She/They 33 yo I work with numbers, also an Etsy seller, Reader, Gym Unicorn and an Introvert MM Romance and McShep things mostly Me on Goodreads (MM romance mostly): https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/8146940
Sorry i tried to scroll past but, i know nothing about f1 other than max verstappen is fast, my dad doesnt like lewis hamilton, fast car goes in a loop and sometimes expodes. Could you give me a crash course in f1 drama? Im very intrigued. Whats the tea as it were?
a terribly loaded question, but i will do my best. i’ve talked about some of the drama before like the red bull second seat and the chronicles of haas but allow me to briefly try my hand at explaining the nightmare that is the upcoming silly season
under the cut we go
silly season is when the drivers go through contract renewals, extensions and switches. usually it’s confined to the first half of the season (march-july) but it has been known to extend all the way to the last race of the season and they like to switch people around at random sometimes. driver contracts are complex, there’s a lot of money involved and basically You Are The Face Of The Team so if you have a shit season then you make the team look bad. but at the same time you could have a shit season because you have a shit car. it’s sticky stuff.
so. there are only twenty seats in formula 1. 10 teams. each team gets two drivers. (there’s also reserve drivers but we’re not going to get into that). who ends up with a contract is largely up to the teams, they can pull the contract out from under people they can also cut you mid season. they’ve done it before.
of the 20 drivers on the grid, 14 of them have contracts expiring at the end of the year. yes. 14. you see how this could get complicated.
so let’s meet the teams.
red bull racing. they came first this year (and last year) in the championship. like aggressively first. like they won the championship by over 350 points. they are definitely the team to beat. but if you end up with a seat at red bull, you do have to deal with max verstappen being your teammate and he won all but three of the races last year. he’s the golden boy. red bull are also notoriously silly when it comes to contracts and famously swap people mid season who aren’t performing.
mercedes. merc is home to 7 time world champion lewis hamilton and they have won the championship a great many times, though not since 2021. they are kind of in their flop arc and their car the last 2 years has been pretty garbage, but they have still made it work because they were able to come in second last year.
ferrari. god help the poor little meow meows with a ferrari contract. ferrari is a notoriously great team and they’re trying to get back to the top again but their strategy every single time has fallen short. to the point where their drivers are the ones doing the strategy in their cars while driving. they came in third last year and have been decently consistent at getting first in qualifying and then getting beat by max verstappen on race day.
mclaren. they’ve definitely worked their way up over recent years. they ended fourth last year and have had some championship wins before but not nearly as many as say merc and ferrari. their team ceo (owner? director?) is a little interesting and their car started out a pile of flaming hot garbage at the beginning of the year but they did manage to get their shit together.
aston martin. they are owned by canadian billionaire lawrence stroll, father of lance stroll (one of the drivers for the team). they’ve undergone several name changes over the recent years (force india, racing point, etc). they positively slayed at the start of the season and then one day they sucked. they finished fifth in the championship.
alpine. the frenchest french team. they’re (i think?) still partially owned by the french government. both of their drivers are french. (their drivers also hate eachother but we’ll get to that. just know they’re in the middle of a modern french civil war). they had the opportunity to have a good rookie driver (oscar piastri) this past year but in a thrilling twitter battle, he publically flamed the shit out of them and went to mclaren instead (and slayed). they're usually solidly middle of the pack. they ended sixth in the championship.
williams. williams has been one of the back of the grid teams for the last many years but they have finally started to get their shit together and don’t quite suck as much as they used to. all of the points this year were scored by only one driver though (except one but we’ll get there). they came in seventh.
alpha tauri. they are the sister team of red bull. so technically redbull owns both teams (meaning they can swap drivers between teams. they like doing this.) they’ve just kind of been There for awhile but they did slay towards the end of the season when one of their drivers led the race for several laps. basically tho, this team is the gateway to redbull. they came in eighth.
alpha romeo. recently renamed to stake f1 team (but sometimes they are going to be called kick sauber. this is a whole other drama post and i’m not getting into it). they’re also just kind of there. generally unproblematic. seems that really great drivers who get ixed out of a contract for a younger driver end up here or young drivers who are in their early years are here before they go to a better team. they ended ninth this year.
haas. oh haas. goofy team. they suck. point blank they suck. they keep loosing sponsors because they suck, they don’t win ever (one time they came first in qualifying last year). they cursed themselves in australia in 2018 by not tightening their tires and its been downhill ever since. they came 10th. their team principle got let go (fired?) who’s to say today.
so those are the teams. it is important to note that:
-there is a cost cap. each team is allowed to spend no more than 135m per year.
-not all cars are equal. some things are standard. they all undergo the same testing. but the cars are all very different. so you can be a good driver but stuck in a shitty car. which makes it impressive if you are doing well in a shitty car.
let’s meet our drivers!!!
starting with the guys who’s contract is not ending in 2024:
max verstappen. 3 time world champion. 26 years old. general beast on the track. he dominated the whole season. he’s currently racing for red bull and has a contract with them through 2028.
lewis hamilton. 7 time world champion. 39 years old. he drives for mercedes. he will not leave mercedes until he retires. he really really wants to win an 8th world championship and is willing to stick it out a few more years as long as merc still believes in him. his contract expires in 2025.
george russell. the other merc driver. 26 years old. hes aggressively british and says thinks like blimey unironically. walking meme. got his merc seat in 2022 right when they entered their flop arc by getting his tractor of a williams to finish second in qualifying in the middle of a rainstorm. his contract expires in 2025.
lando norris. mclaren driver. 24 years old. he has notably never won a race in his five years of formula one (mostly because right when his car finally was good enough max verstappen was 20 seconds ahead of anyone) but he is regarded as Very Good. he has only ever driven for mclaren. and even though there is another year left on his contract there is mass speculation that he will not renew his contract with mclaren after it expires and he may move up to one of the top teams (red bull, merc, ferrari) (tho i think he doesnt hate himself quite enough to go to ferrari). his contract expires in 2025.
oscar piastri. the other mclaren driver. 22 years old. this was his rookie season and he positively slayed. like people compared his rookie season to lewis hamiltons rookie season. he also had the positively funniest start to his rookie year because alpine announced that he would be driving for them (he had been their reserve driver and in the alpine academy) and he posted a tweet that basically said yeah thats false i never singed anything with you and im going to race with mclaren instead (he dodged a bullet) and then alpine tried and failed to sue him for $4m USD. he signed a contract extension with mclaren this year and his contract expires in 2026.
lance stroll. aston martin driver and son of the aston martin owner. hes doing ok, tho there was conspiracy that he wanted to quit and have a tennis career awhile ago. but basically since his dad owns the team it seems that hes guaranteed a seat for as long as he wants one.
so now. moving onto the good shit. the people who have contracts expiring in 2024. hold onto your hats people.
charles leclerc. (everyones favorite slutty little soup can). 26 years old. he is currently at ferrari and he has been since 2019. notably, he was given the longest contract in the history of ferrari after a stellar rookie season at sauber (renamed to alpha romeo, renamed to stake f1) where he got the tractor of a car consistently into the points. having the longest contract in the history of ferrari was a flex at the time, but now its likely how he will introduce himself at therapy sessions. ferrari have fucked this man left right and center up the ass with a plastic lunchroom spork. hes talented, he can drive, and he can drive well. but the strategy that ferrari has absolutely sucks. either something is wrong with the car (see him blowing out his gear box on the formation lap in monaco, his car completely crapping out and spinning into the barrier in brazil before the race even started) or they fuck up his pit stops or put him on the wrong tires and honestly its just frustrating. but will he leave??? likely not. you'd have to pry ferrari out of his cold dead hands and at this rate that might be where this is headed though there has been some minor speculation of him going to another team like merc or red bull, but merc doesnt have any open seats and red bull is a whole other dumpster fire of drama. ferrari are going to have to pay him a boatload of money to make him stay.
carlos sainz. the smooth operator. 29 years old. ferrari driver. previously carlos was at toro rosso (renamed to alpha tauri), renault (renamed to alpine), and mclaren before signing with ferrari. he has been at ferrari since 2021 and has voiced that he would like to stay with them for however long he can. there is speculation that lando might replace him at ferrari (but landos contract is not up until 2025) and there is also some speculation that alex albon might replace him. while charles is clearly the golden boy at ferrari, carlos is slightly slower but also definitely consistent. he was THE ONLY non red bull driver to win a race this past year, in Singapore after max verstappedn was knocked out of qualifying by alpha tauri reserve driver liam lawson (more on him later) and because he basically came up with his own strategy in the car while he was driving.
sergio perez. aka checo. red bull driver. 33 years old. and oh boy here's where we open the can of worms. checo was previously at racing point (renamed aston martin) and it was very near the end of the 2020 (?) season and he was out of a contract. he had a bonkers race where he was knocked to the back of the grid and then overtook everyone and somehow ended up winning (there is more to that story but just trust me) and christian horner, red bull team principle, mr ginger spice and definite disney villain called him and said congrats sir you have a seat at red bull! well. fast forward. hes been causing problems. problems as in crashing a lot, generally not doing great and pissing the crap out of red bull. it is basically guaranteed at this point that he will not be getting a contract extension. there was actually talk this year of him losing his seat mid season to one of the alpha tauri drivers, because remember, red bull owns both teams and they can switch them whenever they want to (and they have!) but ultimately this did not happen. even though checo has a seat at red bull until the end of 2024, its mass speculated that he is going to get switched with an alpha tauri driver, probably daniel ricciardo (more on him shortly) mid season because there is a speculated clause in daniels contract that says that if checo isn't performing well in the first few races daniel is getting his seat.
daniel ricciardo. 34 years old. alpha tauri driver. man oh man what a guy. outside of being the prankster of the paddock, he has one of the most batshit careers of anyone currently on the grid. he started out at red bull and was showing real talent and skill and was on track to win things (and was!) and was there until the end of 2018 when max verstappen (his teammate) started getting preferential treatment and also red bull started having a lot of problems with their engines (which were being outsourced from Renault (now alpine) and another team on the grid) and well very very long story short he made the surprise move of the century and decided to sign with Renault (which makes no sense they're the one with the engine problems) and was there for 2 years before moving again to mclaren where he was reportedly not treated very well and had a hard time driving the car so they mutually ended his contract with them early and he basically retired at the end of the 2022 season and became a red bull reserve driver. then halfway through the 2023 season alpha tauri ixed one of their drivers, nyck de vries, because he wasnt doing well and promoted daniel back up to a full time driver at alpha tauri (which we know is only a step down from red bull) but then he broke his hand in a crash in zanvort (?) and then he was replaced for a few races by formula 2 driver liam lawson (who we will also talk about) and then he came back to finish out the season in alpha tauri after he was cleared. daniel has admitted openly that he never should have left red bull and he was given bad advice to do so. hes towards the end of his career at this point and its well known that he Really Really wants to finish out his career at red bull again. he and max have already been teammates before and they do work well together and daniel is great driver (see his comeback in texas (or maybe it was brazil?) this year). so. Pretty Sure that daniels going to get either an extension at alpha tauri or go up to red bull. thats what we all want. get this man in a red bull we need him there biblically.
liam lawson. now technically liam is not actually a formula 1 driver. hes a formula 2 driver, but he was daniels replacement for five races and there has been some speculation and some confirmed news about him so hes getting included. when he was racing for f1 he was at alpha tauri. hes 21 and looks like he belongs in the movie grease. no one was expecting him to slay in formula 1 and he positively knocked everyones socks off. the scene: Singapore. which, if you'll recall, is the one race that a not red bull driver won. this was largely because liam lawson slayed the absolute game in qualifying. the qualifying part of racing determines what order the cars start in on the grid for the race and theres three parts, the first two parts the bottom 5 drivers each time get knocked out and then the top 10 complete for the last 10 spots. liam lawson knocked BOTH max verstappen and checo perez out of qualifying in the second round by going very slightly faster than them, effectively fucking up red bulls race and allowing carlos to win. and he also scored points in that race, which no one was expecting. now thats all fine and dandy, but here's the speculation: hemlut marko (im pretty sure) (who is somehow decently involved in the decision making at red bull though i couldn't tell you how) said that he thinks that liam lawson will be in an f1 seat no later than 2025. meaning that he will probably get offered a contract this year. and hes already raced for alpha tauri. red bull have sunk a good amount of money into him. they clearly want him. so if he gets offered an alpha tauri seat in 2025, that means theres a good chance danny rics is going to red bull. do you SEE how the plot here is THICKENED
yuki tsunoda. age 23. currently at alpha tauri. and fun fact, the only alpha tauri driver to race there the whole year. he had three separate team mates. he is slaying and hes often slept on. he has a bit of a temper and likes to shout on the radio and also hates working out (they had to force him to move to italy or something to work out, long story) but hes been kinda killing it. he led several laps in the abu dhabi race this year and hes decently consistent. people think theres possibility that he could get moved up to red bull on account of the fact that he is younger than daniel and clearly has more years in him,, but there is also possibility that he might not because red bull like to make stupid decisions. and if he doesnt get moved up to rebel, will he stay with alpha tauri? we don't know.
alex albon. age 27. currently a williams driver. alex albon is another one with a batshit career. he started out his rookie year in 2019 at alpha tauri then got moved up to red bull halfway through the year when red bull decided that pierre gasley wasnt doing a good enough job (more on him later) and stayed with red bull for a solid year and a half until he lost his seat in 2021 to checo. he has been with williams for the last two years and is basically carrying the team. like. williams as a team scored 28 points this year. and alex albon scored 27 of those 28 points. and as we know, williams is still kind of in their shit arc (though they are doing much better. they didnt score any points for a solid 2 (?) years. so this is an improvement.) and if you can get a shit car to perform you catch the eye of bigger teams. now, alex has already been a red bull driver. and he was on the cusp of podiuming two separate times when lewis hamilton ran into him. this (among a few other things) basically killed his chances at getting resigned at red bull because he wasnt ""performing"" and red bull are bitches who love to win. but some people think that red bull should give him another shot. like daniel, hes already been max's teammate and he can definitely drive. but theres also talk he might go to ferrari because ferrari think that he might compliment charles's driving style (or something). but going to ferrari at this point is kind of suicide. so.
logan sergeant. age 23. the only american on the grid. the other williams driver. he just finished his rookie year. he scored a grand total of one single point this season, in texas, and it was because charles leclerc and lewis hamilton both got disqualified because the floor of their car had more wear (by literally less than millimeters) than it was allowed to, bumping him up from 12th to 10th. he has never done better than alex albon. he was also the very last driver to get a contract for 2024, with williams waiting until i think december of 2023 to announce his contract extension. clearly, hes on thin ice. but people have also said that he needs time to get used to formula 1 (other people have pointed out that oscar piastri slayed his rookie season this year and this statement about needing time is largely false). where logan ends up next year though will largely depend on how well the 2024 season goes for him.
fernando alonso. 42 years old. many people like to point out that oscar piastri is actually younger than fernando's racing career. he won tiktok creator of the year (somehow) and is also a 2 time world champion. he retired a few years ago, just to show back up again and slay. during the first half of the season when aston martin had a zoom zoom car he killed it, and then they had problems on top of problems and he didnt do well. except for that one race in brazil where he came in third, beating checo by literally .05 seconds. he hasn't really made any hints about retiring a second time and he is kind of carrying aston Martin right now (he scored 205 points this season, coming in 4th and tying in points with charles leclerc, lance stroll only scored 74 points this year.) and they did have their best year yet this year. (though they are relatively new).
pierre gasley. 27 years old. french. drives for alpine. the french team. previously he raced with toro rosso (now alpha tauri), then got promoted to a red bull driver in 2019, then halfway through the season they decided he wasnt doing a good enough job and he got demoted back down to alpha tauri. then he won a race with alpha tauri just to stick it to red bull. after the great oscar piastri contract twitter war, he was signed as alpines second driver, with Esteban ocon being the other driver (more on him soon). estie bestie and pierre (both french) were childhood friends and now hate each other for unknown reasons and basically feuded on the track for most of the season. french civil war at alpine. he scored 62 points in 2023 and came in 11th. not really sure where he will end up, it is possible that he will stick it out at alpine.
esteban ocon. 27 years old. also french. currently driving for alpine. another one with a silly bonkers career. he started out at force india and had a baller few seasons there but his teammate at the time was checo, and checo didnt really cooperate with him too much and caused some drama that cost estie bestie some places and some points. max verstappen also beat him up in the garage once. thats not really relevant but it did happen. anyway, after the owner of force india was arrested for .... i don't remember what maybe it was embezzlement or bankruptcy or something money related, the team was backed by lawrence stroll and became racing point. but all of that happened mid season and lawrence was basically like look ill back you guys for now but next year my son gets a seat (lance) so one of you two (checo and estie bestie) have to go. and ultimately they let estie bestie go even though he was more consistent because checo had more sponsors and they needed money. so he was out of formula 1 for a few years (but was a merc reserve driver) and then went to Renault, which then became alpine. he did come in 12th though overall this season, just behind pierre. so. will alpine keep both him and pierre and keep the civil war going? whos to say.
nico hulkenberg. 36 years old. haas driver. in his 200+ f1 races he has never been on the podium and he really really wants to be on the podium. unfortunately this will never happen in a haas because haas fucking sucks. and everyone knows it. he is getting towards the end of his career though. though! stake f1 will become the mario Andretti and audi team in 2026 (don't question it) and they have supposedly voiced interest in nico. so we will see if he hangs on that long to end up at audi. for now tough, hes definitely hating it at haas. though, haas are going to have a different team principle next year so maybe that will change things. i have a sneaky feeling through that haas will probably end up with another 2 rookie drivers because everyone else is smart enough to not race for them.
kevin magnussen. 31 years old. haas driver. hes another deeply interesting character. he has had one podium. in his rookie season. in his first race. and none since. kevin started at haas in 2017 and then left at then end of 2020 when he basically got kicked off because the team needed money and they wanted to bring in drivers with more sponsorships. these drivers were mick schumacher and nikita mazepin. so kevin basically was forced to retire after the 2020 season. this went decently well for haas. until russia invaded ukraine right before the start of the 2022 season and, well, nikita was Russian and it was never distinctly proven that his dads company (who was sponsoring the team) wasnt also funding the invasion. so nikita got fired and they were literally like 2 weeks out from the start of the season, down a driver. who are you gonna call? kevin magnussen! and hes been back ever since. but hes clearly getting annoyed with haas. there was one great clip from this year where his car caught on fire and he kind of just stared into to, clearly hoping it would burn for a long time. so the likelihood of him extending his contract is looking slim.
valtteri bottas. 34 years old. currently a driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo, kick sauber, whatever you wanna call it). previously, he was a mercedes driver and notoriously helped lewis hamilton win a great many championships, until he lost his seat to george russell in 2022. there was a rather awkward part of the 2021 season where valtteri knew that he was out of a merc seat the following year and kind of just chose violence. he slayed. then he went to alpha romeo, grew a mullet and made a calendar of his ass. quite the glow up if you ask me. hes also very interested in cycling. honestly though, i have my own personal speculation that hes going to retire at the end of this year.
zhou guanyu. 24 years old. driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo/kick sauber, etc etc). hes doing alright. he just finished his second season, in his first season he was majorly out qualified by valtteri but this past season he managed to out qualify him a good 6 times. which is decently good for the tractor of a car hes driving. its possible that he could get a contract extension, but like logan, its probably going to depend on how the 2024 season goes for him.
and thats all the drivers. theres also a few others i didnt talk about, like some other f2 drivers who want seats and mick schumacher, who is currently a merc reserve driver, all of which could be contenders for f1 seats. but one things for sure. this is going to be the silliest fucking silly season.
alright several of you have asked so we have an update on F1 Silly Season 2024. ill do this to the best of my ability, feel free to peer review me.
update: february 1, 2024
several things have happened:
number one, gunther steiner: at the beginning of january, gunther steiner, team principal of haas (the shit team) was more or less fired by gene haas, the team owner. not really confirmed exactly Why but it seems like gene was pissed that gunther was trying to get the team more money and blamed the failing of the car on gunther for the last several seasons. gunther was kind of the whole identity of haas and the paddock meme and funny guy (after danny rics) so now they're kind of just There. he was replaced by ayao komatsu, who had already been working at haas as the trackside engineering director (so he was already working on the cars). unclear if this will really change anything about the cars themselves especially because haas basically said that they didnt have enough time to develop their car this year so it'll probably be bad again.
number two, charles leclerc: he was the first driver to sign a new contract in mid january. he re-signed with ferrari, literally no surprise there. it was not announced how long his contract with ferrari is but we know its multi-year. like i said originally, he will likely not leave this team.
number three, lando norris: also not surprising, but lando norris re-signed a contract extension with mclaren. what was surprising was that his current contract is not up in 2024, hes officially signed with the team until 2025. so, slightly odd that he would sign an extension with them now. when he was asked about it he said something along the lines of "its not something i wanted to have to worry about in the future" and theres also the whole bit of him basically growing up at the team because hes been associated with them more or less for several years now. again, we dont know how long his extension is for, but we do know that mclaren will at least have the same lineup (norris and piastri) through 2026. this puts them in a very good position because well they're kind of the only team with confirmed drivers at this point.
number 4, sir lewis hamilton: in the absolute biggest surprise career move of the century, even bigger than when danny rics left redbull to go to renault in 2019, sir lewis hamilton signed a contract with ferrari. this is surprising for a great many reasons:
hes mercedes's golden boy. their guy. hes won them 6 drivers championships. hes been there for ten years. we all thought that he would stay in a merc
his contract was not up in 2024, it was up in 2025
charles leclerc is the other confirmed ferrari driver. charles is ferrari's golden boy. they call him il presedentio. its been confirmed by ferrari that he is the priority. he wants to win in a ferrari. hes been their #1 driver for a few years now. theres no way in hell hes going to tolerate being bumped to secondary driver at his own damn team
lewis hamilton is a 7 time world champion. he wants to win his 8th one (he should have already but thats a different story). he will not tolerate being the #2 driver when hes been the merc #1 driver for so many years.
basically this is going to be worse than the brocades civil war. that ended with nico rosberg retiring.
toto wolff, mercedes team principal, re-signed as the mercedes team principal earlier and was like "yeah i want to win another championship with lewis" can i get an L in the chat
ferrari has kind of been all over the place. the pit stops, the strategy, everything. charles and carlos basically did their own strategies towards the end. mercedes might have gone downhill but they at least have had their shit slightly together. lewis is either going to make ferrari better or he is going to have his spirit broken
again, NO ONE SAW THIS COMING
we dont know how long his contract is, but its multi year (likely 2)
the mclaren boys are all going ham on twitter about this and it’s fucking hilarious.
number 5, carlos sainz: lewis signing at ferrari has knocked carlos sainz out of a seat for 2025. we knew that his contract negotiations with ferrari weren't going well, but we still had some hope. no one knows where he will end up. audi is interested in him, but they wont be an official team until 2026 so he could either sign with another team for a year, sign with stake f1 team kick sauber (which will turn into audi) or be a reserve driver. any way you look at it, he seems to be at the end of his career now after getting booted from ferrari (unless mercedes signs him but thats unlikely)
number 6, the mercedes seat: so now theres an open seat at mercedes. this is notable because there wasnt supposed to be an open mercedes seat until At Least Next Year and we still have 13 drivers who need to renew or sign new contracts, plus all the rookies and reserve drivers who want into f1. so mercedes have their fair pick of drivers. it could be alex albon, who is at williams and did a damn good job in a bad car last year. plus, williams has a mercedes engine so he is already somewhat associated with the team. he was favored to replace carlos at ferrari but that’s clearly not happening anymore. could be carlos. could be anyone. my personal favorite is fernando alonso because he would make totos life hell. so basically. silly season just got sillier. this does explain tho why lando re-signed with mclaren a year early, because he was probably approached by mercedes about driving there.
thats all for now. the car launches start tomorrow and i can assure you its only going to get sillier from here.
ok so! now that i have had the chance to read more about the contract news of yesterday, i have a more comprehensive update for this post. for everyone who keeps asking how to get into f1: here. start here with this. i’m going to do my best to simplify the silly season drama here. and that’s mostly what you need to know. just know, this post is long under all the cuts
so without any further ado i present The Consequences And Drama Of Lewis Hamilton Signing With Ferrari
as i’ve already discussed, mercedes was not supposed to be part of this years silly season. george and lewis’s contract both expire next year. lewis got out of his contract because he activated his exit clause. many of the contracts has one and it’s basically like “if (these circumstances) happen you are allowed to exit your contract” and many people are wondering What Happened for sir lewis hamilton to want to activate his exit clause. well. people had speculated that the boys (lewis and george) have already seen, sat in and potentially driven the car for 2024 so there was speculation that the car probably sucks again and lewis wanted out. there’s photos of him in the car on the mercedes ig looking displeased. toto wolff said in his press conference that this is false. all of the ferrari deal was squared away before lewis had even seen the car. so probably it was just that he knew there was a seat open at ferrari (which doesn’t happen all too often) and he wanted to cross off a bucket list item before he retired.
in any case, he didn’t tell toto wolff (merc team principal) until the day before the news came out that he was leaving. and he reportedly went paintballing with a bunch of merc guys and was like hey! btw! i’m leaving :) most of the merc employees found out yesterday, the day the news was released that he was leaving. i have seen that his race engineer might be making the move to ferrari with him, but i don’t know if that is confirmed.
also, this is not the first time hamilton has made a surprise career move. his move to mercedes from mclaren in 2013 was widely reguarded as insane because mercedes wasn’t a high ranked team yet and were relatively new. but he had raging success with them so maybe he can do it again.
again, this is a surprise insane move. like. this is like if jenson ackles left supernatural in season 10. like if zac efron decided he didnt want to do high school musical 3. its bonkers. unfathomable. like tumblr without the color of the sky post.
now, also important to understand is that each of the top teams have A Driver who is Their Driver, The Guy Who Will Win The Championship and then they have a secondary driver who is there to help the first guy.
red bull has max verstappen, ferrari has charles leclerc, mclaren has lando norris and mercedes had sir lewis hamilton. except now they dont.
so where does this leave mercedes?
well originally there were two teams who didn’t have to worry about their driver lineup: mclaren and mercedes. mclaren now extra doesn’t have to worry about their driver lineup because lando signed the extension (a good thing too because toto said that if he hadn't he was going to be an option for merc). but now mercedes has to find someone to fill their open seat for next year, which they were not planning on having to do. this probably throws a wrench in their plans. a massive one.
you see, recently, mercedes backed kimi antonelli, a 17 year old driver who had won the f4 championship in 2022, having him skip f3 and jump straight into f2. this is big news because mercedes is sinking a lot of money into him and he’s talented, and they had him skip a whole league of formula racing, likely to fast track him to f1, likely as a mercedes driver, and even more likely as lewis hamilton's replacement. which is all fine and dandy except for the fact that it isn't because lewis left before anyone thought he would.
the last time we saw this happen, btw, was with max verstappen in 2015 (?). he was reportedly in talks with merc when he was in i believe f4 and they were like we'll jump you up to f2 and then well see about getting you in an f1 car, then red bull and mr ginger spice (christian horner) jumped in and were like oh no no no this kid has talent!! were going to do you one better and throw him in am f1 toro rosso (alpha tauri/racing bulls) car this year. and then they did. and that worked quite well for them. unfortunately though, mercedes doesn't have a second team that they can use to train future drivers at. they have williams.
williams is its own Separate Team Entirely. but! they use mercedes engines, so mercedes has Some pull there. but williams also has its own driver development program that they use to get rookies that They Want into their cars (this gets a little confusing just trust me ok) so mercedes probably doesn't have as much say there as they used to. but their plan was to probably get kimi a contract at williams for 2025 or 2026, have him stick it out at williams for 2 or 3 years (like george russell did), allow him to prove himself in a shitty car, win their 8th championship with sir lewis hamilton, let hamilton retire, and then sign kimi to replace him and have him become the next hamilton.
well that plan has been launched out the window.
mercedes, as we know is a silly pretentious team who doesnt want to sign rookies. they want to have their drivers prove themselves before they get into the good car. toto wolff doesnt want to balls to the wall sign a rookie the way zak brown at mclaren does (even though that has worked rather well for him). and the drivers they Really Want (charles leclerc and lando norris because they are world champion material) are locked down at their own teams for who knows how long. and they now have a seat to fill. so its time for:
Who's Going To Be The Next Mercedes Driver??!!!
likely not kimi because it’s his first year in f2 and like i said, merc doesn’t really sign rookies. plus he doesn’t have the experience mercedes needs. they want to win a championship again and are looking for more experienced drivers. so mercedes has between 2 and 3 years that they need to fill a seat before they can sign kimi. which leaves us with a few options:
carlos sainz. kind of unlikely. but he is freshly out of a ferrari seat so it’s a possibility. however, there’s more speculation that he will end up at stake f1 team kick sauber because audi is interested in him (sauber becomes audi in 2026). it’s been stated that he is definitively not going to redbull (because yuki, daniel and liam lawson are all waiting for a red bull seat) but he could go to aston martin. hes not really viewed as "world champion material" but he is a good driver.
mick schumacher. again, unlikely. he was in f1 for 2 years at haas but ended up loosing his seat in 2023 to nico hulkenberg. he was not treated the best at haas. also its haas. he’s currently the mercedes reserve driver and we know he wants an f1 seat again. he has said that its a possibility he ends up at merc.
fernando alonso. much more likely. him and his team were reportedly in contact with toto wolff yesterday, but he is going to see what aston martin accomplish this year before making any decisions. this is widely reguardless to be hilarious if it happens because several people have pointed out that fernando is likely the only person who could make toto retire. hes been in f1 for over 20 years and has always always been in his villain arc. but like a dr heinz doofenshmirtz villain. he’s also a 2x world champion and has the skill merc is looking for.
