Ten cool things you can do on the new F1 Fanatic

F1 Fanatic

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Join in the F1 Fanatic community

A host of new features were introduced two weeks ago on F1 Fanatic and already many readers have been making use of them.

Here’s a look at ten of the most popular new features to help you get the most out of the new site.

Note that in order to do these you need to be logged in with an F1 Fanatic account. You can sign up for an F1 Fanatic account here if you haven’t got one.

Find out who supports the same drivers and teams as you

Are you a passionate tifoso? A lifelong Schumacher fan? Now you can show your colours and find out which F1 Fanatics support the same people you do.

To set which drivers and teams you support, log in and go to My Account > Profile > Edit then select F1 teams and drivers. Pick the driver or drivers you support and do the same for teams.

Your driver and team choices are displayed under My Account > Profile and you can click on each of them to discover who supports who. Here’s a few examples:

You can also find out who started watching F1 the same year as you.

In an upcoming article I’ll take a look at what this data reveals about who gets the most support among F1 Fanatic readers, so get updating those profiles!

Share videos

The F1 Fanatic Forums now allow you to embed videos very easily. Just post a link to a video from a major video sharing site and it will appear.

YouTube (public videos only), DailyMotion and Vimeo are among those supported. Here’s a few examples:

Share pictures

You can also add images from Flickr in much the same way – just post a link to the image in the forum and it will appear.

Been to an F1 race this year? Upload your images on Flickr and show off your snaps in the forum.

Plan your next F1 race visit

New place to discuss your race weekend plans

Speaking of going to an F1 race, the new F1 Fanatic Groups offer us a great new way of bringing together F1 Fanatics who are heading to the same race.

The old discussion pages for this purpose had almost 1,000 comments in some places. While this is a terrific amount of feedback, it’s not very helpful for a new user arriving at the site to find it all on one huge page.

With that in mind, each race now has dedicated discussion groups you can join. Find them here:

These can all be found via F1 2012 > 2012 F1 calendar.

The old pages will remain open for the time being. The comments will be closed at the end of this season, but will remain available for people to view.

Search everything

New-look search results

The revamped search box doesn’t just rummage through articles – it now also returns results on forums, members and groups that match your search terms, and breaks them down accordingly.

You can further refine your search in each of these four different sections of the site to find what you’re looking for.

The search box remains in view at the top of the page so finding exactly what you’re looking for is only ever a quick search away.

Use the name you want

Didn’t get the name you wanted when you signed up? No problem, you can customise your name exactly as you like.

Just go to My Account > Profile > Edit and tweak it accordingly.

Add a picture next to your name

A persistent source of confusion with the previous version of the site was how to set your avatar. Now it couldn’t be simpler.

Go to My Account > Profile > Change Avatar and you can upload and crop a new picture accordingly.

Get your inbox under control

By default you will receive an email when people send you replies of friendship requests.

You can alter which kind of notifications you receive and even turn them off entirely. Simply go to My Account > Settings > Notifications.

Leave the house

All the features of the regular site are available in the new mobile site, designed to work with the current generation of smartphones.

Keep track of your conversations

You can quickly access all the forum topics you’ve started through your own profile.

Click on the Forums tab to see which of your topics has been updated.

Bonus 11th tip: See everything that’s new on the site

If you’re a compulsive F1 Fanatic-checker there’s now a single page where you can keep track of all the new articles, comments, forum topics, activity updates and more going on across the site.

Go to Community > Activity and you’ll find all the very latest content that’s been posted by all users.

Suggesting changes to the new site

Tweaks and improvements are being made all the time so if you’d like to suggest one you can do so here. If you’ve discovered a problem with the site you can check the list of known problems and report a problem here.

What have you been using the new site for? Have you got a favourite new feature? Has it changed the way you use F1 Fanatic? Have your say in the comments.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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56 comments on “Ten cool things you can do on the new F1 Fanatic”

  1. It really is such a good update. Great Job man! :D

    1. Yep totally agree. The whole site feels different really, it feels like the proper ‘social’ site for F1 fans, which is amazing. The site was def my favourite for F1 before the update, but now it’s miles ahead.

