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Apex - Motorsport Analysis No waffle analysis & deep dives into the motorsport world 🏎️ From two fans, for every fan 🙌

Will this weekend be make or break for the championship? 🤔Although there’s been a switch of championship leader right ou...
07/11/2025

Will this weekend be make or break for the championship? 🤔

Although there’s been a switch of championship leader right out front from Piastri to Norris as of Mexico, slightly further back in P3, Max Verstappen has been consistently cutting their lead…📈

For the last 5 grands prix, Max has been edging closer to the leader by an average of 13.6 points so that heading into this weekend he’s just 36 points away from Norris’ lead and 35 from Piastri in P2, with 116 on the table to the end of the year…

🔄 It’s come about not only from a significant turn of form for the RB21 and Verstappen since Monza, but there’s no getting away from the fact that some of the bigger deficit cuts have come from Piastri being off the pace or suffering problems:

🇦🇿 In Baku, Piastri’s DNF meant he left point-less while a cruise to victory for Verstappen (via a grand slam) saw him cut into the lead by 25 points exactly.

🇺🇸 In Austin, it was the turn 1 crash in the Sprint that cost Piastri a chance to extend his lead by up to 8 points (which were scooped up by Max instead). Alongside his P5 finish to Verstappen’s P1 on race day, Max left Austin 23 points closer to him.

But Norris has been gathering momentum too - he’s finished ahead of & outscored Piastri at every race since Monza, including a dominant win in Mexico. And if that momentum carries into this weekend, and in that way, Max’s championship charge could face a threat…

But if there’s any race Max might want those hopes to hang on, Brazil is not a bad one. 🇧🇷

🌧️ It’s a venue he has an impressive record at, including 3 Grand Prix wins, but it also represents perhaps the last chance of the season for the weather to play a role. With a Sprint on top of that too, there are opportunities on the table.

And they’re opportunities Max says he has to use to be “ahead constantly” from here…👀

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📸: Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images
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06/11/2025

How do the teams deal with unpredictable weather in São Paulo? 🌧️

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📸: Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images // Scuderia Ferrari Media // Aston Martin F1 Media // By Courtesy of Pirelli // Mercedes AMG Media

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A new Gulf livery joins the lineup! 🤩Williams and Gulf have unveiled their ‘Driven by Words’ livery that will be run at ...
06/11/2025

A new Gulf livery joins the lineup! 🤩

Williams and Gulf have unveiled their ‘Driven by Words’ livery that will be run at this weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix. Not only does it feature the iconic, historic Gulf colours but also 493 words that fans around the world submitted and voted for to best represent the team & Gulf…💬

The three most popular were ‘Legacy’, ‘Passion’ and ‘Teamwork’ - all of which received between 4.1k and 7.7k votes - and they’ve been woven into the design alongside the trademark racing light blue and orange colours! 💪

But it won’t be the first time an F1 car has sported these colours in the last five years, nor even the first time a Williams car has…

🩵 Two years ago in 2023, fans voted for a livery to be run on the FW45 over the Singapore, Japan and Qatar Grands Prix and they picked the ‘Bolder than Bold’ design - one inspired by “breaking the mould” and using Gulf’s branding in a different way!

🟠 And over four years ago in 2021, McLaren ran a retro livery in Monaco as a tribute to Gulf’s “timeless design”. They accompanied the car with a full team kit, pit crew, driver suit and helmet take over which Lando Norris took onto the podium with a P3 finish!

