`get_driver_style`#

fastf1.plotting.get_driver_style(identifier, style, session, *, colormap='default', additional_color_kws=(), exact_match=False)[source]#

Get a plotting style that is unique for a driver based on the driver’s abbreviation or based on a recognizable and identifiable part of the driver’s name.

This function simplifies the task of generating unique and easily distinguishable visual styles for multiple drivers in a plot. Primarily, the focus is on plotting with Matplotlib, but it is possible to customize the behaviour for compatibility with other plotting libraries.

The general idea for creating visual styles is as follows:

Set the primary color of the style to the color of the team for which a driver is driving. This may be the line color in a line plot, the marker color in a scatter plot, and so on.
Use one or multiple other styling options (line style, markers, …) to differentiate drivers in the same team.

Note

It cannot be guaranteed that the styles are consistent throughout a full season, especially in case of driver changes within a team.

Option 1: Rely on built-in styling options

By default, this function supports the following Matplotlib plot arguments: linestyle, marker, color, facecolor, edgecolor as well as almost all other color-related arguments.

The styling options include one color for each team and up to four different line styles and marker styles within a team. That means that no more than four different drivers are supported for a team in a single session. This should be sufficient in almost all scenarios.

The following example obtains the driver style for Alonso and Stroll in a race in the 2023 season. The drivers should be represented using the color and marker arguments, as may be useful in a scatter plot. Both drivers were driving for the Aston Martin team, therefore, both automatically get assigned the same color, which is the Aston Martin team color. But both drivers get assigned a different marker style, so they can be uniquely identified in the plot.

Example:

>>> from fastf1 import get_session
>>> from fastf1.plotting import get_driver_style
>>> session = get_session(2023, 10, 'R')
>>> get_driver_style('ALO', ['color', 'marker'], session)
{'color': '#00665e', 'marker': 'x'}
>>> get_driver_style('STR', ['color', 'marker'], session)
{'color': '#00665e', 'marker': 'o'}

Option 2: Provide a custom list of styling variants

To allow for almost unlimited styling options, it is possible to specify custom styling variants. These are not tied to any specific plotting library.

In the following example, a list with two custom styles is defined that are then used to generate driver specific styles. Each style is represented by a dictionary of keywords and values.

The first driver in a team gets assigned the first style, the second driver the second style and so on (if there are more than two drivers). It is necessary to define at least as many styles as there are drivers in a team.

The following things need to be noted:

1. The notion of first or second driver does not refer to any particular reference and no specific order for drivers within a team is intended or guaranteed.

2. Any color-related key can make use of the “magic” 'auto' value as shown with Alonso in this example. When the color value is set to 'auto' it will automatically be replaced with the team color for this driver. All color keywords that are used in Matplotlib should be recognized automatically. You can define custom arguments as color arguments through the additional_color_kws argument. The replacement is done recursively so it will also work if your custom style dictionaries contain nested dictionaries as values.

3. Each style dictionary can contain arbitrary keys and value. Therefore, you are not limited to any particular plotting library.

Example:

>>> from fastf1 import get_session
>>> from fastf1.plotting import get_driver_style
>>> session = get_session(2023, 10, 'R')
>>> my_styles = [
...     {'linestyle': 'solid', 'color': 'auto', 'custom_arg': True},
...     {'linestyle': 'dotted', 'color': '#FF0060', 'other_arg': 10}
... ]
>>> get_driver_style('ALO', my_styles, session)
{'linestyle': 'solid', 'color': '#00665e', 'custom_arg': True}
>>> get_driver_style('STR', my_styles, session)
{'linestyle': 'dotted', 'color': '#FF0060', 'other_arg': 10}

Parameters:

identifier (str) – driver abbreviation or recognizable part of the driver name
style (Union[str, Sequence[str], Sequence[dict]]) – list of matplotlib plot arguments that should be used for styling or a list of custom style dictionaries
session (Session) – the session for which the data should be obtained
colormap (str) – one of 'default', 'fastf1' or 'official'. The default colormap is 'fastf1'. Use set_default_colormap() to change it.
additional_color_kws (Union[list, tuple]) – A list of keys that should additionally be treated as colors. This is most useful for making the magic 'auto' color work with custom styling options.
exact_match (bool) – match the identifier exactly (case-insensitive, special characters are converted to their nearest ASCII equivalent)

Return type: