Three tracks each day, shared by everyone, with a new challenge at midnight UTC. Your completed result stays saved for the day. Zoom Out starts on a satellite close-up of a famous corner, with no labels. Three guesses, in any order: pin where it is on the map, name the corner, and name the driver who most recently won a Formula 1 Grand Prix there. Each locks in when you get it right, and a right answer never changes the view. Every wrong guess zooms the view out one stage, and the next stage gives each open guess another try. You can also zoom out sooner, for the points it costs. At stage 5 each open guess gets one final try; then everything is revealed: the corner, the whole circuit traced on the imagery, its turns, its first World Championship race and a moment from its history, with sources. The map is OpenFreeMap (OpenStreetMap data).
| Stage | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | 2,000 | 1,600 | 1,200 | 800 | 400 |
| Corner | 2,000 | 1,600 | 1,200 | 800 | 400 |
| Latest winner | 1,000 | 800 | 600 | 400 | 200 |
Each stage shows nearly six times more ground across than the one before. A pin within 150 km of the corner counts as right: within 25 km it scores the stage's whole value, and from there to 150 km it falls to half. The corner list offers corner names only (and the other names they go by), never circuits or countries. Points come off for a zoom-out only once the wider view is on screen. Distances are great-circle kilometres to the corner.
Your pin, corner and driver are sent to the game's server only when you guess, to check them; the answers come back only once the round is over. Imagery is Esri World Imagery, fetched through the game's server so the page never knows where the clue is.
Paddock Atlas is an independent daily geography puzzle for racing fans. Arrange six host locations between Sakhir and Abu Dhabi to balance travel and seasonal weather.
Round dates are fictional puzzle slots. This is not an official racing calendar, a weather forecast, or a simulation of race safety. Monthly station averages may differ from conditions at a circuit or at night.
The score is the sum of seven great-circle journeys in kilometers, each rounded to the nearest kilometer, plus weather penalties, plus (from the October 12, 2026 route) a fan gap. Lower wins. Miles are a display conversion.
| Factor | Moderate: +3,000 km | Severe: +8,000 km |
|---|---|---|
| Average daily high: heat | ≥34 °C | ≥38 °C |
| Average daily high: cold | ≤13 °C | ≤8 °C |
| Monthly precipitation | ≥120 mm | ≥200 mm |
| Storm season | Season months | Peak months in Miami and Suzuka |
Only the highest level at each round counts; risks are not added together. Austin’s inland tropical-rain risk and Shanghai’s less certain storm-season data stay moderate. Rain-day counts are not used because national measurement thresholds differ.
These thresholds and penalties are game balancing choices, not scientific categories. Climate figures were compiled from the sources on each round’s info card. Some records use different periods and stations away from the circuit; a full primary-source audit is still pending.
Each race gets a fan rating out of 10: 2 plus its overtaking rating (1–5), up to +1 for safety-car chaos, up to +1 for long straights where a simulated 2026 Overtake Mode would help, and its weather: moderate rain +1 (wet-race drama), severe rain −1, moderate heat or cold −0.5, severe −1.5, storm season −0.5 or −2 at its worst. A street race straight after another street race loses 1. Rounds 5–8 count ×1.2, ×1.4, ×1.6 and ×1.8; your season fan rating is the weighted average.
The fan gap is how far your season fan rating falls short of the most exciting order possible with the day’s six cities: 800 km for every 0.1 of rating. The most exciting order costs nothing.
The overtaking, chaos and straights ratings are our editorial game-balancing choices. Overtake Mode effects are Paddock Atlas’s own simulation of the 2026 technical rules, not FIA data or decisions. Routes before October 12, 2026 keep the original travel-and-weather rules.
In 2026 cars switch between a high-downforce Corner Mode and a low-drag Straight Mode on designated straights, and in the wet race control can allow only partial use or switch it off. Paddock Atlas simulates this: each circuit’s longest straights are marked as zones (our estimate from the track shape, not FIA-designated zones). In a dry month they are fully open (teal); in a wet or stormy month only part of each zone is used (amber); in severe rain or storms they are off (grey). Any rain or storm risk in the month restricts the zones, even when heat is the bigger weather risk. Open zones add +0.5, +1 or +1.5 to a race’s fan rating (under 1 km, 1–2 km or over 2 km of zones), partial zones half of that rounded down to the nearest half point, and shut zones nothing. This replaces the earlier simulated Overtake Mode bonus.
A new puzzle starts at midnight UTC, with the same six locations worldwide. The game checks all 720 possible seasons to find the minimum score. It selects a puzzle where optimizing weather beats every shortest-distance route by at least 1,000 score kilometers.
Purple sectors mean that location appears in that slot in at least one optimal season. Matching six purple sectors does not by itself prove the whole route is optimal; compare the total score.
Perfect means an exact minimum score. Podium is up to 105% of best, points up to 115%, out of the points up to 130%, and back of the grid above that. Completing consecutive daily puzzles builds your streak.
You can submit once per daily route in this browser, then replay your submitted season. Local saves do not transfer to other devices and clearing browser data resets them. There are no accounts or server-verified leaderboards.
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