James Vowles said it will be a “privilege to race every lap in Brazil with the passion and emotion of our fans woven into this beautiful design on the car.” 👏

So how does the design rank for you? 👀

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📸: Williams Racing Media // By Courtesy of Pirelli
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The battle for the Red Bull seats wages on…⚔️Red Bull’s management have a big decision to make over last phase of the ye...
05/11/2025

The battle for the Red Bull seats wages on…⚔️

Red Bull’s management have a big decision to make over last phase of the year as 3 of their 4 seats over both teams remain unfulfilled for next season. With Max Verstappen confirming earlier in the year that he would stick with the team into 2026, the main one of these (and perhaps the riskiest) will be alongside him…👀

Currently there seem to be 4 drivers in the running - Arvid Lindblad, Liam Lawson, Isack Hadjar and Yuki Tsunoda - so just how do they compare at this point of the season? 🤔

It’s tough to compare Arvid given that he’s in F2, but he is currently sitting P7 in the championship with two victories. We also got a look at his potential F1 performance in Mexico as he stepped into the RB20 for FP1 and was the only rookie in the session to finish higher than their more experienced teammate…⏱️

But what does the picture look like between the F1 drivers?

🔵 Liam Lawson has finished on average in P11.3 this year with a best GP result of P5 coming in Baku after he also qualified P3 there.

🟡 Yuki Tsunoda has finished marginally lower than Lawson on average at P12.1 despite being in the top team instead. His best result also came in Baku, a P6.

🔴 Isack Hadjar has the highest average result of these drivers at P10.9 and has earned the most points at 39, with his season highlight undoubtedly being his podium in Zandvoort.

But even with the evidence they have gathered so far, Laurent Mekies has made it clear that Red Bull will not rush the decision. He said in Mexico that “Yuki is making steps forward, the other kids are making steps forward as well, so we have no reason to rush a decision, so we will take a bit more time.”

He also clarified that a decision will be made before Abu Dhabi, giving these drivers just 3 more rounds to prove what they can do! 💪

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📸: Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images
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04/11/2025

Was Alpine’s Brazil double podium one of the most unexpected results of last year? 👀

Welcome back to Race Trace, the series where we deep dive how pivotal races played out according to the data, let’s unpack how Alpine earned their first double podium since 2013! 🇧🇷

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📸: Alpine Global Media Center // Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images

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A tougher run for Oscar…🤔📉 After having earned 14 podiums in the first 16 rounds this year, Oscar now hasn’t stood on th...
04/11/2025

A tougher run for Oscar…🤔

📉 After having earned 14 podiums in the first 16 rounds this year, Oscar now hasn’t stood on the podium for the last 4 races - his longest podium-less run since last year. Interestingly, that was also over this late stretch of races - from COTA through to Las Vegas…

But this year, given that he’s engaged in the driver’s title fight, it’s had bigger consequences particularly as it’s coincided with a turn-up of form for his teammate. Over the last 4 races Oscar has scored exactly half the points Lando has - 32 versus 64. 😳

It’s meant that Oscar has now lost the lead of the championship for the first time since April, and has to find some sort of recovery if he’s to keep Verstappen at bay behind him too…

But what’s been going wrong? 🔍

Based on comments from Oscar and Andrea Stella, the root of his “surprising” pace recently could be grip, or a lack of…

🍂 The last few rounds have taken place at low grip, often dusty & dirty circuits causing sliding of the tyres and of the car through the corners, something Stella didn’t feel Oscar was that comfortable with or experienced at yet…

🛞 In his opinion, Lando is better at exploiting lower grip, whereas Oscar is stronger at using high grip conditions to push which has meant he’s had to adapt his driving to extract as much pace as possible where the conditions haven’t worked to that strength.

In Mexico that materialised as lots of experimenting over the grand prix informed by their findings from qualifying, resulting in Oscar using a “very different style of driving” that’s “not natural” to him.

But Andrea felt it had a positive impact, and said it was an important experience for Oscar to learn new tools to add to the toolbox. 🧰

And those no doubt will come in handy over the wide range of circuits & conditions yet to come, starting this weekend in a potentially very wet Interlagos…🌧️

So can bring an end to this streak? 👀

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📸: By Courtesy of Pirelli // McLaren (X) // Dreamstime (Jeff Schultes)
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03/11/2025

Is Brazil 2024 one of Verstappen’s greatest drives? 👀

Welcome back to Race Trace, the series where we deep dive how pivotal races played out according to the data, let’s unpack how Max went from P17 ➡️ P1 exactly one year ago!

