F1 Sensor – v5.1.0

This release introduces two major new capabilities: a Live Track Map with driver positions and Incident Detection for likely stopped cars and on-track incidents.

Version 5.1 also adds a ready-to-use Incident Notifications blueprint, new championship and race progression charts, improved Replay Mode controls, compact dashboard layouts, and several reliability and usability improvements.

F1 Sensor continues to work without F1TV access. Public live timing supports confirmed incident alerts, while optional F1TV Auth unlocks the Live Track Map and can provide earlier incident candidates and additional location context.

What this means in practice

The new Track Map card provides a visual overview of driver positions during supported live and replay sessions. It includes circuit layouts, smoothly moving driver markers, lap progress, track status, timing context, and configurable display options. Live Track Map data requires F1TV Auth, while replay availability depends on the archived session data.

Incident Detection can identify likely stopped cars and other possible on-track incidents. Confirmed alerts work with public live timing, while optional F1TV Auth data can provide earlier candidate alerts. Fresh Track Map data can also add details such as the sector, pit-lane state, or approximate location.

The new Incident Notifications blueprint lets you receive alerts without writing YAML. It supports confidence and session filters, multiple notification targets, optional candidate and cleared alerts, and notification updates for the same incident. Its conservative defaults notify only for confirmed or updated medium- and high-confidence incidents during Race, Sprint, and Qualifying sessions.

Incident Detection is a best-effort feature and does not claim to provide confirmed crash detection. Most existing installations and dashboards continue to work without configuration changes.

Full changelog

New features

• Add Live Track Map support
  The F1 Sensor integration and live data card can now display driver positions on a circuit map during supported live and replay sessions. Known circuits use curated layouts, while other circuits can fall back to available position data when a usable map can be created.

• Add on-track Incident Detection
  F1 Sensor can now detect likely stopped cars and on-track incidents during Race, Sprint, Qualifying, and Practice sessions. The integration provides confirmed and possible incident binary sensors, device triggers, and detailed events for dashboards and automations.

• Add early possible incident automation support
  The possible incident sensor can react to candidate alerts before an incident is fully confirmed. The existing confirmed incident sensor keeps its confirmed-only behavior, and detection has been refined to reduce false positives around pit-lane yellows, deleted laps, red flags, and driver data updates.

• Add the Incident Notifications blueprint
  A new ready-to-use blueprint sends neutral notifications when likely stopped cars or on-track incidents are detected. It supports mobile app notification services, Home Assistant notify entities, and multiple notification targets.

  Users can filter notifications by minimum confidence and session type, enable earlier candidate alerts, and optionally receive an update when an incident is cleared. Conservative defaults include Race, Sprint, and Qualifying sessions while excluding Practice, Testing, and early candidate alerts.

  Notifications can include the affected driver, session, confidence, Race Control information, track status, and optional Track Map location. A stable incident tag allows supported devices to update an existing notification when more information becomes available instead of creating duplicates.

• Add optional incident location context
  Fresh Track Map data can add sector, pit-lane, and location information to incident events and notifications. Track Map and F1TV Auth are not required for confirmed incident detection using public live timing.

• Add driver and constructor championship progression cards
  New live data cards show how driver and constructor championship points develop throughout the season. The cards include future rounds, configurable legends, point labels, driver photos, team logos, and detailed tooltips.

• Add post-race lap position progression
  Completed races can now be explored through a lap-by-lap position chart. The card includes race selection, driver filtering, start and finish labels, tooltips, and No Spoiler Mode support. Sprint entries show as unavailable when lap-by-lap sprint data is not provided.

• Add replay seeking
  Replay Mode now supports faster seeking through the media player and a draggable dashboard playbar while keeping the existing skip controls. Timing, Race Control, session clock, and Track Map data remain synchronized after seeking.

• Add compact live data card layouts
  The Live Session Status card now adapts better to mobile and Sections dashboards. Users can select Auto, Compact, or Full layout modes.

• Promote F1TV Auth to a standard optional feature
  F1TV Auth is now presented as the normal optional method for unlocking additional live timing data such as Live Track Map positions. Public live timing remains available without authentication.

Bug fixes

• Correct Track Status Light blueprint behavior
  The Track Status Light blueprint now preserves the original light state when several alerts occur before the track becomes clear. Session filtering also remains active during suspended sessions so consecutive flag changes continue to update the selected lights correctly.

• Improve Replay Mode reliability
  Replay controls now load more reliably in current Home Assistant versions and remain available alongside the new seek slider.

• Restore Practice timing card data
  Practice timing details now remain visible when valid driver data is available but the lap-count sensor has an unknown or unavailable state.

• Correct pit stop statistics and recorder warnings
  Pit stop totals now use appropriate long-term statistics handling and can be corrected or reset without inaccurate recorder warnings. Home Assistant may show a one-time repair prompt for an old pit stop statistics entry.

• Avoid premature tyre-data warnings
  Tyre-data warnings now wait until the session has started, avoiding false alerts before live timing begins.

• Improve temporary data error reporting
  Coordinator timeouts and temporary upstream data failures are now reported more clearly without changing existing entity behavior.

• Prevent slow next race updates
  Next race details are now prepared between schedule updates, preventing slow update warnings after Home Assistant restarts.

• Improve F1TV Auth repair handling
  Expired or rejected F1TV access now uses the F1 Sensor repair flow without also creating a separate Home Assistant authentication error. Public live timing remains available while access is refreshed or cleared.

• Respect Home Assistant time format settings
  Race, session, track, grid, and document times now follow the configured 12-hour or 24-hour Home Assistant time format.

• Clarify active No Spoiler Mode
  Spoiler-sensitive cards now show a clear notice and dim their content when No Spoiler Mode is active.

• Improve card readability and spacing
  Position movement indicators have clearer light-mode contrast, and table spacing is more consistent across result, championship, pit stop, tyre, and investigation cards.

Documentation

• Add complete guides for Track Map and Incident Detection.
• Add setup instructions and configuration details for the Incident Notifications blueprint.
• Document incident entities, events, device triggers, confidence levels, and incident phases.
• Add setup and troubleshooting guidance for F1TV Auth.
• Clarify the differences between public live timing, F1TV Auth, Replay Mode, and Developer mode.
• Clarify Replay Mode seeking and Live Delay synchronization with TV lap graphics.
• Explain F1TV subscription requirements and feature availability.
• Expand diagnostics and troubleshooting guidance for incident alerts and Track Map data.

Maintenance

• Improve validation and safe handling of live timing, replay, Race Control, and FIA document data.
• Prevent unsafe external content from being rendered by the live data card.
• Improve automated testing for bundled dashboard cards, blueprints, Incident Detection, Track Map, and Replay Mode.
• Update translations and internal dependencies.

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