F1 Sensor – v4.2.0

The 2026 season has already brought more than just racing, it has also introduced fundamental changes to how Formula 1 delivers live timing data.

Over the past weeks, several users reported missing or inconsistent data during live sessions, while everything appeared to work perfectly in Replay Mode. After deeper analysis, the root cause became clear: parts of the F1 Live Timing API are no longer publicly available and now require authentication through an F1 TV subscription.

This version adapts the integration to that new reality.

What this means in practice

The majority of what makes F1 Sensor useful, live timing, track status, race control, lap data, weather, and driver information, continues to work exactly as before using open data streams.

However, some data streams are now protected behind authentication. Since the integration does not implement F1 TV login, these sensors will no longer attempt to provide partial or misleading live data. Instead, they are now clearly handled as replay-only, where full session data is still available from archived sources.

This creates a more predictable and stable experience, where everything you see in live mode is reliable.

About authentication support

Authentication support is not included in this release.

Implementing it properly requires access to a working F1 TV Pro subscription for testing and validation, which is not something I currently have. More importantly, introducing partially tested authentication would risk breaking the stable live data that already works well today.

For now, the focus is on making the open data as robust and accurate as possible across real race weekends.

If there is strong interest and support from the community, and especially if users with access to F1 TV Pro want to contribute with testing or development, this is something that can be explored further in the future. Read more about this in the Community Forum

Highlights in 4.2

A more predictable live experience
Live mode now focuses only on data that is actually available without authentication. Sensors that previously showed incomplete or misleading values have been cleanly separated, so what you see during a session is consistent and reliable. No more guessing if a value is correct or silently missing.

Replay Mode becomes more powerful
With several data streams now unavailable live, Replay Mode becomes even more valuable. All replay-only sensors now work as expected when playing back a session, giving you access to the full dataset after the race with improved consistency and timing behavior.

Reliable tyre data in live sessions
Tyre data has been moved to a stable and verified data source. Compound, stint length, and new or used status now update correctly during live sessions, removing one of the most common sources of confusion during races.

Much more stable live timing connection
The integration now uses the modern SignalR protocol, eliminating the reconnect patterns seen in previous versions. This results in a significantly more stable connection during race weekends, especially during long sessions.

Richer next race insights
The next race sensor now includes historical circuit context such as previous winners, pole sitters, and key statistics. This makes dashboards and automations more informative without adding complexity.

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Full changelog

New features

• Add historical race facts to the next race sensor
  The next race sensor now includes historical circuit facts that make upcoming events more informative in dashboards and automations. It adds defending winner and pole sitter, the last five winners and poles, all-time top winners at the circuit, the first race held there, last year's podium, and summary stats such as recent DNF rate and grid-to-win conversion. This gives a much richer view of each upcoming Grand Prix while keeping the data stable and efficiently cached.

Bug fixes

• Improve FIA document fetch reliability and remove a misleading Home Assistant warning
  The FIA documents sensor now uses the same request headers as the rest of the integration when looking up FIA season pages, which makes document fetching more reliable when the FIA portal is strict about incoming requests. Temporary FIA access errors are also handled more cleanly, so they no longer produce a confusing "Future exception was never retrieved" warning in the Home Assistant log.

• Keep qualifying lap times updating until the session is fully finalised
  Qualifying and sprint qualifying lap times now continue updating after the session first reaches finished status, so the final valid laps are still reflected correctly in the timing card. This prevents the last drivers’ times from freezing too early while preserving the normal stop point once the session is actually finalised.

• Keep replay timers stable when pausing and resuming playback
  Replay mode now freezes the session clock at the current replay position when you pause, instead of jumping to an older timestamp and then correcting itself on resume. This keeps session time elapsed, session time remaining, and the race 3-hour limit steady and consistent during pause, play, and seek actions so replay timing matches what you see on screen.

• Move live tyre data to TimingAppData
  Live tyre handling now reads compound, new-set status, and stint length directly from TimingAppData instead of relying on TyreStintSeries. This makes current tyre and tyre statistics sensors update reliably in live sessions and replay mode, even when the old stream is missing or incomplete. The change also removes the unused TyreStintSeries dependency from diagnostics and replay loading so behaviour is more consistent across live and replay sessions.

