bored_rainberry

[cadillacjohnf1]

every race George and Oscar are locked in a battle to the death to see which of them can be more fucked over by their team

[ohblimeygeorge]

Something something George and kimi playing chess on their flight something something kimi saying George won even tho kimi had the upper hand bc kimi was going on instinct and moving too fast and going for the moves straight away something something this is how in the end George will win the wdc

[allfandomsarehere]

Lily with his boyfriend Oscar and boyfriend’s boyfriend Lando

[oooscarinooo]

i think the main issue i have with people comparing kimi to Lewis, max etc. is that they genuinely believe what's coming out of their mouth.

let's address the elephant - people want to draw up parallels between Lewis and Kimi because lewis won the WDC in his second year in f1 and it seems like Kimi is on track to doing the same. however this specific point can be overruled so easily it's not even funny.

mercedes built the best car from these regulations, there's no disputing that. because of these regulations, a lot of weight is placed on energy deployment and since merc has kind of? mastered this aspect almost every win this season has gone to a teal blue car, with 6 out of 8 going to Kimi Antonelli.

obviously, if you only take THIS merc propaganda narrative, it does look like Kimi is dominating the season, mirroring 2008 Hamilton, dogwalking his teammate and fs deserves the hype, blah blah. but it really is not that simple.

the 2026 regulations are a joke. every driver says it, it's true, there's also no disputing that. specifically there's been a lot of discourse over the issue of reliability regarding energy deployment - the "yo-yo" racing many drivers refer to. setting aside the safety concerns which arise from situations like piastri's melbourne crash on the formation lap due to an excessive burst of energy + bearman's suzuka crash (50G mind you), energy deployment is becoming a super annoying topic to deal with because, in the words of wise Alonso, "there is not any driver input or driver talent needed to overtake a car in front of you" and you only need to press a button to overtake.

this is a MASSIVE contributor to the unparalleled success Kimi is having this year because if there really was opportunity as equal(ish) as 2024 or even last year for drivers to win I am 100% sure that drivers like Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri, Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris, and especially GEORGE WILLIAM RUSSELL??? would be winning races just like Kimi has been. All this shows us is that Kimi is winning all because his car is a little better at energy deployment than everyone else's cars.

does that make him a better driver than his teammate? does that make him the next coming of Hamilton??

surely not come on

there we have the main argument against people who think that the similar structure of kimi's 2026 season and lewis' 2008 season is evidence supporting the baby goat kimi campaign

for anyone who wants to argue that Kimi has also had reliability issues and hasn't just been cruising along with a perfect car all season, i recognise that!

but then you take a look at drivers like Charles who has been having brake issues all season and only took 2 races to adapt and get to a podium + a win.

you look at lando norris who had a terrible car up until friday and made the absolute most of his good pace before his team fucked him over.

i look at oscar piastri who drove his heart out for his beloved p5 even with a damaged front wing and the genuine shitbox that is the mcl40, who was probably on track to a podium before charles bombed him :(

you look at isack hadjar who fought back from p fucking 21!!!!! to get to p6!!!!!!! with a slightly better than average car!!! and suddenly it doesn't seem all that impressive that kimi won a race with his uranium fueled rocketship after having like 2 bad races. like alright.

all this to say kimi isn't special btw

also not to shit on kimi even more or anything but we KNOW he isn't all that good at many of the technical/racecraft heavy aspects of racing. e.g. his w2w

EDIT: HOWWWW did i forget andrea kimi track limits antonelli????? i saw someone say mercedes should buy him a colouring book to teach him to stay in the lines and 😭😭😭

i really don't know even a single kimi fan that says his wheel to wheel racing is good. up until a few races ago, his starts off the line were questionable to say the least. all this to say he has definitely not been the best driver from the start of the year, and the only evidence to support THAT claim is the championship standings/points lead over other drivers. if i see a SINGLE hamilton fan using those 2 things to defend kimi i'll riot

thank you for coming to my ted talk, another one on the beauty that is George Russell coming up soon

[bilosan]

3x08 // 5x01 // 8x10

[l0veyourselfirst]

Lando and Oscar for tatler

[leclercity]

a likely place for him to be

[tyrewater]

was just reminded of the fact that yesterday kimi faked a shove at oscar because he was mad at him for 'impeding' (which he wasn't). now today with him brake checking stroll and crashing out on the radio over there being cars in the pitlane/on track and getting a summons for erratic driving... he's such a danger on track when he's not 10 seconds clear of everyone. like his head loss is unreal and its only practice.

