WHAT THIS IS
This is a recorded replay, baked into the page — the real Mexico City qualifying session of 31 October 2026 (recorded across ten minutes, 21:08–21:18 UTC; the table loops the closing minutes of that window, when the whole field was out on its final runs — the long mid-window lull, with every car sitting in its garage, is not looped), carried in the page because the headset makes no live calls in this stage. Every car sits on a measured position from that session's feed, or on the straight line between two measured positions; the picture runs about twelve seconds behind the replay clock so it can interpolate rather than guess, and a car whose data goes stale disappears rather than invent a position. The tower and panels are read from the same recording and always show the state as of the moment you are watching — never a message, stop or lap from the future.
Each car carries a photo bubble: the driver's openly licensed portrait in a team-colour medallion. Point at one and click to open his profile card — position, best lap, tyre and stint, all as of the moment on the table. One honest exception: car #50 was driven in this session by Ryo Hirakawa, a stand-in for whom no openly licensed portrait exists in the set — his bubble is a drawn monogram, never another driver's face.
The pit lane is on the map now — lane, pit boxes, pit wall, a glass-fronted pit building and a control tower along the main straight — and the circuit wears grass, red-and-white kerbs and a neon edge line in Italian colours. The buildings around the circuit stand on real OpenStreetMap footprints; their heights are stylised where the map carries none, and the signature structures (pit building, tower, grandstands, the stadium bowl) are stylised interpretations, drawn from public reference as plain geometry — not copied models. In a qualifying window the pits are layout, not activity: no pit stops are faked on the map.
The gaps column on the tower is each driver's best-lap delta from the laps feed — the intervals feed records nothing for qualifying, and the panel says so rather than inventing race gaps.
The land itself is now a diorama, finished like an exhibition model: the infield rises in stepped terraces to a proper hill, gravel paths and warm lamps thread between the structures, and the whole table is framed in a continuous neon edge-light while the city blocks glow warm at dusk. The planting has grown up in this pass: the forest is built from proper little game trees — tapered trunks under clustered canopies, round broadleaf crowns and stacked-cone pines, every one a different height, turn and shade — grass blades stand along the paths and the ribbon's edge, every soil, rock and lawn face carries grain instead of flat colour, vines creep at random lengths over the stadium, the stands and down the table's own outer faces, and the pond reflects the dusk sky and flows toward a small animated waterfall with a foam ring where it lands. One honest line about all of that: the terrain relief, water and planting are stylised diorama art; the circuit itself is flat and the data is real. The feed reports where each car is, not how high — the racing line stays level because there is no elevation in the data.
The table has a home now. In the Real Room it stands in your own room through passthrough; choose FRONT, LEFT or RIGHT on the CONTROLS plate or the small tabs on its front rim and it snaps there — about 1.1 metres to your left or right for the side homes, turned about 25° toward you — and it remembers the spot, along with turns and size changes made with the sticks. A glowing MOVE tab on the front rim is the direct way: point, hold the trigger, carry the table at a steady distance (thumbstick up/down pushes it farther or nearer), and release to set it down where you want it; that dropped spot is remembered too. The second home is a Virtual Room: a dark exhibition lounge built around the same table, with the circuit drawn in light on a glowing map wall titled “MEXICO CITY · QUALIFYING · RECORDED”. Presets shift the table inside that room; everything else — cars, panels, radio, follow, lasers — works the same in either home.
Three cockpit instruments join the table in this pass. A CONTROLS plate opens on your first entry and explains every control in plain lines; a ? button on the table's front edge reopens it at any time. The Team Radio panel is a player now: pick a driver with PREV / NEXT, tap one of his clips to hear it, stop it with the STOP chip, or leave his LISTEN on and he plays by himself at his moment. And any driver's profile carries a FOLLOW chip: a light pillar and ring ride his car while a pop-up card travels with him — photo, position, live speed from the car's own recorded feed, best and last laps, tyre, and a strip carrying Robert's two Antonelli calls. A CENTRE chip snaps the table so the followed car sits in front of you.
IN THE HEADSET
- Open this page in the Quest Browser and tap ENTER AR — the table sets itself about a metre in front of you, and the CONTROLS plate opens in front of it: every control, in plain lines. Close it with its ✕ CLOSE chip; the ? button on the table's front edge reopens it whenever you want.