• Restore live formation start detection during race starts
  This update improves the reliability of the formation start sensor during live sessions. The integration now detects formation start from the live timing feed more consistently and also handles delayed session metadata more safely, so the sensor is available when the formation lap begins. Replay behavior remains unchanged and continues to work as before.

• Restore live pit stop counts when pit stop events are missing
  Live race pit stop counts now stay accurate even when some pit stop event frames arrive late or are missing from the feed. The integration falls back to the live driver timing data so pit stop sensors and race cards continue to show the correct totals during the session.

• Restore No Spoiler Mode when the integration is reloaded
  Fixed an issue where No Spoiler Mode could disappear for some users after reloading or reconfiguring the integration. The switch now remains available and can be enabled again normally, so spoiler protection is easier to trust and recover without manual cleanup or a full restart.

• Restore replay updates for live weather, lap count, and championship prediction sensors
  Replay sessions now keep the live weather, lap count, and championship prediction sensors updated instead of leaving them unavailable or unknown after playback starts. This fixes replay handling so sensor availability follows incoming race data correctly, and driver prediction results keep their displayed identity even when Formula 1 sends partial updates. Users running race replays should now see these sensors populate reliably from the start of the session.

• Correct formation start sensor activation during race and sprint sessions
  The formation start sensor was never turning on during formation laps due to a timing error that caused the detection probe to run before any useful data was available, resulting in repeated failures and the sensor staying permanently off. The probe now runs at the correct moment, reliably detecting when the formation lap begins and activating the sensor for the window between the formation lap start and lights out. The sensor is also now available in replay mode, driven by the replayed session data in the same way as all other sensors.

• Freeze replay session timers when playback is paused
  Replay Mode now keeps the session clock aligned with the actual playback state when you pause a replay. Session timers no longer continue counting in the background, which keeps the live session card and related timer entities in sync until playback resumes.

• Freeze time in circuit map test to prevent date-dependent failures
  The test used a hardcoded race date without mocking the clock, causing it to fail once the race date plus the 3-hour grace period had passed. This adds a monkeypatch to freeze time before the race, matching the pattern already used in other next-race sensor tests.

• Keep sensors loading when FIA documents are temporarily unavailable
  The integration now starts normally even if the FIA document site temporarily rejects requests, including intermittent or regional 403 responses. FIA documents are treated as optional during startup, so the rest of your F1 sensors remain available instead of the whole integration failing to load. The documents can recover automatically later when the FIA site responds again.

• Restrict auth-protected sensors to replay mode only
  Several F1 live timing streams now require F1TV Pro authentication
  that the integration does not provide. Sensors depending on these
  streams showed misleading data during live sessions — championship
  prediction displayed "unknown", pit stops stayed at zero, and team
  radio never updated. The formation start binary sensor was also
  affected since it relies on the auth-protected CarData.z stream.

  These sensors are now activated only in replay mode where the
  archived session data is fully available. In live mode the sensors
  are simply not registered, giving users a clean set of working
  entities. The SignalR subscription list has been updated to stop
  requesting streams that would never deliver data without
  authentication. The sensor selector in the configuration UI now
  clearly labels these sensors as "replay only" so users know what
  to expect.

• Simplify live delay calibration references
  Live delay calibration now only shows the reference points that actually work with the current live data flow. The unsupported formation start option has been removed from live delay calibration, and older saved selections are automatically reset to the default session-based reference. Documentation was also aligned so the live session card and live delay guidance describe the current behavior more clearly.

• Update qualifying segment badges as soon as Q2 or Q3 starts
  The integration now updates the active qualifying segment earlier, so dashboards can switch the Q-part badge to Q2 or Q3 as soon as the new segment begins. This avoids the previous delay where the badge could stay on the earlier segment until a driver completed a lap. The change only affects how the integration exposes the active qualifying part and does not require any card configuration changes.

