Formula 1 is synonymous with speed. In fact, it is an adjective of it. Always has been. Always will be. A fact that is as easy to understand as is getting burnt when playing with fire. The chances are a hundred percent. But here’s the thrilling part.
When drivers navigate extreme G forces, as is the case with Formula 1’s high tech, freaky fast machines that maketh the day of an F1 driver, one doesn’t merely play with speed; one dabbles with fire.
Anything can happen as you approach a fast corner at blazing speed. Anything can challenge you in a slow corner.
You may hit the apex or miss it whether in pursuit of a significantly faster car up ahead or when defending track position. But, the idea at all these times, very frankly, is for the driver to maintain tracer bullet speed thanks to his fighter pilot mentality. And that is how fast laps are set. That is how record shattering lap times are achieved, at the end of the day. You can’t and don’t have it any easy.
You’re constantly dabbling with risk. And as the great Niki Lauda once said, “Every time a driver takes to the wheels of an F1 car, there’s a 30 percent chance that he may not come out of it alive!”
That being said, credit to where it’s due. Let us understand who has set the fastest ever lap time in Formula 1’s history.
That record is held by the man celebrated as the Dutch lion, the four time world champion, the one whose mere presence stokes the colour orange for the Orange Army.
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Max Verstappen.
And he did that at Monza, the home of the Italian Grand Prix. This was achieved most recently in 2025 and that too, at Monza, the home of Ferrari.
In so doing, the defending champion as also the man who’s currently contending with might and resilience set a blazing lap time of 1 minute and 18.792 seconds. The fantastic effort saw the driver also popularly known as the “Flying Dutchman” contest with speeds of 264.682 kmph.
Now, if that is not emphatic, then what is?