u/Fun_Meeting_9850

What are your predictions for tomorrow’s race?

After many requests from those of you kind enough to test the web app, I am pleased to announce that we have a live timing feature we will be testing and developing over the Silverstone GP Weekend.

If anyone would like to help test this please let me know. We are still continuing to push out updates across the weekend so please do not take this as the finished article.

Would love to know what other views people would like included in the live timing screens and your feedback will only help to shape development :)

You can also use the historical telemetry features to see where drivers are losing and gaining time ahead of sprint qualifying later today.

This is just my personal ranking of the most ingenious F1 technical innovations ever. I'm judging them based on a mix of engineering creativity, competitive advantage, and the impact they had on the sport.

1. Active Suspension – Williams (1992)
   • The sheer level of control this gave the FW14B was decades ahead of its time. It completely transformed how the car behaved and is still one of the most sophisticated systems ever seen in F1, so much so it was outlawed for being dangerous, allowing drivers to take corners with much higher speeds than previously seen.
2. Double Diffuser – Brawn GP (2009)
   • Probably the greatest example of exploiting a loophole in the regulations. It turned a team that was purchased for £1 into championship winners.
3. Ground Effect – Lotus
   • Changed Formula 1 forever. The amount of downforce generated without huge drag was revolutionary, and it forced the FIA to rethink the regulations completely.
4. DAS (Dual Axis Steering) – Mercedes
   • Such a clever interpretation of the rules. Letting drivers alter the front toe angle while driving to improve tyre temperatures and straight-line efficiency was something nobody saw coming, leading to some of the likes of the W11 producing more grip than ever seen in a car before. To quote martin Brundle "the car looked like it was on rails"
5. "Macarena Wing" – Ferrari (2026)
   • It might be too early to judge, but the way Ferrari appears to be using controlled flexing to optimise aero performance across different speeds is one of the most creative interpretations of the current regulations I've seen in years.

There are loads of others that could make the list—fan cars, F-duct, blown diffusers, Brabham's hydropneumatic suspension, mass dampers, etc.

What's in your top five? And what do you think deserves to be #1?

This is just my personal ranking of the most ingenious F1 technical innovations ever. I'm judging them based on a mix of engineering creativity, competitive advantage, and the impact they had on the sport.

1. Active Suspension – Williams (1992)
   • The sheer level of control this gave the FW14B was decades ahead of its time. It completely transformed how the car behaved and is still one of the most sophisticated systems ever seen in F1, so much so it was outlawed for being dangerous, allowing drivers to take corners with much higher speeds than previously seen.
2. Double Diffuser – Brawn GP (2009)
   • Probably the greatest example of exploiting a loophole in the regulations. It turned a team that was purchased for £1 into championship winners.
3. Ground Effect – Lotus
   • Changed Formula 1 forever. The amount of downforce generated without huge drag was revolutionary, and it forced the FIA to rethink the regulations completely.
4. DAS (Dual Axis Steering) – Mercedes
   • Such a clever interpretation of the rules. Letting drivers alter the front toe angle while driving to improve tyre temperatures and straight-line efficiency was something nobody saw coming, leading to some of the likes of the W11 producing more grip than ever seen in a car before. To quote martin Brundle "the car looked like it was on rails"
5. "Macarena Wing" – Ferrari (2026)
   • It might be too early to judge, but the way Ferrari appears to be using controlled flexing to optimise aero performance across different speeds is one of the most creative interpretations of the current regulations I've seen in years.

There are loads of others that could make the list—fan cars, F-duct, blown diffusers, Brabham's hydropneumatic suspension, mass dampers, etc.

What's in your top five? And what do you think deserves to be #1?

Exciting news, we are hoping to have the live timing feature of our app ready for the British Grand Prix and would be keen for some people to test it and provide feedback.

If you would like to be involved let me know down below 👇🏼

Kimi leading the title fight after Austria — 40 points up on Russell, five wins already — has been the story of the season, so I went digging into his telemetry to see how he's doing it rather than just that he is. One thing stood out.