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📸: Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images // By Courtesy of Pirelli

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Are these Interlagos’ best drivers? 👀🇧🇷 It’s race week for the São Paulo Grand Prix! Set at the Autódromo José Carlos Pa...
03/11/2025

Are these Interlagos’ best drivers? 👀

🇧🇷 It’s race week for the São Paulo Grand Prix! Set at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, or Interlagos, a circuit that’s featured on the F1 calendar since 1990 (except for 2020) but first hosted F1 in 1973 and that long-standing run shows in who’s fared best there…

4 of the 5 drivers on this list are in the top 7 most experienced of all time, and as a result have competed at as many as 21 Brazilian/São Paulo Grands Prix in Fernando Alonso’s case! 🤯

Lewis Hamilton heads into his 18th Grand Prix at Interlagos this weekend as the most successful driver for points scored there with 186, but for wins it’s Michael Schumacher who still leads the way. That said, a win for Lewis or Max this weekend would bring them all equal…🏆

Interestingly, Max Verstappen is the most inexperienced driver in this top 5 - he completed his 10th race in Brazil last year but has earned 167 points, 3 wins & 6 podiums…👏

While he’s equal for wins here with Vettel, Seb has 13 fewer points which is enough to keep him ahead of Fernando, for now…

😳 Over his 21 grands prix in Brazil, Fernando has actually never stood on the top step, unlike the rest of this top 5! His points have mainly come from the 9 podiums he’s earned there and if he can replicate his 2023 performance of P3 this year, he’ll equal Vettel’s points total.

P5 on the list is Kimi Raikkonen. He did win there once in his career in 2007, but mainly earned his 180 points with an average finishing position of P5.07 and further 6 podiums! 💪

🔄 Given that the next closest active drivers on this list are Sainz on 67 points then Russell with 54 - 41 or 54 points back from Raikkonen, respectively - we won’t see any new names joining the top 5 this weekend. But there could be some changes right at the top…

Will Lewis extend his lead or could Max overtake him? 👀

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📸: Mercedes AMG Media // Scuderia Ferrari Media // Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images // Aston Martin F1 Media
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Verstappen moves up into the top 3! 📈⬆️ With his P3 finish in Mexico, Max Verstappen has become the driver with the thir...
02/11/2025

Verstappen moves up into the top 3! 📈

⬆️ With his P3 finish in Mexico, Max Verstappen has become the driver with the third most podiums of all time. It was his 123rd time on a grand prix rostrum, overtaking Sebastian Vettel’s 122…

Given that Max has earned these in career of 229 grands prix so far, his podium finish percentage is now just 0.01% away from Lewis Hamilton’s at 53.71%. Lewis sits at the top of this list with 79 more podiums than Max in 147 more grands prix. 💪

While Verstappen and Vettel are closely matched for podium number, the shorter seasons during Vettel’s dominant period, and the fact that he completed 70 grands prix more over his full career than Max has currently but had 5 seasons with 1> podiums, puts his podium percentage at 40.80% - the smallest in this top 4 by 9.7%. 👀

🥈 Above both Seb & Max is Michael Schumacher, who over 307 grands prix earned 155 podiums - putting his podium rate percentage at 50.49%. His place in P2 on this list, similarly to Lewis at the top, will be safe for a while longer yet…

And that’s because given that Max is the highest placed currently active podium earner able to overtake Michael’s record, he’ll need to podium at 33 more grands prix to get there - and if he does that consecutively, it will take until well into the 2027 season! 😮

But who is the biggest threat for taking over a place on this list? 🤔

Currently it’s Fernando Alonso who has 106 podiums, but the next closest active driver is Charles Leclerc on 50 and it will take for him to achieve another three full 24-race seasons worth of podiums to reach Vettel’s total…😳

It puts the scale of these achievements into perspective and means it will be a while longer before this top 4 is threatened…

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📸: Mercedes AMG Media // Scuderia Ferrari Media // Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images
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01/11/2025