alex albon. also likely. he’s currently at williams after getting unseated at redbull to checo. he singlehandedly dragged williams from like 10th place up to 7th, a feat in the tractor of a car that it was and is already affiliated with mercedes because williams uses mercedes engines. people seem to think this will be the year that alex albon gets signed back to a big team. ferrari are out, mclaren is out. there is recent (and somewhat reliable) speculation he could be going to redbull, but again, would redbull do that? he was already a driver there and they thought he wasn’t doing well. plus redbull don’t like to give second chances very often and they like promoting from racing bulls (alpha tauri) instead. mercedes has also signed drivers from williams before (george russell).
there is one thing for certain tho and that is that mclaren is at a distinct advantage for the next few years. they are the only team heading into the 2024 season (so far) with a confirmed driver lineup that won’t make the season awkward. oscar and lando are already both racing there. they are continuing to do so. ferraris lineup is now confirmed for 2025 but carlos has to go the whole year knowing that he is not going to be there next year and when that happens the team usually doesn’t prioritize the driver that’s leaving. same for lewis. other teams may not have confirmed their lineup yet but their drivers are still all under pressure to perform to either keep or get a new seat. oscar and lando only have to worry about having a good season for the team, not because they need to impress anyone into letting them keep their seat.
this is probably why they decided to be little sass monsters on twitter. after the contract announcement they tweeted this:
i think we can probably expect to see much more of this from them, which is hilarious. they're just sitting pretty while the paddock around them descends into madness. like when a fandom war is happening but its in your mutuals fandom so youre just hearing the most interesting bits.
but, mercedes loosing lewis puts mclaren at an advantage. without lewis, mercedes effectively becomes an upper mid field team, and lewis and charles at ferrari has the potential to be a flaming dumpster fire (hate to compare them to like alpha wolves here but this is tumblr and you all will understand that comparison) because they're each used to being the alpha of their own team so they have the potential to butt heads. or at least cars. on the track. and you want your cars working together. this could very well become episode 2 of the great brocedes civil war. red bull are always going to be on top as long as max is there, no matter who hes driving with. but potentially not having to worry about ferrari and merc puts mclaren in a Very Good position to at least get into the top 3, if not win.
now lets switch gears here to the exact opposite. haas. our poor little meow meows.
they released their car. it looks fine. looks like an f1 car. idk what you really were expecting there.
but far more interestingly they announced their reserve drivers. one of which is ollie bearman. hes currently in f2 (and this year is kimi's teammate at prema) and is also the reserve driver for ferrari (haas uses a ferrari engine) but! they announced that ollie will be getting 6 practice sessions in an f1 car at haas.
now why is this important? well. every team has to devote at least one practice session Per car throughout the year to an up and coming driver. usually an f2 driver. to test them out and see if they like them and to give the f2 drivers f1 experience. but you dont just give someone six practice sessions unless youre Heavily Thinking About Signing Them. and both k mags and nico's contracts with haas are up this year. so. im thinking. ollie might be going to haas.
and with that update, here are the current open seats:
red bull: 1
mercedes: 1
ferrari: 0
mclaren: 0
aston martin: 1
alpine: 2
visa cash app racing bulls: 2
williams: 2
stake f1 team kick sauber: 2
haas: 2
13 seats remain. stay tuned. it will only get sillier.
good evening everyone today is February 5, 2024 and i have some updates on the ongoing formula 1 silly season.
and would you believe me if i said that it has gotten sillier ??!!!
well. it has.
starting at the top we had the williams car reveal today. at the flagship puma store in nyc. the car was revealed, it looks cute, idk man its a car. they changed the race suits from black to white. general stuff. then they announced that alex albon was re-signing with williams for 2025.
or actually, they "insisted" that he was signed with williams until the end of 2025.
honestly, im not entirely sure if this is Confirmed Confirmed because there was no instagram announcement (there usually is) and theres been nothing from sky sports.
so the lack of Official Announcement leads me to believe that everything might not be squared away yet, or maybe alex is still keeping his options open.
regardless. all of this was reportedly said at the williams car reveal today:
james vowels, the williams team principal, who has explained pumpkin spice lattes with the same intense description as he explains tire degradation, said that "alex is signed with williams until 2025. it is not something i have been very public about because i have not felt the need to." james also said that he and alex are interested in having a good partnership for a long time.
in other words, they want alex albon to do what lando norris is doing at mclaren, bringing the team back to the front of the grid. williams historically has been a great team, but they have slipped to a back of the grid team the last few years. with alex's performance last year (scoring 27 of williams's 28 points and basically single handedly letting the team finish in 7th place) its no wonder that they want to keep him as a driver.
alex did also make some comments on his placement for 2025. he said "let’s see. time will tell. the real focus is on 2024 and making progress for 2025. that is where i am at. if the team is where i want them to be, it will be a long-term contract and we are going to go all the way or nothing.” so it sounds like maybe nothing has been signed. but maybe it has. i dont know. the lack of real official announcement is a bit confusing.
alex did say though that he has been approached by other teams (likely mercedes and red bull).
now, provided that alex is in fact staying at williams, that takes him out of the race for the 2025 merc seat. toto wolff said though that having a seat open next year gives them the opportunity to do something "bold" like potentially signing kimi antonelli, who we talked about last update.
moving on from that we get to the second news of the day and that is stake f1 team kick sauber's car reveal, which also happened today. its neon green and black. a little ugly but definitely visible on the track. the silliest part was definitely their fireproofs reveal. which was also leaked several hours before they released.
zhou guanyu, being something of a fashion icon, looks pretty normal in the fireproofs:
valtteri bottas looks like luigi:
now all of this news was of course overshadowed because no one can have a normal car launch these days. and it was overshadowed by none other than christian horner.
christian horner, of course, is the red bull racing team principal. of all the team principals currently on the grid, he has been there the longest. since the beginning of the red bull racing team, actually, when they bought the jaguar f1 team in late 2004. under his leadership the team has won 13 world titles, and they have had the youngest world champion (sebastian vettel) and the youngest race winner (max verstappen). red bull is currently The Team To Beat in formula 1. as a reminder, they won the constructors championship by about 450 points and the drivers championship by about 250 points last year.
well.
well.
apparently there are now some allegations against christian horner. allegations of what, no one is quite sure, they are keeping it under wraps. but it seems to have been "inappropriate behavior" (i have also seen it now reported as "inappropriate controlling behavior") ill let you fill in the gaps there of what that could mean.
most interesting though is that it is under internal investigation by red bull itself. not one of the other f1 teams calling for an investigation (as happens pretty often), not the red bull racing team. but red bull itself. the energy drink company. they are supposedly taking it extremely seriously.
christian has of course denied these allegations.
ive seen a great many things speculated about this, including one post saying that he was allegedly advised to step down from his role.
now, regardless of your opinions on christian horner, he does seem to know what he is doing. as far as Guy In Charge Of A Sports Team goes, he was going his job decently well. as in, playing dirty when he needed to, doing what it takes to win, making hard decisions on drivers, etc. literally no one expected red bull to do as well as they have. they're a fucking energy drink company. not a car company. an energy drink company.
and without christian horner, should he end up leaving, will the team still be successful? he is to red bull what gunther steiner was to haas, just largely more successful.
well. they will still have max verstappen, who is widely regarded as one of the best drivers ever. so they could still possibly win.
but how would a christian horner departure affect the rest of the teams?
well for this year it might slow red bull down a little, lessen their chance at complete and utter domination and line sir lewis hamilton up to win his 8th world championship before he leaves mercedes at the end of the year.
but for 2025, should christian horner leave we would be left with the top three teams in the following state:
-a lewis hamilton-less mercedes
-a christian horner-less red bull
-a charles leclerc and lewis hamilton ferrari
so mercedes would likely be lacking a very strong driver, red bull would likely be lacking strong leadership, and ferrari would have two drivers will refuse to be treated as the number 2 driver.
thus to say, an absolute train wreck.
which once again, puts mclaren in a very very good position for victory.
and again, an update on the current available seats (provided that alex albon actually is re-signing with williams)
red bull: 1
mercedes: 1
ferrari: 0
mclaren: 0
aston martin: 1
alpine: 2
williams: 1
visa cashapp racing bulls: 2
stake f1 team kick sauber: 2
haas: 2
12 seats remain. i can promise you it will only get sillier.
welcome back to saphs silly season monstrosity post. i asked and y'all voted that i should keep it going so here we are. if you DONT WANT TO SEE THIS POST EVER AGAIN then block the tag #saph explains silly season 2024
today is february 9, 2024 and without further ado we have this weeks drama:
we've got stake, we've got alpine, we've got the distinct lack of painted cars, we've got the singapore race, we've got charles's spotify account, we've got alex albon and hm what am i missing???
ah yes. christian horner.
strap yourselves in folks!
first up is stake f1 team kick sauber. aside from having a ridiculous name they also now have legal problems. which, incidentally, have to do with the name. allow me to explain:
stake is a crypto betting casino esque company. they have sponsored the team before (when it was called alpha romeo) but now they are the Title Sponsor. this presented a few problems initially because betting is not legal in all the countries where the races are, so they legally can't be called stake all the time at all the races. thats why they're also called kick sauber. kick is the name of another one of their sponsors (its a streaming platform actually owned by stake), not the title one, but still a prominent one. they have removed the stake sponsor from the car in previous years at races where gambling promotion is not allowed.
well well well if only it were that easy.
you see. casinos, even crypto casinos, need to be licensed. and stake is apparently not licensed in switzerland. now why on earth does this matter? well. sauber is a swiss team. and sauber took on stake as their title sponsor. they're being sponsored by a company that is technically not legal in their country.
you would think that this would have all been caught before they launched the car and rebranded themselves, but alas.
and, according to sports illustrated, "The Federal Casino Commission in Switzerland has initiated proceedings against Sauber due to the unlicensed status of Stake, potentially resulting in a substantial fine."
yes. you read that one correctly.
now apparently this wasnt a problem when stake was a lesser sponsor but now that its the main sponsor, this is bad news for stake f1 team kick sauber.
apparently tho the team isn't super concerned and is confident in the original plan to run under two names depending on the country. they have tho removed the name stake from their website. which is an interesting choice for people who are confident they're doing nothing wrong.
two car launches happened this week, the first was alpine. the alpine car looks a lot like every other car this year: a lot of plain black carbon fiber and very minimal paint. everyone has been shitting on this because not too long ago all the cars were pretty painted, but then merc decided to run an all black car to save weight because the paint weighs more and now everyone is copying them and the internet is memeing the shit out of it:
(via the instagram account f1troll)
the alpine instagram admins even shitted on themselves with this video of them pointing at the car and going "carbon fiber" over and over
then the visa cashapp racing bulls showed up in an actual painted car and saved the day:
is that technically silly season drama? no but its fucking hilarious.
its also not really part of the silly season that charles leclercs spotify account keeps getting hacked and someone keeps posting their own song onto it, but its objectively hilarious. he keeps having to post on his instagram story that "guyssss this isnttt meeee"
now back to the silly season drama.
shape of the singapore race, form of suspected corruption.
now tbh i dont really get this one too much so ill do me damndest but it might behoove you to just google it yourself if youre curious.
one of the races on the f1 calendar is the singapore grand prix. its a street track (as opposed to a track track) and if you recall, it was the only race last year won by a non red bull driver (carlos sainz). singapore has a contract to be an f1 track until 2028. (yes tracks have contracts just like the drivers, remember its a stupid bonkers sport)
well apparently its currently being reviewed by the local government to see if it can/should still happen for 2024. why? well someone got arrested.
the someone in question was the transport minister, s. iswaran. he stepped down following several charges of corruption. he was in charge of tourism and started around the time when the singapore gp began several years ago. according to the bbc, he was accused of taking more than 100k USD worth of flights, hotels and f1 tickets "in exchange for advancing property tycoon Ong Beng Seng's business interests" and ong beng seng was involved in bringing the grand prix to singapore in the first place (according to sports illustrated). (its also worth pointing out that singapore rarely ever gets involved in political scandals)
now because s. iswaran was involved in the original f1 singapore track contract, the contract is being investigated to make sure that the race actually benefits the country (i think). and they are still gearing up for the 2024 race and so far nothing has been found that would suggest that there was corruption in the race contract, but its still a possibility.
so in short, the singapore race could be off the calendar.
and now with that we are back at alex albon. it would seem as though he is signed for 2025 with williams but now red bull want him for potentially 2026 on a three year contract.
now as we know, alex has said that if williams is performing then he is willing to stay with the team. as we also know, alex has also already driven for red bull and they tossed him aside for checo in 2021. checo has since kinda started fucking shit up for red bull and if theyre looking back to rehire alex albon, over danny rics and yuki tsunoda, then this is probably pretty dire of a situation for them.
also. red bull do Not like admitting they made mistakes in their driver contracts. notably, they never took pierre gasley back even when it was wildly speculated that they regretted swapping him in 2019.
red bull is also in the shit for entirely different reasons right now but well get to that later.
but regardless, red bull have supposedly expressed interest in having first refusal of alex when his williams contract expires in 2025. meaning, they are the first to claim him potentially (i think). again, this says more about the red bull team than it says about alex albon. red bull have not one, not two, but three drivers lined up for a red bull seat (danny rics, yuki tsunoda and liam lawson). and if they are overlooking All Three of them for someone they have previously ixed, then that may present a problem for the current racing bulls drivers (danny rics and yuki) who are likely only driving there with the hopes of getting promoted up to red bull.
and lastly. we have christian horner.
he had his first hearing today about the allegations. it reportedly lasted 8 hours with breaks and no conclusion was reached.
again, he is being investigated for "inappropriate behavior," but it is also being called "controlling behavior" and it may have included "inappropriate photos," depending on what report of the events you are reading. regardless, the accusations were made by a female employee.
several news outlets, not just racing news outlets, have reported on this, but ive gotten most of my information from sky sports.
originally, red bull wanted to have all of this squared away before they release their car next week, but that clearly is not happening. (honestly it will probably extend into the start of the season) mostly because this is now a legal case and there is stupidly long legal proceedings that now have to take place because it is a legal case.
in any case, christian has still denied the accusations and though hes been advised to vacate his position, he still has not. red bull is worried about their image with the whole ordeal and him being in his position still but, no one has forcibly removed him and unless someone does i dont see him leaving. there are people who are reportedly on the inside who think that he will not survive his position.
also, hes not only the team principal of red bull, hes also the red bull racing ceo.
and as christian horner once famously said on drive to survive. red bull is an energy drinks company. the f1 team was created to advertise their product and they will only have the team as long as they are benefitting from it. so will this scandal make red bull change their mind. we dont know.
also, again, max verstappen is only basically at red bull as long as they are winning. and if they lose max verstappen, they're kinda completely fucked. and if christian has to leave his position and the new leadership isn't as good, this could be possible.
now theres also a whole lot of red bull drama with the various higher ups that i really dont get and its very confusing but all you need to know now is that christian horner has a feud going with some of the other management (helmut marko) and should the investigation happen in a way that isn't good for christian this could be very very interesting for the red bull management.
also lets get a reminder here that THE SEASON HASNT EVEN STARTED YET.
hi its me again welcome back to the mess that is my silly season post. as a reminder if you never want to see this again block the tag #saph explains silly season 2024
today is february 14, 2024 (happy valentines day mothers and fuckers of the jury) and lets dive in to the most recent batch of car releases
now, to be fair, this is a fairly tame update. nothing earth shattering has happened this week, but tomorrow we have the red bull car reveal. and that is anticipated to be...something. so im splitting this into everything that happened this week and then tomorrow we will get the red bull release and ill do my best to take another stab at explaining the red bull drama.
so so so we have four car releases: aston martin, ferrari, mercedes and mclaren. and well, mclaren already dropped their livery in the middle of January cause cause they're #built different and wanted to cause a social media stir in the middle of their taylor swift reputation esque instagram rebrand, so were mostly going to ignore them here cause we've been seeing that car for literally like a month
(also sorry mclaren but it looks pretty much the same as last years)
as for aston martin. well. its green. its a car. its fairly expected.
and ferrari was red. obviously. theres a fork in the kitchen and the ferrari car is red. but i digress.
ferrari did post some stupidly funny pictures of charles and carlos where they both look objectively miserable though. like. alarmingly so. like people made these memes about it:
(via the instagrams banter_steiner and msportbanter)
like those photos are on the real ferrari instagram account. which leaves many people to speculate if the car sucks. it might suck. at this point (i think) all of the drivers have driven this years car on a track individually (as in all at different tracks near where they're based, so ferrari was somewhere in italy, mclaren in england etc) so. they could know something we dont.
aside from that the other head turning car news was the mercedes car. she is pretty and she is sexy and she is not all black! you all remember how last update i talked about the fact that mercedes was the one to pilot the all black livery. well. clearly they remain ahead of the trend because they came out with this bad boy:
she's painted and once again she's ahead of the trend. we love her.
no other driver contracts have been signed as of yet. but we did learn that lewis hamilton had told zhou guanyu before he told the mercedes team that he was moving to ferrari in 2025. and zhou just told no one. cause hes cool like that.
and everyone under the sun still wants the mercedes seat. even esteban ocon. he will probably not get the mercedes seat. there is a rumor going around tho that everyone is basically out of the running except for our good friends kimi antonelli and fernando alonso. t supposedly kimi has plan a and fernando is plan b. but kimi (still being an f2 driver and only having his first year in f2 this year at that) still has to prove himself, which means they wont be announcing if they are signing him until at least june or july (about halfway through the season). though, as of now things are looking pretty good for kimi.
without getting too much into the f2 drama cause thats its own separate bag of cats, they had their pre season testing this week in bahrain. the first day of testing it rained (literally never happens) but kimi finished the testing with the fourth fastest time, 1:53.511s. this is pretty good when you realize that the fastest lap set that day was 1:53.175s (according to motorsport week) also, recall that george russell got his mercedes seat after the insane 2021 qualifying session in belgium, in a massive rainstorm, where he finished second in a shitbox williams. so. things are looking decently good for kimi.
moving on tho to fernando alonso. he had some things to say about the mercedes seat. and by things to say i mean that he had some shade to throw. earlier this week he spoke about the open mercedes seat and had this to say about lewis hamilton's ferrari move:
"It was not his childhood dream 12 months ago or two months ago, I guess, because it was a different dream." which is kind of a wild thing to say, but then again, fernando alonso has been a driver forever, i think hes entitled to a few batshit statements. and he definitely made more than just that one.
as a small refresher, there are currently three world champions on the grid: max verstappen, lewis hamilton and fernando alonso. verstappen and hamilton are both contracted, alonso is the only still available. and he knows that this puts him in a good position (a lot of teams might want him and they'd be willing to pay good money to get him, especially after the commitment to racing they saw in him last year, like when he beat checo by literally .053 seconds for third place in brazil). he said that he is not sure he will want to stay in formula 1 after this year (he has already retired once and expressed minor interest in going to a different league) but if he does he wants to first talk with aston martin about extending his contract there.
he did say though that verstappen and hamilton are "fast world champions, [and] in the past maybe there were some world champions who were not so committed to being fast." first of all Shade and second of all yeah he knows his value in the silly season. if you want to read the rest of his interview its on espn and its actually pretty interesting.
and the last bit we have to unpack before we get to the hot red bull disaster is of course sebastian vettel. you might be asking, who the fuck is sebastian vettel. well allow me to tell you.
sebastian vettel is a four time, consecutive world champion f1 driver (and also the youngest world champion, he won his first when he was 23). he won all of his championships with red bull before leaving the team to sign with ferrari. unfortunately for him that coincided with the rise of mercedes and he never won any championships with ferrari. carlos sainz took his ferrari seat in 2021 and sebastian raced with aston martin for 2 years before retiring in 2022 to spend time with his wife and kids and give younger drivers his seat (this is of course hilarious because he was replaced at aston martin by none other than fernando alonso. who is six years older than Sebastian).
sebastian also is lewis hamiltons emotional support rival, loves bees (and is a supporter of the environment and social justice) and is generally just a silly goofy fun guy.
now. what on earth foes a retired formula 1 driver have to do with silly season?
WELL
basically hes been being a little shit on instagram
and by being a little shit i mean that hes been posting hints at returning to formula 1, or at least to racing.
basically his entire instagram recently (read: for several months) is all old throw back photos of him at red bull with the tag #thereisstillaracetowin. which is. perplexing. because he is not racing.
then there is a video. posted on february 10. of him wearing a red bull jacket and hat with his logo on it. saying "since the beginning of january ive basically been preparing for the new year, for the new season. and i have been in the simulator several times now. and also with the team in england, just to slowly get back into the rhythm."
now yes, this is still one of the throwback posts of his career that they're reposting on his instagram. but it does have very interesting timing. not only are we in the silliest silly season known to man, but also the middle of the red bull drama.
there is also speculation that there german grand prix could be retuning to the calendar. which could connect to vettels supposed and hinted return.
admittedly, its a long shot that hes coming back. but its still interesting timing for sure.
and that of course takes us to red bull. no real news from them other than what we already know. but we do know that horner has:
been told by pretty much everyone under the sun that he should step down
has not stepped down and refuses to admit to any and all allegations
hello and welcome back to the mess and disaster of silly season. this edition: what the fuck is going on at redbull. today is february 17, 2024 and *buisness meeting voice* let’s dive right in
now first of all. i make no promises that everything in this update is accurate or that is encompasses everything. the reason being that a lot of the red bull news right now is unconfirmed rumors. so don’t shoot the messenger okay, i’m just saying what i’m seeing.
also red bull as a team has always confused me so just bear with me here.
now. for the sake of not confusing anyone this is how things on this update will be referred to:
red bull: the energy drink company itself
red bull racing/rbr: the red bull formula 1 team
visa cashapp racing bulls/ vcarb: red bull racings junior/sister f1 team (previously called alpha tauri)
now there’s quite a few people we will discuss here. but mainly it’s christian horner.
as a refresher christian horner is the team principal and ceo of red bull racing. he’s been with the team since 2004 when they first started. he’s married to ginger spice. he has kids. he’s worked with some of the best drivers (sebastian vettel, max verstappen, daniel ricciardo, etc) and is generally a very For The Good Of The Team Not The Individual guy. willing to play dirty when he needs to.
also important to note going into this is the current driver lineup. red bull racing has max verstappen signed through 2028 (however, it’s unclear if there’s a clause in his contract letting him out of it if the team isn’t competitive (top 3) he has had this clause in his contract before. but generally he doesn’t want to be racing for a team that isn’t winning) and checo perez signed through 2024.
christian horner, as we know, has allegations against him of “inappropriate controlling behavior” with a female employee. depending on the source there’s also been suggestions that there were “inappropriate photographs” involved.
horner has been advised by like seemingly everyone to step down. he has not. he also has not admitted to any of these accusations and claims he’s innocent. his wife is supporting him.
so. red bull racing had their car launch on february 15. they were the last team to launch their car. and it looks literally identical to their past 8 cars. that’s not why we care about the launch tho. we care about the launch because horner was there.
now i didnt watch the car reveal because i simply didnt want to. but apparently christian stressed that everything is "business as usual" and he was on stage pretty much the whole time and talking about car things and blah blah usual business.
but is it really business as usual???
maxie poo verstappen was asked what he thinks of this ordeal and basically all he said is that he doesnt want to comment but his relationship with christian is essentially the same as its always been.
now. reportedly. there is some Talk that perhaps max isn't quite aligned behind horner. and this is mainly due to his father.
enter one jos verstappen, ex f1 driver, max verstappens father and manager. he also has several domestic abuse/violence allegations and one attempted murder allegation against him, but was never charged with anything. thats neither here nor there tho. notoriously, he was very harsh on max as a kid all through karting and the junior leagues, pushing him to become a champion. jos was never a champion in f1.
now. max is loyal to his father. reportedly at least. and his father is a very present figure in the red bull racing garage.
also reportedly, christian and jos do not get along.
now these are All Rumors, so take it with several grains of salt, but honestly? might not be too far off the mark:
Supposedly, jos and christian have a damaged personal relationship post the allegations. which would track, considering that this might set red bull racing back from winning, which is what max wants.
but it doesnt quite end there.
when the horner allegations came out they were released first by the dutch media (max is dutch) and Supposedly some drama blogs have said that the paper that published the initial rumors of allegations was hesitant to do so until they were prompted by an insider. the insider perhaps being someone from max's team. supposedly the paper was also vaguely threatened with legal repercussions if they tried to release the story. but theres no evidence suggesting that it was someone from max's team
now you might be wondering why the fuck the silly rumors matter here so much. and that is because pretty much all f1 News News starts as a rumor that eventually either gets confirmed or disproven.
but if max isn't loyal to christian horner, then who the hell is he loyal to?
enter one helmut marko. current director of the red bull f1 teams (red bull racing and vcarb), ex racing driver and one of christian horner's nemesises.
Helmut marko is the one that got max a shot at f1 (long story, i think i alluded to it in a previous update) and according to that same drama blog, max's loyalty lies with helmut marko and his father.
its also worth pointing out that max doesnt really get involved too much in the drama side of f1. hes there to race and to win. though i suspect that even if he did have beef with christian, he probably wouldn't address it publicly. the verstappens tho seem to have a decent amount of say at red bull and rightfully so as max is currently winning them everything under the sun.
aside from that. hemlut and christian are usually getting involved in various kerfuffles over driver contracts, team decisions, etc etc and reportedly dont like eachother very much. i think there was a point last year where hemlut almost left the team? but anyway. he has commented on the allegations situation, but basically just to say that he can't say anything because its an ongoing investigation. womp womp.
but!! would you believe that there is more!!!!
so. red bull are currently getting their engines from honda. but. in 2026 they are supposed to switch suppliers and get their engines from ford. and uh, ford is Unimpressed with the allegations situation.
so unimpressed that they issued this statement:
"As a family company that holds itself to very high standards of behavior and integrity, we expect the same from our partners."
which is to say. get your fucking shit together or no engines for you.
and no engines means car can't run.
a bit of a predicament, wouldn't you say?
and then theres the settlement.
back in rumor land there are new and interesting rumors brewing. the rumors of course being that the female employee wants to take christian to court in england over this whole ordeal. and, reportedly, he offered to pay her a 1.25 million USD (650k british pounds) in a settlement to keep this whole thing from getting revealed.
which is. quite the claim.
all of this has been reported on every drama blog out the wazoo, but it apparently stemmed from the same dutch newspaper (de telegraaf) that originally posted the initial allegation rumors and was written by the same journalist.
but of course. this is a big and nasty claim and if red bull is trying to save face, then it doesnt look good for them. but the rumor has been neither confirmed nor denied (as of now) and christian is still refusing to resign and intends to be at pre season testing next week.
now that’s all fine and dandy. but there’s more! of course there’s more!
now admittedly this has been going on for awhile and i keep forgetting to put it in cause there’s been other stuff going on but since this update is p much all red bull i might as well throw it in here.
enter zak brown.
ceo of mclaren f1. not to be confused with Zac brown of the Zac brown band.
he’s american and … interesting. he took over the team several years ago when they were still a back marker team trying to get back to the front. and he’s done a decent job. it was his decision to sign lando (the teams golden boy), carlos, daniel (who was not treated well by mclaren but that’s another post) and then most recently oscar. and they went from struggling to get points a few years ago to ending 4th in the constructors championship this past year.
now. currently in f1 there is a cost cap. each team is not allowed to spend more than $135 million USD (in 2023) on their car. this was introduced in 2021 to get all the teams on a more level playing field. previously, the big teams with a lot of sponsors would spend waaaaay more than that and the back marker, smaller teams spent a good bit less, giving the bigger teams a clear advantage. pretty much all the teams spend up to the cost cap (except haas cause they can’t afford it).
now why on earth does this matter?
well recall that red bull has two teams, red bull racing and vcarb. back pre cost cap it made more sense to have a “real team” and a “junior team” because the junior team wasn’t getting as much money so the car was less competitive and it was a good way to train the drivers for the real team. but now that there’s a cost cap, both teams could feasibly be on the same level cause they’re getting the same amount of money and development.
now the f1 teams are allowed to call attention to other teams if they think they’re participating in Hinky Hijinks and Shenanigans that are Against The Rules.
and that is Exactly what zak brown did.
he wrote a letter calling red bull racing out for strengthening their ties with vcarb. well he did not specifically call out red bull, but it was heavily implied:
“That said, there is an opportunity to improve some of the other processes in Formula 1 to strengthen the values of fairness and competition. The sport is not perfect, and as we look ahead to negotiating the next Concorde Agreement to unite the governing body with the teams and commercial rights holders, we should prioritise some of those rules that currently impact the impartiality between competitors.
For example, most other major sports prohibit the ownership of two teams within the same league because of the obvious potential damage that it does to competition. It’s an unhealthy situation because it impacts decisions made both on and off the track. Whether it’s a case of having access to more data, sharing components/personnel, or even having influence over a strategic vote, it’s not in the spirit of the regulations.
It’s important to stand up for independence, competition and fairness, and I’d like to see changes in the regulations to ensure that in future, they stop influence spreading from one team to another through strategic alliances and especially through ownership. Formula 1 should be true to its brand, and every team - except Power Units - should be totally independent of each other.