Across the laps I looked at, his driving style seems to revolve around minimum speed through corners. Comparing his quali laps against others', he's consistently carrying more speed through the slow and medium stuff — higher apex/minimum speeds, stronger intermediate-sector speeds — and giving a little back on outright top speed which he can obviously thank the wonderful team at Brackley for building such a monster. It's a momentum-driver profile: keep the car loaded and rolling through the corner rather than braking hard, squaring it off, and firing out (similar to how Max likes to drive).

The contrast with Verstappen is the interesting part. On the laps I compared, Max is the opposite — he'll concede a touch mid-corner but claw it back with a better exit and higher terminal speed (more of the outright-fastest micro-sectors). Two completely different philosophies landing on nearly identical lap times.

What I find genuinely compelling is that Antonelli's high-minimum-speed style is usually associated with experienced drivers who really trust the car — it's not typically what you see from someone this early in their career. Whether that's the Mercedes suiting him or just how he drives, the data's pretty consistent about it across sessions.

Couple of honest caveats: this is from public timing/telemetry data, sampled at ~4Hz, so I'm talking about trends through corners rather than millimetre-precise racing lines. And qualifying pace ≠ race craft — this is one slice of the picture.

Curious what others make of it — is Antonelli's cornering style something you've noticed on the broadcasts, or is the eye test telling you something different? And does a high-minimum-speed style tend to age well over a season, or does it punish the tyres?

(For anyone interested in the nuts and bolts — I pulled this from a little F1 telemetry tool I've been tinkering with; happy to point you to it if useful, but the discussion's the fun part.)

I've been building an F1 stats and analysis web app on my own, and it's at the point where I need other eyes on it. It's completely free, no ads, no signup, no catch — I'm not trying to sell anything, I just want honest feedback before I keep building.

What it does right now:

• Driver head-to-heads — compare two drivers in a season, across careers, or across different seasons (e.g. one driver's 2024 vs another's 2026)
• Telemetry insights — take two qualifying laps and compare them properly: exact sector times, speeds, and a track map that colours each corner and straight by who was faster through it
• Driver skill & car ratings, track records, career profiles — the usual deep-stats stuff, built from real timing data
• A "season in one image" view where every driver's whole season is mapped as one lap-by-lap fingerprint

One thing I care about: everything is derived from real data, and I've tried hard not to fake precision or guess. If the data can't tell you why a lap was slow, I don't pretend it can. That honesty is kind of the whole point of the project.

What I'd love from you:

1. Break it. Click around, try weird inputs, tell me what errors, looks off, or confuses you — especially on mobile.
2. Tell me what to build next. What's missing? What would make you actually come back to it?

I've been building an F1 stats and analysis web app on my own, and it's at the point where I need other eyes on it. It's completely free, no ads, no signup, no catch — I'm not trying to sell anything, I just want honest feedback before I keep building.

What it does right now:

• Driver head-to-heads — compare two drivers in a season, across careers, or across different seasons (e.g. one driver's 2024 vs another's 2026)
• Telemetry insights — take two qualifying laps and compare them properly: exact sector times, speeds, and a track map that colours each corner and straight by who was faster through it
• Driver skill & car ratings, track records, career profiles — the usual deep-stats stuff, built from real timing data
• A "season in one image" view where every driver's whole season is mapped as one lap-by-lap fingerprint

One thing I care about: everything is derived from real data, and I've tried hard not to fake precision or guess. If the data can't tell you why a lap was slow, I don't pretend it can. That honesty is kind of the whole point of the project.

What I'd love from you:

1. Break it. Click around, try weird inputs, tell me what errors, looks off, or confuses you — especially on mobile.
2. Tell me what to build next. What's missing? What would make you actually come back to it?

https://preview.redd.it/o50ex2w0rmah1.png?width=875&format=png&auto=webp&s=21e085739bef45edc15d4fd82d7ea4c0e0e9cc6e

Red Bull weren't exactly thrilled getting tagged as the team with the strongest engine this year. Might've just been the truth.

Hadjar was 0.175s up on Hamilton in Melbourne — and it's the straights doing the damage. +15 km/h through IS1, +5 through IS2, +9 at the speed trap, +7 top speed. That's not a corner-exit trick, that's raw power.

https://preview.redd.it/0tzx8ac2rmah1.png?width=898&format=png&auto=webp&s=68ad2136c62d94dc90c2d7249f8c2065fb306ff8

Track map shows it too — Hadjar's ahead for 35% of the lap, mostly through the long runs. Hamilton's still the sharper driver through the technical stuff, that hairpin and the final corner are all him.

