favourite f1 rivalry of all time, current past and forever, is sebmark :) the combination of the young talented upstart on a meteoric rise versus the reliable older driver who's losing daylight and watching the gap for them to win a wdc slowly close... so emotionally wrought and deeply compelling. and multi-21 broke something in my brain, no team orders drama will ever live up to it

(in a different world I might have been more into brocedes, the childhood friends angle to it is so powerful. sadly that era coincided with seb's decline and out of spite I was never properly able to give my attention to mercedes or lewis. that said, I think the lewis/massa rivalry deserves more attention. as always, when one driver walks away without a championship I find this painfully compelling... and massa coming back over a decade to bring a legal challenge, bruh)

of the current rivalries - I like norstappen! even before they started really having a go at each other this season. their silly goofy twitch stream-based friendship was sweet to me, and I felt like lando had the capability to challenge max - I thought that if he managed to do that the on-track rivalry mixed with the off-track friendship would be really interesting. and it has been, even though recent events have shown that the rivalry is not as even (yet?) as I might like it to be

I could also really see myself getting into landoscar. there was some pretty ropey team orders drama this season which obviously doesn't reach mutli-21 heights but there were shades of it. lando being so emotional versus oscar being so stoic would make for some fiery clashes if they both start properly challenging for the title! maybe next year :)

somewhat embarrassingly, via my university boyfriend. I had kind of a vague awareness of f1 because this was around the time that the singapore gp was put back on the calendar (and I'm from singapore) but he was properly into it and so I used to sit down and watch races with him most weekends. (I had also gone to uni in the uk so this meant that the races were at sensible times!) having someone sit down next to you and explain the strategy and what was going on was SO helpful. now the boyfriend is gone but my love for f1 remains :)

in the absence of a personal live-explainer, I know that a lot of people have gotten into f1 via drive to survive, which might be a helpful route into why people find the sport exciting, though imo it doesn't do a great job of explaining the actual strategy. but the commentary on races, the on-screen graphics, and the tv direction, has improved hugely in the last decade - so with DTS to provide context you might be able to get by with just watching the races and paying attention.

I also used to listen to a couple of f1 podcasts - less so now because I feel like they all kinda say the same thing - but that could be useful for a beginner. chequered flag is the one I listened to the most, but I know some friends really like shift+f1 too. I've also listened to choosing sides, which was a limited series structured around the concept of helping a newbie pick a team to support, and I think they've done a second season about different types of fans - which is a framing device to explain different aspects of the sport. it's a fun introducer!

a word of warning though - while I personally find f1 very exciting and dramatic, at its heart it is still a sport, and being an f1 fan is very much like following any sport. it's not formed of endless Big Moments, but of little ones that build up into a narrative over time. and that's a big part of the fun of it for me, being involved in that progression and watching how things play out - but if you go in expecting the kind of endless High Drama that is shown in DTS or in f1 aus, you are likely to be disappointed. I still think it's worth exploring if you're interested - and lots of people who wouldn't have thought of themselves as "sports fans" have found a love for f1 - but do keep a realistic expectation about what following it is going to be like! and there's no shame as well in having a passing interest without wanting to be super diehard, watching every single race and getting involved in all the discourse - there's no right or wrong way to be a fan :) if you have any other questions please ask me, I'm always so happy to introduce more ppl to the sport!