I believe Formula 1 fans universally believe in fairness in competition and a level playing field, and would reject any actions that compromise the true spirit of competition within Formula 1. Part sharing of information, shared ownership models, and strategic alliances within the sporting fabric of Formula 1 will only serve to undermine the fans’ belief in fair and fierce competition.”
tldr: it’s unfair for one company to own two teams, especially when they’re sharing information, parts, data and potentially skewing voting.
this is not the first time red bull have been called out by zak brown either. the first time was in 2022 when red bull racing went over the cost cap and essentially were hardly punished and zak wrote a long letter to the fia accusing them of cheating.
so red bull, as usual, find themselves in the middle of some Shit. but quite a bit more than usual. between horner and zak brown being Incredibly vocal about the ties between vcarb and red bull racing, who’s to say what will happen with them this season. theres definitely a lot more to all the red bull drama, but this is the abridged version.
aside from that. charles leclerc came out with an ep called dreamers. its piano music. it slays.
provided nothing else earth shattering happens this week, ill see you all after pre season testing :) remember, its going to only get sillier!
ok yes i Know i Said that i would see you all again at pre season testing. and No nothing Earth Shattering has happened.
so saph, you might be asking, why the hell are you updating the post?
to which i say, as a mclaren fan, it’s a crime that i haven’t talked about the antics of mclaren, specifically that of lando and oscar. and that i likely won’t because they’re not really involved in silly season.
so. today is february 18, 2024. and welcome to the What The Fuck Is Going On With Lando And Oscar interlude of silly season.
as i said. they’re not too involved in silly season. mclaren is the only team who don’t have to worry about driver contracts this year (barring any wild circumstances). to refresh you, oscar is contracted at mclaren thru 2026 and lando just signed an extension last month for an undisclosed number of years but we do know he will at least be there through 2026.
so they have been having some fun.
a disclaminer, lots of photos and videos in this update.
a second disclaimer, i do not ship these two. im merely the messenger reporting what they have been up to. also, oscar very much has a girlfriend. but, the boys clearly know their audience. as you will see.
a few updates ago i talked about oscar and lando’s tweets after hamiltons ferrari move. and that’s kind of just the tip of the iceberg.
oh and there was also this lando and oscar tweet from that event:
these two are the youngest driver pairing on the grid. lando’s 24, oscar’s 22. lando is chronically online. like. legitimately. oscar is a twitter king. they’re quite the combo.
they also seem to get along. by seem to get along i mean that whenever they’re asked if they get along they’re like “well we’re stuck with eachother by contract. *intense giggling* yeah yeah he’s not bad we have a good time”
in addition to being widely reguarded as formula 1’s very own polite cats:
(via this twitter post) (i know theres ones of lando but i couldn't find one)
lando (not to be confused with star wars lando) is clearly the outgoing extrovert friend and oscar’s the introvert of few words. also, lando’s previous teammates have all been older than him (carlos sainz and daniel ricciardo) and people are now like omg. he’s mentoring oscar the way (mostly) carlos and daniel did for him! which is fun. they play into it.
so what have these two been up to?
over winter break lando decided to become mr worldwide (pitbull) himself and go to basically every country (maybe like 7) and post a photo of himself doing the same stupid pose:
i wil not subject you to all of them but there were several. people memed it, including his own brother, and one person even made a reel comparing him to mr worldwide
and then he posted one of him standing on top of his car:
people have been speculating that this Could Be his intro pose for the f1 intro. at this point if it’s not it’s going to be funny. oscar got his wisdom teeth taken out and hung around australia for a little bit (where he’s from) before going back to the uk.
the internet very broke at some point in january when lando posted an instagram story geotagged as australia. but (much to their fans general disappointment) he was there to go dirt biking with daniel ricciardo (also from australia).
all that’s fine and wonderful but the real goofy buisness started more recently as winter break is coming to a close and the drivers are all gearing back up for their Racing Lives. mainly the videos.
its actually an announcement that silverstone is going to be on the race calendar for another 10 years. and they chose to use george russell and lando norris (two of the british drivers cause silverstone is the british grand prix) to announce this. and well. lando went silly in the comments shitting on his own bad acting:
and everyone was like. hey hey buddy. you already got one. your teammate.
and then
not only did he like this comment:
the official silverstone instagram also jumped on the shit train:
again, you can imagine what the internet did with this one. that is the face of a man who knows Exactly What He's Doing.
and the oscar comments were back:
aside from that. lando has this ridiculous bit hes been keeping up with for years where he posts that his valentines date is his car. cause usually testing falls around valentines day.
and then his other twitter account further added fuel to that fire
mclaren finally revealed their car and lando and oscar commented some...interesting emojis. and then lando liked this tweet:
then, most recently they both did this interview. it wont let me link it but its on the f1 youtube page and its called ""We Can Take The Fight!" | Oscar Piastri And Lando Norris On Challenging Red Bull In 2024"
its a serious title. and literally anything but a serious video.
and now mclaren, as we know, have rebranded themselves to be grrr tough woo woo were willing to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to win grrrr were so Big and Bad and Scary in our VILlAIN ARC grrrrrrrrr winning yes winning were Doing It you know yeah Never Back Down Never WHAT????
but then they have these two as their drivers and, as we have seen, they dont quite fit into that social media image. but especially here in this interview where they're clearly Supposed to be being serious and its a good chunk of just. laughing. goofing. utter chaos.
there was also whatever this was in the comments:
which is in reference to the part of the video where oscar starts talking about his girlfriend, looks at lando and then starts laughing, which the f1 instagram account also shit on:
this is of course, not all of their antics. but its a good chunk. and its utterly hilarious that this is all happening in conjunction with the other drama. the christian horner and the hamilton to ferrari and every other rumor is going on and then theres just these two. the eye of the hurricane. oblivious to the mess around them. mucking it up. being hooligans. pure fucking poetry.
anyway. i hope you enjoyed this more chill update of the mclaren boys and their antics. and i will see you all for pre season testing. lets hope we dont get anything else bonkers before friday.
the boys are fucking BACK BABEYYY and so am i, your friendly neighborhood saph. hello. today is february 25, 2024 and here we are, back at it again with another update. a very long update. please be prepared for how long this is.
this is, everything you missed if you didn't watch all 24 hours of pre season testing.
now before we get into this. i need you all to note that it is nothing short of a miracle that this update exists. not only did i spill water all over my laptop this week but my apartment ceiling started pissing at the severe unadulterated hour of 6:45am yesterday (and the guy who fixed it was a lewis hamilton fan?? that story is here) and then i broke a jar of peanut butter all over my kitchen. so i am exhausted. i am spent. and i am so tired of writing this update. so please, i beg of you, enjoy this.
now before we can get into the Pre Season Testing Drama, we first need to talk about the sir lewis hamilton thirst trap selfie curse.
what? you might be saying. is that a thing? did you mean to say those words in that order? and the answer is yes.
according to urban legend (and instagram) when sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie, someone in f1 looses their job/resigns/gets fired, etc.
lets take a look at the evidence from 2022:
sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: a few days later sebastian vettel announces that he is retiring
sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: a few days later its announced that daniel ricciardo is leaving mclaren before his contract is over
sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: a few hours later its announced that nicholas latifi is leaving williams at the end of the season
sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: a few hours later its announced that mick schumacher is leaving haas at the end of the season
sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: two days later mattia binotto, the ferrari team principal, announces that he is resigning at the end of the season.
now im no scientist. but that seems like some strong correlation.
and sir lewis hamilton posted a thirst trap selfie earlier this week. and we all know what's going on with christian horner right now...
speaking of!!
there is another Rumor afoot in the paddock. the rumor being that christian horner is going to announce that he is resigning on february 28th. this would be just before the season officially starts. and yes, its just a rumor. but as we know, thats how most f1 news starts. as a rumor.
also red bull had a meeting after the first day of testing at their hospitality. it was speculated this was to announce to everyone horner is resigning. horner was at testing. but he was not in his team shirt. interesting.
it also came out that apparently there are over 100 pieces of evidence against horner. ford is mad (as they are going to be supplying red bull with engines) and they want this thing resolved. horner was asked about it at the press conference and he basically said he can't say anything cause its ongoing (and that was before the 100 pieces of evidence thing)
also! apparently horner was offered the opportunity to resign for "health reasons" at the end of last year, before all of the allegation rumors got out. he refused.
but well get back to testing in a moment.
first! some slightly irrelevant but still funny news:
this is not really news but apparently zak brown, mclaren ceo, was a normal guy who went on wheel of fortune when he was younger and won a bunch of money which he used to finance his racing career, which didnt really work out for him, but he had enough connections to eventually much later on become the mclaren ceo. which is. kinda wild. (via the red flags podcast)
drive to survive season 6 came out on netflix on friday. it is about the 2023 season and i haven't watched it yet but apparently lando norris asks lance stroll if he can "wank" yet after his wrist injury
christian horner apparently unfollowed max verstappen on instagram
pierre gasley, the very french alpine driver, posted a photo of himself pulled over and getting breathalyzed on instagram. this was soon after deleted, probably by his pr team, but it was fucking hilarious. and before you get all oH hEs pRomOtiNG dRinKiNg aNd dRiVinG, apparently getting breathalyzed when youre pulled over is just something they do in france.
pierre also apparently knew that hamilton was going to ferrari before it was announced. but he refused to say how. the answer to that is likely that charles leclerc told him, because they are besties. so zhou can keep a secret, but clearly charles cannot
gunther steiner, the disgraced haas team principal, is making a return to the paddock in the form of a member of the permanent presentation team for RTL germany. basically hes going to analyze and discuss the races and all that good stuff. which is great for him!
carlos sainz posted a video of himself making pancakes to an audio clip form an interview last year where he explains how to make pancakes. its funny because the audio and the video actually provide very little instruction for how to make the pancakes.
we found out that when the hamilton to ferrari news broke, lando norris was actually in a cave in vietnam with some of his friends. and when they all got out of said cave and turned their phones back on, his friend said "oh lewis is going to ferrari!" and lando thought that he was playing a prank on him.
the official fia photo day.
god. the photo.
every year they do a Drivers Photo. and it normally looks like a kindergarten school picture:
or they get fancy and do something like this:
well not this year.
this year they decided to make it look like they were all contestants on the bachelorette. if the bachelorette was the world championship.
now i understand this is the first time youve all actually seen all the guys photos on this post. so ill take a minute to tell you everyone's names:
from left to right
valtteri bottas (ass calendar man), carlos sainz jr (proud owner of a Volkswagen golf hatchback), nico hulkenburg (hates when daniel ricciardo says his name), lance stroll (canadian), max verstappen (once ripped down a door for his cats), yuki tsunoda (hates working out in the morning), logan sargeant (a literal florida man), charles leclerc (cannot park a car to save his life), kevin magnussen (his daughter helps him put on his gloves), pierre gasley (has cardboard cut outs of the drivers in his garage), fernando alonso (sponsored by tiktok???), sir lewis hamilton (slaying as usual), lando norris (ok WHO put him next to george russell he looks so small), oscar piastri (reportedly has never used a comb), george russell (man of memes), daniel ricciardo (a car mechanic), checo perez (drives a minivan), zhou guanyu (can keep a secret), alex albon (has an entire instagram just for his pets) and esteban ocon (gave ryan reynolds one of his helmets)
and with all that aside. lets get into pre season testing. grab a snack. get a drink. or maybe go to bed. this is a long one.
first. what the fuck is pre season testing?
pre season testing is the week before the first race of the year. the teams have all revealed their new cars for the season and this is the first time all the cars are together on track. its mainly to test set ups and collect data, kind of fine tune everything before the first race and make sure nothing is going to explode. its also a chance to check out what your rivals are up to and see if youve got a hot chance in hell this year. it takes place over the course of three days, with two four hour sessions each day. each team is allowed to have only one car on track at a time, so they split their drivers between the sessions.
its not really about going As Fast As You Can tho (much to the commentators general chagrin), and all the teams are changing the car set up throughout the sessions (tires, fuel, etc) so you can't really tell whos going to slay and whos going to flop in a season just from testing alone. the commentators all bitch and moan throughout testing though that no one is going Fast, so much so that one of them, jolyon palmer, named the last bit of the day when the track is the best "power hour" where Hopefully the cars go fast. and they made him this graphic for it:
but teams generally dont go as fast as they can because sometimes they like to hide some of their pace to surprise the rest of the grid at the first race.
testing is largely important because the data they gather data to help tell them how to make their car faster for their upgrades for later on in the year. so after testing they're already making upgrade packages for months in advance.
and, as commentator/presenter will buxton said, building and setting up an f1 car is a lot like building ikea furniture. the first time sucks but then it gets a lot easier.
"saph," you might be saying. "did you really watch 24 hours of testing just to write this post?"
yes i did. and i took notes :)
now. as excited as we all are about the boys being back on the track, we also get to hear the commentary. people have asked where they can watch f1. im pretty decently sure you have to pay to watch it (tho if someone knows of a free version throw it in the comments) and i have f1tv pro (which if youre going to pay to watch f1, pay for f1 tv pro because you get to see the onboard cameras and all that good stuff), so i hear the sky sports announcers. for the races i listen to the international broadcast (which Yes may be Slightly Biased but i want to hear crofty ok sue me). and the announcers. well. they have their fun. i also sometimes can't tell them apart when theyre talking cause they all have British Announcer Voices so if i fuck up who said what i apologize.
testing, can be pretty boring. theres long stretches of time where not a lot is happening and they have to make it sound interesting for people, so they talk about nothing (like in vegas where they talked about the plot of oceans 11 for a good 20 minutes and managed to get it wrong) or they shit on the teams.
and before we get started, a quick bit about the tires.
if youre new here, there are Several kinds of tires for f1:
c1: hardest tire
c2: still hard but slightly less hard
c3: mid tire
c4: soft-er
c5: softest
inter: transitional between wet and dry tires
wet: for rain and wet conditions
generally, the softer the tire the faster your car will go because theres more grip. each track uses different tires depending on the configuration and this becomes a bit part of the strategy. for example, for one race the options could be the c1 c2 and c3 and for another one it could be the c3 c4 and c5.
and one more disclaimer: i was mostly listening to testing as opposed to having my eyes on the screen the whole time. so i may have missed a few things. everything in here though, unless otherwise stated, happened at testing.
now ive gone back and forth on how to work through the testing drama, and ive decided to just split it up by teams. the days are slightly irrelevant. and there are some parts where i get into the weeds a little on the car mechanics and set up and everything, but i really tried to make it entertaining. so without further ado:
Visa Cashapp Racing Bulls (RB)
Apparently. the visa cash app racing bulls team doesnt want to be called visa cash app and they also dont want to be called racing bulls. despite the fact that this is their name. the commentators found this very silly. so they're calling the team RB. for racing bulls. again, the commentators find this stupid with one of them even saying that he hates calling them that cause the initials "mean nothing." they went on a tangent about how the team and company is registered under racing bulls so they should be called racing bulls. but alas. they are RB. aparently theyre called rb because it is "more snappy" but rb does stand for racing bulls. though that did not stop them from calling them both alpha tauri and toro rosso (the teams previous names) accidentally. and alex albon was asked what he thought about the rb team and he said "now when we say rb are we talking about yuki and daniel?"
this also sparked, i believe it was will buxton (?), to go on a long tangent about the history of every teams names in formula 1. this ended with the statement: "they could call themselves dave if they wanted" the brand doesnt matter.
then they also shitted on the livery. because it looks a lot like the old toro rosso livery. someone (i dont remember who) said something along the lines of "it looks like they were digging around at the factory, opened a cupboard and were like hm looks like we've got loads of silver and blue paint lets just use that. and we've also got loads of blue pants leftover lets use those in our uniforms"
which is hilarious. but also it kinda does look like that:
other drivers and the commentators though said that, clowning aside, the rb team seems to be doing pretty well. considering that they are sharing a lot of parts and stuff with red bull, this would be obvious. but they could be the dark horse of the season.
laurent mendies, the rb team principal, who may actually be more French than pierre gasley, seemed very optimistic, calm and collected. though i am not sure a french guy with thick black glasses and a curly gray almost mullet would be capable of being pessimistic.
also. their drivers, yuki and daniel, remain nothing short of iconic:
here was yukis instagram story:
and daniel ricciardo had several unhinged moments. including one interview where he expressed the desire to eat a fly for "protein" that was flying around his head. and when he was told the official name of the car (rb vcarb 01) and he said "??? is that what its called??"
daniel said the car is "alright." and he has driven many many red bulls so he knows a good fast car when he drives one. he said that they are definitely not last years red bull and he pretty firmly said that they wont be on the podium next week. the current goal is getting to q3 (round 3) of qualifying. and thats not a fairly hopeful statement from daniel ricciardo. so. perhaps they are just a mid field team.
also we've had an update on zak brown's statement on the partnership that exists between the rb and redbull teams. zak said that technically red bull and rb are currently existing within the current f1 regulations (as in, red bull is not breaking the rules by owning two teams) but he thinks that the rules should change to not allow this, as literally every other sport is not allowed to have two teams at the same level.
Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber
similarly to RB, the commentators also shit on stake. they shit on stake throughout the weekend, the name and the color. but i believe it was ted kravitz (the f1 presenter who often hangs out in the pitlane) said in session 1: "if its got carbon fibre or not, living breathing or not, its flouro green, thats the philosophy down here at sauber" the teams also do something during testing where they put flow vis paint on the car and drive it (to see air flow) and its neon green most of the time, so you can see it, and they were like man. every time a sauber car comes out of the garage i keep thinking whos doing a flo vis test again? but its just sauber!
mclaren even really shit on them in an instagram post (that was quickly deleted and i tried to find it in a screenshot but i could not) where they posted a photo of the mclaren on the track next to the sauber and then the mclaren again covered in flo vis paint with the caption "did stake sneeze on us??"
the name shitting was also present. they decided to call the team sauber tho instead of stake and kick because "thats the name of the team, the others are brands" and yeah, they're correct about that. but in the second session of day 1 one of the commentators stumbled through the whole team name and then said "stake kick sauber, choose your own adventure at that name!"
aside from literally everyone shitting on their name and their color though, they did well. they were flying a bit under the radar, but still doing pretty well. their car notably is the closest set up to last year's red bull, with them copying a lot of the design elements (aside from the nose of the car, which is different). and i know that doesnt mean a whole lot to a lot of you, but basically the car is entirely different than it was last year and since they copied a lot of the elements and shape of the fastest car last year, the hope is that they will have some pace this year.
Williams
now williams, unsurprisingly, had a few problems. on the first day, alex albon was the only car to stop on track and it was due to a fuel pump issue. james vowels, the team principal, explained this very seriously. with the same level of serious that he explained his daughters christmas outfits 2 minutes later.
then in session 2 of day one, logan sargeant spun out with a gearbox issue. which is deeply surprising. and i will tell you why. ive alluded to this before but mercedes and williams have something of a partnership because mercedes supplies williams with some parts (engines, gearboxes etc.) so. Williams made the decision to run the 2023 mercedes geabox in their 2024 car (which is allowed). and that gear box was incredibly reliable. so the fact that theirs fucked out. not so great for williams.
there was also kimi antonelli talk. which ill get to a bit more later in the silly season section, but! james said that maybe they dont want to put kimi in their car anyway. meaning they wouldn't sign kimi if mercedes asked them to. which is! interesting!
and williams changed around their front wing to make it more uwu sexy (faster). though alex albon said that their straight line speed does not seem to be as fast as it was last year. this is not necessarily bad because their car was Only fast in a straight line last year. and as you know. tracks have turns. but this year it seems, at least according to alex albon, that they have "more options" as in the car does more than just go fast in a straight line.
alex also came into the commentary box and chose violence. within 4 seconds of being there he said "may i expose you guys a bit? it smells like champagne in here." he was so committed to the bit of proving that the commentary box smelled like champagne that he brought it up three separate times and even went as far as to sniff the container of wipes that they use to wipe off the mics to see if it was that. (it was not). (the commentators were also so outraged at this accusation that they brought it up at least four more times throughout testing. they determined that it was in fact the alcohol wipes)
they asked alex to predict what would happen next week at the bahrain grand prix. (there is a lap time record that people speculate will be broken next week, likely by red bull) and alex said the following:
"max is going to have a 25 second lead. hes going to go for a pit stop at the end of the race and hes going to go for his fastest lap at the end and break the lap record. [various discussion about him going already being at the bar by the time the other drivers cross the line] or he could be here cause clearly theres the champagne here."
alex also talked about the iconic george russell intro pose from 2023:
so according to alex:
"so i asked the people who filmed that why did you choose that video of george? and apparently i think it has to do with everyone's height that only george esteban and me could do it? thank god they chose george! everyone has that pose i think everyones got it. im sure they could have 20 drivers easily doing the whatever that thing is." and honestly i think hes onto something because landos pose was similar to georges but not as dramatic (likely because hes smaller and his arms probably didnt reach as far as georges do) and this picture got memed to high hell and a half. so. f1 if youre out there. please release the video compilation of all the drivers doing the george russell pose.
aside from all that though. he is excited about williams and about the car and everything that they have coming up. which sounds like it could be promising! but again! its only testing! and their testing kind of went the worst of everyones testing with all the problems that they had.
logan said in his interview that he is still "fighting the car a little more than [he wants]" but that hes excited for what they have coming and that hes hopeful that they will get their crap together and the car will be better because things are lining up as expected.
they also mentioned about 198120928 million times that "logan put on five kilos of muscle over the break and he is feeling very confident in his preparation for the next season" so hopefully he will do better than one single point this coming year.
and, they had this very very flattering angle of alex albon:
Haas
well. they were exactly where they expected they would be. dead last. they also said that they suspected that they would be dead last during their car launch.
there was one fantastic shot of nico hulkenberg in the cockpit holding a pair of pliers. would have loved to have known what he was doing with those.
and on day three kevin was in the car in the garage with a hammer doing Something in the cockpit?? what it was no one knows. commentator speculation was that he was fixing some padding. but it was at the very end of his run. so. hm!
the team principal, ayao komatsu, seemed very optimistic though? and seemed to have a plan? which seems good for them? he did say they had a few random car problems but they were able to run through all of the tests that they wanted to, which is always good.
haas had the most wind tunnel time of all the teams (wind tunnel testing time is determined by your position in the championship and haas came dead last and dead last gets the most time) but they wasted most of this wind tunnel time creating an upgrade package for the 2023 austin race which epically flopped.
haas's biggest problem consistently is the tires. their cars eat their tires. much like the tractors eating luigis radial tires in cars 1. and once they get their car to stop eating tires it will be significantly better for them. cause they have good pace on qualifying days but then it all falls apart on race day because they have to race for longer and the car chomps on the tires. its kind of unclear if they've gotten any closer to solving this problem, though the drivers are optimistic. kevin said that he thinks their tire problems have lessened a little, but we haven't seen race pace yet so whos to really say.
haas though have been pretty low energy. very accepting of the fact that unfortunately, they're probably going to be dead fucking last again.
at the end of day two they did all the stop and start and safety car tests and for the race restart test there were idk maybe 6 drivers lined up for the test and k mags was one of them. all the other drivers decided that they were going to Race Race off the line (trying to pass eachother, full sparks flying, etc) but apparently no one told kevin this. and he was very surprised that the cars were racing.
Aston Martin
they did pretty well. well. perhaps i should say that fernando alonso did pretty well. fernando was up in the top 3 quite a bit and the car, at least according to the commentators, seemed fast.
they spoke to one mike krak, the team principal of aston martin, who said that they definitely want to re sign fernando. when asked if fernando was happy, cause recall that he wanted to see what aston were doing before considering any other contract from another team, said "is fernando every happy?" which is very villain of fernando.
fernando alonso was, however, happy when during the red flag on day 2 he was sitting in his car the entire time. the red flag was upwards of 30 minutes. his seat must be quite comfy because everyone else got out.
there is some speculation that aston martin may have created a rocket ship. were not entirely sure though because most of the cars dont show their full pace during testing. but they do seem to be pretty even with mclaren.
and during his interview Fernando was as pleased as fernando can be. as in he said that the car this year was better than the car last year. which is something when most teams like to be vague. he did though say that red bull is definitely fast and "i think 19 drivers in the paddock now will think that they will not win the championship." and thats a pretty definitive statement. no one said it as directly as this, but it seemed to be the general driver consensus that max and red bull are winning this year again.
Alpine
alpine are happy with their performance. but last year they had a stupid amount of drama, so they are likely to be pleased because there is no more of that. jack doohan, their test and reserve driver, had a lovely conversation with the commentators during day two where he said that basically the team is exactly where they want to be in terms of set up. they do seem solidly midfield though. which is decent for them.
also! alpine put more paint on their car. the nose of it is now more blue. and according to the alpine technical director, the race pace gain of not fully painting the car is .03 of a second. which in formula 1 means 2 or 3 places sometimes. (its a race pace gain because painting the car adds weight and formula 1 is a weight game with the cars and paint is something that often gets sacrificed to make the weight requirement)
they had something pop off of their car on the front while they were driving. which isn't Great.
this being said. they weren't particularly stand out. they didnt bring the softest tires so we didnt get to see their zoom zoom pace, but the commentators seemed in agreement that they might have a lot of work to do. they are hard to place right now in terms of where all the teams line up.
they were talked about the least by far. but apparently they might have the least aerodynamic car of everyone.
Mclaren
reportedly the vibes were "good" in their garage. thats the thing about testing, you have to mostly judge the body language of the teams and if people seem stressed and worried then thats reason for despair. but mclaren seemed mostly pleased.
except of course when will buxton called their car "neon orange" on twitter and they responded back and said um actually No its Papaya. will buxton went on a very long rant during the afternoon session of day two of testing about how the mclaren is actually Not painted Papaya because "papaya is a creamier shade of orange" and he begged and implored the viewers at home to google search "pantone papaya" and compare it to the f1 car.
and i hate to say it. but i think will is right.
they went on another long tangent about color and the absence of color and pigment. and the freaking blue and black or white and gold dress from like 2012. all normal testing talk.
moving on from that. the commentators want lando to win a fucking race finally. so that he can move on from that pressure and get on with his career already. cause hes fast. but until he gets that win. whos to say.
lando also had fastest lap in session 1, .8 seconds ahead of max verstappen, for quite a little. before max went faster than him. for seemingly no reason other than he could. and then max's race engineer (gp) made this lovely face:
which caused many people to be like welp! thats it! were all fucked! red bull is going to win everything again!
(max verstappen also apparently sent that photo of gp to gp after testing and max said that "i sent that footage to him where hes smiling! he doesnt like to be on camera, so he was a bit like 'argh! i shouldn't have done that!'")
but back to mclaren:
they also talked a good bit about lando and oscar. the commentators seem to think they're kind of on a level playing field. now that oscar has a year under his belt and a few podiums, he seems to have found his confidence and he Could be very close in points and everything to lando. this is good. they need a strong pairing to bring the fight to red bull. and mclaren yes always say ohhhh we can't compete with red bull. and then they do. so we respectfully do not listen to a single thing that they say about not being able to take on red bull.
and they also said that oscar is more confident. which is true. in the few media things hes done he seems to actually want to talk to people instead of just follow around lando. kind of a lot like how lando was really quiet his first year at mclaren and just followed around carlos before growing into himself.
oscar also made a bold prediction that fernando would go to merc.
and this technically wasn't at pre season testing but while were talking about oscar being sassy he did this interview and well.
aside from that mclaren were dealing with a little bit of porpoising. which is the driver bumping up and down when they're driving. this was a large thing back in 2022 (and the origin of the iconic "change your fucking car" clip from drive to survive). and they had a problem with landos clutch (could have also been the fuel pump?), he had to stop on day 2 and 3 for awhile for them to fix that. but again, the team seemed pretty Unworried.
my personal favorite photo of lando from testing was this one, and since i can't find a real photo of it on the interwebs you will all have to tolerate the garbage quality of the snapchats that i sent my sister:
they do seem Quietly Confident. they did not really do all All Out Fast Lap (they didnt bring the softest tires that you would use for the all out fast lap) so they clearly are confident if they didnt want to test that. though they didnt really do too many laps in comparison to the other teams at testing, which isn't always great. so we shall see.
Ferrari
ferrari did decently well. with the exception of the drain cover incident on day 2.
now. this is not the first time that a ferrari has fallen victim to a drain cover. the first drain cover incident was in free practice 1 in las vegas 2023. carlos sainz ran over a loose drain cover about 9 minutes into practice, it blew a hole clear through the bottom of his car and delayed the start of practice 2 by i think it was 6 hours because they had to check the whole track again. he also got a 10 place grid penalty for having to change his power unit (even though he clearly didnt have a choice)
charles's run in with a drain cover was not nearly as dramatic. it was a painted over cover on some curbing on the track that got loose and damaged the bottom of his car. not so great. also sets a terrible start to the season for mr leclerc who is Notoriously Unlucky.
notably:
during 2023 charles had a dnf (did not finish) and dns (did not start) and a dsq (disqualified) from starting pole position (first). in his 5 years in f1 he has only finished i think 2 of his home races (monaco) and has never been on the podium there. he gets fucked by the strategy. and during testing he now runs over a drain cover. brilliant.
and one report of the incident framed it like this for some reason:
and the commentators clowned on him a lot during the first day of testing, when max verstappen decided to pass him:
“first move of the year and it was a red bull overtaking a ferrari, who would have guessed”
“poor little charles leclerc already has to be looking at the back of a red bull"
“oo another overtake. charles is getting overtaken left right and center”
but back to testing. this incident caused a red flag about 2 hours and 30 minutes into the first testing session on day two. and they had a red flag for about a half hour or so before they decided that they would not resume the session in order to make repairs to the track. which is very unfortunate for the teams because they only have a limited amount of testing time. they extended the afternoon session to 5 hours to accommodate the time lost during the red flag.
carlos, weirdly, blamed himself for the drain cover situation because apparently he saw it loosen before charles hit it, went to talk to the marshal about it and then charles hit it. ferrari tho were pretty nonplussed about the whole thing though. they had parts to fix it and it wasnt nearly as bad as the vegas incident.
aside from that though, ferrari seemed as confident as they could be with red bull being the insane team that they are. carlos had fastest lap on day 2 of testing and charles had fastest lap on the third day of testing, with max in 4th. and the commentators were pretty convinced that ferrari could bring the fight to red bull in terms of qualifying, not necessarily the race, just like last year. of course, its just testing, this is mostly for set ups and isn't actually representative of race pace. but still!
they interviewed fred vasseur (the team principal) and honestly i was so surprised at how aggressively french he sounded that i forgot to listen to most of what he was actually saying. literally this is the most french man i have ever heard. i knew he was french. but i didnt know he was this french! hes more french than the rb team principal. anyway. what did fred say. i have no idea. i think he said that the car is doing well (but dont have too high of expectations!) and carlos and Charles are doing well. he complimented carlos on handling the lewis hamilton situation pretty professionally all things considered. seriously go look up a video of him talking.
the car seems to be set up more to match charles's racing style than carlos's, but they both got very good laps out of the car and were consistently in the top 3 times. carlos actually had the fastest time of all of testing, which was a 1:29. charles and carlos both seemed pleased with the car in their interviews. carlos was more vague with his answers. when asked what charles thought about testing so far he said “it feels like every winter test which means that we dont know a thing” and then when asked about red bull he said “red bull unfortunately remains quite ahead." which is true.
charles was also asked about his new ep by will buxton during his interview. and when i say asked i mean will said “its testing so we need to talk about the important things. you have an ep out!” an ep that he apparently wrote in a day and a half??? (its called dreamers its very good). and then he was also asked if he is going to collaborate with lewis hamilton on an album next year. because that is a reasonable thing to ask during testing. charles said vaguely that he would talk with lewis about it. so. whos to say! we could get a ferrari album!!!
then the commentators debated what song charles and lewis should duet. and the consensus was everybody hurts by rem. yeah. says a lot.
and, perhaps most importantly, we got our closeup on charles leclercs eyes (which is a staple of any f1 event, the camera guys love giving him a good little zoom moment)
they also talked a good bit about the lewis hamilton to ferrari drama.
and, in case you need a refresher on why this was a wild bit of drama, this instagram reel is a good summary:
and the general consensus was that if anyone said that they saw this coming, they were lying. they also are pretty convinced that, despite the fact that lewis is not allowed to bring race engineers etc with him from mercedes to ferrari, it would be highly unusual if some people didnt go with him. because in f1 the contracts are "water tight" and theres nothing that money basically can't solve. the person most likely to follow lewis is his race engineer, bono. one of the commentators said that they "can't see lewis putting up with the same radio calls as charles and carlos." this is probably referring to the infamous ferrari radios where they tell charles to stay out on track, then call him into the pits after hes already passed the pit lane or tell him to come in then change their minds once hes already turned in and tell him to stay out. it is also. a fantastic dig.
but also. at ferrari, sir lewis hamilton would be getting back together with fred vasseur, the Ferrari team principal, who he raced for in the junior leagues back in the day, effectively nicely bookending his career. and as they pointed out several times, it will be a good learning experience for charles to work with a world champion of lewis's calibre.
