What are some things a new fan of Formula 1 should know?

May be...

i am a long time NASCAR fan and i always have been intrigued by Formula 1 and now want to get into it

Yay. Thats what happened to me. I was a huge Nascar fan and then I discovered F1. Now I love them both but I prefer F1 over Nascar slightly. In F1, the teams design and build their own cars. As is not the case in Nascar, qualifying and the start of an F1 race are hugely important. It is difficult to pass on the track and there are rarely "cautions" to bunch the field back up. Not every car/driver scores points. Only the top 8 finishers get points. Opposite of Nascar, the car gets faster with each lap as it burns off fuel and becomes lighter. Each team has 2 cars and the same people perform the pit stop for both cars. I could go on and on. Enjoy!

You will learn that you have to get up early in the morning to watch it on Sunday mornings and you also need cable or satellite TV. The greatest difference between F1 and American racing is that all of the F1 races are on road courses whereas most American races are on ovals. F1 also has a standing start, not the rolling start that American racing fans are accustomed to. Also, there are almost no full course yellows to slow things down during a race, and their keep racing even though there is a torrential downpour. All F1 cars are open wheeled, so there is no pushing other cars out of the way as you see often in NASCAR racing.

First off, welcome. It is really good to see someone who likes NASCAR willing to follow another motorsport division.

There are so many things to know about F1 that are way too numerous to mention here. What I would suggest to you is to log onto Wikipedia and type in "Formula 1". That will give you a really good idea of what F1 is about. In the interim, here is a cliffs-notes version of F1.

It is the most expensive sport in the world.
It only races on street and permanent road courses, no ovals.
Some of the greatest names in motorsports history-Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark, Sir Jackie Stewart, SIr Winston Moss, Mario Andretti, Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher-have raced in and with the exception of Moss, became champions in F1.
F1 is the only series where it's champion is declared World Champion. No other series can legitimately make that claim.
The series races around the world, sadly, not in the U.S. anymore, although it has in the past.
The cars are among the most exotic, technologically advance motorsport vehicles in the world.
Famous automotive marques like Ferrari, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Renault, and Toyota have raced in F1 either as engine suppliers or team owners.
F1 teams must design and build their own cars, although they can farm the work out to outside suppliers, the car must be designed indivudally by each team.

There's so much more to know. Go to Wikipedia and take a look. I think you'll like what you see. Once again, welcome to F1. I

Besides what the above posters said, here's another fact- only the top 8 finishers get points.

you will get bored. nascar is 100 times betteract contact management forum