Apex - Motorsport Analysis (2025)

16/09/2025

How do Baku’s streets transform into an F1 circuit? 👀

This week F1 returns to the Baku City Circuit in Azerbaijan - a 6.003km long track with 20 turns, 2 DRS zones and 3 very distinct sectors…

🔴 Sector 1 requires not only straight line speed but also heavy braking and sharp acceleration through each of its 4, 90° corners - 3 to the left and 1 to the right.

🔵 Sector 2 sees the drivers pass through Baku’s old town, including through the incredibly narrow ‘castle section’ where just 7.6m separate the walls at turn 8. There’s also a blind uphill corner (T11) and the run uphill continues before they drop down into turn 15 - a tough braking zone to get right.

🟡 Sector 3 is where the drivers can unleash full power - from the exit of turn 16 onwards their right foot will be flat to the floor for 2.2km in total. But the opening part of sector 3 is not straight, meaning they will weave left-right-left-right before reaching speeds of up to 350km/h down the main straight.

Throughout all of this, the drivers are contending with tight walls, kerb riding, and very little run off meaning that, as always with street tracks, even the smallest of mistakes are punished…

But, on most other days of the year and even in the mornings/nights over the race weekend, it can be driven on by the public. It’s a transformation made possible by the work of over 2000 engineers, installers and technicians who are involved in the city’s preparations for the race but also the 2000 volunteers and 1400 marshals who will be on site over the weekend. 💪

A grand prix around Baku is always full of action, chaos and sometimes even an unexpected winner - so who will get the better of this challenging circuit this year? 🇦🇿

-
📸: Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images // Mercedes AMG Media // Scuderia Ferrari Media // Aston Martin F1 Media // Dreamstime: Zeytun Images / Bazru / Irinabal18 / Nurlan Mammadzada / Dudlajzov / Damir Senčar / moviephotoo
-

15/09/2025

Are these Baku’s best drivers? 🤔

🇦🇿 It’s race week for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix around the Baku City Circuit, a venue F1 has been visiting since 2016. And over its 8 grands prix, 27 drivers have left as points scorers but one has had a clear advantage over the rest…

🏆 Sergio Perez may be missing the Azerbaijan GP for the first time this year, but his record for points scoring and podiums there won’t be beaten in his absence. He’s the only driver to have won multiple times at the circuit with his 2 victories adding to his 5 podiums, once again the most of any driver in Baku.

In P2 is Lewis - although he hasn’t finished on the podium in Baku since 2019, he has been in the points fairly consistently since. Although it would be quite a jump from his P9 result here last year, a win and 25 points this weekend would bring Lewis incredibly close to equalising Sergio’s points record - 112 to Sergio’s 115. 📈

🥉 The third best driver is one that won’t be adding to his total anymore however, given that he retired at the end of 2022. Sebastian Vettel earned 83 points over the 6 Azerbaijan GPs he competed in, owing largely to his 3 podiums - the most recent of which came with Aston Martin in 2021!

📉 But Vettel’s place in this top 5 could be in danger this weekend, as Verstappen and Leclerc are not far behind. Max has brought home 75 points from Baku, while Charles has 71, so a P6 or better result for Max or a P4 or above for Charles will see Vettel drop down the list.

And that’s not unlikely, especially as Max will arrive in Baku this week off the back of a dominant win over the McLarens last time out in Monza. Given that it shares similar characteristics with the Temple of Speed, he’ll be hoping he can topple the McLarens again on the streets of the Land of Fire…🔥

-
📸: Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images // Mercedes AMG Media // Aston Martin F1 Media // Scuderia Ferrari Media
-

14/09/2025

Is Hamilton’s pace at Ferrari improving? 🤔

Lewis Hamilton is currently sitting right behind his teammate Charles Leclerc in the driver’s standings, but 46 points separate them. And although neither driver has won a grand prix so far this year, Leclerc has claimed 5 grand prix podiums and a pole position, while Hamilton unfortunately has neither. 🫣

So are they really that far apart pace-wise too? 🧐

⏱️ Over the last 10 races, Leclerc has been quicker than Hamilton in both qualifying & grands prix but the margin this is by varies hugely. On average, Leclerc’s quali laps have been 0.102s faster than Hamilton’s in their highest mutually reached quali sessions and come race day, Leclerc’s long run pace is an average of 0.285s quicker.

