You know it’s one thing to suspect and say it out loud and get laughed at, and it’s a completely different thing to be proved right.
I lost count last year how many times I said, well ever since Miami 2024, that Oscar was chasing Mark’s ghosts.
Because we know now that the reality is that on one side of the garage you had Lando. Lando who knew deep down from day 1 of last season he was good enough to be World Champion. He’d known it since Abu Dhabi the year before. He was surrounded by his best friend (Max Fewtrell) and Will Joseph telling him almost immediately when things got tough, you know you are good enough, just do things the way you know you can do them. He had George and Carlos shouting down the media. He had Seb and Lewis just telling him to keep doing what he was doing, he was good enough.
But on the other side of the garage we now know paranoia was being instilled. They will force you to be a number 2 driver. If he wins a championship before you, they will instantly treat you as the number 2. Question every time he gets ahead of you, show them you’re not going to settle for second best. Always assume your teammate will stab you in the back. Put yourself first regardless of what the team say. Make sure there is consequences if you feel you aren’t being treated equally. You can imagine it went on and on.
All that pressure and paranoia to put on a 23/24 year old in only his second and third season of F1. Is it any wonder that when it started going sideways for Oscar he wasn’t able to wipe the slate clean mentally and go again at the next race? What that constant doom on the horizon if you fail narrative did to Oscar’s mental state is really awful to think about, but we saw it after Monza last year. He started to believe it had happened. And it was painful. He lacked the water off a duck’s back attitude Lando and Max had.
Thankfully (I say unironically) the Austin sprint race happened. He crashed into his teammate and DNF’d them both. And all that happened? Lando had any consequences ridiculously dished out for what happened in Canada and Singapore removed, and they were told in no uncertain terms that if they carried on like this, neither of them was going to win the title.
Mexico and Brazil happened, Oscar lost the lead, Lando looked unstoppable, Max was closing in and still he’s not told to be a number 2 driver. His championship chance isn’t taken away from him. Vegas and Qatar there was no favouritism, the team screwed them both over equally!
You start 2026, thinking here it comes, He’s the Champion I’m the wingman, and the team make it clear, nothing has changed in their eyes. You are still equal.
All that “it happened to me, it will happen to you” crap Mark has been telling him for 3 years has not come to pass. What’s more there is no indication from the dreaded teammate it will even be expected of the team.
The back end of last season it was clear to see what Oscar needed was what had dragged Lando up and out of his pit at the start of the season, support, belief, encouragement, unconditional love. And it was even clearer to see that Oscar wasn’t getting it. His support team just wasn’t giving him what he needed week in, week out. In fact Mark was out there trying to gain traction on a narrative that put all the blame on McLaren.
At the end of the day Oscar isn’t Mark and Lando is certainly not Sebastian in his “I don’t give a fuck” phase. Also as much as people hate them, Andrea and Zak are absolutely not Horner and Marko. And it’s in Oscar’s best interest, that everyone stops pretending they are.
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