this API available (like as a service along with its source code), and of course I want to give the opportunity to all those who want to continue working with all the data you provide in these DB Dumps, but currently have no alternative after the API service will stop.

    I just wrote all that because I’ve read that there are people who are asking about that there will be any alternative solution after the API shutdown and because I’m pretty sure that I will finish this project because I also want an alternative solution for myself so I tought that it will be a good opportunity to share all of that here with you.

    Additionally, I want to ask you about that would you give your permission for this API project if it will be an alternative API instead of yours which will still based on using data that you provide?
    And besides I want to thank you all of your work even so I’ve just became a user not so long ago but keep up the good work, the data you provide is amazing!

    P.S.: Currently I don’t have any ETA but I think I can finish everything maybe this year but making the service available is rather what is still in question (of course just only if you permitted it).
    (P.S.P.S: sorry if my english wasn’t good at places, I’m not a native english speaker plus I’ve just started learning it deeply not so long ago. 🙂 )

  2. Jing Avatar
    Jing

    Hello there! Thank you for your fantastic work!

    May I ask where I can find or are there the official definitions of different categories in this dataset, like collisions, accidents, etc?

    Thank you so much!

  3. Admin Avatar
    Admin

    Hi Jing,
    THere are no official definitions – it’s just a simple description.
    Cheers,
    Chris

  4. Admin Avatar
    Admin

    Hi Maateh,
    All the data from Ergast is free to use under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Licence so you are free to use it for the purposes you describe.
    Good luck with your project.
    Cheers,
    Chris

  5. Mat Avatar
    Mat

    Hey Admin,

    So you’re basically transcribing the PDF’s that FIA publishes?

    Best,
    Mat

  6. Admin Avatar
    Admin

    Hi Mat,
    I have several options.
    Cheers,
    Chris

  7. Niels Avatar
    Niels

    Hi Chris,

    It’s sad to see this API end. But thank you for all the time you put into this. Maintaining the data, with the ever increasing amount of events, must’ve been quite the job.

  8. Dionisio Avatar
    Dionisio

    Hi,

    Really sad to read about the deprecation of the API. I’ve discovered it last year and made me really happy to stumble upon this site.

    But one question popped into my head. Is the database not going to be updated anymore altogether, or is just the API is being deprecated?

    Because I could live without having an API to query all this curated data; and develop a new one for personal use. But what I really find useful, and very difficult to mimic, is the amount of accurate data put in database; updated race after race.

    For me, not having the database updated anymore would be the real loss here.

    Please, if you could kindly tell me what will happen to the database after the deprecation. It will be much appreciated.

    cheers,

  9. Admin Avatar
    Admin

    Hi Dionisio,
    I won’t be updating the database beyond 2024 but other people have expressed an interest. Time will tell if they’re serious.
    Cheers,
    Chris

  10. Niklas Avatar
    Niklas

    This API is awesome, when will it show the 2024 season as current? When is the switchover from 2023 to 2024 in the API?

  11. Admin Avatar
    Admin

    Hi Niklas,
    See the FAQ
    Cheers
    Chris

  12. Nik Avatar
    Nik

    When will the times for the upcoming races for 2024 be visuable in the API you think?

    Thanks for all your hard work with this API

  13. Maurice Avatar
    Maurice

    @Admin Currently, the start times of the 2024 races are missing. Also in the .json, the dates and times of the other sessions are missing. Will you be adding those?

    @maateh I was wondering if you are still working on your alternative API?

  14. Yarik Avatar

    I just want to express my gratitude and say thank you for providing so much valuable data for so many years!
    Have a great day!

  15. Pascal Avatar
    Pascal

    Can you please set the current season to 2024? http://ergast.com/api/f1/current still points to 2023

  16. Maurice Avatar
    Maurice

    @Admin It’s a bit disappointing that on the home page you say the API will be kept alive for the 2024 season, but you are not fixing the issues that are currently preventing it from working (no start times, current season is still 2023).

  17. Cyril Avatar
    Cyril

    Guys, this is from the FAQ:

    “For the purposes of the API, a season is assumed to begin when results become available for the first race of the season. This transition will be seen if the field in URLs is set to “current”.