Mercedes
now mercedes. there was quite a bit of discussion around the seat positioning in the car. lewis hamilton wanted the seat further back and they finally put the seat further back. so now its in a set up where he will perform well with it. (looking forward to his time at ferrari next year though, that seat is further forward. this led to a long speculation of Will Ferrari Listen To Lewis, which i think i already talked about in a previous update).
there was also the mercedes front wing. mercedes put a front wing on their car this year that was different than the usual front wing. here we have the 2023 mercedes front wing:
and here we have the 2024 mercedes front wing:
as you can see where those arrows are pointing. the top bit of the front wing closer to the nose is very narrow to make it more aerodynamic and also stay in regulations that both sides of the wing must be secured to the car. still, this could be illegal in terms of regulations. the fia said that they would wait to deliver a verdict on it to see how much dirty air it produces.
they also are now sponsored by whatsapp. and this year they decided to make the radio button on their steering wheel a whatsapp button:
yes. f1 is a very very serious sport.
ultimately though. mercedes showed up. they kinda flopped last year and the car looked hard to drive. but this year they were positively slaying. not as good as red bull were but they were still slaying.
there was a whole lot of talk about the lewis and george situation. will lewis hamilton still be treated as the number 1 driver this year or will they treat george as the number 1 driver? lewis, as we know, is leaving to go to ferrari next year and it will be george carrying the team so are they going to still give lewis the winning strategy?? we dont know. lewis has said that all his focus is on mercedes this year so i think that he thinks that hes still going to be treated as the number 1 driver. george, for what it is worth, said that hes not really concerned about whos getting the seat after lewis because hes already had a top tier teammate, he knows mercedes will make a good choice.
george and toto had some funny moments on the cameras. toto raised his eyebrows at one like he was on the office:
and toto tried and failed to block george from the camera here (this was the only picture of it i could find that wasnt a gif):
Red Bull
ah red bull. well. as predicted they came and they slayed. and this was due to one man. adrian newey.
who the hell is adrian newey you might be asking? he is the chief technology officer at red bull racing. meaning that basically, he designs the car. and he is very, very good at what he does. so good in fact that he has been offered chances to work on space ships and turned them down to stay at f1. according to the commentators the last time he made a bad car was when he was at mclaren in 2003 and that wasnt because it was bad, it was because it was ahead of its time.
apparently. one year red bull was like hey. hey buddy. dont follow any regulations. just make us the fastest car known to man. just for fun.
and he did.
and it was so fast that no one could drive it.
anyway. this is the fit that this man was pulled up in in the garage:
which is nothing short of terrifying in a way that i cannot articulate. everyone else in their team shirts and then this guy looking like a dad who just walked away from a grill, about to kick everyones fucking asses.
but anyway. what on earth have red bull got cooking this year.
well ill tell you. as that is very much the point of this post.
to put it very simply. red bull took the concept that mercedes had in 2022/2023. the very one that mercedes tossed out because they couldn't figure out how to make it work. well. red bull took that and adrian newey said. hm. i can make this work. and then he did.
and this is important for a few reasons.
excuse me while i get into the weeds of car build a little here.
on the sides of the cars are these things called side pods and they regulate the air flow and cooling of the engine and all that good stuff. red bull last year put the intake on the opposite side as everyone else. so this year everyone copied red bull (because why wouldn't they??? red bull slayed last year) and then this year red bull were like hm well were not going to do that. they flipped the intake back on the other side, basically using the old mercedes side pods.
theres a lot more to it than that, but for all intents and purposes, thats what's going on
and everyones like? will this work? what the fuck is red bull doing? is newey getting ahead of himself ala mclaren 2003? only time will tell.
but as commentator/presenter rachel brookes said during day three "if it aint broke dont fix it, unless of course youre adrian newey because then you can make it better."
however, they seemed to have a 2 second lead over everyone in testing, and they really didnt hit a full out race pace at all (likely because they are confident) (the ferraris had faster laps than max did but they were on slightly softer tires) (most of max's runs were on harder tires (they didnt run anything softer than a c3) and they were still passing everyone which is impressive). and. max verstappen did notably say that the car does "everything i want it to." so looks like red bull will be at the front again. and the gap to them is probably larger than anything thinks it is. but who, if anyone, will bring the fight to them?? ferrari, mercedes and mclaren all seem capable of it.
on top of this though, red bull is planning a large upgrade for their car seemingly early in the season (perhaps as early as race 5) which means they could get faster. the gap between red bull and everyone else could really widen. though, its been speculated that the gap wont be As Much as it was last year.
red bull does though apparently blast 2010s pop music in their garage (seemingly the only team that does so?) and general consensus from instagram was that they were playing the darude remix of sandstorm.
also max looked far more comfortable in the car than checo did. which is not surprising but also in a year where checo has to be on his best behavior to keep his seat, thats not great news for him. especially remembering the supposed clause in daniels contract that says he could replace checo if hes not performing early in the season. only problem with that is that historically checo does well at the beginning of the season and then drops off towards the end. but, we saw several times max taking fastest lap of the session, and checo never took fastest lap of the session.
interestingly we heard very little from horner. we did see him in the garage, he was back in his team polo for days 2 and 3 (i think?) but there were no real zooms on him or anything. it would seem though that regardless of whether or not he leaves this year though, red bull are set to win because the car has already been developed and all that. when theres a team principal change theres usually not real changes seen until the following season because of how the development process works.
on day three, about 20 minutes into the first session, one checo perez ran over quite possibly the same drain cover as charles leclerc and loosened it up. again. another red flag. another stop. and it was quite a long stop because they had to come up with a better solution.
and well. it was entertaining to watch them try to get the drain cover back in order at least. one of the commentators noticed that they were hitting a hammer with a screwdriver, which, same.
and several people shitted on drain cover two, electric boogaloo. including our good friend the mercedes instagram admin:
and lando's ln4 twitter account:
the drain cover part 2 incident forced them to combine practice 1 and 2 for day 3 together to ensure that everyone got a fair amount of run time. so it was a 9 hour straight day.
Silly Season Speculation
so so so on top of All That then there was a good bit of speculation on Silly Season. lets get a run down:
-ultimately, the whole silly season hinges on the mercedes seat
-commentators are Pretty Fucking Sure kimi is going to go to merc. but they need to decide if they're doing this for 2025 or later because he still needs to prove himself in f2. but its unlikely that they would sign someone else for Just One Year
-toto is likely Not going to let kimi slip through his grasp like max verstappen did
-recall tho. james vowels (williams team principal) doesnt really want to sign kimi antonelli to williams.
-however, merc needs to make up their big ass minds because the driver market will not move until merc decides whos getting the seat because Everyone Wants The Seat
-carlos it seems has literally every option open to him. sauber potentially but that seems like a long term project and he is in his Peak f1 years and will want to jump into something that will perform with him. he wants to win things. he could go back to alpine. he could go to williams if they perform well. or aston. or even merc.
-reguardless though, it seems like lewis signed with ferrari because he lost hope in merc. there are many instances where he said that "i want this to change on the car, this has to change on the car" and he was right and they didnt change it. and then he wanted a longer contract and they also said no. and he said fuck this im out.
-there was also speculation that the merc seat could be open to anyone. even people who already have contracts. could buy themselves out of it to go to merc. cause a merc seat doesnt pop up often.
-as we know. checo, liam lawson, yuki and daniel all want to second red bull seat. the commentators came up with a great solution to this problem and it was. why dont you just put all of them in the simulator to see whos the fastest? and unfortunately that wont work because as good as a simulator is, it is not a real car and some things do not translate. its still anyones guess who will get the seat.
-estie bestie is confident that he could stay at alpine because he thinks that he is doing well and he has been there for several years already. but he is also hopeful about mercedes because he is actually still under the mercedes umbrella. he was their test and reserve driver for i believe 2019 and he was in the mercedes junior program. there are a lot of people thought who severely doubt that this will actually happen.
-also alex albon is confirmed confirmed to have a williams contract for 2025. so hes off the market.
-theres at least two f2 drivers who might be up for f1 seats: ollie bearman and kimi antonelli, as well as then liam lawson. so potentially 3 people on the current grid could be out of a seat at the end of the year.
and finally. the speculation of What The Order For The Championship Will Be!!!
its widely regarded that red bull are going to be in the top spot again. so there wont really be a fight for first, but there will be a fight for 2 3 and 4. so that puts the upper mid field as being ferrari, mclaren, mercedes and aston martin. the only solidly mid field car could be alpine, same as last year. then the back of the field as haas, williams and stake.
the consensus though was. this is going to be an interesting year. the cars are all probably closer in pace than we think. no one had an absolutely jackshit run in testing. and by summer break, we should have a very close fight for at least 2nd 3rd and 4th playing out.
and with that. im going to take a nap.
thank you everyone for taking the time to read this ridiculously long update im sorry if i got a little in the weeds, there was a lot of info to sort through lol. and i see all of you commenting and sending asks saying that ive converted you to being a fan. im so glad were all having fun here :)
i will see you all next week for the FIRST RACE RAAAAAAAAA and the Official start of the season.
iTS LIGHTS OUT AND AWAY WE GO!!! for the first race weekend of the 2024 year, the bahrain gp, hello everyone it’s saph here to take you through the nonsense on this lovely march 4, 2024.
starting with the "resolution" of the christian horner fiasco
and i say resolution but not much has been resolved. see the internal investigation came to a close on february 28th (one day before the official start of the season) and it was announced that he was cleared of all accusations.
a great many people, including several other team principals, were not happy with this because of the implications that the female employees case was seemingly ignored, which makes this sport sexist and all of the stuff that comes along with that. people thought that red bull should have been more open and transparent about the case and the investigation and all that.
now i have a pretty close friend who works in employment law who has been following this case, and this is what she had to say about it:
essentially: internal affairs investigations are supposed to be kept quiet. leaking shit will only hurt people, especially the worker who submitted it. we dont even know what the investigation is about. speculation is not a good policy to have with this many untrustworthy sources. also, legally speaking, just bc someone is a dick doesnt mean they broke the law. horner being a weirdo and a massive asshole DOES NOT equate him breaking the law. stay tuned but dont believe anything at face value. also, dont trust leaked images, all sorts of things can get ai-ed/photoshopped. just be wary and don't only believe rumors. that being said, with this much money and fame being involved, id always believe the victim unless proven otherwise. it just gets very blurry when we dont even know what the investigation is about.
so basically. until we actually know What he was accused of, all of this speculation about what it is and what it isn’t is kinda pointless. cause remember, literally everything about this case has been unconfirmed and mostly rumors. we know that he was accused of Something involving supposed Inappropriate Behavior by a female employee wishing to remain anonymous. that’s it.
and of course sometimes people dont get the justice they deserve from cases like this, which is absolutely wrong, because companies and everyone want to save face. but let’s remember who red bull are for a moment:
red bull is an energy drink company. they are not a car company. horner said himself that the team is just a means of advertising for them and should they start to suck or not be profitable or anything like that, they’re going to get ixed. so this goes very beyond formula 1, it’s the whole red bull brand, all of their followers, shareholders, partners, wverything. and this isn’t even the only athlete team or athletes that red bull sponsors. it’s one of the larger ones for sure but they also sponsor quite possibly every kind of athlete that exists, including badminton, cliff diving, parkour, snow mobile racing, skateboarding, gaming, biking, skiing, wakeboarding etc etc etc. and if they’re only keeping the f1 team if they’re giving them positive press, then it would absolutely not look good for them to keep horner in his position if people are adamant that he did Something that justifies him being dismissed from the team. not just for the f1 team, but for the brand as a whole. if horner did do whatever he was accused of, it would absolutely hurt red bull more at this point to keep him in his position than it would to remove him.
the other team principals on the grid, mostly toto and also zak, have spoken out and said that they would appreciate some more information because this is a big case that has huge implications for the sport and If horner Did do something, then he should be removed. which is absolutely correct of them.
which leads us into the next batch of drama. because of course it isn't over yet.
following the investigation coming to a close, someone emailed a google drive folder full of supposed evidence against horner to journalists, team principals, people in the fia, etc from an anonymous email address. mean girls burn book style.
no one has proof that what the folder contained was real actual evidence. mostly because there were some screenshots that circulated of it online but those were clearly fake ai generated texts and also people who did receive the email have been told that they will be sued if they publish it.
now this is likely because:
the female employee wanted to be anonymous and this, if real, reveals her identity
its an internal investigation, not a public one therefore none of this information is public knowledge
horner missed practice three though on friday to meet with the fia about this supposed google drive of information and we dont know what was said about it but he did come back to the paddock afterwards and was smiling and was there for the race and all that.
bottom line tho is that. assuming horner did nothing (which at this point, we really dont know) unfortunately you can be an asshole but not have broken the law. and while it seems like that might have been what happened (according to the outcome of the investigation), because of the nature of this sport, it is likely to get all kinds of blown out of proportion and destroy horner and possibly red bull.
and that is exactly what has happened.
of course this topic came up during the race weekend. max was apparently asked about it and straight up refused to comment (fair of him). he was even asked by the president of the fia to publicly back horner to put all the drama to an end, but he still has not publicly backed him. (also the current fia president mohammed ben sulayem is under investigation for interfering with an F1 race after he supposedly helped to get fernando's time penalty overturned in jeddah 2023, so whos to say if hes really the most reliable person at this point in time). but the far more interesting bit came from max's father.
thats right, were back at jos verstappen.
because while max has been pretty silent on this whole situation, jos has Not.
jos is apparently displeased with the whole horner situation. probably because jos just wants max to win. and this drama is distracting everyone at red bull and has the potential to destroy everyone there's reputation. reportedly he said that the team could "explode" and its "in danger of being torn apart" if horner stays. he also thinks that horner is playing the vicitim. he also reportedly said that if horner stays then max will not stay.
and max, as far as everyone is concerned, basically is red bull. that team exists For Him at this point. (just like how mercedes existed For hamilton)
lets also take a second to remember here that there was some speculation that either jos or someone from max's team leaked the horner information initially to the press.
following this statement, jos was seen talking with none other than toto wolff in the paddock this weekend.
yes.
that toto wolff.
the mercedes team principal toto wolff.
the same toto wolff who has, unexpectedly, a seat open on his team for 2025.
this is hilarious for several reasons. among them the fact that red bull and merc have been engaged in a cutthroat battle for the drivers championship for the last few years and also because toto and christian seem to despise eachother in ways that couldn't even be solved by a 500k enemies to lovers lowborn (tho according to their wives theyre friends??)
reguardless. jos was very much seen talking to toto. and apparently toto was asked about the possibility of max joining mercedes in 2025. and he reportedly said "anything is possible."
now you might be thinking. isn't max tied down at red bull until 2028? yes, technically he is. however, hemlut marko apparently confirmed that max has an exit clause in his contract (as most drivers do) it was hard to find an exact quote as to What this clause is. aparently marko told this to a german tv station? show? something of that nature? but the translation was something along the lines of "If we are not in a position to provide him with a car that is capable of winning…of course he's interested in success as a racing driver. You don't get any younger... And if he doesn't see the light with Red Bull and these criteria come into play, then it's quite clear that he'll look around. But where would there be something better?" at mercedes, apparently.
marko also reportedly said that he will not get in max's way if he wants to leave.
theres also been some speculation that other instrumental people to red bull will leave if christian stays, among them adrian newey, the technical mastermind behind the car.
so really. quite literally. anything is possible here.
its distinctly possible that jos was talking to toto just to light a fire at red bull to make them realize that Hey You Can Lose Your Driver, but whos to say.
and you might think that that is it. but it is not. unfortunately.
as i mentioned a few posts ago, red bull is changing engine manufactures next year from honda to ford. and ford, as we know has been royally pissed off at this whole ordeal. and aparently, they are seeing if they can get out of the agreement they already have with red bull. because they really want zero part of this drama. so red bull could be out of a driver, a team principal, half of their team, and an engine.
TLDR: no one really knows if horner Did Anything, and even though hes technically been cleared the case itself has damaged the reputation of the team and there are a whole lot of people who want him gone because it it. but red bull are not getting rid of him Yet.
(in a weird way this is good cause its unfortunately refreshing to see a whole lot of rich guys be like hey y'all maybe we shouldn't have a guy who is rumored to be behaving inappropriately with women in charge of our team. silver lining i guess?)
anyway
moving on from that mess
the race!
so a quick refresher on the format of a race weekend for anyone who needs it:
it takes place over three days, first day is 2 practice rounds, second day is a practice round and then qualifying and then the third day is the race. (this is the standard format, its different for sprint weekends) the practice rounds teams generally use to figure out set ups and work through any upgrades they may have added to their cars, qualifying determines what position you start in for the race and then the race is the race. for this one, im not going to divide it up by day, but just so you know what im referencing.
again, reminder, i listen to the f1 tv international broadcast so thats where all my info is coming from. and i know ive mentioned it before,. but damn. the commentary is largely unhinged.
briefly, lets meet the commentators:
david croft (crofty), hangs out in the commentary box, makes werid pop culture references, tangents left right and center, says the infamous "its lights out and away we go!!"
martin brundle, also hangs out in the commentary box with crofty. more subdued than crofty but will also get in on the unhinged drama.
ted kravitz, hangs out in the pit lane. by hangs out i mean that he runs around the pitlane with his microphone trying to get a peek at what the cars are doing when they come in the pits and then usually gets interrupted by the commentators talking about a team radio
its quite the trio
oh and we got the official intro for the year. it wont let me link it but google it if you want. last years was better.
many teams had issues in practice. now i didnt watch the third practice session mostly because i forgot about it, but i didnt see anything too insane that happened during it so im just going to talk about practice 1 and 2, qualifying and the race.
and look. we all knew it was going to happen, so lets just get it out of the way. max verstappen won the 2024 bahrain grand prix. by about 22.5 seconds. which, by formula 1 standards, is a whole fucking lot. and its also just about the same gap that max had to the rest of the grid at the end of last year.
this was entirely, absolutely expected. so much so that one of the commentators said during practice 1 that "everyone in the paddock spent all day yesterday and all day today telling me how they think that red bull are going to blitz it”
coincidentally, the one team who didnt think that red bull was going to blitz it was red bull themselves.
during the practice sessions max complained pretty relentlessly about the shifting of the car. he said over the radio that the car was "literally jumping" and the car seemed to better on long race runs than one single lap (which matters for qualifying cause qualifying you want to go as fast as humanly possible for one lap only). still, at the end of practice two, max was .5 of s second behind lewis hamilton (though there was speculation from zak brown that mercedes had turned up their engine power and red bull had not. this turned out to be true.) regardless of all this, max did say over the radio that "everything is miles off" and the announcers were like "??? is this psychological warfare for other teams??? cause theyre kind of doing good???"
he didnt think that he was going to do well in qualifying either, he did his flying lap and straight up told his race engineer (gp) thats not good enough for pole! and then it was. and then he had to apologize. and then he ended up winning. his teammate perez even ended up finishing p2 as well. who would have thunk!!!
(literally everyone thunk this)
by lap 17 max was already 30 seconds ahead of everyone. absolutely insane in a sport where cars are usually milliseconds away from eachother.
anyway. moving on from that and pivoting to one of the poorest little meow meows of the race: mr charles leclerc, the slutty soup can waist himself.
all weekend this man bashed ferraris tire strategy. all weekend. and it was absolutely refreshing to hear. it started in qualifying.
qualifying is three rounds. first round (q1) 18 minutes, everyone goes out and tries to set the absolute fastest lap that they can. the bottom 5 people get knocked out. q2 is 15 minutes and the remaining 15 cars go out again to set the fastest lap they can and the bottom 5 get knocked out. q1 is then 15 minutes and its the top 10 cars fighting it out for the fastest time. the order that all the cars finish in is the order that they start on the grid the next day for the race. so, you want to be closer to the front because its less cars to overtake.
so charles was in q1, and he had to set a lap time fast enough that he wouldnt be cut. he was in p6, and through to the next round pending anything bonkers, with about 7 minutes left when ferrari sent him out on a brand new set of soft tires to set a faster lap.
now anyone with brain cells would have thought hm. theres a very good chance charles is going to get through to q2 with this time. we dont need to send him out on New Tires, we can probably get away with sending him out on Used Tires. (the newer the soft tires are the better they grip and the faster you go). this would have allowed them to save a set of new soft tires for q3 where it mattered the most (getting pole position).
so leclerc is going out again in q3 on a new set of softs and he says over the radio "i am not happy with this." which, same.
by some miracle, ferrari actually listened to him and pitted him to save the tires.
in q2 charles set a time of 1:29.165 which was the fastest time of the session. in q3 he set a time of 1:29.407, putting him in p2 for the start of the race. this was disappointing, especially because max verstappen, who was on pole position, went 1:29.179. a whole .013 of a second slower than charles did in q2. so if Ferrari had actually saved those brand new softs and not had charles drive on them at all, its very likely he could have had the slight advantage he needed to get pole position.
so in addition to having to start p2, charles's brakes also decided to stop working for about 30 laps of the race. his tires kept locking up and at one point he said over the radio that “my car is fully going to the right when i am breaking, i can’t fight this this is fucking dangerous." eventually the tires sorted themselves out but there was apparently a 100 degree difference between his front tires. charles ended up finishing in fourth. and in his post race interview he said that “we made a step forward but i struggle to see the positives at the end of the weekend” oof.
this was entirely the opposite experience of his teammate, one carlos sainz jr.
now carlos, as we all know, is very much out of a contract at ferrari for next year because hes getting replaced by sir lewis hamilton. and carlos, it would seem, has taken this opportunity to choose violence.
sometimes teams elect to do a driver swap during a race. this is where they have the two cars for their team right next to eachother and the car in front has to let the one behind pass, usually because the car behind has better pace and will have a better shot at overtaking the cars in front.
so charles started the race in front of carlos. charles started second and carlos started fourth. by lap 9 carlos said over team radio that he thought he was faster than the cars (charles) in front of him. and on lap 11 he overtook charles.
there were no orders to do a driver swap. he just did it.
and then he did it again on lap 17.
the only suffering that carlos did at all during the race was because of, to no one's surprise, ferrari's tire strategy. he was running in third place for a good chunk of the race, about 3 seconds off of checo in second. and he asked around lap 44 when the team expected that the hard tires (which was what carlos was racing on) would be faster than the soft tires (what checo was racing on). ferrari's answer was basically around where they were in the race at that point. this, unexpectedly, was not the case. the gap between checo and carlos kept getting bigger, but carlos did manage to take third. and he was very very pleased with the car and the race pace.
and there were several shots of his team not being there when he got out of the car at the end. which they usually are. interesting.
regardless. we are here for carlos's villain arc.
moving on to mercedes. hamilton topped the time sheet in practice 2 (likely cause the engine had been turned up) and they seemed "happy with the balance and the pace of the car" meaning it was doing what they wanted it to (this kind of went out the window headfirst slide into cooperstown on a bad bet later on but well get there). the car did seem to almost light on fire at one point? the announcers had a lovely little field day with this and called it a "lingering flame" which then devolved into a conversation about romantic gestures?? regardless they sent our boy ted to investigate, saying "ted knows everything" and ted went on a long long rant about mercedes specs and then sighed deeply and was like "yeah ill investigate" (ted is basically the friend who you give a first name and a vague description to and they come back with every instagram handle they've ever had and their social security number) aside from that, merc looked good in testing and it was wonderful to see lewis hamilton back on the fucking top babyyy. crofty went as far as to say that "lewis is going be super motivated to remind mercedes what theyre going to miss" which is. damn.
but, basically all this went out the window at the race.
in qualifying, george managed to get p2 and hamilton got p9. which is. not great. especially because they topped the time tables in practice 2.
it all got even worse during the race. somehow.
george's engine decided that it didnt want to work. hamilton's car was stuck on low battery and then his seat broke on lap 25. they both finished the race, but in a disappointing fifth for george and seventh for hamilton. it was widely regarded that they basically needed to go back to the drawing board and see what the hell happened.
speaking of teams with problems. we have williams.
williams, as we know, had problems in testing. and apparently their parts all arrived late, so the construction of the car was started late and they still may be short on extra parts (not good). williams though did introduce a new steering wheel for this year, which was highly anticipated. and then sucked.
logan qualified p18 and alex qualified p13. which is decent for them. during the race logan had managed 3 overtakes before his tires locked up on lap 10 and he spun out into the gravel. he was fortunately able to save it and stay out on track, but he did get lapped twice by max verstappen and finished in dead last place. this was apparently due to a steering wheel problem
williams had to come out and make several statements that it was not logans fault that he did so badly, it was the car, after the terrible season logan had last year.
alex albon on the same hand also had problems. his car's steering wheel also decided to not work. at one point the display on the steering wheel read "car too hot" and alex could change the settings that his race engineer asked him to over the radio. all in all a bit of a hot mess for williams. alex finished p15 and logan finished p20.
rounding out the absolute disaster cars we have alpine.
this is absolutely not a surprise. the car is heavily rumored to be 10 kilos over weight and they were consistently at the back. estie bestie went on the radio saying that the car was "super inconsistent" at the moment during practice and i think it was during qualifying? the car overheated so much that they had to have other teams come help them cool it in the pit lane. not great.
it was so not great that their technical director and head of aerodynamics resigned. during the weekend. not looking great for alpine.
reguardless it was to no ones surprise they were right at the back of the grid. after qualifying a whopping p19 and p20 (behind williams, sauber AND haas!!) they finished the race p17 and p18. you might think that this is good. it is not. the only reason they weren't dead fucking last was because logan sargeant ended up super behind everyone when he spun out and valtteri bottas had a fucked up, minute long pit stop (usually pit stops are 2.5-3 seconds).
at the post race show, jack doohan (alpine's test and reserve driver) was talking with will buxton and jolyon palmer and upon will saying that "alpine had a horror show" jack said that "it was never going to be looking particularly amazing...all in all we finished the race." OOF
and then some teams didnt have problems with their cars, but they did have problems with their drivers.
like RB. racing bulls. visa cashapp venmo PayPal zelle whatever you wanna call them.
in practice one they were one of the only teams to use the soft tires, meaning they went very fast and also meaning that they managed to get one daniel ricciardo to finish that session in p1. which was fantastic to see. he was half a second faster than max. it was great. put him in a red bull.
daniel and yuki both got out in q2 of qualifying with yuki starting p11 and daniel starting p14. they did pretty decent down in the mid field, which was actually quite close.
until. lap 52.
daniel was on the soft tires and yuki was on the hard tires. as we know the soft tires go faster than the hard tires. and daniel was behind yuki. yuki was p13 and daniel was p14. they were decently close to kevin magnussen, who was in p12. but daniel seemingly had more pace than yuki did so the team called for a driver swap to maximize the results of the race.
its important to note here that they were not in the points. they were night fighting for points, they were fighting for positions which is just for like team stats.
yuki was absolutely pissed about the driver swap. he said "are you kidding me, now???" and basically refused to swap with daniel for a whole lap. he did finally let daniel through but it was a little too late and daniel was not able to overtake magnussen by the end of the race. since they were not fighting for points (all drivers points are counted individually and as a team) they did not elect to swap the cars back (which teams will do sometimes).
yuki was extra pissed about this and basically dive-bombed daniel on the cool down lap at the end of the race, almost giving him damage.
daniel was pretty pissed about this behavior because they were not fighting for points and had he been told to swap back with yuki he would have. also daniel said that he probably could have passed magnussen if yuki had let him through when he had been asked to. daniel also said that this very thing was discussed in their strategy meeting. so yuki knew it was a possibility. daniel ended his interview with a solid "we'll go back and have a meeting and be very mature about it" .... wow.
