Motorsports | The Verge

Apple TV will be the only place to watch F1 in the US, starting next year

2025-10-20T14:48:42-04:00

Apple and Formula 1 announced a five-year partnership today that will bring the races exclusively to Apple TV in the US, starting in 2026, when it will replace the series' current deal with ESPN.

Apple:

Apple TV will deliver comprehensive coverage of Formula 1, with all practice, qualifying, Sprint sessions, and Grands Prix available to Apple TV subscribers. Select races and all practice sessions will also be available for free in the Apple TV app throughout the course of the season.

In addition to broadcasting Formula 1 on Apple TV, Apple will amplify the sport across Apple News, Apple Maps, Apple Music, and Apple Fitness+. Apple Sp …

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Why GM’s CEO is still betting on electric vehicles (and racing)

2025-07-11T13:37:29-04:00

GM was the first major US automaker to make the promise to go all-electric by 2035, just four years ago. Those promises have since turned into rough estimates under the second Donald Trump presidency, with the company softening language about its electrification goals. But GM is riding high on EV sales, and as CEO Mary Barra puts it, EVs are still the future - just on a delayed (and very flexible) timeline.

"We still believe in an all-electric future," Barra told The Verge in an exclusive interview at the Le Mans race in France. "The regulations were getting in front of where the consumer demand was, largely because of charging infrastruct …

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Ford’s new modified Mustang Mach-E is ready to fly up Pikes Peak

2025-06-16T12:54:52-04:00

The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb is a racing event that's been going on since 1916. It's a 12.42-mile run that climbs 4,720 feet and serves as a proving ground for carmakers to test the speed and agility of their new vehicles.

Electric cars tend to do well in the Pikes Peak race; they don't have to deal with the problems of high altitudes and thinner air that can stymie racecars powered by fossil fuels, making it an ideal testing ground. The first electric car to win was in 2015, when Honda claimed victory with an electric CR-Z. Volkswagen's ID R set a course record in 2018, blasting up the course at over 90 mph in just under eight m …

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The Cadillac Optiq-V is GM’s first EV with built-in Tesla Supercharger support

2025-06-09T11:39:45-04:00

The Cadillac Optiq may be the newest addition to the automaker's electric lineup, but it's already getting its own V-series performance variant.

Nearly five months after the 2025 Optiq first arrived at dealerships, Cadillac is revealing the Optiq-V, with 519 horsepower, 650 lb-ft (880 Nm) of torque, and a 0-60 mph acceleration of 3.5 seconds in Velocity Max mode. (That includes a metric called "Initial Vehicle Movement," which is when the vehicle starts moving rather than when the green light goes off.)

And while that's not as quick as the Lyriq-V, which was announced earlier this year, the Optiq-V will absolutely keep pace with the iconic …

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The Corvette ZR1’s 233-mph run had to start in a virtual world

2025-03-06T16:10:45-05:00

At 233 mph, the 2025 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 is now the fastest car ever built by a U.S. auto manufacturer. | Image: GM

Last October, the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 set a top speed of 233 mph on consecutive runs around a closed track. That's not the fastest street-legal production car in the world: the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ will, as the name implies, top 300 mph. What's special about the ZR1, then? Its $174,995 starting price may sound expensive, but it's a steal compared to the Bugatti, which costs somewhere north of $4 million. The ZR1 is officially the world's fastest production car available for less than $1 million.

The ZR1 achieved that speed on a massive test track in Papenburg, Germany, a place where the banking is so steep that the drivers su …

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Driverless race car sets a new autonomous speed record

2025-03-06T09:56:27-05:00

Look out: there's a new fastest robot in the world.

A Maserati MC20 Coupe with no one in the driver's seat set a new land speed record for autonomous vehicles, reaching 197.7mph (318km/h) during an automotive event at the Kennedy Space Center last week.

The Maserati was running self-driving software developed by Politecnico di Milano, Italy's largest scientific and technological university. The team also worked with the Indy Autonomous Challenge, which most recently ran at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway during CES 2025.

197.7 > 192.2

In the shadow of NASA's iconic Space Shuttles, the race car flew down the 2.8-mile runway at record-breakin …

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GM has a deal to bring a new Cadillac F1 team to the grid

2024-11-25T15:15:03-05:00

GM design rendering of the Cadillac Formula 1 Team concept. | Image: GM

General Motors has a deal to join Formula 1 under the Cadillac brand and participate in the FIA Formula One World Championship for the 2026 season, the automaker announced on Monday. Formula 1 says it has accepted in principle and will move GM and Cadillac's application forward to become the 11th team on the grid - making it the first new team to join since 2016.

Formula 1 says it's been in talks with GM and its partners at motorsport company TWG Global about "the viability of an entry following the commercial assessment and decision" the organization made in January. The announcement mentions that GM will come on as an engine supplier late …

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McLaren updates Google Chrome

2024-10-17T15:27:58-04:00

McLaren is updating the version of Google Chrome on its F1 racecar. By that, I mean: McLaren's got more Google Chrome logos and chrome finish than usual on the F1 car it's bringing to the US Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, this weekend.

McLaren's MCL38 continues the tradition of rocking Google-colored wheels and logos, but like last year's special British Grand Prix version, the livery for this weekend's race has a splash of literal chrome beneath the Chrome logo, looking like it came out of a custom car shop from the aughts. This time, however, McLaren has added extra Chrome logos and what looks like a heavier …

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Lotus Theory 1 is a high-powered electric sports car with haptics and robot textiles

2024-09-20T13:32:28-04:00

Sadly, Theory 1 isn’t going into production. | Image: Lotus

Lotus revealed its new Theory 1 electric sports car, a concept that the automaker says "embodies the future of intelligent performance vehicles."

It's a visual aid for Lotus' new Digital, Natural, and Analogue (DNA - get it?) design principles on which it plans to base its performance vehicles for the modern era.

Theory 1 features Lotus' new "Lotuswear" interior that promises an immersive and personalized driving experience. It adapts physically to the driver and passengers, making seats more comfortable and communicating with lights and haptic feedback that can tell you when to make a turn, for example.

The interior mat …

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This life-size Lego McLaren P1 can hit almost 40mph

2024-09-12T12:26:49-04:00

Lego’s McLaren P1 isn’t quite as fast as the real deal. | Image: Lego

After releasing a 24-inch-long scale replica of the McLaren P1 earlier this year, Lego has now debuted a full-size drivable version of the hypercar built from over 342,817 Technic pieces and powered by hundreds of Lego electric motors.

That eclipses the 3,893 pieces that go into building Lego's 1:8-scale McLaren P1 model. The company says the full-scale version used 393 types of Technic components, including 11 specifically manufactured for the replica. That would make it hard to build a copy yourself, but you'd also struggle to find the time. Lego says it took 6,134 hours to design and plan its P1 and 2,210 hours to assemble it.

Lego opte …

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