I see why you mean I think the farther this discussion goes I’m more so just realizing I disagree with op’s whole post 🤔
I disagree that Max doesn’t rate George as a driver, I agree that Max doesn’t currently view George as a rival (understandably they’ve never had similar cars, have a handful on track battles at best, and they’ve never fought for a win against one another).
And to me George is very much the same as Max. He massively rates him as a driver, but never really viewed him as a rival, more like a future challenge to overcome and prove himself, less to the media, and more to himself, Toto, the team, the board, etc. In a very “If you wanna be the best, you’ve gotta beat the best” way. A lot of the current ‘obsessive rival’ way George speaks about Max is very very recent, and It completely stems from the media, Toto and late 2024-2025 seat drama.
Pre-2024 George practically never discussed Max in this way, there frankly was no need, their cars were basically never near each other on track and George tended to be very realistic about how far ahead the Red Bull was in general, but especially in comparison to the merc. The closest we got to rival speak from him is the infamous Baku sprint “not just gonna let him by because he’s Max Verstappen in a Red Bull.” But now them as Rival is basically all he’s asked about.
Like yeah George spoke a lot about Max last year and competing again Max lasted year, but that because a good 75% of the questions were just Max, contract, Max, contract, Max, Contract, Max, contract. And with Kimi struggling during the European leg, Red Bulls dip in performance, and the whole 3rd in the standings exit clause, he’s kinda forced to genuinely talks about Max less like as a future challenge to overcome and more as current rival he’s actively being compared against. (Especially compared to Max who had most of the power in that merc seat mess, was assumed to be taking George seat, and who was practically never asked about George outside of Spain. Ofc George’s answer were gonna come off as obsessively one-sided)
But yeah twt is a hellscape 😭 to me this is more a disagreement over characterization of a ship which is frankly not anywhere near serious enough to start insulting someone over :/ (though I know there are some insane on the internet. And anyways I really love your art ☺️ I’m actually following you, it just doesn’t show up cause this is a side blog lmao
