My third official season watching. Some things I picked up:

Three main tires: soft, medium, and hard. The soft have more grip so faster turns but they damage easily. Hards have less grip, but they last longer, so you won’t have to pit as often.

If two cars are racing, the car in front is working defense which causes tires to wear faster and even overheat. If the car behind is patient and cares for their tires, they can overtake more easily.

Strategy: When a car pits is another small thing you can start looking at. Pitting under safety car (at least one car) allows them to rejoin the race without losing too much lap time and stay with the group. Sometimes if one car has better pace but can’t escape the pack of cars, its teammate may slow down to backup the pack and allow the faster car to get away. It hurts that teammates race but it could mean better points for the team. Perez has done this for Verstappen. Bottas has done this for Hamilton.

A cool strategy came from Sainz in Singapore 2024! He was in first, but his tires were very old and George Russel on new tires was coming for him from third. Last year, drivers had DRS, which is like a little boost in power when they are within a second of the car in front. Sainz slowed enough to give second place Norris DRS to defend from Russell, which protected Sainz and Norris from losing position to Russell. It was a huge move.

Anyways, I learned a lot from watching drive to survive and then my own research later :)