Although globally Leclerc has been the quicker driver, there have been occasions where Hamilton has been instead, & interestingly they’ve mostly been on Saturdays:

🇪🇸 In Spain, Lewis’ lap was 0.086s quicker than Charles’ which left him two places further up the grid.

🇨🇦 In Canada, the margin was slightly larger. Lewis’ Q3 run was 0.156s faster than Charles’ - putting him P5 to Leclerc’s P8.

🇬🇧 In Silverstone, Lewis was just marginally faster in qualifying but converted this to a huge 0.928s margin over his teammate for race pace on Sunday.

And that home race for Lewis was the only occasion since Imola where his race pace has been faster than Charles’, and it also resulted in a huge position deficit between them - Lewis was P4 while Charles was P14…

Since then, Leclerc has had the advantage over short & long run pace, but there have been external factors at play during the races like technical issues in Hungary or the double DNF in Zandvoort.

In Monza though, the delta between them in quali and the GP was the smallest since Austria, which left Fred Vasseur to say that Lewis was “back on the pace”! 📉

He believes the boost this brought “will help” for the rest of the year - so will we see the gap between them continue to close down? 👀

-
📸: Scuderia Ferrari Media
-

13/09/2025

A points scoring run through Europe for Gabi…👀

👏 Gabriel Bortoleto’s recent run of performance has undoubtedly put him into contention for rookie of the year, especially if he can keep this form up all the way to Abu Dhabi. He’s earned 4 points finishes in the last 6 races which have added 18 points to his, and Sauber’s, totals!

And interestingly, it’s the European season where Gabi has really found his stride in not only qualifying better but also converting that into a points finish on race day, starting in Austria…🇦🇹

🏁 Up until that weekend at the Red Bull Ring, his average qualifying result was P16 and he hadn’t made it into Q3 at all. On race day from Australia to Canada, that converted into P15.89 - only a small improvement and not enough to recover to the points places.

But from Austria onwards, to the most recent race weekend in Monza, his qualifying average has elevated to P10.5 and his average finishing position in GPs is 9.2 - huge progress! And what has also progressed therefore is the conversion: every time he’s made Q3, he’s converted it into points on Sunday. 💪

It’s a results pattern that follows when Sauber have introduced significant and successful upgrade packages, namely at Spain and then Austria, and their operational improvements, but it doesn’t follow how Hulkenberg has performed on the other side of the garage…🤔

📉 He capitalised on those improvements/upgrades and went on an impressive run from Spain to Silverstone, earning 31 points and of course his podium. But since then, Nico hasn’t earned any points and has averaged P13 in grands prix (plus one DNF).

Given that Sauber are engaged in a close battle with Racing Bulls and Aston Martin in the constructors’, getting both drivers into the points every weekend has to be the aim. So can Gabi continue this run of performance to help the team move up the standings? 📈

-
📸: Sauber Motorsport AG
-

12/09/2025

Who’s the best midfield driver of the last 5 years? 👀

After 16 races, Alex Albon is the highest placed midfield driver given that he’s sat P7 in the driver’s standings with 70 points, actually ahead of a Mercedes driver in Kimi Antonelli. It’s come about as a result of not only his performance in Monza, where he came back from P14 to finish P7, but also his 10 other points finishes so far this season! 💪

So how does Albon’s season so far compare to the best placed non-top four team driver over the last four years? 🤔

🟢 After 16 races last season, Fernando Alonso was the highest placed midfielder given that Aston Martin were P5 in the standings. But Alonso himself was P9 in the driver’s with 50 points…

And that’s down to the fact that every driver from the top 4 teams (Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari & Mercedes) filled up the top 8 places in the driver’s standings last year, whereas this year the absence of the second Red Bull driver in it has opened up a place (which Albon is filling). ⬆️

🟠 It’s a similar story for 2023 - Lance Stroll sat P10 in the standings after the Japanese Grand Prix (R16) and, given that Aston Martin were P4, that opened a place for Lando Norris in the top 8. McLaren were P5 in the constructors’ by that point of the season, and Norris’ 115 points put him P7 in the driver’s.