- Point · trigger = click. Each controller draws a laser with a dot on the end — aim the dot at what you want and pull the trigger: a driver's photo bubble opens his profile, and from there FOLLOW rides his car and ✕ CLOSE returns you to the table.
- Give it a home: FRONT, LEFT and RIGHT on the CONTROLS plate or the front-rim tabs snap the table to that side at desk height. It restores where you left it on the next entry; RESET TO FRONT is on the same plate.
- Grab it: point the laser at the glowing MOVE tab, hold the trigger to carry the table — level, at a steady distance, thumbstick up/down for farther/nearer — and release the trigger to set it down. The dropped spot is remembered.
- Two rooms: REAL ROOM uses passthrough; VIRTUAL ROOM opens the dark lounge with the map wall. The choice is on this page and on the CONTROLS plate (a change made mid-session applies on the next entry).
- Placement limit, honestly: web placement is remembered relative to where you start your Guardian space — if you recentre your playspace, A (recentre) or a preset puts it right in one tap.
- Thumbstick left / right — rotate the table.
- Thumbstick up / down — make the table bigger or smaller.
- Button A (or X) — recentre the table in front of you.
- Button B (or Y) — cycle the data panel: Laps · Pit & Stints · Race Control · Team Radio · Off.
- Grip — hide or bring back all the panels, for a clean table.
- On the Team Radio panel, use PREV DRIVER / NEXT DRIVER (or flick the thumbstick sideways while the panel is up) to pick a driver — his clips are listed under his photo with their honest session times, including the ones outside the looped minutes, which stay playable on demand. Tap a clip to hear it; ■ STOP ends it. LISTEN belongs to the driver on the header: with his LISTEN on, his clip plays by itself when the replay reaches its moment (Alonso and Hirakawa start switched on — their clips are inside the recording).
- To follow a car: open his profile from the photo bubble and tap FOLLOW. His pop-up card rides with him — speed, position, laps, tyre, and the polls strip — with CENTRE to snap him in front of you and UNFOLLOW to let go.
- On a computer instead: drag the MOVE tab with the mouse to carry the table in preview; drag elsewhere to orbit, scroll to zoom, P cycles the panel, H hides the panels, C toggles the CONTROLS plate, and clicking works the same way — bubbles, radio rows and chips. The same replay runs.
DRIVER PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS
The bubble and profile photographs are openly licensed images from Wikimedia Commons / Openverse, curated 2026-10-31, square-cropped and downscaled for the table (for CC BY-SA images, that crop is the change made). Full credits also live in PHOTO-CREDITS.md beside the page.
NOR — Lando Norris. Photo: Steffen Prößdorf (original) / Mb2437 (derivative work), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
VER — Max Verstappen. Photo: Steffen Prößdorf, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
LEC — Charles Leclerc. Photo: Gabriel Hutchinson, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
HAM — Lewis Hamilton. Photo: Jen Ross, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
PIA — Oscar Piastri. Photo: Liauzh, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
RUS — George Russell. Photo: Jen Ross, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
ANT — Kimi Antonelli. Photo: Steffen Prößdorf, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
ALO — Fernando Alonso. Photo: United Autosports, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
STR — Lance Stroll. Photo: Lukas Raich, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
GAS — Pierre Gasly. Photo: Morio, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
COL — Franco Colapinto. Photo: Yu Chu Chin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
SAI — Carlos Sainz. Photo: LucaFazPhoto, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
ALB — Alexander Albon. Photo: JazzyJoeyD, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
HUL — Nico Hulkenberg. Photo: Liauzh, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
BOR — Gabriel Bortoleto. Photo: Yu Chu Chin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
LAW — Liam Lawson. Photo: Yu Chu Chin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
LIN — Arvid Lindblad. Photo: Yu Chu Chin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
PER — Sergio Perez. Photo: Grahampurse, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
BOT — Valtteri Bottas. Photo: Yu Chu Chin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
BEA — Oliver Bearman. Photo: Liauzh, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
OCO — Esteban Ocon. Photo: Rrtb505050, CC0 (public domain dedication), via Wikimedia Commons
HAD — Isack Hadjar. Photo: Yu Chu Chin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons