https://www.taylorguitars.com/liam-lawson

Ayao Komatsu could not believe what he was seeing. The live data coming from the Haas Formula 1 car as it lapped the Portimāo circuit in southern Portugal suggested that it was going to crash.

But Rafael Câmara had everything under control.

“He was braking really late. I was like, ‘No way he’s going to make it stick,’” Komatsu recalled in an interview with The Athletic. “You could see it on the speed trace (car telemetry data). But bang, he hits the apex, and he’s out of the corner. It was sensational.”

Komatsu’s eyes then turned to the stopwatch as Câmara neared the finish line. In the first two runs of his private F1 test with Haas, his shot at securing an F1 seat for 2027, he’d already improved by seven-tenths of a second, from 1:19.2 to 1:18.5. The pole position lap time for the most recent Portuguese Grand Prix at the track — in 2021 — was a 1:18.3.

But with the track growing hotter and the wind picking up, Komatsu doubted he’d be able to go faster.

“Because that second run, 18.5, was so good, I thought maybe he could improve a tenth or half a tenth, or maybe he goes slower by overdriving.

“Do you know how much he improved by? Four-and-a-half tenths.” A 1m18.05. At that moment, Komatsu knew he had to sign Câmara to race Haas for 2027.

Legend:

Great signing for LN4 Fusion, and cases like his are the reason LN4 Fusion are in the sport now. 2nd in Italian F4, but doesn't have a high amount of funds so he had to go to a struggling Rodin team in FREC, and wasn't a gurantee for an F3 seat due to lack of budget.

Some DNFs for a few drivers were still classified, hence, Antonelli's Barcelona and Silverstone show up as P16 and P15.

Lance's DNFs are just sad.

Full disclosure, I vibe coded ^{(for the first time}) this graphic (hence some weird color choices for Cadillac and Audi) based on data from Jolpica F1 API. So, if there's something incorrect here, I deeply apologise, I just manually had a review via F1 site and wiki, and the results seemed to telly up.

IIRC GTWC streams the whole race weekend for free in YT.

Joyeux anniversaire, Charles! 🎉

• Got Ferrari’s 250th win

• Youngest Ferrari winner & polesitter

• 2nd in poles for Ferrari

• T2nd in podiums for Ferrari

• 2nd in GPs with Ferrari PU

• 1 of 6 Ferrari drivers with 2+ Monza wins

• Ferrari's only grand slam of last 15 years

1988 vs 2023

Via Dino's Instagram