FAQ
- How do the current, last and next shortcuts behave?
- Is there any restriction on how qualifiers can be combined?
- What happens if a round is not specified?
- What is the purpose of the attributes in the table elements?
- How soon after a race will data become available?
Ask additional questions using the comments box.
How do the current, last and next shortcuts behave?
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 <season> field in URLs is set to "current".
In a similar way, the changeover point for the "last" and "next" round shortcuts occurs when a new set of race results become available. After the last race of a season the URL:
http://ergast.com/current/next/...
will refer to the first race of the following season.
Is there any restriction on how qualifiers can be combined?
A query can include any combination of the following qualifiers unless otherwise stated:
/circuits/<circuitId>
/constructors/<constructorId>
/drivers/<driverId>
/grid/<position>
/results/<position>
/fastest/<rank>
/status/<statusId>
For example:
/drivers/alonso/constructors/renault/results/1
The order of the qualifiers has no effect except that the last one determines the result type.
Season, Driver, Constructor and Standings queries can include the following qualifiers, subject to certain restrictions:
/constructorStandings/<position>
/driverStandings/<position>
The last qualifier in a query determines the type of data returned.
What happens if a round is not specified?
For Standings queries and queries which include a standings qualifier the round value defaults to the last round of each season (i.e. the final standings). Otherwise a query covers all rounds of a season.
What is the purpose of the attributes in the table elements?
All responses contain a table of some kind. The attributes of the table element define the scope of the table and reproduce the criteria specified in the original query. If a specific attribute is omitted the scope concerns all entities of that type e.g. if there is no driverId attribute the scope of the table is all drivers who match the specified criteria.
How soon after a race will data become available?
Usually in 2 – 6 hrs.
Hello, I can’t get the “raceid” column when I call the api. Would you have a solution?
Good day to you
Can an article using data from Ergast API be published on medium publications like Towards Data Science(https://towardsdatascience.com/)
Hi Pierre,
You shouldn’t use the raceId outside the database – it’s an internal key and may change. Races are identified using the year and round fields.
Cheers,
Chris
Hi Parul,
That’s fine. The data has been used in books, journals and magazines in the past. Let me know when you publish something so I can put a link in the Application Gallery.
Cheers,
Chris
Hello!
Is it possible to check the results of the free practices before 2018?
Hi Juan,
Unfortunately not. I’m usually working on practice days and don’t have time to ingest the data.
Chris
Hello Admin!
First of all I just wanted to thank you a lot, I’ve been using this API since the beginning of this season for a small website I created for me and my friends and I absolutely love the way it works, but now I’m working on a better version with a lot more data shown and cool data charts so I had a question about the sprint races, for now I see that you just add the points of the sprint races to the race results, that’s nice, but as far as I know, next year will have 6 sprint races, so I was wondering if you will keep the way of adding the points to the race results, or maybe you will add a new endpoint for this?
In any case, thank you again for your work with this API, when I have finished the improved version of the website I will send it to you for the Application Gallery thing, and also I will donate to this project a fair amount because I feel dirty as I have used this API a lot basically for free when it has been very useful for me haha
Cheers
Hi Sylvain,
As it looks like Sprint Races are here to stay, I should provide a new table next year for the sprint race results (and points). Not sure when I’ll get the work done but I’ll announce it on the news feed. BTW there’s no reason to feel uncomfortable about using the API – it’s intended to be a free resource.
Cheers,
Chris
Does the API makes use of images that can be used when making a JavaScript application using the JSON data.
Hi Tommy,
Unfortunately not. You may be able to use the Wikipedia IDs to find images in Wikimedia.
Cheers,
Chris
Just a simple question: If I run a container image of the DB (since I do not want to overload your server and we will be experimenting) how can I update the database the easiest?
Thanks,
Walteij
Hi Walteij,
The easiest way is to load a new dump after each race.
It’s very hard to keep in sync incrementally.
Cheers,
Chris
Is it possible to include FP1 to FP3 and Qualifying time into schedule method?
Also, it would be great if schedule include displayed timezone.
Thanks,
Kris
Hi Kris,
I’ll put it on the wishlist but I have very little time to spend on development at the moment.
Cheers,
Chris
Hi! I saw a photo on Fast-F1 github page. There was this image by some “Siddharth”.
Can you tell if we can get data in this format.
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/76590952/149898817-7f0107f8-6112-4349-9231-9cfe44d15094.jpg
Hi Yebal,
You can get the position of all drivers, for each lap, using the Lap Times API method. For example the positions in the first lap of the last Grand Prix are: https://ergast.com/api/f1/2021/22/laps/1.json
Cheers,
Chris
Hi! Is it possible to know the exact time that a laptime was set?
Thanks
Hi Juan,
Unfortunately not. The volume of the lap time data is large so I’ve only included the most significant fields.
Cheers,
Chris
Hi Chris,
Thanks for building and managing this API!
I have been looking into a small app for me and my friends recently and am trying to figure out how I might utilize certain calls.