Complain about the engine deficit all you want, Red Bull. The data's saying what everyone already suspected.

Welcome to ApexF1

This is a community for F1fans who love the numbers behind the racing. We're excited to have you join us!

What to Post
Post anything that you think the community would find interesting, helpful, or inspiring. Feel free to share your thoughts, photos, or questions about Live timing, race analysis, telemetry, strategy, statistics, engineering insights, and discussion across Formula 1.

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We're all about being friendly, constructive, and inclusive. Let's build a space where everyone feels comfortable sharing and connecting.

How to Get Started

1. Introduce yourself in the comments below.
2. Post something today! Even a simple question can spark a great conversation.
3. If you know someone who would love this community, invite them to join.
4. Interested in helping out? We're always looking for new moderators, so feel free to reach out to me to apply.

Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Together, let's make r/ApexF1 amazing.

I've been working on a web app for digging into F1 data — head-to-head driver comparisons, car-adjusted skill ratings, constructor dominance across eras, track records, and lap telemetry. It's free, no ads, just something I made because I wanted it to exist.

It's early and rough in places, and I'd genuinely value feedback from hardcore fans on what's useful, what's missing, and what you'd want next — that's what'll shape where it goes. Happy to share the link with anyone interested (didn't want to drop it in the post in case that's against the rules here).

What stats or comparisons do you wish existing F1 sites let you do?

Still in the build phase and could use some feedback from F1 fans on the current features and what else they would like to see. If you are interested please comment below :)

I pulled the lap telemetry for the Verstappen–Russell fight at Austria and compared three laps across the race — a clean mid-stint lap (36), a lap going into the stops (43), and a late-stint lap (60). Wanted to see *where* VER's advantage actually lived, because on the timing screens it looked closer than the result suggested.

Clean-lap comparison (same phase of race, comparable tyres):

- Lap 36: VER 1:11.931 vs RUS 1:12.715 — VER ~0.78s up

- Lap 60: VER 1:10.900 vs RUS 1:11.361 — VER ~0.46s up

What surprised me is how *similar* the traces are. Overlaying speed, throttle, brake and gear, they're almost on top of each other for most of the lap — same braking points, same minimum speeds. VER's gain doesn't come from one standout corner; it's a series of tiny margins, mostly getting back to full throttle a fraction earlier on corner exit (most visible in the final sector) and slightly different gear timing. Death by a thousand cuts rather than one knockout.

The lap-43 caveat (being upfront): the gap there looks like ~4s, but it's almost certainly not pace — RUS's speed and gear collapse entirely in the final ~25% of the lap (gear drops to 1, speed falls off a cliff), which reads as an in-lap to the pits rather than VER suddenly being 4s quicker. So I'm treating 43 as a strategy artefact, not a pace comparison. Worth flagging because raw lap-time deltas around the stops are misleading.

[There was also a [SAFETY CAR / VSC / pit wave] around lap 25 that bunched things up — context for the stint structure.]

What I can't tell from the traces alone, and I'm curious what people think: is that ~0.5–0.8s clean-lap edge mostly car, mostly tyre state on the lap I sampled, or genuinely VER extracting more on corner exit? The throttle traces *look* like a traction/driving-style difference, but I'd love a second opinion from people who read these better than me.

Charts are speed/throttle/brake/gear, aligned by % of lap (so the two laps line up start-to-finish even though they're different durations). Data from OpenF1. — happy to use my tool to pull other laps or drivers if anyone wants a specific comparison.

Where do you think the clean-lap gap actually comes from — traction, tyre deg, or just sampling?

https://preview.redd.it/ldbqqwv5x1ah1.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=dd339a02a5533bef3f16f8149fc6d3281aa83634

https://preview.redd.it/tmhfm3w5x1ah1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=86831f2f860036ae8f1c736fdd062cb5fd5105d2

https://preview.redd.it/125e7xv5x1ah1.png?width=672&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba374bd57c1befec0538fbeea071d188ec0d34f2

https://preview.redd.it/4tblm1w5x1ah1.png?width=571&format=png&auto=webp&s=d8335e5b01c00d2bbf82307a8296d8492847b26c