🔵 Norris was also the highest placed midfield driver in 2022, but in 2021 it was Pierre Gasly even though AlphaTauri were P6 in the constructors’, behind Alpine in P5, down to the fact that he had 16 more points than Alpine’s best points scorer in Alonso.

This year’s midfield is full of fierce, close battles and with 8 rounds left, Albon’s closest competition for closing out the year with this accolade is coming from Isack Hadjar…

But with 32 points between them, could this be Albon’s best season in the driver’s standings since 2020? 📈

-
📸: By Courtesy of Pirelli // Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images // Williams Racing Media // Aston Martin F1 Media
-

11/09/2025

The RB19 back on track…👀

Pirelli and 4 of the teams stayed back at Monza after the Italian Grand Prix last weekend to complete two days of tyre testing for 2026! Red Bull, Racing Bulls, Williams and Aston Martin took part and ran mule cars based on some of their existing chassis:

🔵🟢Williams and Aston Martin ran adapted versions of their current cars from this year, the FW47 and AMR25.
🔴 Racing Bulls altered their chassis from last year, the VCARB01, for this test.
🟡 And Red Bull Racing used the RB19’s chassis, with modifications made…

📏 And these modifications include ensuring that the new, narrower tyres for next season could fit on current generation cars given that they will be 25mm narrower at the front and 30mm narrower at the rear, in terms of width, despite still being 18 inches in diameter.

But they also typically have included lowering the cars’ downforce levels versus what would usually be run at a circuit to simulate the expected performance of the 2026 cars as best as possible. These changes were either more subtle or not made at all for this test though, given that Monza requires low downforce as it is and there are clear similarities between the mule cars and the same chassis in their race weekend specifications. 🧐

This test focused on the softest compounds, the C3-C6s, but data about the intermediates and their crossover with the new slicks was also gathered given that rain hit the circuit on day 2. 🌧️

Pirelli say they’ve been able to “collect the necessary data to proceed with the development of the slick compounds” prior to their homologation deadline in mid-December. And there are just three tests left before then: at Mugello, Mexico and in Abu Dhabi…💪

-
📸: By Courtesy of Pirelli // Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images // Williams Racing Media // Aston Martin F1 Media
-

10/09/2025

A record breaking, high speed weekend…⏱️

This year’s Italian Grand Prix was a record breaking one in all senses, we saw:

🇮🇹 A new lap record at Monza (1:18.792)
🏎️ A new fastest lap in F1 history for average speed (264.682km/h)
⏰ A new shortest grand prix for elapsed race time (1:13:24.325)

All of which were set by Max Verstappen, and with that shortest race record came a new one for average speed over a Grand Prix too. Verstappen averaged 250.706 km/h over the 53 laps of Monza, and in doing so became the first driver to set a new record since 2003. But in fact every driver who finished in the top seven also did too…

It means that Michael Schumacher’s average speed from the Italian Grand Prix 22 years ago has finally been broken. Schumacher averaged 247.586km/h, and prior to this year, the closest anyone had come was Montoya in 2005 who was 0.489km/h or 8.821 seconds away from equalising Schumacher two years earlier. 🤏

📈 More recently, Charles Leclerc’s race win in Monza also made the top five all time list for highest average speed over a race. He averaged 246.431km/h, and with Verstappen going 4.275km/h faster this year, the progression year on year is clear…

🔥 It not only comes down to car performance but degradation rates being much lower this year than last, as a result of the track surface having rubbered in & evolved and the temperature being lower too.