I was wondering about timings for when some API’s get updated, specifically the drivers API.
At what time would the drivers API show the drivers for a race (or qualy)? Beforehand or after the race? For example if I’m looking at the first race in March: https://ergast.com/api/f1/2022/1/drivers – we know who will probably be driving there, but this could change.
I’m thinking like a Russell in Sakhir situation or Kubica in Zandvoort. I appreciate it must be difficult if drivers are swapping around last minute due to illness etc, so I’m guessing this is updated after a race or qualy?
Thanks you.
Hi Chris,
You can get a provisional list of drivers for 2022 using this URL: http://ergast.com/api/f1/2022/driverStandings
The drivers appear in the drivers table (i.e. http://ergast.com/api/f1/2022/1/drivers) a couple of hours after the first race on Sunday when the results are published. I guess it could happen after the qualifying session but that’s not how the call currently works.
Good luck with your app!
Cheers,
Chris
API is great – thank you! Is there a way to get both driver and constructors standings combined in one request instead of having to make 2 API calls?
Hi Brandon,
No – you have to make two calls.
Cheers,
Chris
Hello, is there any way to know just the drivers that ended the race
Thank you for your time
Hi Timi,
There’s no filter on the results which will do that – but you can iterate thru the results response adn ignore entries where the position field is not the same as the positionText field (or where the positionText field is not an integer)
Cheers,
Chris
Is there a way to get the lap times per year all in once instead of per round. same for driver standings?
Hi Sven,
The only way is to download the CSV files.
Large queries are a killer for the API because they take so much memory.
Chris
Hi Admin,
I was wondering, what happens if a race get cancelled for any reason? Does the schedule endpoint get updated as well?
Thanks in advance for the answer.
Hi Noise,
This has never been a problem until Covid appeared. In the last two years I have removed races that were cancelled – but often I’m not the first to hear about it, so let me know if I’ve missed it.
Chris
Is there any way to get flags of constructors or photos of drivers, thank you
And also if there is any way to use comercial use of the api from wherever
Hello,
Why this endpoint : https://ergast.com/api/f1/current/last/qualifying.json
is not updated but this : https://ergast.com/api/f1/2022/1/qualifying
is ok ?
Thanks.
Hi Timi,
You could use the identifiers in the URLs (e.g. “Fernando_Alonso”) to find these items in Wikimedia e.g. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=Fernando_Alonso
Cheers,
Chris
Hi Timi,
No, the API is not available for commercial purposes.
Chris
Hi Ellosso,
See here for details of how the shortcuts work: http://ergast.com/mrd/faq/#shortcuts
Currently the “current” season doesn’t change until the first race results are entered into the database.
I may change this to switch at New Year next season.
Chris
Dear Admin,
i am an software engineering student from germany and have to do a project in data analysis. I found your API when searching for data about F1 and wondered if its okay to use the data provided by your API for that project.
Best regards
Hi Fabian,
That’s fine – many students have used the data for undergraduate and graduate projects. Good luck with your project – I’d be interested to see your analysis if you can share it.
Cheers,
Chris
Hi!
I have noticed that in qualifyings that a driver has not set a laptime in, sometimes that driver appears in the result whereas other times it doesn’t.
For example. Alonso did not take part in Monaco 2010 qualifying, (all it’s laptimes are null) but stands in the last position.
However, at Belgium 2016 he didn’t take part either, but this time, there is no result for Alonso.
I don’t know if it’s a mistake or there is any reason behind it.
Thanks in advance
Hi, there’s some kind of inconsistency in `races` table. In file “f1db_tables.sql” `date` column is defined as NOT NULL, in other dumps it is NOT NULL DEFAULT ‘0000-00-00’.
Best regards
Hi Paul,
Thanks – I’m not sure what happened to the default but I’ve put it back.
Cheers,
Chris
Hello again!
I have noticed that in qualifyings that a driver has not taken part in, sometimes that driver appears in the qualifying result (in last position) whereas other times it doesn’t.
For example. Alonso did not take part in Monaco 2010 qualifying, but stands in 24th position
However, at Belgium 2016 he didn’t take part either, but this time, there is no row for Alonso in the qualifying
I don’t undestand the reason behind it, so maybe you can help me with that
Thanks in advance
Hi Juan,
The current policy is to include all drivers scheduled to take part in qualifying, even if they don’t post a time. Unfortunately, some of the earlier data may not comply – and it’s not easy to correct this years later.
Cheers,
Chris
Hello Chris!
I’ve noticed that /api/f1/current/results.json does not return results for all races so far this season. Omitting ‘.json’ does return the expected results.
Thanks for the excellent resource!
Hi Mike,
Try: https://ergast.com/api/f1/current/results.json?limit=200
The default value of the limit parameter is 30, to keep the memory usage on the server down. See the “Response Paging” section in the API Documentation for details.
Cheers,
Chris
Hi Admin, which is the correct email in order to contact you ?
Thanks.