The “Orange Army” of volunteer marshals sits at the front of the F1, is stationed on the racetrack, armed with flags and buttons, and ready to react in a split second to any drama that happens on the track.
Flag signals were first used in F1 in 1963 to communicate the route from the track to the car. The route is divided into a large number of maneuvering sectors – far more than the three timing sectors – and at each beginning there is a “guiding post” where the flags are waved to warn drivers of dangers on the route.
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To complement – not replace – the traditional shunting flags, F1 now also uses a GPS shunting system. Marshals use buttons to send flag signals directly to race control, circuit lighting and a series of LEDs on the driver’s dashboard that illuminate when the appropriate flag color is waved.
There is a wide variety of flag types in the marshals’ arsenal, so here’s an overview of what they have been and what they have been used in the past.
Stormzy, rapper waves the checkered flag while Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1 W10 crosses the finish line
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Checkered flag
Everyone knows this is waved to the leader at the end of a race and also at the end of every practice or qualifying, but nobody seems to know exactly when and where practice started first. However, there are a number of theories.
Some point to its origins in horse racing and others to French bicycle racing in the 19th century, but there is no evidence of either. Tim Marshall’s book “A Flag To Die For” suggests that it was first used in the 1906 Glidden Tours Road Rally, when checkered flags identified time checkers at each end leg.
The first real evidence of his involvement in motorsport, however, is a photo of the Vanderbilt Cup in New York from the same year 1906. It clearly shows a checkered flag that is lowered in front of the oncoming Frenchman Louis Wagner when he came to the line for the Exceed victory.
However, if you think waving a flag is pretty easy, you are wrong. In fact, five F1 races were prematurely stopped – and for the first time the flag was in the hands of the legendary five-time champion Juan Manuel Fangio!
That was in 1978 at the Argentina Grand Prix when Fangio accidentally waved Ronnie Peterson’s Lotus with it after mistaking it for the other Lotus owned by race leader Mario Andretti. It also happened to Alain Prost in the UK in 1985, Lewis Hamilton in China in 2014 and Sebastian Vettel in 2018.
In order to eliminate human problems, Formula 1 switched from a flag to a light panel in 2019 – but towards the end of this season, in Suzuka, the panel was checked for race winner Valtteri Bottas with one lap to go! So much for technology! The board was scrapped shortly afterwards and the flag returned.
In the rare cases where the flag is waved too early, the target order will be counted at the point at which the leader last crossed the line before waving the flag. If it is waved too late, the race is considered over when it should have been.
Marshal waves double waved yellow flags
Photo by: Nick Dungan / Motorsport Images
Yellow flag
This is the most commonly used flag. It means ‘danger’ and is displayed at the marshals in front of a danger point and at all subsequent points until there is no longer any danger.
A single wavy yellow is used when the hazard is off or partially on the track and the driver needs to reduce speed, not overtake and be ready to change direction.
A double yellow comes into play when the danger blocks the route in whole or in part and / or marshals work on or next to the route. In this case, a driver must “significantly” reduce speed, must not overtake and be ready to change direction or stop.
The yellow ones also appear during a safety car phase, which is displayed next to a board with the inscription “SC” for safety car or “VSC” or virtual safety car.
They are also used at the start of the race when the marshals are on the pit wall at each starting position. If a driver raises his hand to signal a problem, the yellow flag is waved to warn other drivers of the danger.
While they are a clear warning sign, many drivers do not respect them at all in the heat of the moment! The penalty for this rests with the commissioners, but to make it more formal, a system was put in place in 2021 to identify cars that waved double yellow and didn’t slow down as required.
Green flag
Photo by: Marc Fleury
Green flag
This is used to let drivers know that the stretch of road they are on is free during or after an incident. It will be waved after a yellow flag section at the Marshal’s Post and also on the yellow flag section after the incident has been resolved.
It is also used to start a practice session or qualifying, it is waved at the start of the race at the end of the grid to confirm that all the cars are on the line-up, and it is waved at the start line to show the race in Case of. to get a rolling start in motion or the end of a safety car phase.
red flag
This, as the color suggests, is used to stop the race. It is used when the route is blocked or the conditions make it too dangerous to continue driving. In this case, red flags are waved at all marshals and the demolition lights are lit on the portal above the start-finish line.