      1. thats what I thought, not been on for a while but came back to the new updated site and had a look around the new features and it is very much like an F1 Social Network, both interesting and unique. Well done great work and very jealous I never thought of it first?? :)

  2. Great site Keith, really love the new features

  3. So far, my favourite feature is the profiles and all of the functionality. Personal messaging is very handy and the @ reply system is very handy. I think there’s one thing that would make it easier, however. When clicking “reply” to a comment, it should automatically put the user that you’re replying to in the comment box with the correct spelling, as it has been confusing when people’s actual usernames and display names are different. To put it simply; the same idea as Twitter. When you reply to someone, it puts their @ username before the message.

    But I’m loving the fact it is now easier to communicate with our F1F friends.

    1. So far, my favourite feature is the profiles and all of the functionality.

      Same here. And I just thought of an interesting query: which drivers does Keith Collantine support? Ah, that part of the profile was not filled in yet ;)

      1. @adrianmorse I don’t pick favourites, for obvious reasons!

        1. @Keith Collantine but surely you have some preferences, it’s only natural

          1. @jleigh My preference is for close, exciting, unpredictable racing which gets bigger audiences for F1 and sends more people to F1 Fanatic!

            Seriously, though, as the person who writes most of the content for the site I feel it’s not appropriate for me to go picking sides. Not everyone who writes about sports feels that way but I do.

          2. Keith’s dream season would be 20 different race winners :)
            Asking too much? OK, make it 10.
            Wow, what a season that would be!!!!

    2. How does it actually work? (That @ user, tagging thingy..) It looks like a brilliant feature, if I just knew how to use it…

        1. Just @ followed by username, with no spaces between.

          1. @Calum
            Yeah exactly! Thanks : )

    3. I agree, the function of notifications for replies is great!

  4. This community has become ever more closer,louder & therefore stronger.Personally,im really embracing these changes.Last week,i looked at a 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix analysis article & over the space of two years only 10 people commented & i think & look at how far this website has come & how the community has expanded.Its simply amazing.Thank you Keith!!! Great job!!!

  5. I have a suggestion about favorite drivers field – add drivers which aren’t active anymore as well. For example, not even Nico Hulkenberg who raced last year and is driving on Fridays isn’t available for selection.
    Not to mention all the great drivers from the past.

    1. @gabal

      I appreciate the suggestion but, as it says in the article, there is a place for suggestions here:

      https://www.racefans.net/groups/f1-fanatic-site-development/forum/

      That idea has already been raised.

      1. Missed that link – my first instinct is still to comment on the article. I guess it will take some time to get used to the changes and use the other parts of the site as well.

  6. Mate; one thing I haven’t been able to do on the old or new sites is actually suggest articles! I can get to the page, but the Skribit plugin just forever says it’s loading….

    1. @raymondu999 That’s because Skribit was discontinued a while ago and the service has been pulled from the site now. But there are plenty of other ways now for you to contact me through the site to suggest article ideas.

      1. aha. That explains a lot then. Cheers Keith.

  7. Keith, I (and i’m sure a lot of others) really appreciate the work that you’ve put into this site. It is by far my favourite site on the internet, and I hope you have even more success with these fantastic new features. Thankyou.

  8. Molto molto bello! Ben fatto!

    Very very good, well done!

  9. F1F is now so imposing that we should declare our independence from the rest of the world. Flag should be easy to draw (blue & green) and Magnificent Geoffrey could write the words to the anthem, too.

    Before that, I need to buy a smartphone I think.

    1. This is happening.

  10. First: the site is wonderful. It is turning in a social F1 communty with very powerfull tools to link the fans around their tastes and favourites.

    But…My english is very poor (as you can notice!), so the feature ‘edit comment’ would be a must have, specially for me.