[sapphireprincesa]

they brought my family back i manifested this guys …

[dafunzies]

media outlet no1: max is going to mercedes

media outlet no2: max is going to mclaren

media outlet no3: max is going to retire

max’s manager: max is staying with red bull

charles leclerc: WE STARTED TOGETHER IN 2010 WE’VE CLIMBED CATEGORIES SIDE BY SIDE WE’VE BEEN UNOFFICIAL TEAMMATES FOR YEARS WE RACED EACH OTHER OUR WHOLE LIVES ITS ABOUT DAMN TIME WE—

[eightyonefour]

lando talking about oscar at the goodwood festival of speed!

"he's pushed me an insane amount, too much for my liking. that's what you want in f1, it made me a much better driver last year."

"i also have a teammate that's unbelievable and always doing an incredible job, so he made my life insanely tough... bastard"

[papayasector]

and i welcome you to part 5 of arm around oscar and never the other person

dutch 2024 –> aus 2025 –> monaco 2025 –> monaco 2025

[vacaponderosa]

The constant re-framing of everything around Antonelli is mind-boggling. When he cries, he baby. When he complains on the radio, he's adorable. When he bottles, it's just eagerness. When he drivers in an unsafe manner, it's grit.

The most bizarre thing is how they are outright copying everything George Russell and forcing it onto Antonelli and then it's suddenly the best thing someone has ever done.

George has the T-pose because he pushed against all the mean comments and clowning trying to take him down. Antonelli has a noncommittal "signature pose" because George has one, but he's supposedly so full of personality.

George is known for being smart and analytical, so articles spring saying Antonelli is the most intelligent creature and comprehends the new regulations better than his teammate. As if we can't see that he's being remote controlled by Bono.

People start to sympathize with George's string of bad luck, then it's soon flipped around to poor Kimi is the unlucky one, while George does nothing and gets everything handed to him.

George has a couple of weekend when his car isn't falling apart and handily outperforms Antonelli (what a surprise!), and suddenly there are "analysis" "proving" George is much slower even when he wins.

George talks about having the support of Mercedes, Ola and Toto in these hard times, and immediately the media is all about how Mercedes is Antonelli's family while they cherrypick some picture to prove everybody hates George, from the other driver to his own team.

George has said nothing but praise for Kimi's driving, while Antonelli is busy making up mind games and shading his teammate to Italian media. And George is the two-faced one.

Now they are even dressing Antonelli in a suit and sending him to Wimbledon to latch himself to Sinner, despite Jannik repeatedly saying he's very close to George and that he is rooting for him above anybody else.

There are countless exemples over this year. It's so persistant there's no way it isn't deliberate. What kind of influence does Antonelli's camp have that they got most of F1 media to put so much effort into turning everything he does into the best thing someone has ever done?

Also, someone at the top at Mercedes has to be into this as well, giving the very strange communication going on at their social media, post-race comments and race debriefs, often giving contradictory information and backtracking stuff.

Austria's celebrations showed that a large chunk of Mercedes is plenty happy to see George win. Even Toto seemed completely fine with it. So it may or may not be him who is pushing George down to hype Antonelli up. Or maybe the Antonellis have some shit on him as well, who knows. It's all speculation on my side anyway.

And indignation!

I'm not usually into conspiracy theories, but, like I said, the pattern is too consistent to be a coincidence at this point.