Either way, it’s cemented Verstappen in the record books once again, but also these cars in the final year of their regulatory era…💪

-
📸: Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images // Mercedes Benz Classic Archive // Scuderia Ferrari Media
-

09/09/2025

Three years since points for Racing Bulls…👀

Isack Hadjar’s P10 finish in Monza, and the one point it brought, made it the first time the Red Bull sister team has scored points in Monza since 2022 when Pierre Gasly finished P8!😮

📉 As that stat shows, it’s not been the luckiest of races for the team in recent years (especially for Tsunoda who only completed 7 laps of last year’s race and DNS’ed the year before), and that luck looked to be continuing this weekend, up until race day that is…

Friday practice exposed just how tight the margins were going to be in the midfield over the whole weekend, and both drivers looked stronger on the hard tyre longer runs than they did on the softs but were slightly adrift of the pace… 🛞

That carried over into qualfiying, with tyre warmup, out-lap issues but also ultimately errors costing both drivers a place in Q2. Hadjar called it a “frustrating session” and Lawson said it was “really disappointing”. 🫣

Overnight, the team broke parc ferme to fit Hadjar’s car with a new power unit, pushing him into taking a pit lane start for the Grand Prix. He started on the hard tyre which allowed him to run slightly longer, although low degradation didn’t maximise that effect as much as it might have with higher tyre wear.

📈 Even so, staying out of trouble meant that by the time he came into the pits himself on lap 33, he was up in P9. He came out in P16, but as Stroll, Gasly and Ocon brought their huge stints to an end, and by avoiding some other small incidents, he moved up the order and by the end of the race was back up into the points!

Post-race, Isack said he was “very happy” to have had a “well-executed strategy”, a “fast car” and “strong pace throughout the race”. 💪

It was a result that allowed him to continue some momentum from his podium last time out, so can he keep it up in Baku? 🤔

-
📸: Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images
-

08/09/2025

Is Alex Albon the best midfield driver this year? 🤔

Albon has scored points at 4 of the last 5 races, 3 of which have been the result of recovery drives from outside the top 10. But beyond even just the most recent races, Alex has finished in the points at every race this year except for 5 - a 68.75% points scoring rate! 😮

So how did he continue this run Monza? 🇮🇹

Williams had shown promise and pace on Friday which had left Sainz in the top 3 in both practice sessions with Albon marginally off the pace but still within the top ten. But come qualifying, and that promise did not convert…⏱️

🔥 The issue looked to come down to tyre prep and their ability to manipulate it freely in practice, but much less so in qualifying to fit in their run plan each session. Albon spoke to the Williams working best with warmer tyres, so where that prep lacked, in Q2 especially, he was left out and to start the GP from P14.

But that weakness on Saturday became their strength on Sunday as the tyres run much warmer pushing lap after lap during a grand prix, pulling their car back into a better performance window. It meant that, especially with the degradation being so low too, Albon was putting in laps as fast as the McLarens towards the end of his mega opening stint on the hard. 📈

By the time he boxed for mediums on lap 41 he was running P4, and recovered back from P10 post-pit stop to P7 by having pace equal to the Ferraris further up the road! 👏

Post-race, Alex said the strategy and great car pace came together to create a “good time” and “easy race”. The result, and the 6 points it brought, have pushed him up to P7 in the drivers’ championship to make him the highest placed non-top four team driver… 💪

How do you rate Albon’s season so far? 👀

-
📸: Williams Racing Media
-

07/09/2025

Are these ground effect cars now the quickest ever? 📈

According to Max Verstappen’s pole lap from yesterday, yes! He set a lap not only good enough for pole, not only a new lap record of Monza, but also the fastest lap for average speed in F1 history 😮

His average speed was 0.319km/h higher than the previous record set by Lewis Hamilton in 2020 in the Mercedes W11. With this record now surpassed, not only by Verstappen but also by Norris’ P2 lap, these ground effect cars could be said to be the quickest in F1 history! 👀

But they weren’t always that way, as the average speeds of the pole laps in Monza over the last four years show….

🔴 When this regulation set began in 2022, it was Charles Leclerc who claimed pole in Monza with a lap of 1:20.161 and an average speed of just over 260km/h.

📉 A year later, the pole time slowed slightly - by 0.133s - and so did the average speed. It dropped by 0.431km/h to just under 260km/h, but interestingly the speeds run through the speed trap by the polesitter increased from 343km/h to 350km/h.