    Any chance?

    1. @becken-lima I asked about that one during the testing phase and Keith explained to me that some users could potentially abuse this feature by altering the course of arguments, for example.

  11. I used to get a mobile version of your site on my cell but it dosent recognise my device since your latest update.

    1. @nooni Try clicking on the mobile site link at the very bottom? If it doesn’t work straight away, try clicking on another link. That worked for me.

  12. The best feature is the @ system. It’s great for keeping in touch :D

  13. Well yes, we understand you have to remain objective, but a favourite driver isnt necessarily a rational decision, its also a feeling. I’m quite sure you have feelings too, Keith! :-) so just tell us you do have a favourite – dont name him or the team – but tell us you do have one.

  14. The 11th cool thing you can do with the New F1Fanatic….

    …make new friends. *insert bashful emoticon here*

  15. In the future F1 Fanatic will beat Facebook & Twitter for the best place on earth to talk about F1. Wish Keith all the best alone with some 30000 who are the members here.

  16. @keithcollantine I clicked on Jerome D’Ambrosio (first tip) and it doesn’t find anything! Some sort of spelling mistake or something?

    I love the new F1F. The whole community is much more enjoyable (and custom) and I haven’t spent so much time here in a long while. Thank you for everything.

    1. Also, haven’t seen the community/activity thing before, lovely. There’s always someone online to talk to :)

    2. @Enigma Ah, it doesn’t like the apostrophe in d’Ambrosio. Will have a look how to remedy that. Thanks.

  17. Keith the new features are awesome, you deserve many beers. :)

  18. You should add Photobucket support.

  19. I have been testing it beforehand, and i am here quite often, so I am getting more and more familiar with all the possibilities, but there’s still so much to discover and learn how to best use!

  20. Keith, the updates are great, thanks! I’m trying to figure out how the name change works. Am I correct in thinking it just changes your display name and not your actual username? My username is Sharon and I’ve just edited my profile for my name to be Murraytastic, which I use on another site and also used to use for F1F predictions championship in the days before it was linked to my login. In the address bar, it still shows my profile name as Sharon, and if I log out and try to log back in I have to use Sharon. Murraytastic is successfully displayed next to my posts in the forum and it tells me that is who I am logged in as.

    It’s not a problem, I am just curious as to how it actually works! Also, now I have changed my display name, will the @ feature still work? When I click on my profile now, it says @Sharon, so will I still be notified if people use @Murraytastic?

    Thanks for any clarification in advance! :)

    1. No the @ feature only appears to be for usernames not profile names

      1. Thanks Jared, was just coming to the same conclusion as you posted!

    2. Hmm, now I have submitted the post, @Sharon is linked but @Murraytastic is not. It looks like I have to change my name back to Sharon for the @ feature to work. Could you check that out please? I think I would prefer the @ feature to work and carry on using Sharon.

      1. With a little more investigation I have found the answer in the site development group! Doh, should have searched before posting, sorry. I am going to change back to Sharon for now to make sure I don’t miss any @ messages.

        1. but there is no real problem with being called Murraytastic while having @sharon as a user name, just means people have to notice how to write your username when mentioning you!

  21. Well done Keith, you’re creating a real F1 community!

  22. A triumph!

  23. I’ve been following this site since late 2009; and wow.. so much improvement ever since, especially discussions and replies on every topic with many people all over the globe.

    I still have one problem though… opera browser still can’t display full image on image gallery everytime I clicked on the thumbnail

  24. It keeps getting better, well done~
    I’m only sad that the ‘reply’ ‘report user’ buttons are so big – I’m nostalgic for looking at that big unbroken wall of text!

  25. I second all the congrats above. This was already my favourite F1 site and now it’s even more sticky!

  26. All the features of the regular site are available in the new mobile site, designed to work with the current generation of smartphones.

    Bit late, But I don’t suppose you’ve got any way of making it compatible with a Blackberry 8500??

    1. Apart from that, great job!

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