aside from that. daniel seemed a little disappointed in the car, same as he was doing testing. he said that they did not have enough development over the winter and that they are definitely not a top 5 team yet.
there was one small crash at the beginning of the race where lance stroll boinked into i think it was nico hulkenberg (and yes, lance actually said that he boinked into him in a post race interview). ultimately though it wasnt a bad crash and really didnt impede anyone. nico probably could have had a better finish if he hadn't had that happen. he had somehow made it into q3 of qualifying and started p10. after the little incident he ended p16. lance managed to finish in the points at p10.
lance's teammate fernando finished p9 after a p6 start and was reportedly very happy with the car. though, apparently fernando said in a press conference that he Might retire at the end of this year, hes giving it a few races to decide. but apparently he also was talking about how he feels like he could do racing forever not too long ago, so hes definitely playing some kind of game here and its silly goofy fun!
haas i already kind of touched on but they did remarkably well for haas??? both kevin and nico made it out of q1 in qualifying, which is pretty good for them and while they didnt get any points, they werent dead last. which was pretty good for haas. they might have figured out their tire problems which would be pretty freaking great for them.
stake sauber kick f1 whatever you wanna call it team did decently, apart from valtteri's absolutely fucked up pit stop. zhou said in his post race interview that they definitely dont have the pace, but he is happy about the pace that they did have because they had been pretty aggressive with the development of their car and they absolutely need to work on the pit stops.
and mclaren. they were good. pretty good. thats about that. they seem to have about the amount of pace that they thought that they would, but they are anticipating upgrades around race 4 or 5 which is when it will probably get zoom zoom fast. the commentators are big fans of the line up (lando and oscar) because oscar will "push lando in all the right ways"
they started p7 and p8 and finished p6 and p8. which, when you remember that last year lando had to pit something insane like 6 times at bahrain because the car kept having problems and that they haven't gotten points in the first race for the last 2 years, this is pretty good. in qualifying lando even broke into the one minute twenty nine second range on used soft tires, which the commentators were quick to notice because that was what red bull was doing on new soft tires. and during the race hamilton said, about the mclarens (who he was stuck between) "these guys are fast mate!"
but most people were quick to point out that the most promising thing to come from mclarens weekend was that lando was actually being positive about the car. usually hes some level of self deprecating to clearly disappointed during interviews but he was weirdly happy about the progress. which leads us all to believe that there is More To Come. woo!
and that about does that.
aside from the race we had some good social media-ing this week
stake sauber whatever you wanna call it seems to have hired an admin who realized that valtteri will do pretty much anything and be funny while doing it because they had him record a whole asmr video
and we have definitely talked about the mercedes instagram admin before, but i feel the need to reiterate once again that they are the absolute best in the fucking game. they know their audience and they love to clown on everyone tastefully. this week they posted a video of them in detail explaining how they paint the cars (in response to presumably the fact that most of the cars are not painted as much as they used to be) and then had george make a video of him pointing at different parts of the car and going "carbon fibre"
(the alpine admin commented on this and said "did someone say carbon fibre" cause they were making fun of themselves for this merely weeks ago).
lewis hamilton also revealed that he would steal from toto wolffs chocolate stash. which is hilarious of him.
carlos also gifted charles a chili pepper that a fan crocheted for him so that charles would remember him in their "post teammate era" and charles looked like he wanted to cry
and what, pray tell, is mclaren up to in the middle of this mess? shenanigans as per usual
well oscar called out alex albon and logan sargeant for calling him out as the worst paddle player in f1 by calling out alex albon as the real worst paddle player in f1
they also have the absolute ugliest hats known to man, especially when you wear them backwards, as lando seems to be hell bent on doing.
there was also whatever the absolute hell was going on in this interview in the f1tv post race show
this is not quite nearly everything that happened, but i think its a good chunk. thanks to my sister and katya for helping me compile all my information. and i will see you all next week for the next race!
today is march 9, 2024 and welcome aboard the magic school bus f1 ride, saudi arabia edition. we’ve got lots to cover, as you probably can imagine.
starting once again, as always, with red bull. which continues to be. as the kids would say. a shit show.
let’s review:
-horner gets accused of Something involving “inappropriate workplace behavior” with a female employee
-these accusations get leaked to the press
-results in an internal investigation
-everyone ever tells horner to resign but he’s adamant he didn’t do anything wrong and doesn’t
-the internal investigation clears horner of all charges
-someone leaks a google drive to the press and various other people that allegedly has evidence against horner in it
-no one publishes said drive because they will get sued
-helmut marko reveals that max has exit clauses in his contract, one of which is that max can leave if the car isn’t performing and supposedly there is another that says he can leave if helmut marko leaves
-jos verstappen reportedly says that max will not be staying with red bull if horner doesn’t leave
-jos was also seen talking to toto wolff in the paddock in bahrain last weekend and when asked about max going to mercedes, toto said “anything is possible”
and now, onto this weeks drama:
-max dismissed rumors that he would be going to mercedes next year, saying that he has no intention of leaving because he likes red bull and everything that they have done for him
-he was asked if he would stay if helmut left red bull, and he said that things would have to get very silly for helmut to leave but he would see
-not too many days later, low and behold, one helmut marko said that there was a good chance he could be suspended from the team amid all the controversies
-at the same time it was also announced that the female employee who made by he accusations against horner was also suspended on full pay
-max came out and said that if helmut leaves he cannot continue with red bull
-but then hemut said that he was confirmed staying
so. it’s a shit show as per the absolute usual.
now, since horner and everyone else at red bull is kind of saying as little as humanly possible about this, the media have turned to the other drivers to speak to to get some good juicy headlines.
the problem with this is that the other drivers really don’t know what’s going on at all. they know just about as much as the rest of us, which is basically nothing. that and, clearly none of them want to be interrogated about this.
the responses all fall into basically the same two categories: calling for more transparency and this isn’t really my issue but it shouldn’t be happening.
now though, this is not nearly enough of a juicy headline for the media. so some outlets decided to paraphrase, cut and splice or just plain make up what the drivers responses have been. (which i dont think a lot of people have realized is what is going on. there of course have been some people who have wholly supported horner (like checo) but most of them seem to be like. theres better things to be asking me about but of course this shouldn't be happening)
it’s happened to a good chunk of people, seemingly just to stir the pot and make people look bad.
take lando, for example.
one news source (i do not remember which one) quoted him as saying this:
but it would seem that that news source actually has no proof of him saying that and would further seem that they cut and splinted together what he actually said (below) to make him look bad:
a similar thing happened to charles leclerc who was asked something about the situation in french, something along the lines of "how will ferrari benefit from the red bull situation" and he kind of just ignored it and started rambling about the car (supposedly, i dont actually speak french) but he was paraphrased or translated badly (or both) to make it seem like he was in support of horner.
thats just a few examples, but they were not the only ones to have this happen to them. there were drivers though, like lewis and george, who were fully calling for more transparency.
in all, it seems like most of them are equally as confused as we are and dont want to dig themselves into a mess that they know nothing about. though, it is good at some of them are calling for more transparency. a lot of people are pissed at peoples responses and i really think that they really have far more important things that actually pertain to them to be thinking about, also no one knows what the fuck happened, and when you add that to the media misquoting people and creating drama, its never a good combination.
now, someone who missed all of this media day nonsense was none other than carlos sainz. he missed media day because he didn’t feel well, came to the track the next day and did practice 1 and 2, was supposed to come the following day for practice 3 and qualifying, but was diagnosed with appendicitis and had to have emergency surgery.
now, surprisingly, this isn’t even the first time a driver has had appendicitis during a race weekend. in monza 2022 alex albon got diagnosed with appendicitis and neck de vries replaced him and ended up scoring the first williams points of the season which resulted in him getting signed to alpha tauri for the following year where he did not slay and ultimately got replaced by daniel who liam lawson then was subbed in for after he broke his hand and well, very long story short alex almost nearly died of complications, a lot of people got fired and a lot of people got hired. pretty much everything can be traced back to alex albon's appendix, somehow. and alex, predictably, was nothing short of supportive of carlos on twitter:
carlos himself is fine and doing significantly better, according to himself via instagram. and i don’t know if we have talked about this previously but carlos’s f1 nickname is smooth operator, like the song, because he will sing the song when he does well over team radio.
and in a ferrari pr video a while ago, carlos and charles told eachother their full names:
Carlos Sainz & Charles Leclerc's full names 😂 Carlos Sainz's name tho....... 👀Subscribe for daily Formula 1 Content! 👀
carlos found it incredibly funny that perceval is part of charles name and said it sounds like it should be a lord name. lord perceval.
and what on earth does this have to do with carlos’s appendix? well, this was his instagram story post surgery:
and then he also posted this:
which is him recreating a picture of his dad having his appendix out in 1985. man came out of emergency surgery high as hell off anesthesia and was like. ive got an idea. remember that one photo of you dad?
yeah. even in the midst of appendicitis, carlos sainz continues to be nothing short of iconic. carlos also was in the paddock for the race today, having quite literally had surgery basically 24 hours ago. although, he did aparently discharge himself from the hospital against doctors orders to be there and showed up still wearing a medical bracelet and the bandage from his iv. hes hopeful that he will be able to be back in the car for the australian gp in 2 weeks, though he has admitted that it will be fairly close on recovery time. people all over the internet are torn between outraged that carlos would refuse to give himself rest when hes Clearly being given the time to (and all the videos of him walking around the paddock were insane, hes clearly in pain and it looked like he could barely move) and impressed that he showed up to be a strategist for ferrari, watch all his friends race and also take the time to give ollie some advice (as ollie is driving his car)
now, while yes it is terrible that this happened to carlos and we do wish him a speedy recovery, we do get to see ollie bearmans f1 debut.
who is ollie bearman? well i’m glad you asked.
ollie barman is an 18 year old british f2 driver. he is the ferrari and haas reserve driver and notably this year has 6 scheduled practice sessions with haas. his name was already being thrown around as someone who could be getting a contract for f1 next year (likely at haas), but he was unexpectedly given this opportunity to show what he can do in an f1 car.
he was already in jeddah for the f2 race, and had qualified on pole position and had done the f2 sprint race when he got the call on friday morning that he needed to replace carlos (as carlos didnt actually go to the hospital until friday morning and that was when they figured out what was happening). so with a grand total of a 1 hour practice session (that was cut slightly short dude to a crash by zhou) under his belt, he was set to make his f1 debut. in a ferrari. which is positively bonkers.
now, qualifying and practice was not overly incredibly interesting (except for when charles ran over not one but two plastic bags and said "this track is just like mario kart theres plastic bags everywhere" and oscar kissed a few walls and hamilton almost smacked directly into logan sargeant during practice and zhou guanyu crashed at the end of practice three so he couldn't qualify and nico hulkenberg lost all power in his car in q2 of qualifying) so were going to mostly skip over all of that and jump right into the race cause that was where the good stuff was. here was the qualifying start order:
pole: max verstappen
p2: charles leclerc
p3: checo perez
p4: fernando alonso
p5: oscar piastri
p6: lando norris
p7: george russell
p8: lewis hamilton
p9: yuki tsunoda
p10: lance stroll
p11: ollie bearman
p12: alex albon
p13: kevin magnussen
p14: daniel ricciardo
p15: nico hulkenberg
p16: valtteri bottas
p17: esteban ocon
p18: pierre gasly
p19: logan sargeant
p20: zhou guanyu
and so. it was lights out and away we go in jeddah, a very fast street circuit.
well, lando tried to go early. he jumped the start slightly (meaning he started before the lights went totally out) but ultimately he didnt receive a penalty for it. it did mean that he had a slower start though, which would later cost him.
also it was hilarious that he did jump the start because when he was asked in an interview the day before what his plan for starting the race was he said, very jokingly "jump the start"
immediately there were problems. as there usually are. and the problems were for our favorite little meow meows, alpine.
on the formation lap pierre gasley said over radio that he had a gear box issue (aparently the car couldn't shift past 6th gear) and ultimately he had to retire the car during the first lap. it was the first dnf of the season the grid was down to 19.
and on the 19 drivers went, around the track again and again before lance stroll crashed into a wall on lap 7. he was fine, but evidently the aston martin pit wall didnt quite understand that he was literally in the wall:
lance: "hit the wall"
engineer: "ok can you bring it back lance?"
lance: "no im in the fucking wall."
now this had an interesting affect on the tire strategy. see, this race is generally a one stop. meaning they box for tires one time. and lance's crash brought a safety car and a yellow flag onto the track. which shaves down the time lost during a pit stop because the cars are not going as fast.
so, even though it was very early on in the race, everyone pitted to change their tires so that they wouldn't have to later. predictably, there was a decent amount of traffic coming out of the pitlane and checo cut fernando off pretty spectacularly, almost causing an accident. this got him a 5 second time penalty.
everyone except for lando, lewis, nico and zhou.
now hamilton was not pleased that he was staying out. and lando wasnt overly pleased with it either. under the safety car he ended up in p1 ahead of max and was told to not stress the tires but try to keep his position for as long as he could. (which was kind of impossible because he had none other than max verstappen behind him, hungry for yet another victory). it was speculated that he might have been told this so that oscar could get as close to the front as possible with lando holding max up for a little.
so with the safety car ending the standings were:
p1: lando norris
p2: max verstappen
p3: lewis hamilton
p4: checo perez
p5: charles leclerc
p6: oscar piastri
p7: fernando alonso
p8: nico hulkenberg
p9: george russell
p10: zhou guanyu
p11: yuki tsunoda
p12: ollie bearman
p13: kevin magnussen
p14: alex albon
p15: esteban ocon
p16: valtteri bottas
p17: logan sargeant
p18: daniel ricciardo
and off our 18 drivers went.
lando managed to stay more than a second in front of max for quite a few laps, which was good because it prevented max from getting drs and passing everyone by 20 seconds.
down in the mid field on lap 11 kevin magnussen cut off alex alboon while fighting for p11 and damaged alex's front wing. 2 laps later kevin magnussen said that he thought he might have floor damage, regardless, he stayed out.
and then he was given a 10 second time penalty for causing a collision with alex albon. not a good day to be kevin magnussen.
also on lap 13 max passed lando, retaking the lead of the race.
and on lap 14 one ollie bearman passed zhou guanyu, taking 10th position and putting himself into the points for his first ever f1 race (and lets remind everyone that he had barely 2 hours in the car prior to the race)
leclerc was able to overtake hamilton on lap 15, as leclerc had fresher tires. this began the start of an intense battle between oscar and lewis hamilton for 5th position. on lap 18 oscar tried to pass him, but ended up going wide into the runoff area and had to give the position back (otherwise he would have gotten a penalty). the fight between oscar and hamilton though revealed that mclaren had kind of shit drs (drag reduction system. basically when you are within 1 second of the car in front of you you can open the back wing of the car and get an extra 20kph per hour. oscar's mclaren was only getting an extra 13 kph with the drs)
meanwhile, perez overtook lando on lap 18, pushing lando down into 3rd position (and still on older tires)
ollie bearman was hot on nico hulkenberg's tail for 9th position, he tried to overtake him multiple times before getting frustrated and saying "mate, he's so slow" over the team radio. he was finally able to complete the overtake on lap 21
then, the 10 second penalties were not over for one kevin magnussen because he overtook yuki while going off the track (again!) and was given yet another 10 second penalty. which would weirdly come in very useful for haas pretty soon.
but first, back up in 5th and 6th oscar and lewis were still fighting it out. hamilton changed the line of his braking on lap 25 (not allowed! because it could cause an accident) and the mclaren pit wall, who were annoyed that oscar had been stuck behind hamilton for so long, reported it up to the stewards. the stewards ultimately didnt do anything with it though, much to their general chagrin and the battle continued.
speaking of mclaren, lando was still barely holding onto p3, with charles leclerc less than a second behind him. and it was lap 26, more than halfway through the race. and he still hadn't changed his tires. in the middle of him trying to defend against charles, his engineer radioed him to say "hey mate, we're probably going to go for something like the germany situation." and lando responded something to the nature of "all good mate just give me a second here i gotta push"
basically british for, buddy shut the hell up im busy.
reguardless, he was still passed by charles on the next lap.
now, lets shift back to the mid field because there was something very, very interesting going on just out of the points. a real fight for the ages was taking place between kevin magnussen and basically everyone else.
magnussen was running in 12th position. zhou was in front of him in 11 (and also still had to pit) and nico was just holding onto 10th, the last points position. but, nico still had to pit. and while there was some space between nico and kevin, it was not nearly enough to keep kevin safe from reentering back into a load of traffic after he pitted.
basically, kevin needed to keep everyone behind him and widen the gap between the back of the grid and nico to keep nico in a point scoring position.
and that is exactly what he did.
kevin already had a 20 second time penalty so he knew he was going to be coming in close to last at this point, it was not about his race, it was all about maximizing the teams outcome. and kevin had, yuki, esteban, alex and logan all just a wee bit behind him (when i say wee bit i mean they were all less than a second off of eachother) with daniel and bottas further back. his work was rightfully cut out for him.
on lap 30 yuki managed to get past kevin, but kevin managed to pass him again, regaining 12th position and keeping nico safe. he had to go a little off the track (again) to do so, but he already had time penalties out the wazoo and probably didnt really care too much. yuki did care though and said "what dangerous driving" over the radio.
but kevin kept at it. as it stood at lap 30 there was a 17 second gap between nico hulkenberg and kevin, and the total time for a pit stop was 23 seconds, so he still had some work to do.
and while he was working on that, lando norris was still running up in 4th position. still yet to pit. on lap 32 his race engineer said "ive got a question for you. at some point we are going to have to go back to plan a and then get back through all these cars. is that possible?" meaning that he was going to need to pit for tires and would he have enough time and speed to get back through everyone to try and retake 4th spot.
lando said "yes, but we should pit as late as possible." in order to give him the most time to build a gap between himself and the rest of the grid to minimize the work that he would have to do after coming out of the pit lane.
by lap 33 kevin magnussen had increased the gap between nico and himself to 21 seconds by barely using any of his electric battery power on the turns and then going flat out on the straights (as the haas had a fuck ton of straight line speed and the track itself was mostly straights). and in the words of martin brundle "magnussen is utterly destroying the race for all these cars" behind him. and he was.
nico pitted on lap 34. and he came out in 11th, 10 seconds behind zhou (who still had not pitted and would not be a problem for haas especially with kevin still managing to keep everyone behind him)
back up at the front, oscar tried once again to pass hamilton on lap 35, but went wide and had to go into the runoff yet Again, ending up having to give back the place Again. but he did come close to passing him and he did, as crofty said, "finally saw the light at the end of the mercedes rear wing tunnel that hes been staring at"
the next time oscar was ready to overtake him, hamilton pitted for softs. putting oscar in p4.
also boxing for softs was one lando norris on lap 38, and despite the slow stop, he was still able to come out just ahead of hamilton and behind ollie in 8th position.
thus started a civil war between lando and lewis. hamilton was with a few seconds of lando, who was a solid 6 seconds behind ollie. hamilton went fastest lap on lap 39, getting closer to lando, who didnt have a whole lot of straight line speed in the mclaren. lando got a black and white flag (a warning for track limits and general unsafe driving) on lap 41, still trying to keep hamilton behind him. he was trying to get ahead of ollie, and the striking distance to do so would be on lap 46, but in order to do that he would have to keep Hamilton behind him.
in the meantime, zhou had an absolutely awful pit stop, firmly planting him at the back of the grid while nico took p10 for haas. kevin was behind still managing to keep all the others at bay. talk about float like a cadillac sting like a beamer.
on lap 45 ollie's engineer radioed to tell him "norris is fighting with his tires and with hamilton now we can do it" as in stay in p7. and he did.
and to close out the race daniel ricciardo spun out on lap 49, but managed to correct himself to finish the race.
and with that. our remaining 18 drivers took the checkered flag in the following order:
p1: max verstappen
p2: checo perez
p3: charles leclerc
p4: oscar piastri
p5: fernando alonso
p6: george russell
p7: ollie bearman
p8: lando norris
p9: lewis hamilton
p10: nico hulkenberg
p11: alex albon
p12: kevin magnussen
p13: esteban ocon
p14: logan sargeant
p15: yuki tsunoda
p16: daniel ricciardo
p17: valtteri bottas
p18: zhou guanyu
DNF: lance stroll
DNF: pierre gasley
so max got his 100th podium, ollie got his first points and f1 debut and all in all it was a good day for f1. unless you were lance or pierre. or yuki, who got a 5 second penalty post race for cutting lando off in the pit lane.
ollie was congratulated by pretty much everyone, by drivers on the cool down lap, by george and lewis right after he got out of the car, by other teams, by drivers in there post race interviews, by carlos on his instagram story. overwhelming support. several said that its only a matter of time before hes on the grid. wonderful to see.
and rightfully so! he had basically one hour of practice in an f1 car, missed out on q3 by literally only .036 of a second and came in p7 beating BOTH lando and lewis. and he has 6 f1 points and is 10th in the standings right now (doesnt matter cause hes not an f1 driver but still!!)
onto a sampling of the media this week!
-george russell cut through the williams garage for funnies and was like "??? oh?? is this the wrong garage"
-williams continues to dunk on oscar being bad at paddle. oscar continues to side eye them. there has been a paddle match proposed to occur between lando and oscar against alex and logan
-mclaren showed their support of ollie taking carlos's spot for this weekend by saying that oscar would not be the youngest on the grid anymore (true) (they also whipped out the timeline of Fernando alonso's career again and pointed out that when ollie was born fernando was winning a first world championship)
-lando was asked about his winter break again and what he did with daniel in australia. aparently they made eggs. terribly.
-someone at the fan stage offered to adopt oscar. he said "i am not up for adoption unfortunately, but thank you."
-alex albon called logan sargeant a frat boy. logan agreed.
-the cameras kept cutting to ollies dad in the ferrari garage during the race and he looked, rightfully scared out of his mind:
jack doohan, the alpine test and reserve driver, said during the post race show that he thought that ollies dad was on screen more than max was (jack was correct)
-lando posted support for carlos calling him both "broski" and "matey 🫶"
-oscar posted on his instagram story after the race that he is now an "expert in the mercedes rear wing" after spending so much time staring at it during the race.
-and lastly, ferrari posted this video of charles and carlos earlier in the week where charles manages to be the funniest person:
look guys, i know i say that every update to this post is insane. but this one is. incredibly. and insanely. bonkers. every turn in here is a left.
i don't even know how to begin this one, but welcome to australia, the race where no one knows how to act, everyone always collectively looses their shit, and this weekend they might have lost their shit a bit more than usual. today is march 25, 2024. grab a snack, make a drink, hold onto your hats and also your socks, cause this is the most insane update of the season thus far. and its very very long.
and before you skip this one cause you think its going to be another max win, spoiler: MAX VERSTAPPEN DIDNT WIN
now that i have everyone's attention, it has been two weeks since we last spoke. meaning that we are going to cover the race week and the off week drama.
oh also, everyone who complains about how long this post is, you all asked for this!! you said to keep it on one post and i am committing to the bit!! the post is staying!! block the tag if you want!!!
honestly the off week was kinda quiet, but there was still some good stuff.
like the ongoing red bull fiasco:
-they seem pretty allergic to talking about it but in short
-helmut marko is Not getting fired or banned or whatever they were going to do to him (supposedly)
-they were going to do that because they ordered him to stop talking to the press and then he kept talking to the press
-there was a rumor that horner was going to be let go before the australian gp
-this turned out to be fake
-reportedly though adrian newey is unhappy with the current red bull situation
-(aren't we all)
-and supposedly, according to AMuS, horner wants to move him from red bull f1 racing to the hypercar project that they have for supposed budget cap reasons. which seems kinda silly when hes the one who is making the car that is making them win everything
-also supposedly, newey has been in talks with ferrari, possibly in response to this
-according to sports illustrated, theres still an ongoing power struggle at red bull, and talks between newey and ferrari are supposedly at an "advanced stage" this isn't even the first time ferrari have tried to get newey, they tried back in 2014, but he decided to stay on with red bull. but newey has said that he has always wanted to work with lewis hamilton, who is going to ferrari for 2025, so this could be his shot
-and the person who accused horner appealed the decision to dismiss the complaint to both red bull and to the fia. i couldn't find a real source for that but a lot of accounts reported on it. she also appealed her suspension from red bull (i think this was back on march 16) and nothing has been said about this
-horner though did say this at the saudi press conference : "the reality is that there was a grievance that was raised. it was dealt with in the most professional manner by the group, not red bull racing, but the owners of red bull racing, red bull gmbh, who appointed an independent kc that is one of the most reputable ccs in the land. he took the time to investigate fully, all of the fats. and he came to the conclusion where he dismissed the grievance. as far as im concerned, as far as red bull is concerned, we move forward and we look to the future." (bbc)
-well. one person really didnt like this, and that was mr ralf schumacher, ex f1 driver and michael schumacher's brother
-hes already told horner to step down, but he got more intense: "it became problematic for me when he portrayed himself as a victim in the press conference in saudi arabia. im sorry for his family, yes, but there was only one person who started this whole thing: him. I think it can no longer be denied that he and his personal assistant must have become very close. i can't accept that he keeps saying he doesnt want to talk about it in detail....one thing is certain, as long as this chaos remains, it will do immense damage to red bull. horner said that no one is more important than the team. therefore, he should follow this command and resign as soon as possible." full interview here
-so. yeah. yikes on bikes for red bull as per the usual.
still confused? maybe this graphic from formula.room on ig can help:
but that was not all for red bull in the off week.
this next bit is kind of stupid but its important to me and its my post so i am including it.
redbull does promotional cans to promote their athletes, and previously they have had a whole bunch of their f1 drivers on limited edition red bull cans. now right after the singapore grand prix last year, a limited edition red bull can was released with both max and checo on it, meant to promote the us races (austin and las Vegas) and it happened to coincide with max's 3rd world championship victory. the can looked like this:
(hilariously the cans also featured a link to try and set a fast lap on one of the tracks to win tickets or something but it was written as "got what it takes" and then the link, fully implying they were looking for someone to replace checo)
but anyway. my local target usually has a nice display of these and as the season ended i saw less and less of them until it was kind of just sporadic, like they were cleaning out old stock. which is understandable, cause theyre limited edition, and its a new season of racing.
so last week i went to target and low and behold, a new red bull can greeted me:
max. just max. on the can. in ter est ing.
i did a bit of digging and all i found was this on the red bull website:
To mark the 20th anniversary of Oracle Red Bull Racing, Red Bull is unveiling a limited-edition can and pack featuring the iconic Oracle Red Bull Racing branding, showcasing three-time World Champion driver Max Verstappen and the Red Bull F1 car. The exclusive Red Bull Racing cans and packs will hit store shelves by late March 2024, coinciding with the launch of the 2024 season and in anticipation of three U.S. grand prix races. This collectible item celebrates the spirit of Red Bull Racing.
now this is Intriguing. previously, other drivers (seb and daniel) have also had their own special edition cans to celebrate them doing something or other, but their teammate also usually had one of themselves. a few year back i am Pretty sure that daniel and max each had their own can. and max and checo have appeared on cans together in previous years. and red bull has two drivers. so why. only one of them.
well.
the logical explanation here is that stuff like this goes into production months in advance and they wanted to celebrate max's third championship. but checo was on the can also the last few years.
now. towards the end of last year, there was very heavy speculation that checo was going to get replaced by daniel because checo was causing all kinds of problems for red bull. and if we recall all the way back up to the top of this post where i talked about daniels contract, its rumored that if checos doing badly daniel gets to replace him.
so. it is possible. that perhaps checo isn't on the can. because they weren't sure they would be keeping him for the whole season. and they still might not keep him the whole season. he has done well For Now, but he historically has a strong start to the season and then kind of fades into the problem realm.
is this far fetched? absolutely. but its red bull. anything is possible with red bull.
moving on from the raging dumpster fire, gunther steiner made a reappearance in the form of the gunther steiner column on f1.com:
-basically he said that if he were still a team principal he would sign ollie bearman. hes worked with ollie before because last year ollie did a few practice sessions in the haas car. and after his saudi drive gunther said that
For prospective employers, that drive will have taken a lot of doubts away of what he is able to do. He’s in a good place as at the end of this year, there are a lot of contracts up with drivers, so he can put himself in good a position. He can’t go anywhere he wants, but I believe there is more than one opportunity for him.
-he also said that he stayed at haas for too long and has liked being away from the track. he would come back, but only for the right project
then we have filipe massa who sued the fia finally over the 2008 world championship:
-this has been going on for awhile and i dont know a whole lot about it so if you want more info do your own research but to my basic and general understanding
-at the 2008 Singapore gp nelson piquet jr, driving for Renault (now alpine) purposefully crashed his car to help his teammate fernando alonso win the race
-at the time, people did not know that the crash was deliberate and it only came out a year later after piquet left the team that he had been ordered to do so by the Renault team principal at the time (flavio briatore) and the engineer (pat symonds) and renault was charged with conspiracy and race fixing, which were charges they did not contest and had the team principal and the engineer leave the team
-reguardless of that, the crash caused some problems during the race itself and without getting too into it, basically everyone came into the pits during the safety car to get fuel and tires (this was back when they did refueling during the races, they stopped cause its dangerous) and Filipe massa was prematurely released from his pitstop with the fuel hose still attached to his car and into the line of another car. the hose was removed and he was able to rejoin the grid, but was given a penalty and ultimately finished i 13th place
-fernando alonso was able to pit before the piquet crash and that ultimately made him win the race
-anyway, massa claims that this race is what caused him to lose the 2008 world championship to lewis hamilton (massa was one point behind Hamilton) and had the piquet crash been investigated the outcome of the world championship would have gone into his favor.
