Any of u British or know British F1Blr people? I just got curious about how British people read George, Lando, and Alex's accents respectively. To me (from the US) and a lot of US based fans the accents all kind of sound the same, which is why I think George gets the extra reputation to US fans of sounding "posh" when UK fans don't necessarily perceive him that way.
Meanwhile I've noticed that Alex's accent almost sounds like how the Royal Family talks on The Crown (flattening ahhs into ehhs, like pronouncing "lap" as "lep" and "accent" like "eccent"). And Lando just sounds like. British? IDK.
As a Brit, I think there are some very subtle regional differences between them.
To me personally, Alex has the 'poshest' sounding British accent. His is the closest to RP (received pronounciation) and actually, when you listen to him talk, I feel like he has the least quirks as well. Pronounces his syllables clearly, doesn't do any th-fronting (where your th- sounds become f or v), I can't say I've even heard him with a glottal stop (so where you say wa'er instead of water) or a consonant drop (where you don't enunciate the last letter and use a glottal stop instead so you might say ca' instead of caT) . He's been brought up more in the Home Counties (Buckinghamshire) so that figures but his pronounciation definitely falls into the posher end of the spectrum.
George is a funny one because he actually has ALOT of regional vocal quirks - when he's not thinking about it, but for whatever reason he seems to try and consciously sharpen them up but they do slip through occasionally. He pronounces world as 'weld', the 'u' in 'nuts' is more of an 'oo' sound than an 'uh' sound. I *think* I've also heard him sometime use a short a in words like Bath and path rather than a long a (so more of an arrr sound) - but don't hold me on that. If you go back, to listen to him in 2019 you can hear the change from how he speaks now. If you find a video of him when he was younger, it's even more obvious. He was born in Norfolk to a family with a farming background. I'm not sure of his whole family history but his dad supports wolves so I'm guessing there's a midlands connection in there and you can hear it in his little vocal quirks. The other thing that I think skews the perception of George's accent is his vocabulary. He doesn't sound especially posh to me, but he does use some 'posher' word choices. All the crikeys and blimeys... He also almost exclusively uses the word 'father' Ive noticed recently which is quite unusual and definitely reads posher.
Lando's accent is unusual because it's very obvious he's picked up vocal twangs from his mum. He has some West Country vocal quirks in there, but also some very European. He also does the opposite of George in that he seems to soften up his accent to sound less posh. When he's pissed off, I think his pronounciation is more clipped and enunciated. It's actually interesting to read you say his accent is 'just british' because (and I don't mean this in a derogatory way), sometimes when I hear him speak, his accent makes it sound to me like he's speaking English as his second language? Some linguists might be able to explain it better than me or put their finger on what it is that he does exactly - I think it's a kind of intonation/tempo thing - I honestly don't know, but I think that's why so many people don't read it as posh because it's the least stereotypical 'British' sounding.
I think the reason people get so confused by the differences is because British motorsports has a lack of regional accents - largely due to socio-economic reasons. Even Lewis has quite a well spoken, more refined 'British' accent, but people never seem to label him as posh because of it. Most drivers come predominantly from the South of England. Oliver Rowland in FE comes from Barnsley and even his accent is relatively tame considering.
Co-signing all of this, especially the bit about Lando sometimes sounding like English is his second language, which I have also always assumed can be attributed to English being his mum’s second language.
Also about George’s vocabulary; I would describe it as old-fashioned, which then gets interpreted as posh. He absolutely still has multiple traces of his regional accent, but he’s tried to get rid of it.
Alex 100% has the ‘poshest’ accent of the British drivers, but it never seems to be perceived that way. Curious, hmm?
I can unload a whole essay about this but yes, I agree. I'm not a linguist, I'm just a Scouse who went to Oxford and made a lot of observations about the different layers of poshness and how they're presented via accent
Alex is the poshest and that checks out bc Alex has a classic old money background which I think people don't realise bc he lives with his mum and barely mentions his biological dad (I don't know if he's even in contact with him these days?) but he was literally born in the same hospital as the royal children. I think he also has a slight lisp as well? Which I've found a lot of posh people tend to have, almost like they're tripping over their own pronunciation (I call this the boris johnson effect)
If you watch videos of Lando as a teenager he has a *very* posh accent which he seems to cover up now. His accent now I think makes him sound like he's speaking English as a second language? Probably something he picked up from his mum but I think it's also as an effort to cover up his naturally posh accent. As others have mentioned, the poshness comes out in force when he's angry though.
George is SO interesting to me bc I think he's actually the least posh of the three, despite his very carefully constructed image of Britishness and poshness. In my mind, George is the opposite of myself as a very self-consciously constructed Scouser bc regardless of his actual wealth and background, he will construct his accent and identity around those stereotypical images of poshness. I think he's actually quite new money with his dad being from? Wolverhampton? I think? And his mum being a hairdresser? Unless I've got it wrong. His family seem to be what I call the classic 'Thatcher Family'- from East Anglia, small business owners that have done well for themselves and so have made a very considered effort to blend in with the old money (the opposite of my own upbringing in Liverpool lol). I think George is the most 'normal' in his actual personality- he's the biggest football fan of the three, his turns of phrase and cultural references are very 'normal' and I think his natural accent is just your standard Southern accent, something you can hear when he's pissed off (most notably when he crashed with bottas and said "is 'e a fuckin' prick or WOT")
This was rambling but yeah. Alex and Lando are you're established posh boys. George is one of the many many many people who are desperate to be.
And Lewis....Lewis has left the UK behind him, he has one of the most shining examples of a modern transatlantic accent hehe
