F1 Dashboard — building clarity
I have been following Formula 1 for years. Not as a statistician, not as a gambler (sometimes, admittedly), but simply as an enthusiast. And as with many things, I noticed the same issue repeatedly: the information is available, but never in one place. Too many apps, too much noise, too many banners, too many opinions.
So, I decided to build it myself.
F1 Cockpit is not a platform with a revenue model. No ads, no trackers, no clickbait. It is a dashboard. A cockpit. One screen you open where everything aligns.
Dark. Calm. Functional. Just as a pit wall should be.
What you see (and what you don’t)
The premise was simple: only display what you truly need during a season.
A live countdown to the next race, with session times in both local and Dutch time
A season calendar for 2026, horizontally scrollable, so you can view the season as a whole
Driver and constructor standings, always up-to-date, with team-specific colours — no interpretation, just data
A news feed, but curated. Fewer items, more relevance
And a part of PB CMS, ensuring visuals and banners remain adjustable without breaking the system.
What you (still haha) don’t see: pop-ups, autoplay videos, affiliate links, or opinions masquerading as news.
Data as a foundation
Everything you see is powered by external data sources that have already proven their reliability. Live race information, official championship standings, historical statistics, and current news come together, but are only displayed when they fit the rhythm of the dashboard.
Data is not an end in itself here. It is building material.
The technical layer (deliberately chosen)
The stack is modern, but above all logical. No experimentation for the sake of experimentation.
Frontend: React 18 with TypeScript, built on Tailwind CSS
Routing: Wouter — lightweight, fast, no unnecessary magic
Data & state: TanStack Query for caching and smart refetches
Backend: Node.js with Express
Database: PostgreSQL (serverless) with a sleek ORM layer
Build: Vite — quick start, rapid iteration
Icons & date logic: functional, consistent, Dutch
OPENF1 API connection.
Everything runs stably on Replit, with automatic deployments. No server management, no hassle. Just building.
Why this project exists
F1 Cockpit is not a product. It is a workshop.
A place where I bring data, design, and rhythm together. Where I can test how far you can go with focus, without oversimplifying. And where a love for Formula 1 meets a love for systems that work.
Perhaps it will remain as it is.
Perhaps it will grow further.
But whatever it becomes — it starts here:
one screen, one season, full attention.
— Peter