[magnetic-rose]

there’s something so sinister about the way toto has been undermining george. saying that george didn’t have pace in spain and then it came out his front wing was maladjusted. and then shutting down george saying the car didn’t have speed in silverstone when marcus confirmed during the race it didn’t have speed, only to come out for days later in a magazine interview admitting that george did have speed loss.

downplaying george’s car problems during race weekends and then meekly admitting to it afterwards when you know 90% or the fans are only paying attention during race weekends. making george feel like he’s not doing good enough and then turning around talking about how george is “so resilient.”

meanwhile, kimi has one single issue and the whole house has to stop to accommodate him. kimi was driving so erratically he gave himself a penalty and the narrative is poor uwu bebezito pls penalties are soooo unfair. “how was kimi supposed to know he’s supposed to lift during single flag” 🥺 as if he isn’t a professional f1 driver. literally grooming kimi into becoming an entitled whiny little baby while simultaneously shitting on george. toto wolff you WILL go to hell.

[strawberryable]

everybody say “thank you vanity fair france” 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

[rb19]

this is the cutest lestappen moment

max uses his knowledge of the flags to make small talk with charles

left: monaco flag, right: singapore flag

[slythereen]

right reblogging again just to add that the last shot of max’s face is HYSTERICAL. that is the very serious look of a man who just pulled off a con and is frankly surprised it worked

[merc-stats]

Track Limits until Silverstone

There's been a lot of debate about track limits, especially in regard to Kimi Antonelli so I thought I would look into it with the help of formula-timer, which helpfully provides data on track limits.

In Summary: Kimi Antonelli (24) has the second most track limits of all the drivers after Silverstone, behind Lance Stroll (36).

Up until Silverstone Antonelli had the most track limits, then Stroll managed to get a whooping 21 track limits in one race, putting him firmly in the lead.

Now this begs the question - how did their teammates fare so far?

George Russell 4 vs 24 Kimi Antonelli Fernando Alonso 7 vs 36 Lance Stroll

All other team pairs are within 5 track limits of each other. (Table and chart follow below)

Considering how one race skewed the data so strongly, the next question I asked myself was: Who got the most track limits per race?

Australia: No one got more than 1 track limit

China: Lindblad (2)

Japan: No one got more than 1 track limit

Miami: Leclerc (4)

Canada: Antonelli & Piastri (4 each)

Monaco: Stroll (7)

Barcelona: Antonelli (6)

Austria: Antonelli (3)

Britain: Stroll (21)

Once more Stroll (2x) and Antonelli (3x) are the outliers. Here Antonelli overall even did worse than Stroll.

Bottom row: Sum of track limits, blue highlights most track limits per race

Colors are not helpful here but it does visualize how both Stroll and Antonelli are outliers.

All of this data is to be taken with a grain of salt, there haven't been all that many races and I have only considered the races - if FP sessions and Quali would be included the picture would be a bit different. Still considering only one other driver even has above 10 track limits (Norris 11) both of them should probably work on that.

posting on this new blog, because while I don't want this to leave tumblr, if it does I would rather it not be tied to my usual url

[merc-stats]

Sprint addition

No it didn't @lockedinabookstore , so below a look at that, but it just affirms the picture from before. Stroll gets up to 43 track limits and Antonelli up to 32.

When only looking at the Sprints Antonelli (8) is slightly worse than Stroll (7).

It only underlines the difference in comparison to the teammates too, less extreme because there are fewer sprints and fewer laps but it's a repetition of the previous pattern

George Russell 2 vs 8 Kimi Antonelli Fernando Alonso 3 vs 7 Lance Stroll

Most track limits per sprint:

China: No one got more than 1 track limit (only VER got 1)

Miami: Antonelli (5)

Canada: Antonelli (3)

Silverstone: Stroll (3)

Here Antonelli is once more the one who got the most track limits in several races and once more Stroll really had a horrible time in Silverstone.

Data for only the sprints:

Bottom row: Sum of track limits, blue highlights most track limits per race

Aggregated Races and Sprints

Bottom row: Sum of track limits, blue highlights most track limits per race - it really also underlines how much worse these two drivers are compared to all others. Only three other drivers have more than ten track limits over the season so far and Antonelli has 21+ while Stroll has 32+ more.

Here their outlier status becomes even clearer, it also shows that for notable part of the season so far Antonelli had more track limits than Stroll. After the sprint in Silverstone Antonelli had 25 vs Stroll's 22. The 21 from Silverstone almost doubled his track limits over the season.