⏱️ From there, the top speeds have stayed largely the same but cornering is where the difference lies. In the turn 1-2 chicane alone, for example, the 2023 Ferrari was losing 0.914s to Verstappen’s 2025 lap. For 2024 & Norris this delta dropped to 0.383 - perhaps a sign of that evolution…

🟠 As a result, there was development also in average speed for 2024: Norris averaged 262.897km/h over his pole lap, a 3.16km/h increase on just one year earlier.

🔵 And we’ve seen a similar step forward again to get us to this year. Max’s average speed was 1.78km/h higher than Norris in 2024, owing to an over half a second lap time improvement.

The evolution over this era has arguably made them the fastest cars F1 has ever seen, in their final year too. But it makes you wonder what speeds we could have seen in 2026 had there not been a reset coming…🤔

-
📸: Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images // By Courtesy of Pirelli // Scuderia Ferrari Media
-

06/09/2025

Are the teams quicker this year than last? 🤔

📈 Top speeds are always high in Monza as teams strip off the drag and downforce on their cars to maximise straight line speed, and so far, this year has been no different.

🔵 But this year it’s Red Bull Racing who led the way through the speed trap at the end of the main straight in FP2, with Verstappen being quickest of the drivers at 349.9km/h. Tsunoda is pulling their average down though, as he ranked just P7 at 343.3km/h.

Verstappen felt they were “a lot more competitive [than last year]”. So why could this be? Their rear wing this year looks to be much more optimised for ultra-low drag than the one they ran last year, which they’ve balanced with a new front wing for this event too.🔧

🔴🟠 Further to the middle of the order, Ferrari had a higher straight line speed than McLaren, with Norris’ individual speed actually ranking him P19 on the driver-side even though he still set the fastest lap time of the session. It’s an example of top speed not necessarily being everything for lap time, but come the race, a higher downforce setup could make you a sitting duck on the straights…

📉 Another team who could be in trouble in that sense is Racing Bulls, who sit at the exact opposite end of the ranking to their sister team. Between Lawson and Hadjar their average top speed a huge 9.4km/h slower than Red Bull, but also 2.7km/h slower than their closest rivals for speed in Alpine. 
As expected, the teams are running through the speed trap much quicker than this time last year. Verstappen’s top speed is almost 22km/h faster than what we saw from Hulkenberg in FP2 one year ago…

But the speeds are likely to rise come qualifying later on, so could we see a new record being set? 👀

-
📸: Red Bull Content Pool / Getty Images
-

05/09/2025

Ferrari’s impressive record at home…🇮🇹

The Italian Grand Prix is a milestone weekend every season for Ferrari as the Tifosi head to Monza and hope for a Scuderia podium or win - but what has been their record at the Temple of Speed in recent years?

🏆 Since 2020, the average result for the team has been P3.5, excluding the two DNFs they recorded in 2020. Amongst these results is just one win, for Charles Leclerc last year, but a further two podiums - Sainz in 2023 and Leclerc in 2022.

These stats, of course, feed into Ferrari’s all time record at home… They are the winningest team of the Italian Grand Prix with 20 on the board versus McLaren’s 11 wins in P2, they have the most podiums of any constructor with over double the P2 team in McLaren (72 vs. 31), and Ferrari have claimed the most pole positions of any team too (23). 😮

They’re incredibly impressive figures, so could they be added to this year? 🤔

So far after 15 rounds of 2025, Ferrari’s average finishing position is a little way outside the podium places at 5.72, but they also arrive in Monza off the back of a double DNF last time out in Zandvoort which could put the pressure on. 💥

It’s also Lewis Hamilton’s first time at Monza with the Scuderia and as he spoke to on media day, that means he has no idea what to expect as “every weekend is the first time driving this car at that track”…

Charles is now well versed in the Italian Grand Prix as a Ferrari driver and says it’s “very, very special” and, in spite of how things have gone so far this year, he’s going into this weekend “believing in the victory” partly down to the fact that he wasn’t expecting to win last year, but did! ✨

It’s not going to be easy for them to topple the dominant McLaren, but could a Ferrari driver stand on the podium come Sunday? 👀

-
📸: Scuderia Ferrari Media // By Courtesy of Pirelli
-

Apex - Motorsport Analysis