-you can read the further race play by play on wikipedia if youre interested
-hes suing for
“a declaration that the FIA acted in breach of its own regulations in failing to investigate the circumstances of the crash promptly in 2008” and “a declaration that if the FIA had not acted in breach of its own regulations, it would have canceled or adjusted the results of the Singapore Grand Prix with the consequence that Mr Massa would have won the drivers’ championship in 2008.
and 82 million dollars.
in the spirit of legal action, susie wolff filed a criminal complaint against the fia:
-have i talked about susie wolff before? i dont remember. in case i haven't, she's in charge of the f1 academy (the woman's junior division of formula racing) and she is also married to toto wolff, the mercedes team principal.
-back in december the fia stated a conflict of interest case because they thought that susie and toto had been sharing confidential information with eachother that the other was not supposed to know. i dont think they ever actually said it was toto and susie, but they said that it was "an allegation that confidential information was being passed between a team member and a member of the sport’s owner Formula One Management (FOM)." and susie is a member of fom.
-initially people thought that perhaps another f1 team had complained about this to the fia (because they do that sometimes) but then every single team released a near identical statement stating that they in fact did not do that and fully support the f1 academy (pretty much all of the teams sponsor an academy driver), and mercedes definitely didnt do it (the merc instagram posted a photo after all the statements had been made of george drinking a cup of tea which was hilarious)
-the fia dropped the investigation about two days later when it was clear that no now actually had any issue with toto and susie and it seemed to be some misogynistic bs from the fia.
-and low and behold, susie, just like she said she would, took legal action against the fia finally last week.
-she posted on social media the following:
“I can confirm that I have personally filed a criminal complaint in the French courts on the 4 March in relation to the statements made about me by the FIA last December,” she wrote. “There has still not been any transparency or accountability in relation to the conduct of the FIA and its personnel in this matter.
“I feel more than ever it is important to stand up, call out improper behaviour and make sure people are held to account. Whilst some may think silence absolves them from responsibility – it does not.”
-sir lewis hamilton, a god and a legend, has always been very supportive of susie and her endeavors, especially with f1 academy (and the merc f1 academy driver dorian pin), was quick to repost it with his own support, saying that "its still a male dominated sport. and we are living in a time where the message is "if you file a complaint you will be fired" and that is a terrible narrative to be projecting into the world, especially when we're talking about inclusivity"
and finally, before we get to the really fun stuff, the fia president, mohammed ben sulayem, was cleared of wrongdoings and any allegations against him, but in true fia fashion, they didnt reveal their process of clearing him or any of the complaints against him
sir lewis hamilton did say something utterly hilarious about the whole ordeal though. and that was this:
and would you believe it, were not even anywhere near the damn race weekend yet.
because during the off week there was a whole shit load of unhinged pr and driver posts. i dont know if its the big time change or the fact that its summer in australia and everyones seasonal depression disappeared but everyone seemingly had the time of their lives.
red bull as we know is falling to pieces. and it is up to the pr team to make them stay at least a little bit relevant. so they decided to make the drivers do the water cup challenge
you know, that ages old trend where you try to fill up a cup of water without it overflowing?
and i would explain what happened, but its probably better for you to just watch it:
charles leclerc went surfing. and as we already know he cannot do sports besides f1 to save his life. some fans saw him and took some pictures of him attempting to surf:
pierre gasley also became the co owner of a semi professional french football club called fc versailles. likely because he realized that alpine is going nowhere fast and he needed an alternative source of income.
alpine is also rumored to be going up for sale (as in, some of the people funding the team reportedly may not want to fund them anymore. can't find the source for that but i know i read it somewhere this week)
and then we have lando.
where do we start with lando.
well.
he chose violence from the second he touched down in melbourne:
now why did the girlies lose their shit over this? well.
lando's current teammate, oscar, is australian. his previous teammate, daniel, is also australian. (worth pointing out that daniel's racing nickname is also the honey badger)
and daniel and oscar (perhaps?) responded (to lando's instagram story?) a day later when they each posted this on their stories:
but that was of course not where lando stopped. and if ive said it once, ill say it again, you gotta respect a guy who likes to stir the pot. and stir the pot he did.
now lando never dresses seasonally appropriate. this is a guy who wore a sweatshirt and long pants in miami when everyone else was wearing t shirts and shorts. and he decided to finally break out the shorts and tanks tops for australia. and. run everywhere.
now, for those who remember it, this gave kind of the same energy as when daniel howell made that esports documentary and there was all that weird footage of him just walking around in it. there were so many of these photos circulating but for some reason the only one i can find right now is this one:
he also revived his jpg and mov instagram accounts
and then, as if that wasn't enough, he went on chicken shop date:
the girlies sufficiently lost their minds.
and then, right before the race, he finally shaved his little goatee thing. (not to be biased on my own post, but it was time for it to go)
also, leading into the race weekend, people pointed out that oscar piastri's voice was the australia tram announcement (i can't find the video but trust me it exists)
and then there was the australian race ads. which featured the three australian drivers.
three? you might be thinking. aren't there only two?
well, yeah technically. theres daniel and oscar and then for some reason the entire country of australia decided to make valtteri bottas an honorary australian.
and now, onto the race weekend itself:
first we need to talk about stake
specifically valtteri, who took the honorary australian title to heart and ran with it in whatever the absolute hell this ad he did with uber carshare was:
and then his teammate, zhou guanyu, furthered the bit by dressing up in a valtteri wig and putting a picture of valtteri on his special edition australia helmet:
there was also a sinkhole or a hole of sorts outside of the alpine hospitality, perhaps a bad omen for the weekend.
and as i said way back up at the top, every turn in this race weekend was a left. the first of which was about to happen in practice 1.
now i didnt actually watch this practice session because i had work but i know more or less what happened and that was that alex albon crashed.
it was a pretty big shunt with the wall (lando very helpfully said on the radio that there was "muchos debris" (lando does Not speak spanish hes just friends with carlos)) and while alex was okay, his car was not.
the session was red flagged (and we got a lovely shot of charles leclerc's eyes, as per is customary) (i was told i have to include the photo Or Else so here:)
now as we know, williams have had problems getting parts this year. aparently their methods are really out dated (aparently its all run on a microsoft excel sheet and they tried to blame microsoft itself for being the season why they didnt have any spare parts) and it is something that new team principal james vowels is trying to work on, but it is still a work in progress.
in any case, they needed a new chassis to repair alex's car. and they did not have one.
so what did they decide to do?
well. they figured that between their two drivers, alex and logan, alex had a better shot at getting points. (which williams have none of yet this year) so williams decided to have alex drive logan's car, sidelining logan for the race.
this was a bonkers decision for many reasons.
logan didnt actually do anything to deserve to get side lined, he actually finished practice sessions 1 and 2 in 13th and 14th place, equalling his best ever practice sessions
alex was the one that crashed, why were they punishing his teammate?
why re sign logan at all if williams aren't confident that he can perform when he needs to and score them points???
now i dont think that we have talked a whole lot about logan sargeant. hes a 24 year old from fort lauderdale, florida (only american on the grid baby!!!) and this is his second season. by all accounts he had a disappointing first season last year. his highest ever finish was 10th at the 2023 austin grand prix. he only got 10th because charles and lewis got disqualified, bumping him up two places. this is the only time last year he finished in the points.
i think he only made it to q3 of qualifying one time and it was at the las vegas gp, which the car was incredibly well suited for (but dont quote me on this).
prior to being in formula 1, he finished 4th in the f2 2022 championship. which is very good. for context, in the 2018 f2 championship george russell finished 1st, lando norris finished 2nd and then alex albon finished 3rd. in 2020 yuki tsunoda finished the f2 championship in third. and in 2022, when logan sargeant finished in 4th, liam lawson finished in third. in fact, logan was the only f2 driver from the 2022 year to secure an f1 contract for 2023.
reportedly, the reason why logan did not do well last year is because he has cripplingly show self confidence. and this was not helped by the fact that he was not performing well. he was the only driver to retire due to illness during the brutal 2023 qatar gp (high temperatures, drivers vomited in their helmets, drove with no hands, asked to have water dumped on them, couldn't get out of their own cars at then end, etc, bad times over all) (logan wasnt feeling well in the first place, but still).
logan barely got re signed to williams for 2024, they announced his contract extension in december after the season had already ended. and over the winter break he aparently trained his ass off because he felt as though he was not as fit as other drivers and he is well aware of the fact that he really has to prove himself this season to stay at williams, or at least to get a seat somewhere else on the grid.
and having your team kick you out of the car because they think that your teammate has the better shot at winning points is not the kind of message that you want to be sending to other teams.
the announcers (jolyon palmer and someone else who i can't remember) had a lot to say about this during the third practice session on friday.
they were mainly surprised at the decision because alex albon only did 11 laps during practice 1 before he crashed, logan had done two full sessions and done well. they went as far as to say "how humiliating for logan. williams thinks he can't score a point. alex did 11 laps yesterday and they think that he has a better chance of scoring a point"
now, alex has scored way more points than logan, especially last year. alex scored 22 points and logan scored 1. but this year neither of them have scored any points.
if we look at the williams stats from the last 2 races:
in bahrain, alex albon finished 15 and logan finished 20. both cars had severe technical problems and logan was on track to finish well before he spun out because of a mechanical issue and ended up 2 laps behind everyone else. several buttons on alex's steering wheel stopped working at one point.
in saudi arabia, alex albon finished 11 and logan finished 15. both cars still had technical problems and they were also being held up by kevin magnussen.
so, the two drivers should be on a relatively equal playing field here, but they are clearly not.
the announcers (and everyone else) were mainly confused as to why williams retained logan for this year if they didnt trust him to score a point (as that is how f1 works) and he clearly "hasn't got the backing of anyone" at williams.
but it gets worse for logan.
aparently, theres a clause in his contract that says that it was possible that he would get pulled out of his car for alex to race it instead because the team knew that they were short on parts. which again begs the question: “why did they retain sargent if they put it in his contract that if your teammate bins it were going to give you his car”
williams came into this weekend knowing that this was a possibility because they had no space chassis because their spare car hadn't been built yet (this happened to a team before, haas, back in 2021 when their drivers destroyed so many cars that they didnt have any spare parts and then the following year their spare car got stuck in customs so they couldn't use it). and they ad to use one of their two curfews (each team is only allowed to break curfew twice during the season for car repairs) to rebuild the car around alex.
and as jolyon said: “he’s unlikely to score. the last thing he did was crash a car. he knows his teammate cannot score. he cannot crash another car. if he has another crash he will look really stupid.”
alex albon finished practice 3 in p13. fans the whole weekend were outraged on behalf of logan.
the official press statements from williams were also very somber sounding:
the team said this:
following alex albans accident during fp1 at the Australian grand prix, williams racing confirms that due to the extensive damage sustained, it is forced to withdraw the chassis for the remainder of the grand prix. this chassis will be returned to the tram's hq at grove for repair.
due to the fact that a third chassis is unavailable, the tram can confirm it has taken the decision for alex to complete the reaimeder of the weekend in the chassis that logan sargeant drove in fp1 and fp2
james vowel's statement was very long but he basically said:
while logan should not have to suffer from a mistake that he did not make, every race counts when the mid field is tighter than ever, so we have made the call based on our best potential to score points this weekend.
alex albon sounded displeased about the whole ordeal:
i have to be totally honest and say that no driver would want to give up his seat. i would never want anything like this to happen. logan has always been a consummate professional and a team player from say one, and this wont be an easy one for him to take. at this point though, i cannot dwell on the situation and my only job now is to maximize our potential this weekend and work with the whole team to make sure we do the best job possible.
(alex has also been a victim of the red bull second seat bs and had his own seat yanked from under him so he knows how this feels)
and logan said
this is the hardest moment i can remember in my career and its absolutely not easy. i am however completely here for the team and will continue to contribute in ay way that i can this weekend to maximize what we can do
also, the day that alex got into logans car for practice 3 and qualifying? it was alex's birthday.
they asked max verstappen his thoughts on the logan having to give up his car thing and he said "i understand it from the performance aspect, of course, but that doesnt change the fact that this obviously sucks for logan. if that were to happen to me, i would completely flatten my car, so no one can drive."
tldr: its not looking good for logan sargeant to keep a contract if three races in theyre not confident that he can score the team points and yank him out of his seat for his teammate to have a chance to drive when he has already crashed during the weekend.
aside from that, practice three was decently uneventful. mercedes are still struggling and according to one alex brundle (commentator) they even looked "grumpy" and red bull were not dominating as much as they usually should have.
there were also a fair amount of unhinged radios: (via the instagram acc f1feverr)
moving into qualifying. all eyes were on red bull, mclaren and ferrari, who all seemed to be the most competitive for the weekend.
and back in the ferrari was one carlos sainz jr who was, in the words of crofty, “minus an appendix and full of determination."
thats right, carlos sainz was racing again following his emergency appendix surgery in saudi arabia 2 weeks before. after his trip to the paddock for the saudi race (which was against doctors suggestions but aparently he woke up and immediately was like i want to go to the track and just sort of argued with everyone until they let him go) he aparently spent 10 days in bed and did absolutely no training for the australian grand prix. no running, no sim work, no neck training no nothing. he himself said that he was better, but definitely not in peak physical condition and definitely not 100%. they had to out extra padding around his seat belts so that it wouldn't totally kill him.
not too many insane things happened during qualifying, but there was the following:
-crofty said that "honorary australian bottas, who has been spreading his mullet happiness and has been adopted by australia"
-daniel ricciardo went 10th fastest during q1 only to have his lap time deleted due to track limits and put him back in the bottom 5 and out in q1
-esetban ocon managed to make it out of q1. in an alpine. he screamed very loudly over the radio when this was told to him
-martin brundle very disturbingly said that “when i was little i was told that they use the appendix for the bits in marmalade” and theres a lot to unpack there but i think we should just throw away the whole suitcase
-yuki tsunoda made it through to q3
-alex albon got out in q2
-sir lewis hamilton got knocked out in q2 by none other than lance stroll, and it was the first time since 2007 that he wasnt out in q2 at the australian gp
-in q3 charles leclerc had some technical problems with his car and ended up aborting his last flying lap, landing him in p5
-max verstappen became the first driver to crack 250 mph at albert park
-the top 6 were max, carlos, checo, lando, charles and then oscar
-however, checo was given a three place grid penalty for impeding nice hulkenberg, so the starting order ended up being max, carlos, lando, charles, oscar, checo
onto the race itself
hang onto your hats folks this is where shit gets insane
(lando did in fact have to hold onto his hat and also shove past several people to make it to the national anthem on time, which was hilarious)
and for the first time in many years, there was no crash in the first corner !!! no, the bonkers stuff came a bit later on lap 2
staring on lap 2 the cars can use DRS (which is where they open up the back wing to get an extra 20kph of speed as long as they are within 1 second of the car in front of them) and carlos was running very close to max, so he opened up the DRS and BOOM BAM KAZAM CARLOS SAINZ PASSED MAX VERSTAPPEN AND TOOK THE LEAD OF THE RACE
i am not at all exaggerating when i say that it felt like everyone freaked out at the same time. i was watching the race with my roommate and i could still feel the sheer insanity of the whole world
but that was not all
max said over the radio "i just lost the car, really weird" which is what made carlos be able to pass him.
(kind of irrelevant but martin brundle said around here about carlos "you do not look 100% young man" and it was just too good to leave out)
max was still holding onto p2, sandwiched between carlos and lando, until lap 4 when he first said "fuck the car is loose" followed by "i have fire. fire fire by brake" after smoking horrendously.
and i Guarantee you everyones thoughts while watching this were "max is smoking. holy shit max is really smoking. wait iS HE GOING TO DNF???"
spoiler, he did.
max verstappen dnf'd the 2024 australian gp
incidentally, the last time that he dnf'd was at the australian gp in 2022.
later on, max revealed that it was a mechanical problem with the brakes. one of his brakes got stuck on and overheated.
meanwhile, carlos was still going strong out in front. leading and controlling the race. not as much as max would have, but still enough. and so everyone who didnt want up in the middle of the night to watch the race was very very upset (hehe, i stayed up and i had a fucking blast, seriously the last night that i felt the insane during was the night of the destielputinelection)
meanwhile, the only thought in my head was that i wasnt going to have to hear the dutch national anthem
to positively no one's surprise, valtteri bottas had yet another bad pit stop, with stake blaming the wheel nuts as the primary issue.
all was fine and dandy until lap 16 when another tragedy struck
sir lewis hamilton's engine failed
which was nothing short of absolutely tragic. so with lewis out and a yellow flag with a virtual safety car to neutralize the race a bit, the boys continued
nico hulkenberg and alex albon fought for awhile for p10 (and points) until alex had to pit, firmly placing the williams car out of the points. which was disappointing considering the fact that alex was put in specifically to get points.
on lap 29, lando and oscar, who were running 4th and 3rd, were told to swap positions and lando pulled out in front of oscar to try and catch charles leclerc, who was in 2nd. the reason for this was because lando had fresher, faster tires and had been placed on a better strategy since he had qualified higher than oscar. notably though, an australian has never been on the podium at their home gp, so in the words of martin brundle: “that went down like a cold flat white with the crowd”
then the shitty stake pitstops continued as zhou had a 19 second stop (darn wheel nuts)
pierre got a 5 second time penalty for cutting the pit lane exit (which he also did during qualifying)
on lap 50, perez, who had been flying up the pack like a rocket ship, suspiciously had no more pace in his car. later it was revealed that this was because one of fernando's helmet visor tear offs got stuck in his car.
and then, on the very last lap, george russell basically got brake checked by fernando alonso (who was having a problem with his car) and skidded across the gravel into the wall before landing in the middle of the track. over the radio he begged for a red flag (because he was in the middle of the track) but race control only gave him a yellow flag with a virtual safety car. likely because it was the last lap and george had been in the middle of the pack, meaning only half the grid had to pass him again before doing the cool down lap. if they had called a red flag (which they should have) people would have still had to pass george to get back to the pits.
and with that, the australian gp ended with carlos in p1, charles in p2, lando in p3, yuki and both haas drivers in the points and three dnfs.
insane.
even more insane when you remember that every time carlos has won a race, george russell has dnf'd.
and!! this is not the first but the second time that carlos has managed to break max's 10 win streak. the last time he did this was in singapore 2023, the iconic race where he kept lando in his drs behind him to help fend off the mercedes cars that had brand new tires and george russell ended up crashing on the last lap of that race as well.
reguardless. carlos won. fresh out of appendix surgery. with no contract for next year. this is now the second time that the "wrong driver" (not charles) has won a race for ferrari in the last year.
despite this, carlos asked over the radio if charles could pull up next to him on the cool down lap so that they could "celebrate this one together"
the post race interviews were hosted by gunther steiner, the disgraced haas team principal. carlos joked in his interview that “i would recommend all the drivers have their appendix out." charles only understood about half of what gunther was saying and the other half of the time he just blinked in confusion. lando said that he thought that he could have beaten charles if he had pitted at a different time.
and thankfully, we did not have to hear the dutch national anthem at the podium. truly the biggest win this weekend.
the broadcast cut off lando's champagne pop tho, thankfully we have mclarens ig account:
it was also so terribly refreshing to see a ferrari driver with life and happiness in his eyes. carlos must have said the same stupid appendix joke in every interview he did and he thought that it was equally funny every time:
carlos and lando (though it was clearly mostly lando) also made this train wreck of an instagram post celebrating their podium together (for those of you who dont know, carlos and lando were teammates at mclaren back in 2019-20 and had such a ridiculous bromance going on. they are still friends (their hug after this race was adorable) and when asked about sharing the podium with carlos after the race, lando said that it was "quite romantic")
the weight loss hashtag was particularly insane of them (appendixes only weigh between 1 and 18 grams)
and, taking us into the silly season discussions was the podium post race interview:
-in his post race interviews, carlos said “i’m still jobless for next year so hopefully this will help”
-previously it had been rumored that carlos might go to stake because its going to turn into audi in 2026 and they are interested in him, but after the performance that carlos put on at the race, he probably wont go there if they can't even change tires properly.
-chrsitian horner, on the other hand, confirmed that carlos is on the short list of people for the red bull 2025 seat, something that was previously not an option at all.
-and then, unfortunately, daniel ricciardo has been given an ultimatum
-aparently if he does not step up his performance by the miami race (3 races from now) he will be getting replaced by liam lawson, according to helmut marko.
-this is both hilarious and also upsetting. hilarious because he was the one who replaced nyck last year, upsetting because they gave nyck almost half a season but theyre giving daniel barely a handful of races. also yuki only just scored the teams first points this weekend
-its kind of implied that if daniel looses his seat now, hes not coming back.
-daniel was interviewed post race and seemed just about as upset as he usually does these days (no life in his eyes) and said that before the race, horner came up to him and said that "he wished me luck and told me to keep my head up” so we will see what happens. had daniel's lap time not been deleted during qualifying, he likely would have gotten points this weekend.
and a quick speed run of other chaotic stuff that happened this weekend that didnt quite fit anywhere else on this post:
-oscars grandma made the mclaren team cookies
-fred vasseur the ferrari team principal signed the back of lams lawson's shirt
-alex albon smashed cake in a fans face
-pierre and estaban traded a selfie for some tim tams
-nico colored in kevin's beard with sharpie on one of his giant head cut outs
-valtteri bottas did scooter tricks
-everyone got quizzed on aussie slang as usual and very few people knew any of it
-all the teams posted a photo that was upside down to announce they were in australia
-lando said that his plan for the race was "not a jump start"
-they had valtteri rate people's mullets
-yuki got compared to a koala
-charles was asked to speak french and then he started speaking spanish
-logan was asked his thoughts on the Tasmanian state election and he said "i dont even know what's going on"
-someone shouted at lando when was he going to win a race and he flipped them off
-lando pulled his chair up closer to charles and carlos in the cool down room to get a better view
-they cut to lewis looking like a proud dad watching the race after his dnf
-toto wolff said that he wanted to punch himself in the face following the double merc dnf and hes now doubting that hes a good team principal
-jack doohan and nico hulkenberg had a whole conversation about nicos hair and what hair gel he uses after the race
-EDIT FROM THE FOLLOWING MORNING CAUSE I FORGOT THINGS:
-fernando alonso got a 20 second time penalty for nearly killing george russell
-max verstappens girlfriends kid (penelope) was at the race and it was her fist time going to one (i think she’s like 5 i have no idea) so we got to see max being a girl dad
-ryan air posted asking logan sargeant if he wanted a ticket home
-sebastian vettel is being rumored to be preparing for the 24 hours of le mans, he’s in the process of doing testing
and well in the words of nico hulkenberg "interesting race"
unfortunately we are back. i say unfortunately because it is Not a race week. but Some People decided to be silly on the off week so here we are back at it again for australia part 2, electric boogaloo.
today is april 1, 2024 and here is everything in australia that happened after australia ended
were just going to go by team because thats the easiest.
see i Told You All that australia is insane. so insane that people decided to keep being in australia after australia ended.
Red Bull
well first up. max verstappens chief race engineer, lee stevenson, left the team. he had been there for 18 years (and for all of the races that max has won). we dont know what hes doing next but reportedly he is going to be joining "the team at the other end of the pit lane" which probably means someone whos kind of sucking right now (williams or alpine perhaps? idk)
and adrian newey. who was rumored to be going to ferrari is now also rumored to have been approached by aston martin who have reportedly offered him a very very large chunk of change to come design for them (all very plausible when you remember that their ceo is lawrence stroll, canadian billionaire)
there have been no more rumors (at least to my knowledge) that christian horner is going to loose his job. but they did ask sebastian vettel about it.
i probably dont have the Most reliable source on this quote (newsweek) but i didnt feel like finding a better one. reguardless, this is what seb had to say on the ongoing situation:
"Of course, I still know the team, Christian [Horner] and Dr. Marko very well, also from my time there. But it is very difficult for me to have an opinion because you don't know what happened and what didn't happen. I think people would like a bit more transparency in this respect, but I hope with time this will all be clarified. I believe that processes can become visible, provided people dare to take certain steps. I think from the principle that you have nothing to hide, you should not shy away from transparency. This applies to sport in general. I think many viewers would be interested in this. But if the information were accessible, many questions could be answered on their own."
aside from a bonkers amount of weird pr, including a new installment of the Red Bull Unserious Race where checo and max race against yuki and daniel in sand buggies and max and checo testing reaction times against sumo wrestlers, the main thing happening at red bull is that they are Hell Bent on reminding everyone of Everything they have ever accomplished at the japanese gp.
and why would they be doing that?
well they seem to still be pissed about the race last weekend.
we have made red bull upset. this is, as they kids would say, not good.
there have been an endless (and i mean Endless) amount of instagram posts from red bull about every japan gp moment they could seemingly think of and then plus a few more.
since the end of the australia gp they have posted posts with the following instagram captions:
-Max has won 35 times since his DNF in 2022🏆
-All eyes on Japan 👀
-Japan here we come ➡️
-A winning run that has only happened three times in #F1 history 🏆 Two of them are Max 💪
-Last years antics in Japan 🇯🇵😂
-Some standout Suzuka memories 🇯🇵😍
-2014 in 🇯🇵, Max his very first F1 session 🥺
-When the Bulls take a trip to Tokyo 😍🇯🇵
-Japan pending 🇯🇵 comment a 🤩 if you are excited!
-Suzuka helmets hit different 🤍❤️
-An emotional moment 🥹 Suzuka 2022 🇯🇵🔙
-ありがとう ❤️ Any excuse to post more RB16B content 🤍
-Orchestrated chaos 😮💨
-Six Time Constructors' Champions 👑 Sealing the title in Suzuka, last year 💪
-That little smile at the end 🥹💋 🔙 Suzuka last year
-We're feeling Suzuka, 2022 🎶😍 The scenes after Max clinched his second Title 👑
-Leading the chasing pack 💪 Back on track next week 🙌
-"Our best achievement, by a long distance!" 😂 When Max and Checo entered the Japanese Game Show realm 🇯🇵🛻
-Japan 2022, where Max became a two-time world champion 🏆
-Counting down the days 🏁🇯🇵 Max at Suzuka last year 📍
now. i know that the teams usually promo the hell out of the races. but this seems to be just a tad excessive to me....
and lastly for red bull is actually something that i very briefly mentioned in the australia update but that was seeing max verstappen being a girl dad
"max has a kid?" you might be asking. well no. not technically. allow me to explain. and i apologize if i have mentioned this before. if i have its been a while.
the year is 2016. the russian gp. max verstappen is in his second year at toro rosso. daniil kvyat is the second red bull driver (first driver being daniel ricciardo) and he has an absolutely shit race. as in, within the space of two corners he managed to crash into sebastian vettel twice, the second time shoving him into the wall. (this was following him basically causing a double ferrari crash at the chinese gp). and well. red bull didnt quite like that. so they flip flopped him and ax verstappen, effective immediately for the spanish grand prix.
"saph" you might be asking "what on earth does this have to do with max being a girl dad?" hold onto your hats and also your horses we are Getting There.
now daniil had a girlfriend named kelly piquet from 2017 to 2019 and right before they broke up they had a daughter together named penelope.
and max, who had already stolen daniils red bull seat, started dating kelly in 2020.
well, that probably wasnt his thought process, but that is what happened.
anyway. max, as we all know, had an....interesting upbringing with his dad and so it has been very amusing to watch him be a girl dad, the small glimpses we get anyway. he has said that he doesnt try to be p's (penelope's) father, but clearly the three of them act as a family.
p often barges into max's streams and talks to him about various things or tries to scare him or whatever. but this past weekend she went to the australian gp. i believe that this was the first time she was at a race (where she wasnt a baby) and it was funny to see max take on the role of girl dad at the paddock:
you know i always underestimate just how long these updates take to write out, i think ive been writing about red bull for at least a hour. lets move on.
Mercedes
well we learned from the australia fan zone interviews that sir lewis hamilton got his dog (roscoe's) sperm frozen before he got "snipped" so that one day he can have a horde of roscoe babies.
look im not happy about learning this either but it was either going at the top or not in here at all. and it deserved a spot.
sir lewis hamilton also did the going undercover answering questions about himself online gq video that most drivers do at some point or other:
a tldr in case you dont want to watch it, aparently a dog (coco) once shit on his air vent in the middle of the night, he wants to climb mount everest, he wants his legacy to be helping people and he is very passionate about making education accessible and achievable for everyone. so once again, man never looses. unless hes driving a mercedes in the year 2024.
he also did a photoshoot for gq
geode didnt get up to much. he wished everyone a happy easter from a cafe somewhere.
there have been rumors circulating that toto has no intention of actually signing max for 2025 (as has been heavily rumored) and is saying that its a possibility just to fuck with christian horner. as much as i think it would be insane for max to go to merc, i think its even funnier if toto is just plain fucking with christian. their feud is absolutely insane and we really need to see more of it. but considering im already deep diving into other things on this post you'll have to wait until a later update for me to unpack their bonkers relationship (sorry) (very not sorry)
aparently mercedes also is replacing puma and tommy hilfiger with adidas next year as their clothing sponsor. which is not great for one george russell who always looks like hes just walked out of a tommy hilfiger ad.
and katya wants me to tell you all that he found george's old tumblr account from back when he was in the junior leagues. tbh, i dont remember the url but it exists somewhere.
Ferrari
so charles leclerc. the slutty soup can. the poorest little meow meow. hes getting so tired of ferrari's shenanigans that hes now completing side quests.
side quest #1: opening an ice cream shop in milan called LEC. supposedly this is happening mid april. not sure why hes doing this but alas we support his adventures (and we know he likes ice cream after that very frankly confusing photoshoot he did of him waist deep in the snow eating vanilla ice cream over winter break)
(im decently sure his favorite ice cream flavor is also vanilla, which says a lot abut him)
side quest #2: becoming a spokesperson for the united nations wear your seat belt campaign. this one came the day after the ice cream shop announcement and frankly was baffling and somehow more unexpected than the ice cream announcement. he also looks vaguely like someone is holding him at gunpoint
side quest #3: become a representative for bali tourism. after the australia gp he flew to bali for the off week and among other things, got tweeted about by the official bali tousism account
charles also continues his streak of non athleticism by breaking a camera lens with a polaroid:
(also hes wearing not one but two smooth operator bracelets given to him by fans) (aparently hes watching band of brothers according to himself, but he found peoples suggestions entertaining and amusing)
and then he hung out in australia and went biking and wished everyone happy easter from the top of a mountain or perhaps a very large hill
he still does not have a seat, but aparently audi (currently stake) are still interested in him and nico hulkenberg for the 2025 season (they've already been teammates together at Renault (now alpine)) but again, if red bull is looking at carlos, will he go there? likely not
there is a tad bit more on carlos, but we will get to that later
and ferrari did also post a throwback to the japanese gp, but it was to post this, frankly incredibly iconic, throwback video:
i could not even begin to explain what is going on here if i tried.
and on that note lets move on!