Could Ollie become the third rookie on the podium by the end of the year? 👀

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📸: Haas F1 Media // By Courtesy of Pirelli // Haas F1 Team (X)

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Norris leads the way…👀🏆 After 20 rounds of the 2025 season, Lando Norris sits top of the list for podium finishes - he’s...
01/11/2025

Norris leads the way…👀

🏆 After 20 rounds of the 2025 season, Lando Norris sits top of the list for podium finishes - he’s been on the rostrum at 16 races, or 80% of grands prix so far - two more than his teammate Oscar Piastri who’s second on the list…

And the turning point for that intra-team podium battle came in Azerbaijan - prior to Baku, both drivers were relatively evenly matched for podium finishes with Norris on 13 and Piastri on 14. But since then Oscar hasn’t finished on the podium while Lando has been for the last 3 consecutive weekends, pushing his total up to where it sits now. 📉📈

A driver who’s seen a similar turn up in form to Lando in recent weeks podium-wise is Max Verstappen: he’s gone from having earned just 7 in the first 16 rounds of the year, to now 11 after 20. With just 3 more from the last 4 rounds, he’ll equal the number he achieved in 2024…😮

8️⃣ Next on the list is Russell with 8 podiums already this year - double his total from the full 2024 season and enough to make this the most successful season of his career yet.

Close behind him is Leclerc on 7 podiums. Two of these have come in the last two races and if he can earn a 3rd consecutive podium in São Paulo, it’ll be the first time he’s earned 3+ podiums in a row since Belgium to Baku last year.

And finally at the bottom of the list are 4 drivers all on 1 podium each after some incredible drives and feel good results this year - Antonelli with his maiden F1 podium in Canada, Hadjar with the same in Zandvoort, Sainz with his first for Williams in Baku, and Hulkenberg with his career first at his 239th Grand Prix! 👏

These podiums mean all but three teams have stepped onto the rostrum already this year, so could we see Haas, Alpine or Aston Martin join the list before the end of the year? 🤔

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📸: By Courtesy of Pirelli // Williams Racing Media
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Three in a row for Charles! 👏Last weekend’s P2 result for Charles Leclerc was his third consecutive podium finish in Mex...
31/10/2025

Three in a row for Charles! 👏

Last weekend’s P2 result for Charles Leclerc was his third consecutive podium finish in Mexico, and he went one step up the rostrum this year versus the past two P3 finishes! 📈

It also came just one week after a podium for him in Austin, making it the first back-to-back podium run Charles has been on since Spain and Monaco earlier this year. 😮

But post-race he said neither he, nor the team, arrived in Mexico City with the “expectation of replicating what we did in Austin” and although the podium was a replication, the rest of their weekend was generally quite different…

🇺🇸 In Austin, a gearbox issue in practice had left him on the back foot from the off. With the compressed Sprint format, they had to use each competitive session to catch up on the learning and it took until Saturday for things to go a bit more smoothly: Charles qualified P3 for the Grand Prix, and on Sunday ended it there too.

🇲🇽 But in Mexico, they were strong from the very start! Charles ran in the top two all Friday, and built on that to secure P2 in qualifying too. And that build was what was critical - by getting in solid laps, both he and Lewis were able to narrow in on extracting the best from their car - leaving them to secure their best joint qualifying result all year.

While things went awry for Lewis in the race, Charles was able to bring the P2 home (albeit over 30 seconds back from Norris out front) by making the one-stop work and with some luck on his side as the VSC halted a charging Max Verstappen. 🤞

So is there an expectation that they carry this momentum to Brazil? 🇧🇷

Charles said they “have to focus on each race as it comes” but also that “the standard we have set over the past two weekends has to be our target.” 🎯

Mexico’s was a result good enough to push them up to P2 in the constructors’, but only by a single point over Mercedes, meaning podium finishes have to be the goal if they want to grow that advantage…👀

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📸: Scuderia Ferrari Media
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