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View: Pace, accumulated race time
Normalization: Fuel & Tire use
Population: Top 6 drivers
X-Axis: Lap number in race order
Y-Axis: Time delta to reference
Reference: Race winner’s average lap
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The Pace Timeline isolates driver performance by normalizing lap times for fuel burn and tire degradation. In other words, the PWG manifold removes the structural pace changes caused by race conditions so that all laps become directly comparable. This is why PACE ≠ RACE: the race timeline reflects strategy, traffic, and tire evolution, while the pace timeline focuses on the driver’s underlying performance.
Once normalized, the leading group becomes even more compact. Mercedes and Ferrari display remarkably similar pace envelopes, confirming what was already hinted in the race distributions: the competitive level of the two teams was extremely close throughout the event.
Within this narrow window, the differences between teammates are small but consistent. Antonelli slightly edges Russell, while Hamilton holds a marginal advantage over Leclerc. The slopes of the curves remain nearly parallel across the stint, indicating stable pace and disciplined tire management by all four drivers.
The midfield cluster remains clearly separated. Bearman and Gasly benefited from race circumstances at times, particularly during pit cycles and traffic phases, but the normalized pace shows that their cars did not possess the underlying performance to challenge the leading quartet.
Overall, the Pace Timeline confirms that the race was fought between two evenly matched teams and four closely matched drivers, with track position ultimately deciding the outcome.
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View: Pace, lap time distributions
Normalization: Fuel & Tire use
Population: Top 6 drivers
X-Axis: Percentiles and Quartiles
Y-Axis: Lap time in seconds
Filter: 5%,10% excluded for scaling
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The Pace Distribution chart is where driver performance can be compared most directly. Because lap times are normalized for fuel load and tire degradation, the distribution reflects the pure pace envelope of each driver across the race.
The leading quartet again separates from the rest of the field, confirming that Mercedes and Ferrari defined the competitive ceiling of the event. Within that group, the differences become clearer when the distributions are examined quartile by quartile.
In the first half of the distribution, Russell loses ground to Antonelli. This reflects the race context: Russell spent several laps in traffic and became entangled in the Hamilton–Leclerc battle, while Antonelli ran largely in clean air from the front. Once Russell broke free and could exploit the Mercedes pace, his curve converges toward the leader, but by then the race had already been controlled by Antonelli.
The Hamilton–Leclerc profiles are remarkably similar, explaining the sustained and entertaining fight between the two. Across most percentiles Hamilton holds a marginal advantage, edging Leclerc throughout the distribution.
In Formula 1 the closest reference is always the driver in the same car — your teammate is not your mate. In this race the intra-team comparisons are clear: Antonelli leads Russell, while Hamilton edges Leclerc, revealing a weekend where the internal hierarchies within both teams briefly flipped.
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View: Pace, accumulated sorted time
Normalization: Fuel & Tire use
Population: Top 6 drivers
X-Axis: Percentiles and Quartiles
Y-Axis: Time delta to reference
Reference: Winner average pace
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The Pace Sorted chart reconstructs the performance gap to the race leader using normalized lap times. The process starts with the PACE distributions, where all laps are normalized for fuel burn and tire degradation so that each lap reflects comparable driver performance. These normalized laps are then sorted by percentile and cumulatively integrated, rebuilding the time delta that would appear if every driver had run those laps under equivalent conditions. The result is a clean comparison against the average pace of the race winner, acting as a magnifying glass on performance differences.
Because the structural race effects have been removed, the curves reveal the true performance envelope of each driver. The two leading teams again appear tightly grouped, with Mercedes and Ferrari operating within a narrow pace window across the entire distribution.
The shape of the curves during the second stint on hard tires is particularly revealing. With tire wear stabilized and fuel loads lighter, the drivers settle into a long sequence of consistent laps where they extract the limit performance of their machinery. The nearly parallel slopes show disciplined pace management by the leading quartet.
Within that envelope the hierarchy remains subtle but visible: Antonelli maintains the reference pace, Russell follows closely once clear of traffic, while Hamilton and Leclerc remain locked in a remarkably similar performance band behind them.
Taken together, the Pace Sorted instrument confirms the broader picture emerging from the PWG manifold: a race decided by track position between four drivers operating at very similar underlying pace and yet superior racecraft made the difference
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View: Pace, accumulated sorted time
Normalization: Fuel & Tire use
Population: Top 6 drivers
Sectors: Percentiles and Quartiles
Radius: Time delta to reference
Reference: Winner average pace
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The Pace Dartboard presents the same information shown in the Pace Sorted chart, but in a compact visual format designed for rapid interpretation.
Each ring represents the sorted pace performance of the drivers, arranged from fastest laps near the center to slower laps toward the outer rings. By plotting the curves radially, the full pace distribution can be viewed simultaneously without scanning across a horizontal axis.
The competitive structure identified in the previous Pace instruments appears immediately. Mercedes and Ferrari form the leading cluster, with the midfield group clearly separated across the entire distribution.
A notable feature of the dartboard is the compression of the curves through the middle quartiles. In this region most drivers converge to very similar pace levels, reflecting the long second stint on hard tires where fuel loads, tire behavior, and race management produced very consistent lap times across the field.
The separation that ultimately defines the race emerges at the tail of the distribution, where the fastest laps accumulate. Here the drivers able to extract the final tenths from their machinery begin to separate from the pack. Antonelli maintains the reference pace, Russell converges once clear of traffic, and Hamilton edges Leclerc within the Ferrari–Mercedes battle.
Viewed as a whole, the dartboard acts as a visual summary of the Pace domain, compressing the full distribution into a single image where the competitive hierarchy of the race can be recognized almost instantly.