Aston Martin
not too much going on at aston (at least as far as i know. i am only one person after all).
the team spent the entire month of march recognizing their mechanics and up and coming mechanics in f1, which is cool of them.
lance strolls race engineer, ben Michell, left his role to take on head of performance operation
and fernando alonso posted an entire essay on instagram about how he didnt agree with the time penalty that he got for nearly killing george russell. basically he got it for braking on the straight and i dint read the fia decision because i didnt want to, but he got a 20 second time penalty for the maneuver. here was what he (or someone from his pr team, who knows!) had to say:
Double points for the team and a better race pace than the rest of the weekend allowed us to cross the finish line in 6th and 7th place. A bit surprised by a penalty at the end of the race regarding how we should approach the corners or how we should drive the race cars. At no point do we want to do anything wrong at these speeds. I believe that without gravel on that corner, on any other corner in the world we will never be even investigated. In F1, with over 20 years of experience, with epic duels like Imola 2005/2006/ Brazil 2023, changing racing lines, sacrificing entry speed to have good exits from corners is part of the art of motorsport. We never drive at 100% every race lap and every corner, we save fuel, tires, brakes, so being responsible for not making every lap the same is a bit surprising. We have to accept it and think about Japan, to have more pace and fight for positions further up the field. Thank you, team 💚!
Mclaren
oscar piastri shocked the entire world with his slutty little soup can waist. yes, thats right, charles is not the only driver with a slutty little soup can waist.
mclaren posted some videos about the great barrier reef and what they are doing to help preserve it. no one really cared about that too much. they cared about seeing oscar in his wet suit:
and several of you were quick to point out that he has a sluttier and more soup can waist than one charles leclerc. to which i say, perhaps he does, but charles has the sass for being a better soup can.
now this got memed and edited to high hell. people did everything you could imagine and then some with this photo. (including photoshopping landos hands onto oscars waist, which was a choice for sure.) but my favorites were the ones where people photoshopped him into h2o just add water:
(via jessessluttywaist on instagram)
and the oscar v alex albon paddel shaming continues
and then there was also a video of lando circulating from during the australia race where after the drivers parade (?) he was talking to max and nearly walked into the red bull garage:
and they also posted a photo of esteban ocon posing with the visor tear off that got caught in his brakes:
aside from that. pierre went golfing? esteban saw some animals with his girlfriend and took a photo wearing pristine looking seakers on a beach? idk not much to report on from alpine theyre just insane as per the usual.
Haas
i dont think ive heard a word about haas. theyre just kind of existing in quiet chaos. nico signed a picture of valtteris ass. he went to thailand with his wife and kid. kevin failed at bouncing a football. pretty much just seems like theyre riding the high of a double points finish. maybe they have finally uncursed themselves after the great 2018 tire incident. only time will tell!
Williams
logan sergeant went to bali for the week off (like charles), hopefully to relax after the hellish australia race. he accidentally photobombed some girl who was at the same water fall as he was taking photos and then felt bad and took photos for her. she aparently had no idea who he was. and then he liked her photos on instagram.
tbh tho, lets all manifest the shit out of logan this week. carlos came back with a vengeance after his appendix. daniel came back with a vengeance after his wrist. logan needs to come back with a vengeance after losing his car to alex last week.
alex albon went to Thailand on his off week. probably because hes half thai. i hope he had a great time and stops getting hate comments about the car swap in australia because it was definitely not his decision.
Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber
stake continue to be silly and goofy. beginning with their april fools joke that zhou was getting a mullet to match valtteri. they had you click a link in their insta story that lead to this:
they also posted a video of valtteri and zhou scanning into the paddock and these were their photos:
but their social media posting seems to just be a distraction from the fact that they cannot do a good pit stop to save their lives.
aside from that, we learned that valtteri can flip pancakes. or maybe theyre eggs? really can't tell.
Visa Cashapp Racing Bulls
yuki went to go see his ex teammate nyck at the japanese formula e race. (if youre asking who nyck is, he subbed in for alex albon in 2022 when his appendix came out, was signed to alpha tauri in 2023 and then replaced halfway through the season by danny rics) he showed up to the paddock and slayed as usual.
yuki also aparently said this (recently?) when asked about how he feels about f1:
and oscar kind of shit on yuki in his instagram post:
yuki responded by saying "and the oscar goes to... me"
and aparently, liam lawson's team is utterly confused about the danny rics replacing him rumors. so maybe daniel wasnt given an ultimatum? whos to say man everything is bonkers and nothing makes sense at all!!
carlos and lando
i think i briefly mentioned this in the last update but to round this out we gotta talk about carlos and lando.
carlos and lando were teammates at mclaren from 2019-2020. this was relatively early on in their careers. carlos had previously been at toro rosso (with max verstappen) and then Renault, but was replaced by danny rics. he had not had any podium finishes at this point. 2019 was landos first year in f1 and he was coming off the back of a very successful year in f2 (finishing second behind george russell) and he had been mclarens test and reserve driver for 2018. (theres a lot of really funny videos of him helping build and tear down the garage and bring people tea from this era)
both carlos and lando were new to the team that year. their previous drivers were fernando alonso (who "retired" at the end of 2018) and stoffel vandorne, a younger driver who had a shorter stint with the team.
also important to point out: mclaren was deeply in the throws of their shit arc. in 2018 Fernando alonso finished 11th in the drivers championship with 50 points and no podiums. stoffel vandoorne finished in 16th with 12 points and no podiums. to put this in context, mclaren finished in 6th in the constructors standings with a total of 62 points. haas finished in 5th in the constructors with 93 points.
yes that is right. haas.
mclaren was decently in the shit. the last time they had had a solidly halfway decent year was in 2012 when their driver lineup was sir lewis hamilton and jenson button. carlos actually finished ahead of fernando alonso in the drivers championship in 2018 and renault finished 4th in the constructors. so mclaren was a downgrade for carlos. but it would allow for him to be the more experienced driver at the team and assert himself and his talent. and as we know, if you can perform at a shit team, you catch the eyes of bigger teams.
and what does this have to do with carlos and lando? virtually nothing but the backstory is decently important.
also keep in mind. this is what these two looked like back in 2019:
carlos looks virtually the same, as he has pretty much his whole career. lando looks like a child on his way to his first day of school (im pretty sure he was 19 and carlos was 24 (?)) (im also fairly certain the both of them shit on the fact that he looked like a kid about to go to school in the instagram post this was featured in)
reguardless. they were young. trying to drag a shit team up the mid field and back to the podiums. and what better way to do that than through the power of friendship!
i dont think anyone was expecting them to be friends, least of all the mclaren team, who was used to barely scraping their way through the weekend. but alas, they became very good friends.
carlos and lando have both talked about the fact that they used to hang out in each others drivers rooms all the time and you really couldn't fake the energy that the two of them had in videos together.
i can't really unpack their entire relationship on one tumblr post, but i can give you some examples of what they would get up to back in the good old mclaren days:
-clowning eachother on their instagram stories
-that one Christmas video where they get asked what nat king cole song is the most popular or something and carlos goes "maria karay" and when lando realizes he means mariah carey he bursts out laughing
-of course there were also all the times carlos tried to teach lando spanish
-the mclaren milk video (seriously watch it)
-basically every time theyre in a room together they kind of just look at eachother and start laughing
-shit like this:
look theres more but its nearly 2 am and i can't find anything else on Pinterest that makes sense so just take my word for it okay
anyway!
mclaren does a series of videos every year called the unboxed videos which is just like various behind the scenes stuff. but the ones back with carlos and lando were incredibly unhinged. they also did a load of challenge videos back in the day
and they were....insane
like this one
and now, this is not why mclaren started to be successful again with carlos and lando, but it was definitely part of the reason. sometimes teammates freaking hate eachother. and these two were the exact opposite. they definitely put the team back on the right track and if this were an academic paper i would argue that their friendship really uplifted the team and allowed everyone to be more relaxed and achieve podiums and better points again now that there was a tad less stress. lando was very sad when carlos left for ferrari, i can't find it now but the video of carlos's farewell speech they pan to him and its just deeply upsetting looking. (and as many people point out, it seems that lando tries to keep this same energy going with oscar)
theyre still friends. they go golfing together and are always seen talking to eachother in the paddock. a few weeks ago at some race carlos walked into a press conference late and lando was speaking and fully forgot what he was saying to stare at carlos.
i should have disclaimed this at the top, but i dont ship these two, im just reporting the facts.
and so. this is a very very long winded way of saying that for some unknown reason f1 decided to have carlos and lando do a video together in australia 2024.
and it was. really something.
i know its blocked on tumblr. please just watch it on youtube. please please please. its the most unhinged thing ive seen.
but alas. that was not the last of carlando for the weekend.
as we know they shared a podium. lando called it romantic. they made a million jokes about how lando should be getting his appendix out as well. well!!!
leading up to the podium, there were a million zillion stairs. carlos walked up these stairs entirely unassisted while holding his helmet and his water and whatever else he was holding.
but! as everyone was quick to point out. when he walked out onto the podium and had to climb up to the top step, he walked closer to lando so that lando could grab his hand and help him onto the podium.
now the perfectly realistic answer here is that carlos had just won a race, was still pretty fresh out of recovery and was likely tired (and also he had just climbed a whole bunch of stairs. the second option is the delusional one and ill let you all fill in the gaps there. reguardless.
but thats not all.
yeah i know, i can't believe it either.
now lando, as we know, likes to stir the pot.
clearly. based on the above stuff.
and he posted another video to his mov instagram from the australia weekend. it is basically an ad for his dads company, pure electric.
but carlos is there. for virtually no reason at all.
he did not need to be there. he is in fact entirely unrelated to the rest of the video. and yet:
as several people pointed out, it looks like they woke up together, went on a run and got breakfast together. carlos did confirm the run and the breakfast part, at least that it was on wednesday before the race weekend started.
but look. ive said it before and ill say it again. gotta respect a man that is willing to stir the fucking pot.
and with that. i think were about done with australia. hopefully. please let us be done with australia.
welcome to japan!!! here we are, once again, back in suzuka. i really think that this post actually killed me to write for some reason. i started writing it early and then abruptly remembered why i dont do that. so today is april 8, 2024 and lets just dive straight in to this disaster.
unfortunately, this post is starting off on a bit of a heavy note because i have to explain some of the notable crashes that have happened in japan. one of these did result in a death. i will not be going super into detail, but if this is not your cup of tea or coffee please skip down to the next colored heading which reads 2023 japanese gp
so the year is 2014. the japanese gp used to be much later in the calendar (it was moved up this year to the front), so it was in october and it rained. key and very important detail. the cars will still race in the rain, if it is not too much rain.
this rain was kind of on and off very heavy rain caused by the incoming typhoon Phanphone. they knew that the typhoon was coming too, it wasnt just a surprise random typhoon. it was supposed to hit on sunday (the day of the race) so heading into it they knew the race would be wet. part of the reason that they decided to still have the race was because the whole typhoon was not expected to really hit until monday and because there was no way to postpone the race because the russian gp was the following week and they couldn't reorganize the freight travel (which is shitty reasoning if you ask me but this story if filled with weird decisions and negligence) and the storm was supposed to miss suzuka (where the race is held) and it was just supposed to rain a whole lot. a few people wanted to push back the start time and not have the race take place until it was safe, but they were overruled because they didnt want to interrupt television coverage.
and this was not the only weird weather incident of this weekend. before the first practice session that week a volcano had erupted and killed 47 people. somehow, despite all of this, the fia ruled that the race would go on as scheduled.
regardless of how you spin this. there was a fair amount of negligence at this race by the fia. and this was not even the beginning of that.
and so the race started, there was a fuckton of standing water on the track, very reduced visibility and overall it was just fucking dangerous. it was started under a safety car (which basically means that the cars go much slower and no one can overtake) and after two laps was suspended after complaints from the drivers about lack of visibility. 20 minutes later the race restarted under a safety car when the rain stopped a little. on lap 9 the safety car went in and people could overtake again, despite the fact that everyone was complaining about visibility. the race continues with a few issues and by lap 36 it was full on raining again and by lap 41 the light was fading and there was a cloud cover so visibility was really bad.
one of the drivers, sutli aquaplaned into the tire barrier on lap 42 and they broke out the double yellow flags. the flags are waved by people around the track to alert the drivers, and they would hear this over the radio as well, but remember that the visibility is poor. notably, they didnt use the safety car for this incident but they did use a tractor crane to remove sutlis car from the track (again, why i have no idea). on lap 43 jules bianchi, racing for marussia (a team that no longer exists on the grid because this was back when there were 11 teams) lost control of his car in the wet conditions (he was going 213 kph) and crashed into the tractor crane after his fail safe system malfunctioned due to incompatible brake wiring. due to the weather, they could not airlift him to the hospital so he was driven by ambulance. the race was red flagged 2 laps later and was not restarted.
by all accounts, there was a fuckton of negligence and many, many things happened that should not have. (the race itself, the restart, having the drivers still on track wit recovery vehicles out, etc)
jules bianchi died 9 months later from his injuries (severe head trauma), making him the first f1 driver in 21 years to die of a race related accident (the previous one being ayrton senna).
various safety measures were introduced as a result of this accident but still. it was ruled that there was no main cause of the accident but it was multiple factors of basically negligence by many people. marussia also lost a lot of sponsor funding because of this incident.
and who was jules bianchi?
well he had been a member of the ferrari driver academy (meaning that ferrari sponsored him through the junior leagues) and he was their test and reserve driver for 2011 season and then was loaned to the force india team (now aston martin) as a reserve driver for the 2012 season. in march 2013 he replaced luiz razia at the marussia f1 team after sponsor issues. marussia was a back runner team (like williams or stake) and jules scored them their first points at the monaco gp in 2014. he was considered the primary driver at the team and, given his connections to ferrari it was widely regarded that he would have one day signed with Ferrari, likely as fernando alonsos replacement who was rumored to be leaving the team at the end of that year. in fact he was so close to being signed at ferrari that the then fia president said that if f1 was to transition to three driver teams (which was a possibility at the time) he was going to be the third driver.
he was also charles leclercs godfather.
charles i belive started formula racing in 2015 in the junior leagues and kind of adopted jules desire to race for ferrari as his own (several people around the time he was getting signed in 2019 said that he was finishing was jules started) (this is part of the reason why charles will not leave ferrari)
so that was japan 2014. there is also japan 2022.
you would think that they had learned from japan 2014. alas they did not.
just like in 2014, the race took place during torrential rain. and there was a crash on the opening lap with carlos sainz crashing into the barriers after aquaplaning. the double yellow flags were broken out (sound familiar???) while a recovery vehicle (tractor crane) was dispatched to collect carlos's car. several drivers, including pierre gasley, passed the recovery vehicle at (albeit reduced) speed (as double yellow means no overtaking and be aware, not come to a full stop or slow down significantly). pierre, driving for alpha tauri (now rb) at the time, nearly crashed into the crane due to, you guessed it! poor visibility!
many of the drivers were rightfully very pissed off about this. especially pierre and and even more especially charles. pierre said, very angrily, "i could have killed myself" if he had hit the tractor, said that the deployment of the recovery vehicle was "disrespectful" to the memory of jules and his family (pierre had been family and childhood friends with jules). i believe in his post race interview he says something along the lines of how he was going to call everyone that he loved that night (because he had nearly died). many of the drivers shared the same feelings with many of them saying things like "we already lost jules." (several people on the 2022 grid had raced alongside jules) and charles was also pissed, saying that f1 should have learned from jules death. charles and pierre are also best friends. im also decently sure that this crash happened in pretty much the same spot as jules's crash.
the race was finished early after 20 something laps because it exceeded the three hour time limit.
so yeah. definitely some unfortunate events have happened at the japan race. it is deeply upsetting that this kind of negligence still exists in the races (which is why! the drivers need their union!! they have one!! and people who say they dont need one because they are all rich need to realize that it doesnt matter how much money they are making when they are doing something inherently incredibly dangerous and the decisions as to what is happening when they are doing dangers things are being called by people who are often entirely negligent of their safety!!!) (this is not the only time we will discuss negligence, there is another batch of similar shenanigans from the 2019 and 2021 belgium races)
but with that out of the way. lets move on to the 2023 japanese gp.
i know, i know, we are still not in the present day. its not easy covering every bit of lore on one post, you know. just go with it alright? i promise this is a good bit and much more uplifting than the last section.
that is because this one includes bees!!!
yes, you heard me. bees.
why bees?
well for that you'll have to ask one sebastian vettel.
and if that name doesnt sound familiar to you well 1. you haven't been reading closely enough or 2. because hes not currently on the grid.
bit of a recap, seb was a formula 1 driver from 2007-2022. hes currently 36, german, and married with a few kids. he very notably holds the record for the youngest f1 world champion and has 4 consecutive world championship titles from 2010-2014, all of which he won with red bull. after that he went to ferrari, won races but not championships, had a wonderful friendship and or feud with sir lewis hamilton, probably emotionally adopted charles leclerc, and then was replaced at ferrari by carlos sainz in 2021. he then did two years at aston martin, looked miserable for most of the time and then retired to spend time with his kids.
aside from all that, hes also very passionate about equal rights and has pushed for more women in the paddock and gay rights among other things.
and what does this have to do with bees? well hes also passionate about the environment!
(brace yourselves for a very sharp left turn here (or perhaps a right because this is turn two of the suzuka track))
and in 2023 at the Japanese gp (which was in september, so only a few months ago) he came back to build bee hotels at the suzuka race track with the rest of the grid!
yes. he rallied the whole grid and the team principals (some of which were in blood feuds, mind you) to make bee hotels at the "buzzing corner" of turn two at the japan track to spread awareness for the need for biodiversity. it was a great moment, everyone missed seb. everyone still does. but we might not for much longer, more on that later. if you want to watch the video about the bee hotels, the link is here
anyway. another epic high of the 2023 japan gp was red bull winning the 2023 constructors title. the kiss activated trophies. and the first ever lando and oscar podium. (the second was a few short weeks later at qatar). all of this will become relevant, i promise (probably) (im in fact writing this on thursday and the race is not for another few days) (i just have a feeling okay)
anyway. done with the time traveling, having covered the epic highs and lows of high school football, here we are back in 2024 for the bonkers media of the japan gp. you know, what youre all here for.
lets start with mclaren
now as we know, this is Technically Supposed To Be A Silly Season Post and as we know mclaren are not really involved in silly season. however! seemingly all of you little shits who read this post have told me that it has made a mclaren fan. so i will continue to talk about their antics for you lot. well that, and because theyre fucking hilarious.
they did almost have silly season esque news this week though and that was that david sanchez left the team after just three months. who is david sanchez? hes an aerodynamic specialist who came to mclaren from ferrari. the only real statement from the team about his departure was this:
“Following thoughtful discussions between David Sanchez and the team leadership, the mutual decision has been taken for David to leave the team. Upon our joint reflection, it became apparent that the role, responsibilities, and ambitions associated with David’s position did not align with our original expectations when he agreed to join us in February 2023. Recognising this misalignment, both David and I agreed that it would be best to part ways now, so to enable him to pursue other opportunities that will better leverage the full scale and breadth of his remarkable skillset. We greatly and gratefully value the contributions that David has made during his relatively short time with us, and we wish him the best in his future endeavours.”
i assume that this was said by zak brown?? but my sources (f1.com) do not say. sanchez wishes mclaren luck and is looking forward to his next adventure in the paddock.
aside from that, lando norris has a new biggest fan.
who is it, you might be asking? max fewrell? martin garrix? perhaps even oscar piastri?
no!
its alex albons grandmother!
basically, alex albons grandma ran into lando norris at the air port in japan and took a selfie with him. i think she sent this to alex's mom and then alex posted it:
this then ended up on alex and landos instagram story:
oscar posted a bunch of instagram photos of him entering the paddock and fist bumping lando with some abysmally messy hair (reportedly he never uses combs) with the caption "Definitely was not asleep 15 minutes before these were taken" and he also raced remote control cars against esteban ocon
mclaren are also running a special livery for the japan race, meaning that their car essentially has a different paint job:
it was designed by japanese artist miltz. people though are up in arms about the fact that the livery is sponsored by vuse, a vape company, because its against the rules to have explicit tobacco sponsorship in f1 and they are very similar.
and as usual, mclaren continue to just vibe amidst the silly season chaos
now that were done with our government regulated mclaren update, lets move on to charles leclerc
charles is running a special helmet design for this race:
his helmet commemorates jules bianchi, who, if you skipped the top bit of this update, was the last f1 driver to die of injuries caused by a race related accident. his accident occurred at the 2014 japanese gp, jules was also charles's godfather and im pretty sure that he either funded or helped out decently with charles's karting career before he started in the junior leagues. other drivers, notably pierre (who almost died in the same way as jules did at the 2022 japanese gp, if you skipped tha top) showed their support for the helmer. and charles instagram caption was very heartfelt:
A special helmet in memory of a very special person for me. ❤️
10 years this year since we have lost Jules here in Japan.
So many memories together that I’ll never ever forget.
I miss you and I’ll do everything to bring that helmet on the top step of the podium on Sunday. 🤍
the last time charles won a race was the 2022 Austrian gp. which is quite a while ago. we all want him to do well and look a little less sad, but i think we all want this a little bit more this weekend especially. and did he manage it? well keep reading to find out!!
helmet designs, in case you are wondering, are similar to car liveries. all the drivers have a helmet design for the year and then they run a few special helmets for specific races. usually their home race, a few other other, sometimes it happens if theres also a special livery for the car, and sometimes its a brand sponsor or collab. there are quite a few drivers running special helmets for the japan race, but im not talking about them because i dont want this post to be longer than it needs to be!!
next up on the list of things to Discuss in Detail: Sebastian Vettel
what? we've already talked about him!
no no, we talked about him at Last Year's race. with the bees.
this is in the present. the here and the now.
and, very excitingly, in relation to the open 2025 mercedes seat.
thats right! we haven't entirely lost the plot of this post! were back at silly season!!
i know i mentioned this somewhere in the mess of this post, but sebastian vettel is one of the drivers currently up for the 2025 merc seat (along with the other potentials of fernando alonso, carlos sainz, kimi antonelli and maybe max verstappen)
seb has stated he misses racing. he also has been doing a shit load of tests for the 24 hours of le mans, which is an endurance race lasting 24 hours and participants compete with a partner. he tested a porsche 963 hypercar (and he named it, reportedly. this is important. seb names all of his race cars except for his 2022 aston martin which was aparently so bad it didnt deserve a name). but he is still undecided about racing in the le mans race.
now. obviously tho we know hes up for a merc seat. which was something that was speculated about earlier in the year but now seems to be more likely. and why is that? two reasons:
sebastian said this about the merc seat: "a return to f1 might be appealing and interesting but it really depends on the full package because its a big commitment" (as in depends on the extent of the contract including the pay and all that other stuff, but the fact that he would be willing to speak to teams about contracts is Intriguing)
sir lewis hamilton
so as we know, sir lewis hamilton is going to ferrari, so the seat that is open at merc is his. and he has given some input into who should replace him. and he has said it should be seb.
now, we've talked about some infamous driver pairings before, like carlos and lando at mclaren and briefly lando and oscar at mclaren (and we will properly deep dive them at some point when the vibes are correct). but there are countless others. such as max verstappen and daniel ricciardo at red bull, sebastian vettel and kimi raikkonen at ferrari, and carlos and charles at ferrari. sir lewis hamilton has found himself in the middle of a few iconic driver pairings, including the infamous broceades civil war of himself and nico rosberg that ultimately culminated in nico retiring from the sport after his first championship win in 2016. but we dont have time to unpack that.
thing is, there are also Rivalries. and sebastian and lewis were never teammates. they were more like rivals??? ish??? like charles leclerc and max verstappen. which i am realizing is a terrible analogy because i haven't deep dived charles and max. hhhhh. alright i guess were doing this now hold onto your hats for the lestappen interlude
ok so Briefly: charles is il presidento at ferrari, hes believed to be the one who could be challenging max for the championship and he was kind of set to win the championship in 2022 until red bull decided that ferraris car was probably violating regulations and made them change it (bit more to this but just trust me) and basically every time charles has a pole max wins. they usually end up on the podium together (max p1 charles p2) and the cameras often show a lot of Maxplaining and Leclercifyng (the official accounts call it this) (this is basically where they get out of the cars and immediately go to stand next to eachother and debrief usually with a lot of hand motions) usually it looks something like this:
dont let these two fool you though, they routinely shit on eachother and try to nearly kill eachother on track every now and then. they also unfollowed eachother on social media and we Definitely dont have time to unpack the great f1 driver unfollowing moments on social media. just know that this is a thing. but this includes back in 2012 when they were karting against eachother and got in an epic fight for the lead of the race resulting in this fantastic and still memed interview:
charles also explained the inchident a few years ago in an interview (sorry the sound is bad but you can still hear it) (worth the watch bc both of them aparently got disqualified)
so yeah. as you might be able to guess, people ship them. like a lot. theyre a weird hybrid of friends but also rivals but sometimes theyre friends but often rivals but they respect eachother but they try to kill eachother but then they hesitate when someone ask when the other one is pretty (yeah that actually happened once). think enemies to enemies to lovers to worse enemies to lovers to friends to estranged divorced couple back to lovers 5000000k slowburn. notably there was one race last year where in the paddock before i think a drivers parade one of the cameras caught max saying something along the lines of "charlie! i have a spot next to me" and i remember seeing somewhere someone posting a post saying something akin to "im so sorry to all of the lestappen fics that i clicked off of because max called charles charlie because i thought it was inaccurate. turns out that its so accurate its actually real fucking life"
and. to quote one tweet: there was also that one time when max, known geography nerd turned and asked charles leclerc if the Singaporean flag was the monegasque flag. just so he could talk to him. to make things worse, max lives in monaco. max is not just a geography nerd btw, theres an old ass red bull video of him correctly identifying like 298349823 million country flags, which makes this even worse. i can't find it, but trust me ok.
i ventured onto f1 ao3 just for the sake of this post and low and behold, there are (as of 4/4/2024) 31,767 fics under the f1 tag (which is so fucking many are you all okay???) and 3,730 are tagged as max/charles. again are you guys okay??
anyway. i had a point here. what the hell was the point. what am i talking about.
oh right.
sebastian and lewis.
you ever wonder how you got here? you ever think about how every life decision youve ever made has landed you exactly where you are right now? thats what im thinking about.
god this post is so long and im not even at the race yet.
anyway!!!
sebastian and lewis!!!
they were the same brand of friends but rivals but friends that max and charles currently are. lewis, as we know is still on the grid. seb retired in 2022 and lewis hasn't really known what to do without his emotional support rival.
back around the 2017-2020 era especially, which was when lewis was in the thick of his own winning streak and seb was still challenging him routinely for race wins, they had a similar vibe to charles and max: absolute chaos in interviews, will kill you on track probably of you try to pass me, friends but also rivals but also respect eachother, the whole shebang. several people akin them to divorced couple vibes (which makes it especially funny that charles will get to be teammates with both of them, i think ive talked about this before)
i tried very very hard to find video proof of this that would make sense for this post and all i kept finding were weird clips of nico rosberg. here's the best i got:
god this post has gotten so derailed. im very close to deleting and retrying this but alas. ive come too far. i apologize for this one deeply and sincerely.
so anyway, back to what i was saying several plot twists ago, sir lewis hamilton wants sebastian vettel to replace him at mercedes.
why?
well aside from the fact that he wants his emotional support rival back so he can defeat the evil that is max verstappen in a red bull and reclaim his 8th world championship title, he also thinks he would be a good fit:
i would love for seb to come back and i think it would be an amazing option for the team. german driver, multi world champion winning driver, and someone who has amazing values who would continue to take the team forward. id love it if he came back
and yeah, i think i and many other people agree with lewis. also hes right. merc is a german team. when they first started they notably had michael schumacher and nico rosberg as their drivers (both german) so having a german driver would be important to them and they have had several notable world champion drivers (schumacher, rosberg, sir lewis himself)
so we will see
moving on from this train wreck of a section, we have the discussion of fernando alonso's 20 second time penalty at the australia gp
i really thought we were done w australia but alas
once again it seems im wrong!
some of the drivers were asked what they thought of the penalty at the press conference this weekend
and some of the responses were insightful, such as landos:
"like max and Hamilton (at the 2021 silverstone gp) this was not a brake test, this was just trying to play very smart and fernando being fernando. its just my opinion, and maybe all the drivers have different opinions, and what fernando did was odd, like extreme. but i dont think it is even close to being regarded as a brake test. should it be a penalty in any way? no. george, in my opinion should have seen it coming, i dont want to comment too much on it, but george had time to see what was going on. it was not aggressive, it was not like one metre in front of a car and stopping, it was 100 meters ahead and the approach speed just caught george out, but nowhere near should that be a penalty. if george has to suddenly swerve or whatever, i guess it is a bit more of a question, but he didnt have to do anything bu brake five meters earlier and it would have been a different outcome. it is also down to george, when you are a driver, you have to react to everything that is around you."
some responses were not as insightful, such as max verstappen asking george if he brake checked fernando at the coffee shop that the two of them ran into eachother at during the off week. (they did not)
aside from that, george said that they respect eachother off the track and its good that nothing worse happened. though, it would have been hard for them to not penalize alonso because of how george landed on the track. he said:
"we need to find a way that if a car is in a danger zone, automated VSC (virtual safety car) straight away, within half a second or so because those seconds count. and, lives are at risk."
the rest of his interview is here
george is also in charge of the drivers union. and if youre one of those people currently asking "but Why do they need a union when they make millions of dollars???" my answer is: shit like this!
if you read the first bit of this update, you know how much negligence the fia is capable of. and like i said up top, it doesnt matter how much money theyre making when their job is drive very fast around a track and the people calling the shots on the race have some very questionable ideas of what safety means. and then make decisions that could very easily kill the drivers.
onto the practice sessions!
full disclosure, i only watched the last practice session because i was busy working. but ive got a decent summary
first we gotta talk about williams
williams, if you recall, were down to one car in australia because they were delayed with parts and couldn't repair the chassis that alex albon crashed during practice 1. so alex was given logans car because williams thought that alex had a better shot at scoring points and logan didnt drive for the entire weekend. it was. disappointing. alex also didnt score points.
so, williams managed to fix alex's wrecked car, but they didnt have time to flip flop the set ups. so they fitted alex's fixed car to logan. (cause while the cars themselves are the same, the set ups like the seats and the pedals and some other stuff are set up specifically for the drivers).
so we have alex in logans car. and logan in alex's car. and then practice 1 happens and logan spins out in alex's car into the barriers.
not great for a team already short on parts.
extra not great for a driver who already isn't trusted by his team to do a good job.
so not great that after crashing, logan's first radio message to the team was "im sorry man" and not "im okay" which is what is Usually the first priority information after crashing. hes already got bad self confidence, and he knows hes not trusted by the team, so this was definitely Not Good for logan or williams
fortunately, the chassis of the car was not damaged though, and williams were able to fix it in time for practice three.
now, we've talked about ralph schumacher before. and while i think this particular rumor was debunked, im still going to include it here. aparently according to ralph schumacher logan sargenat is not contracted for the whole season, hes contracted race to race. and if this is true, it means that williams can drop him at any time with no repercussions. we dont entirely know if this is true, but the fact that it was even Suggested as a rumor does not say very good things about williams confidence in logan.
williams is also kind of using logan to blame for their issues a little and thus destroying his f1 career.
logan is currently winning the award for poorest little meow meow
other than that nothing too interesting to report during practice 1, except for fernando and lando lapping the same exact time at one point. practice two was red flagged and cancelled due to rain before all of the drivers could do timed laps. considering Suzukas track record with rain this was probably for the best. and normally the camera people zoom in one the drivers faces and eyes and all that. lando norris has been known to take naps during red flags before. this is how we got the iconic "and its all just a bit too much for little lando norris. 21 years old. he just needs a bit of sleep" audio. but alas, the camera man could not find landos face, so we got a weird zoom in on his hands instead:
and so practice three was the most legitimate practice session that they had.
so very quickly because we still have lots and lots to cover, the following went down at practice three:
-charles got pissed off at ferrari strategy (no surprise there) because he only got to do one flying lap (go as fast as you can to prep for qualifying) because they held him in the garage longer and his teammate carlos had the time to do two flying laps
-lando went fastest in the first sector on his push lap, but he had to bail out of the lap cause he made a mistake (ran over the curb) so his flying lap was done on there lap old tires. and the soft tires are good for one flying lap in suzuka. so, despite the fact that he didnt finish in the top three for practice one, he still had a good shot cause he managed a good lap on old tires
-red bull kept having problems with their mirrors. which isn't great cause you kind of need those to see things
-alpine were running an upgrade to their front wing, it was lighter. which is good cause their car was too heavy in the first place. but during practice they kept running the older heavier one which was confusing. (also the new front wing really didnt help them in the race cause they still suck. pierre thinks that it could take 4-6 months to fix the problems w the car)
-and then of course logan and alex. they had no confidence in the car at all. and they both said so. not good for williams as per the darn usual. alex said: “i just have zero confidence in the car” and logan said: “i have no rear support. zero”
onto qualifying!