Blueprints

• Add WLED playlist support and finished flag handling to the track status blueprint
  The track status blueprint now supports WLED playlists as well as presets, so you can use either option for CLEAR, YELLOW, RED, VSC, SC, and session-finished effects. When both are configured for the same state, the playlist takes priority. The blueprint also adds a dedicated finished/checkered mapping that runs when the session moves to finished, holds for the existing end delay, and then continues with the normal end-of-session action. CLEAR remains the green-flag case, so no separate green state was added.

• Bugfix - Restore delayed CLEAR fallback for WLED track status lights
  Track status lights using WLED advanced mode now correctly restore the previous pre-alert scene after the configured CLEAR delay. This fixes a case where a configured CLEAR preset or playlist could keep the light on the last WLED effect instead of returning to the earlier state.

• Restore track status notifications during continuous flashing
  Track status notifications now fire immediately even when SC or VSC is set to flash continuously, so TTS and other notification actions are no longer delayed until the flashing stops. This update also fixes scene snapshot handling for alert restores, preventing the template error that could stop the automation when saving the current light state.

• Restore WLED to a solid CLEAR state after Safety Car effects
  This fixes a case where the Track Status Light blueprint could leave a WLED effect running after the track returned to CLEAR. When no CLEAR preset or playlist is configured, the blueprint now resets the light to a normal solid CLEAR state so the color change behaves as users expect.

• Improve FIA document fetch reliability and remove a misleading Home Assistant warning
  The FIA documents sensor now uses the same request headers as the rest of the integration when looking up FIA season pages, which makes document fetching more reliable when the FIA portal is strict about incoming requests. Temporary FIA access errors are also handled more cleanly, so they no longer produce a confusing "Future exception was never retrieved" warning in the Home Assistant log.

• Restore replay updates for live weather, lap count, and championship prediction sensors
  Replay sessions now keep the live weather, lap count, and championship prediction sensors updated instead of leaving them unavailable or unknown after playback starts. This fixes replay handling so sensor availability follows incoming race data correctly, and driver prediction results keep their displayed identity even when Formula 1 sends partial updates. Users running race replays should now see these sensors populate reliably from the start of the session.

• Keep replay timers stable when pausing and resuming playback
  Replay mode now freezes the session clock at the current replay position when you pause, instead of jumping to an older timestamp and then correcting itself on resume. This keeps session time elapsed, session time remaining, and the race 3-hour limit steady and consistent during pause, play, and seek actions so replay timing matches what you see on screen.

Documentation

• Update for v4.2
• Add new cards

Maintenance

• Add regression coverage for replay-only pit stop behavior

• Improve Race Control data handling to support the updated card
  This update improves the integration behavior behind the Race Control card so saved session messages stay in sync more reliably during live timing and replay use. It also handles session resets more cleanly when replay stops or the data source becomes unavailable, helping the card clear and rebuild its saved list at the right time. The result is a more predictable and stable Race Control experience without expanding sensor attributes unnecessarily.

• Improve session clock reliability during qualifying breaks, overtime, and replay pause
  The session clock now handles several edge cases more robustly. During qualifying segment breaks, stale time values from the previous segment are no longer shown. Race sessions that exceed the scheduled clock duration now correctly report an overtime state instead of appearing idle. Replay pause and resume transitions are detected immediately, eliminating brief time jumps that could occur when resuming playback. The live data card no longer displays leftover time values between sessions or before a session has started, and the remaining time display no longer briefly disappears when reaching zero.

• Stabilize no-auth live timing streams and replay-only sensor availability
  Live mode now subscribes only to the supported public timing streams, which avoids misleading empty feeds for data that still requires authentication. Replay-only and auth-gated sensors remain registered in Home Assistant, but stay unavailable until replay data or future authenticated support can provide real values. This makes dashboards and automations more predictable today while preserving a clean upgrade path for optional auth later.

• Improve live timing connection stability and reliability
  The integration now uses the modern F1 live timing protocol instead of the older one that required sending a keep-alive subscription every five minutes to stay connected. The new connection uses a proper ping-based keep-alive, which eliminates the reconnection storms seen in previous race weekends. A fallback to the old protocol is available for troubleshooting if needed.

☕ Support This Project

If you find F1 Sensor useful, consider supporting its development