  18. Cyril Avatar
    Cyril

    It’s written in the FAQ:

    “For the purposes of the API, a season is assumed to begin when results become available for the first race of the season. This transition will be seen if the field in URLs is set to “current”.”a

  19. Ab Avatar

    Hello,

    Thank you the hardwork on the Ergast database. In the latest version of the csv files is nr 842 (Pierre Gasly) missing.

    840,”stroll”,18,”STR”,”Lance”,”Stroll”,”1998-10-29″,”Canadian”,”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lance_Stroll”
    841,”giovinazzi”,99,”GIO”,”Antonio”,”Giovinazzi”,”1993-12-14″,”Italian”,”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Giovinazzi”
    843,”brendon_hartley”,28,”HAR”,”Brendon”,”Hartley”,”1989-11-10″,”New Zealander”,”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendon_Hartley”
    844,”leclerc”,16,”LEC”,”Charles”,”Leclerc”,”1997-10-16″,”Monegasque”,”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Leclerc”

  20. Lidia Avatar
    Lidia

    HI! Excellent work with this API, it is a shame that is being deprecated. I am using it for a college final project and by trying different things today, because I kept having problems with other parts of the code, I think I surpassed the 200 request pulls and are now blocked. I didnt think I did it so many times, sorry. Is there any way I can be unblocked? (I will keep in mind this so it doesnt happen again)

  21. Admin Avatar
    Admin

    Hi Lidia, the block should clear automatically at midnight GMT.
    Cheers,
    Chris

  22. Josh Avatar
    Josh

    How can we help keep this alive?

  23. Rafacv23 Avatar

    I just launched my formula 1 api. It is completely free and very easy to use. We currently have the information for the 2024 season. And the plan is to expand. Any help or collaboration is welcome.

    https://f1-connect-api.vercel.app/

  24. Sam Avatar

    Sad to see it is being deprecated, but a huge thank you for all the work. I’d built a webapp as my final project for an intro CS class and it’s been such an amazing tool to help learning and just be a lot more fun that anything else I could think of. I’ve continued to develop my webapp after finishing the course and gone on to build more so thanks again.
    Sam

  25. Brett Harris Avatar

    Hey Chris,

    I’ve got a project based on your great work. I am not using the API as I’ve built a GraphQL version instead. I am, however, using the database images.

    Before the API is shutdown, would you’d be able to share your process for collecting and populating data after each race?

    PM me if you’d like.

    Cheers mate. Thanks for all the hard work. This project got me through a year of unemployment.

  26. Admin Avatar
    Admin

    Thanks Sam – I’m glad you found it useful!
    Chris

  27. Admin Avatar
    Admin

    Hi Brett,
    I can’t confirm anything at this stage but there’s a good chance an alternative source will become available. This would be a far better option than my ageing and buggy ingest code!
    Cheers
    Chris

  28. art Avatar
    art

    The latest DB 024-07-07 22:52, does not contain lap times for the latest race. Also, I am interested in how you go about retrieving the lap times since I just learned you will no longer be doing this after 2024

  29. Eneas Avatar
    Eneas

    I have learnt a lot using this API and done many experiments around it. Sad to see this is being deprecated but I also think Chris deserves a break. The amount of work he put on it and his commitment is incredible.

    I can only show my gratitude.

  30. Toprak Avatar
    Toprak

    I have been encountering a persistent 503 error. This has affected my ability to retrieve motorsport data for my projects.

    Could you please provide an update on the situation and any potential timelines for resolution?

    Additionally, I believe making the project open source could foster collaboration and innovation within the community. I would love to help out if this is a possibility.

    Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.

    Thank you for your attention to this matter.

  31. Admin Avatar
    Admin

    Hi Toprak,
    Please would you email your IP address and user agent string to ergast.com@gmail.com and I’ll investigate. You may have been blocked by the rate limiter.
    Cheers,
    Chris

  32. Admin Avatar
    Admin

    Hi Luc,
    The maximum value of the limit parameter has been reduced to 100 due a recent rapid rise in requests using 1000 (see Latest News).
    You can page through the results using the offset parameter e.g. https://ergast.com/api/f1/2024/17/laps?limit=100&offset=100
    Or you request each lap individually e.g. http://ergast.com/api/f1/2024/17/laps/2
    Cheers,

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