Ergast Developer API

Pressure of work and the disappointing absence of any reliable source of tyre data means that there are few changes to the API for the 2013 season.

The only new feature is the introduction of the official three letter codes for each driver. Wherever the Driver element appears (i.e. in the Driver, Race and Standings tables) there is a new “code” attribute for all drivers from the 2005 season onwards.

The only significant change to the API is that the Result element now has both a “position” attribute (which is always an integer) and a “positionText” attribute (which is an integer when the driver is classified or a letter to signal their finishing status).

Looking forward to the first race of the season, and checking-in the first set of results to the API database!

This post is to confirm that the Ergast API will continue to provide F1 results throughout the 2013 season and beyond. There have been a number of requests for enhancements:

– three letter codes for drivers
– driver photos
– drivers and teams listed before the first race
– explicit position / unclassified status
– tyre data (dependent on finding a data source)

If you have any other suggestions please let me know although I can’t promise to implement all of them.

Looking forward to seeing your new apps for the 2013 season!

A new database image is available covering all seasons up to and including 2012: http://ergast.com/mrd/db

Ergast is pleased to announce the publication of a complete image of the Ergast database. This is made available under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Licence and will be updated at the end of each season. The image allows you to create an exact copy of the MySQL database for your own purposes. Let us know what you do with it.

Ergast is pleased to announce that Lap Time and Pit Stop data will be available throughout the 2012 season on an experimental basis – this means the data may not be available as quickly as race results and will not be subject to the same degree of manual checking due to the volume of information. See the new Lap Times and Pit Stops documentation pages for more details. The API also provides a complete set of this data for the 2011 season. Feedback on the new API methods and data validity would be very much appreciated.

Following a number of requests I’ve added JSONP as an alternative response format. This allows client-side applications to access the API without the restrictions of the same origin policy imposed by browsers.

JSONP is obtained by appending ".json" to URLs and a query parameter named "callback" which must specify a valid Javascript function name. For example:

http://ergast.com/api/f1/drivers.json?callback=myParser

Let me know if you find any problems or build something interesting with it!

One other change this year which has not been documented is the removal of the “dob” attribute from the Driver element in the results and driver standings XML responses. The attribute is unnecessary because there is a DateOfBirth sub-element.

It’s probably worth pointing out that, in addition to appearing in race results, fastest lap rankings can now be used as a parameter in all queries except Standings queries. For example, you can list all the drivers who achieved the fastest lap in a season using the following URL:

http://ergast.com/api/f1/2010/fastest/1/drivers

Or all races where a particular driver achieved the fastest lap:

http://ergast.com/api/f1/fastest/1/drivers/alonso/races

Fastest lap timings have now been added from the 2004 season onwards.

The changes for the 2011 season described earlier have been implemented and were introduced this evening. If you spot any problems please let me know. Barring any problems the API will now remain unchanged for the remainder of the year. Happy coding!

This post is to confirm that the Ergast API will continue to provide F1 results throughout the 2011 season. The only technical change will be an updated schema that provides fastest lap times in race results. In addition, whitespace has been removed from JSON responses. These changes will be introduced in the API on 15th February. Initially, fastest lap times will only be available for the 2010 season but will then be introduced progressively for earlier years over the next month or so.

Hope to see some new apps ready for the 2011 season!

Some proposed changes to the API for 2011:

1) The race results response will be extended to include the fastest laps times for all drivers. The provisional documentation is here: http://ergast.com/mrd/results

2) The indentation and whitespace will be removed from JSON responses for efficiency reasons.

I’m about to start implementing these changes so any comments or suggestions you have would be very welcome.

This post is to confirm that the Ergast API will continue to provide F1 results throughout the 2010 season. The only technical change will be a move to an updated XML schema that allows multiple drivers per car. This will allow the API to cover the 1950s accurately, where car sharing was common. The change will come into effect on 1st January.

Added an Application Gallery to showcase applications using the Ergast Developer API. If you would like to add your application or mashup to the gallery please contact us with details.

Added a Query Page with forms which generate URLs and query the database.

Added optional JSON response format. Needs further testing.

First release of the API provides data for the Formula 1 series from the 2000 season onwards. The eventual goal is to add data back to the 1950s.

The first supported response format is XML but JSON is under development.

Not much thought has gone into error conditions and responses so I guess that may need more attention.