F1’s first red flag was waved in its very first season in 1950 when the rain stopped at the Indianapolis 500, which was part of the championship at the time. It was 21 years before the next when fog fell over Mosport Park, Canada. So far there have been 78.
The 2021 season has seen an amazing FIVE red flags so far – the most in EVERY year since the championship began. They came in the Grand Prix of Emilia Romagna, Azerbaijan, Great Britain, Hungary and Belgium, the latter after just one lap under the safety car in heavy rain, making it the shortest Formula 1 race of all time.
Red and yellow striped flag
This shows drivers that the track is slippery – usually due to oil or a specific watering hole.
white flag
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
white flag
This is very important as it means that there is a slow moving vehicle on the track. This could be a tow truck, an ambulance, or even an F1 car that does a start simulation at the end of the training session.
One of the most bizarre times it came out was in 2013 when the FIA sent a fire truck out on the track to fix an incident before the safety car slowed the field down. Fortunately, Leader Sebastian Vettel slowed down after seeing the white flags and also a safety car board.
In some series it is used to indicate the final lap of the race – but F1 doesn’t use it for that.
Blue flag
This is another regularly used flag, but it’s not very popular. It waves to slower cars to let them know that a faster one is trying to overtake. It also comes out at the pit exit to warn drivers of oncoming cars when leaving the racetrack.
If a driver is lapped and does not react to three blue flags, he receives a penalty. That happened to Haas driver Nikita Mazepin in Portugal in 2021, and also to Sergio Perez and Daniil Kvyat in Spain the year before, when F1 tried to crack down on drivers they ignored.
Black flag with orange disc
This is a bad flag to receive because it means you have a problem. It waves to let drivers know that there is a problem with their car that could endanger others – and when they see it they have to drive straight to the pits and either fix it or give it up.
Black and white diagonal flag
This flag is personal. It is the Formula 1 equivalent of the yellow card for football and is waved along with a sign with the number of the offending driver to warn them of “unsportsmanlike conduct”. It is sometimes referred to as the “meatball” flag!
It was shown to Hamilton at the 2010 Malaysian Grand Prix for weaving in front of Vitaly Petrov’s Renault, but after that it was replaced with a radio alert until it returned in 2019 when it was shown to Pierre Gasly in Belgium to pull in the braking area.
It was also featured on Max Verstappen at the 2021 Sao Paulo Grand Prix for aggressively defending his lead a second time in an intense fight with Lewis Hamilton. His answer by team radio: “Yes, perfect. Say hello!”
Black flag
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Black flag
This corresponds to the red card of football – an immediate expulsion without recourse. Like the black and white diagonal, it is swiveled with the driver’s number and you have to go straight to the pits and out of the race.
You don’t see it much anymore – in fact, the last time it was panned in a race during the chaotic Canadian Grand Prix in 2007, when Felipe Massa’s Ferrari and Giancarlo Fisichella’s Renault were stopped to run a red light out of the pits.
Three years earlier, Juan Pablo Montoya saw black at the US Grand Prix after his Williams broke down on the grid and he literally jumped out of the car just before the rest of the field left the opening lap. He ran to his garage to get on the spare tire, started out of the pits, but was stopped later in the race.
Ayrton Senna experienced a similar incident at his home race in Brazil in 1988 when his McLaren failed on the starting grid. He switched to the spare, started out of the pits and let the crowd climb to second place by half-time to fly the flag shortly thereafter.
There were many other incidents and several repeat offenders – Elio de Angelis and Nigel Mansell both got three black flags in their careers, the latter mainly for reversing in the pits in Portugal in 1989, after which he ignored the flags and stayed until they collided with Senna, which both made the race.
Michael Schumacher landed on the podium despite constantly ignoring black flags at the 1994 British Grand Prix. He broke the rules by overtaking pole-sitter Damon Hill twice on the warm-up lap and although he returned to second on the grid, he was stopped – penalty went.
He stayed outside as the team argued his case and received the black flag several times, but continued to the end, finishing second, taking the trophy and spraying the champagne. Two weeks later, he was disqualified, banned from two races, and the team was fined $ 500,000.
One of the bizarre black flag appearances came in 2019 when Haas actually asked the stewards to show them off with their own cars during a practice session in Monaco. They had lost all connections between the car and the pit and the drivers ignored the pit boards telling them to come back in!