-according to our friends the commentators, it was red bulls pole to loose. and after all the posting red bull did about all the times they won in japan, i was inclined to agree with them.
-aside from red bull, mercedes was expected to be challenging them for pole. ferrari have better race pace here than qualifying pace and no one ever knows how mclaren is going to perform because they like to trick people into thinking theyre fucking slow and then surprising them (called sandbagging)
-immediately, red bull ultimately proved that they were going to get pole position. mostly because max went faster than his pole position time last year pretty might right out of the gate. and they did get pole position. to the surprise of absolutely no one at all. though! max did have to fight for it a little cause checo was only .066 seconds behind max.
-speaking of pole positions! crofty (one of the goofy commentators) was talking about teams pole position stats, because max scored red bulls 99th pole position. and when he talked about mercedes he said:
“Now, fortunately both have got poles before, George Russell’s got one of them, Lewis Hamiltons got a hundred and four”
-but enough about the front of the field, lets go to where the real party is: the back of the field
-interestingly enough, the commentators seem to be on logans side. saying things about him like “logan sargeant, pretty dismal day yesterday” (referring to the crash) and “logan sargeant he needs to find some more confidence” which was hard for him, considering that he was running the older spec of the car (without any updates because of the time constraints to fix the car and the parts shortages)
-q1 was going fairly standard as usual, meaning that all the usual suspects were going slow and all the usual suspects were going fast. until the last literal minute when everyone did their last flying lap.
-right smack in a row we had valtteri bottas jump up to 8th spot, esteban ocon jump to 13th spot, alex albon jump to 15th and daniel ricciardo jump up to 11th spot (one whole position in front of his teammate, yuki! which was looking good for him because people have started to point out that danny rics is running in the same deficit as nyck de vries was to yuki last year before he got replaced)
-this knocked lance stroll out of qualifying and smacked him straight into p15 for the start by about .06 seconds. truly disappointing because suzuka is one of his strong tracks and hes Never gotten out in q1 in suzuka before!
-he was seen walking down the pit lane looking like a wet sad cat with his trainer
-unfortunately, estie bestie, bottas, danny rics and alex albon all promptly had their dreams shattered when they got knocked out of qualifying in q2. :/
-george russell also nearly almost killed oscar piastri in the pit lane. mercedes got fined 5k euros for it.
-q2 was where some real excitement began though for the faster teams, especially one lando norris who once again went fastest in the first sector and landed himself p3 right behind the dueling red bulls
-this of course continued into q3
-and low and behold, sir lewis hamilton was Back and he was back with an absolute vengeance
-his first lap was only half a second off of one max verstappen, and he then claimed the fastest first and third sector time
-that was snapped up by max shortly after
-and then by lando
-but crofty got confused looking at the two mclarens and was saying lando when he meant oscar (who was a little further down the grid trying to get in for p5) and said "lando goes second fastest!" before he had in fact gone second fastest. and then he did. crofty has some magic powers i think
-so the top 6 drivers were all separated by .5 seconds
-but it was really max .2 seconds ahead and then the next 5 separated by .3 seconds
-this left a few people confused as to how they still could shave off time, cause they were going as fast as they possibly could
-these people were sir lewis hamilton, fernando alonso and charles leclerc
-and their radios were quite comical
-from charles we had: “that’s the best that i can do. honestly i don’t get it”
-from sir lewis: "where's that half a second man...?"
-and fernando alonso also said something but i cant find it so you'll just have to take my word for it i suppose!
-upsetting for sure, but all three were confident that the race would go better
-someone who wasnt upset (for once!) was lando norris!! who went p3 and polite catted all over the post qualifying interview where this happened:
and so. the race began. here was the starting order:
1. max verstappen
2. sergio perez
3. lando norris
4. carlos sainz
5. fernando alonso
6. oscar piastri
7. lewis hamilton
8. charles leclerc
9. george russell
10. yuki tsunoda
11. daniel ricciardo
12. nico hulkenberg
13. valtteri bottas
14. alex albon
15. esteban ocon
16. lance stroll
17. pierre gasly
18. kevin magnussen
19. logan sargeant
20. zhou guanyu
ITS LIGHTS OUT AND AWAY WE GO!!!
well. only until turn 2. when the race was red flagged because danny rics and alex albon decided to play bumper cars and spin into the tire barrier. so now if youre keeping track, alex albon has crashed his own car AND logan sargeants car
-literally the announcers were immediately like well the drivers are ok is the chassis ok (the chassis is Not ok, as it was revealed later, aparently a tire from the barrier got stuck under the car and caused some damage) (the car will supposedly be ready for china in 2 weeks tho)
-during the red flag Several memes occurred:
-yuki literally jumped up and Perched on the pit wall like a bird
-nico hulkenberg busted out the folding chair again:
-aston martin was very big chillin during the red flag, especially lance stroll who was firmly in his disney prince arc:
-then after a brief intermission, the boys got back in their cars and ready to go!
-lights out and away we go part two! electric boogaloo!!
-playing a big huge role in the race was the Tire Strategy
-quick refresher: three tire compounds, the soft, the medium and the hard
-you have to use at Least two different tire compounds during the race
-the softer the tire the faster you go, but the harder the tire the longer they last
-theres also something called The Undercut
-which is where you pit for tires Before the person you are trying to pass or stay in front of, and use the fresher tires to take their position
-the opposite of this is the Overcut
-which is staying out longer on used tires to try and create as much of a gap as you can so that you loose less stops when pit stopping because a pit stop takes usually at least 20 seconds (or 40 if youre stake)
-so with the red flag everyone got A Free Pitstop! problem is that it was so early into the race that it really didnt help anyone and kind of use fucked up some peoples strategies, like mercedes. and ferrari.
-but we will get back to that
-first the french civil war!
-not too long after the restart esteban ocon radioed in to say “pierre gave me a hit on the side, let me know if it’s ok” and it was indeed okay but still!
-meanwhile logan sargeant was running dead last :/ until nico hulkenberg pitted on lap 6! so he ended up ahead of him
-meanwhile up at the front perez went wide and off track and lando started to close in, hoping to overtake for p2 but not quite managing it
-and then, horror of all horrors, bottas pitted!! but surprisingly "by sauber standards it was ok!" meaning it was only about 4 seconds instead of 20. and! it put logan up another place!
-and then logan jumped up another two places to p14 because yuki and zhou pitted on lap 8
-this gave logan an opportunity to pass pierre gasley. and he Almost managed it on lap 9
-lando started to struggle a little bit on his tires on lap 9, intensifying the battle between him and carlos for p3.
-meanwhile mercedes started to have their classic mercedes problem with george russell saying “steering wheel starting to feel a bit strange. lots of vibrations” on lap 10
-but then!! incredibly!!! pierre loost the rear end oh his car on lap 11 and logan was able to pass him for p13!!! woo!!
-and then started the bonkers strategy calls. lando pitted on lap 11, going for the undercut over carlos, meanwhile carlos did not come in, opting for the overcut
-and then on lap 12 zhou pitted again??? which was odd cause he ha pitted only a few laps before. crofty was perplexed and said “we will get ted on the case on that one”
-and then oscar pitted on lap 13. this was still early to pit for tires, but mclaren was struggling with tire degradation (deg) (tire wear)
-lap 14 we got a radio from sir lewis hamilton asking “shall i let george by?” and one lap later they did a little swip swap they do swap on lap 14
-shock and horror abounded as zhou pitted once again!!!!! aparently it was an electrical problem!!! and he had to retire the car on lap 14
-and then!!! logan sargeant passed esteban ocon on lap 15 for p11!!! only one spot away from the points!!!
-perex and sainz pitted on laps 15 and 16, which vaulted our buddy charles leclerc up to p2 and 17 seconds behind one max verstappen. both of them on old tires.
-max was leading followed by charles, george, lewis, lando, checo, carlos, fernando, oscar, and kevin
-and then, wonderful news for mr leclerc, max pitted on lap 17, leaving charles in p1. and he stayed in p1 until lap 21 when max finally overtook him again
-meanwhile, bottas passed logan for p11 and perez started to move his way back up the order again
-sir lewis hamiltons tires were dead by lap 19 and by lap 21 he called to mercedes to "change this strategy!" the strategy being a one stop race (only changing tires once) because most of the people around them were doing a two stop race
-hamilton started to get overtaken by several people including carlos and fernando and there was nothing he could do about it because he was on old and dead tires
-also on a one stop was charles, except he was working his ass off to make the strategy work as he was still managing to hold onto p2, with the rest of the drivers closing in on him with their fresher, faster tires
-and down in the mid field in p16 esteban ocon was told “ok esteban we need to push now please” and he was not pleased with this saying “i am pushing what are you talking about!!”
-but turns out he was being told this because FIVE drivers ahead of him all pitted at once on lap 23. ted, the resident pit lane commentator, called it a "right old karamberage"
-those drivers being logan, bottas, magnussen, yuki and lance
-logan had a slow stop and was knocked back to p16
-meanwhile leclerc was still hanging onto p2 on 24 lap old tires with lando norris behind him. bonkers man.
-charles though made a mistake and went off track. lando nearly overtook him on lap 23 but they both end up getting called into the pits for tires.
-charles and lando came out of the pits but got split by george russell, all there of them running p6, 7 and 8. this was where they hoped that the one stop mercedes strategy would pay off. but alas it did not because lando passed george on lap 28
-and so
-the last batch of bonkersness
-the race was currently running as follows:
-verstappen, perez, sainz, alonso, piastri, leclerc, norris, russell
-and on lap 31 charles radios the pits to ask “who in front still needs to stop?” and the answer comes as “everyone in front still needs to stop again”
-leclerc does not need to stop again
-this is where they hope the tire strategy and the overcut will pay off for charles because the top 5 pit stops will create a massive battle as everyone should Theoretically come out around where lando is (behind charles)
-the pit stops begin on lap 33 with oscar, perez follows on lap 34 and verstappen on lap 35
-down at the back of the field there is another battle going on and that is bottas chasing kevin magnussen, who starts weaving on the straight. which valtteri is pissed about and he says: “report him! weaving from magnussen!”
-logan joins the pit stop crew and pits on lap 35 as well, and he holds his p15 position!
-back up in the front, perez passes lando and sainz pits after going wide on the chicane on lap 5
-lewis is still complaining about his tires, but mercedes doesnt want to pit again and fuck up their strategy (or what remains of one) reguardless though they still do, and Hamilton pits on lap 40, coming out in p9
-and then, the fateful radio from carlos: “am i on a race here or what?” because carlos wants to know if he can overtake charles if he catches him. ferrari says that he is allowed to. charles is running p3, carlos is p5 and lando is p4 on lap 41
-and then! out of nowhere! logan goes into the gravel on lap 43! yellow flag!
-he doesnt crash though, and is able to reverse back onto the track. he pits for tires. and he comes out in dead last place 38 seconds behind pierre gasley in front of him. so much for a good solid race from logan.
-back at the front, lando locks up on lap 43 and carlos overtakes him a lap later
-sainz is 1.1 seconds off leclerc
-and on lap 46 carlos passes charles for p3
-further down, lance stroll passes magnussen and hulkenberg on lap 47 and now he’s up to p11. then he has the most canadian sounding radio ever:
-this was immediately following a pretty impressive overtake on part of the track that people dont usually overtake on
-and then george and oscar started battling! george nudged oscar off the track slightly and according to oscar “he didn’t give me anywhere to go in the chicane i had to cut”
-oscar was running right behind fernando alonso, who let oscar get into his drs to keep him ahead of george
-this worked until the very last lap when george just about managed to pass him
-the checkered flag came out
-charles was voted driver of the day, but he was still massively disappointed and said "fuck. i am p4. i thought we could have done something at one point. but its life."
and with that, here was our finishing order:
1. max verstappen
2. checo perez
3. carlos sainz
4. charles leclerc
5. lando norris
6. fernando alonso
7. george russell
8. oscar piastri
9. lewis hamilton
10. yuki tsunoda
11. nico hülkenberg
12. lance stroll
13. kevin magnussen
14. valtteri bottas
15. esteban ocon
16. pierre gasly
17. logan sargeant
DNF zhou guanyu
DNF daniel ricciardo
DNF alexander albon
max flexed getting out of the car. but the real surprise came in the cool down room when max AND checo defended charles to carlos and basically were like. he deserved to be here over you buddy.
and well, we already unpacked lestappen. so you can put the pieces here together.
max's girlfriend kelly and her daughter penelope were back at the race this weekend. and max said that he was glad that nothing bad happened this time because he didnt want p to think she was a bad omen after he dnfd at the australia race
and while this might be a massive green flag for max. we were all once again treated to the combo of dutch and austrian national anthem once again. or, in th words of crofty: "for all of us who have missed the dutch and austrian national anthems here they are again”
and in the words of my sister, "the dutch national anthem hits different at 3am. its a worse experience."
heading into the post race interviews we had one will buxton and one jack doohan, who was serving biology class teachers assistant in desperate need of a haircut. and they were with one mr james vowels, williams team principal.
james did say that the crashes have destroyed any opportunities to bring updates because theyre still lacking parts, but he was excited that logan was running well and overtaking people because it meant that they have a fast and capable car. so perhaps things are looking better for logan? he did say that logan going off the track was just indicative of how hard he was pushing
alex and daniel both looked quite miserable about their crashes. neither were exactly coherent but that could have been because it was nearly 4 in the morning from where i was watching and i was sleepy as shit
zhou had a gear box issue
yuki was the first japanese driver to get points in japan for a long while
they also spoke with toto who said “we had an atrotious first stint good second and third” and he seemed pissed. i think it was generous of him to say that the second and third stints were good
alex jacques then appeared and the only note that i have written about him is that he looked like he should be doing ventriloquism. again, it was after 4am.
but alex and will talked about mclaren. oscar said they struggled more than expected “not the afternoon we were looking for”
and then will and alex had the audacity to say that they didnt think lando would be upset with his result. lando was upset with his result. naturally. hes the kind of self deprecation.
he said the usual: “did what we could which was not enough” and “especially with the hot conditions” and then he pulled this stat out of nowhere: “last year i finished 17 seconds off the win, this year i finished 29”
toto aparently thinks a major driver move will be signed in a few weeks and will thinks it’s carlos but they did say why would red bull get rid of checo if hes being consistent in p2....
will then got pissed at the f1 points graphic going too quickly and i think that that just about does it!
and that concludes the Big Important Stuff from the race. lets rapid fire the rest of the shenanigans:
-charles leclerc posted a video of himself slaying at dance dance revolution. you could watch the originial on his acc but this one is more entertaining
-sir lewis hamilton took the merc team bowling as per tradition
-stake played street hockey
-kimi antonelli is going to be taking the f1 test in the 2021 merc, which is necessary for him to become an f1 driver. maybe he will get the seat after all as its being speculated that fernando alonso is going to continue at aston
-people found this comment on the max and charles inchident video:
-oscar piastri shit on alpine again:
-it was also oscars birthday and mclaren surprised him with cake
-toto wolff decided to attend the Japanese gp after he had originally intended to miss it, given that the team is still performing so poorly
-mike krak, the aston martin team principal was asked if the reports of adrian newey going to aston martin are true. he said, quite literally, "no" (but this is f1, so it still could mean yes)
-yuki parkoured into the paddock, clearly giving no shits because he was at his home race:
-the camera operators this weekend chose violence with some of their camera zooms and cuts, including zooming into liam lawson every time that daniel ricciardo made a mistake:
-there were these two very confusing pictures of lando and oscar that came from the weekend:
-alpine social media admin chose violence:
-as did the merc admin:
and there is probably more, there is always probably more, but i am going to quit while i am ahead and before my computer crashes
the next race is two weeks from now in china, which no one has been to in awhile due to covid. its also a sprint weekend, meaning theres the full length race and a shorter race as well. it is also one of the few races i cant watch live this year because i have a work trip and cannot justify staying up until 6am to watch when i need to be on a plane at 7am :/ so that update will be delayed, but rest assured, it will come
again, thank you to everyone who makes this massive post possible, you all know who you are :)
thanks for reading and provided nothing insane happens next week, ill see you all in china!
and welcome back to the off week. i really thought that i could get away with no update this week, but alas. contracts have been signed and ice cream has been made. dogs have appeared and red bull marketing continues to be, well, red bull marketing. so today is april 14, 2024 and lets just dive right in head first to the most bemusing smattering of information that is on this post
were covering a few things this update, each more perplexing than the last:
-landos continued dedication to the bit
-charles leclerc (as an entity)
-fernando alonsos cryptic way of speaking
-carlos sainz tempting the devil (among others)
-the bonkers social media highlights of the week
-brocedes
so lets just get lando out of the way. back on the government mandated mclaren update. first, he was on the forbes 30 under 30 europe list for sports and games. now that im writing this, im not sure lando actually acknowledged this at all? it might have just been the mclaren ig acc. also his ln4 official account called him pookie. not once but twice. who is running this account. we need need answers.
he also stared directly into a camera not once but twice:
yeah man. idk either.
and lastly, if you remember last week lando ran into alex's grandma at the airport. alex albon posted photos of her at the end of the race weekend with a signed lando norris cap and the caption "left suzuka with some souvenirs...well grandma did"
moving on from that. mr leclerc. the miserable soup can. tho this week he was not miserable at all. i know! i was surprised too!
first! we have the tiny mystery dog:
his name is leo leclerc. in pretty much every photo of him charles is holding him like a tiny purse or perhaps the way sharpay evans would hold boi in high school musical. and many, many people were keen to point out that not only! can he be friends with lewis hamilton's dog roscoe next year, but also, he seems to have taken a page out of lewis hamiltons book in getting a dog and naming it after his biggest rival (roscoes name is quite close to nico rosberg and leo pretty much means lion which is max's nickname) (in case you dont know who nico rosberg is, worry not we will get to him at the end of this post)
and then, more interestingly, we have the launch of lec. charles's ice cream. and let me tell you, if anyone could have managed to look miserable while eating ice cream, it would have been charles, but alas he did not. there is life in his eyes this week!
tho he did say a few things that made me and others fear for his mental state, including comparing ice cream flavors to ferrari potential:
and oh yeah did i mention the flavor names are insane??
and, as we know, charles and lewis will be teammates next year. lewis is vegan (and has an interesting affinity with vanilla ice cream but well get to that later) and charles had this to say when asked about making a vegan flavor for lewis:
"we were talking about it the last time on the track! he has this new alma project of his, which is very nice because he has developed a new soft drink, while i have ice cream. so surely, one day, when he arrives at ferrari, we will celebrate with my ice cream and his drink."
he was also asked by the italian press "to verstappen, what can we offer to him? chamomile ice cream to calm him down a little bit?" and charles said this in response:
"no, we have a good relationship. what im interested in is beating him on the track to start with, and that's what we're working on. i'll also give him the flavor he likes and then we'll try to beat him on the track."
which is all kinds of unhinged. especially coming from the same week that he got a dog and basically named it after max. (they still dont follow eachother on ig lets remember)
it was also pointed out by a few people, mainly on this tumblr post, that this had the same but also opposite energy as lewis saying this back in 2014 about if he remembered the first time he met nico rosberg: "I remember the first time I looked at girls. I remember when I met my girlfriend, the first time I had sex... But I never actually think about the first time I met Nico. I don't remember things like that." which is just. what a thing to say. anyway, we will get to brocedes later on this post and this will all make sense. or perhaps it wont. brocedes is an enigma.
now you might be wondering Why an f1 driver would make ice cream, given the fact that they adhere to pretty strict diets due to the weight restrictions on the cars and all that. well, aparently, that was the very reason why charles decided to make the ice cream in the first place:
"as a professional athlete it is crucial for me to maintain a healthy lifestyle where my performance is strongly linked to commitment, training and fitness. this, however does not prevent me from indulging in some small little forbidden pleasure, particularly that of a food i love."
which is to say, he definitely made his own ice cream brand (which has like protein and less calories in it or something) so that he can eat a whole pint of ice cream after he gets fucked over by the ferrari strategy once again.
and how does it taste? couldn't tell you, its only in italy and i live in the us. so if someone wants to teleport me ice cream i would be unbelievably pleased.
another driver was also hungry this week, but not hungry for ice cream, sweet treats or even food (well perhaps food. you do kind of need that to live), nay he was hungry for a contract renewal.
can you guess who it is?
if you guessed logan sargeant...well you would be incredibly incorrect.
but if you guessed fernando alonso, you would be right!
he extended his contract at aston martin. we dont know exactly how long it is, but it is multi year, meaning that he will be at aston until at least 2026. the aston martin team announced it in the funniest way they possibly could.
fernando also said This about the contract extension, which is intriguing and amusing:
"This is the longest contract I ever signed in my career. Something that will keep me linked with Aston Martin for many years to come.”
which leads many people to think that after hes done racing for them hes going to stay on as an engineer or a coach or an advisor or something else. which would be silly and goofy and evil of him as usual.
also on the contract hunt is one carlos sainz jr.
as we know, he was supposedly offered a contract at audi (currently stake) for 2025, but! he was also reportedly offered a mercedes contract!
this may come as a shock to many people because 1. mercedes pretty distinctly said that they hadn't been talking to carlos, 2. kimi antonelli is set to test driver a merc f1 car this week and 3. toto said last week (more or less) *cue austrian accent* "well you know the driver market is very fluid and we do not want to rush into any decisions blah blah blah"
reportedly though, carlos has not signed it because of the terms of it.
the contract that he was offered is a 1+1 contact, meaning that he is signed for one year with the opportunity to resign for a second year if hes doing well. he wants to be on the same contract at george russell, who has a 2+1 contract.
merc is probably doing this because they want to keep their options open for 2026. the options being signing kimi antonelli. who they really, really dont want to lose to another team (red bull).
also in terms of contract news, aparently red bull are reportedly considering re signing checo for 2025. this is rumored to be a 2 year contract. but he has to keep performing to the level that he is now. and historically, checo starts the season well and then it goes downhill.
and lastly, apparently yuki is reportedly on audis short list if carlos goes elsewhere
mercedes posted these photos of george, lewis and a child from the japan weekend:
max verstappen said this last weekend about f1 academy:
“There are girls, but much fewer than boys. For example, our team now only has boys riding. But if there is a fast girl among us, then of course we want her too. That's just how it is in the real world, isn't it? Team bosses don't look at whether someone is a boy or a girl. It's about how fast they are. It is good that Formula 1 now pays extra attention to women in motorsport with the F1 Academy, although I have doubts about how they approach it. The cars they drive are way too slow. If you ever want to get them into Formula 1, it really has to go to a higher level. It's nice and nice that girls are now sponsored by Formula 1 teams, but what do we actually help them with? There is no next step for them now. For example, the gap to a Formula 4 car is already too big.”
george russell is back on his shirtless (and toes out?) instagram pictures kick:
sir lewis hamilton won a gq global creativity award, where he was named and honors as a "f1 transcending powerhouse" and he also absolutely slayed the outfit game as per usual
and there was other stuff (carlos continues to seemingly bike across all of europe as does valtteri, logan and alex went golfing, several drivers went to the monaco tennis finals something or other etc etc) but thats the most important highlights
and so. without any further ado. a (very very abridged version) of the blood feud between sir lewis hamilton and nico rosberg
but before we get there, in case youre thinking to yourself, wow saph, your writing is so interesting and compelling! how do you do it! the answer is that i might not have a college degree in shitposting, but i do have a college degree in both history and writing, which together is a deathly combo that i wield like a very very dull double edged sword. in any case, should any of you want to read a more full length and in depth version of this feud, i am writing it out a la insane academic paper with the help of a few friends. why isn't the full version on this post? well this post is already too long and were barely at race 5 of 24 plus this is about the 2024 season and this drama is more than 10 years old. also, i did very very fully intend to have the insane brocedes lore post done before i updated this, but that is not physically possible so for now you will have to deal with this short version. and when i finish it, i will post it and link it here on this post for your viewing pleasure.
regardless. the blood feud.
was any real blood spilled? i have no idea. but nico rosberg did end up under a sink at one point in a hotel room in japan. thats neither here nor there tho and we dont know any more than that other than that it happened.
the feud is called a few things. the brocedes civil war. the silver war. the hamilton rosberg rivalry. any way you spin it, its about lewis and nico. and who might these two be? well im glad you asked:
we are already familiar with sir lewis hamilton:
8 7 time world champion, knighted by the queen of england, mercedes driver, owner of one dog named roscoe, enjoys surfing, fights for equal rights, all around good guy
and our other player, nico rosberg, who i have mentioned a few times:
1 time world champion, ex formula 1 driver for williams and mercedes. from germany but lives in Monaco, essentially a YouTuber, married with two daughters, now a sky sports presenter, was called brittney by the other drivers back in the day because of his hair.
tho this is Current Cool and (mostly) Chilled Out lewis and nico. which is. not the lewis and nico were talking about. nuh uh. at the time of these tales, these two were general pr nightmares and teammates at mercedes. lewis was not yet knighted. they were not nearly as reserved or chilled out At All. and over the course over the four years they were teammates at merc they managed to go from this:
to this:
(yes that is nico throwing his p2 hat at lewis i think this was in 2015 after lewis had just won the championship again. and it wasnt a friendly little toss toss. he wailed it across the room)
and these two. as you might have guessed. good freaking lord. theyre something.
so. we've talked about rivalries. we've briefly touched on charles and max, and lewis and seb, and we've talked about friendships like carlos and lando. lewis and nico put all of them to shame.
again, i will go deeper than this on the other post that is not done yet, but heres what you need to know to understand this season:
-as i said, these two used to be teammates, first in karting when they were kids and then again years later when they both finally made it to f1 at mercedes.
-because they were childhood friends, the lore here runs very very deep. both have said some of the best times in their lives were when they were teenagers trashing hotel rooms, wrestling and eating pizza and vanilla ice cream and kelloggs frosties late at night between karting races
-they were pretty unlikely friends. lewis grew up pretty poor and his dad worked 4 jobs to support his karting, he was bullied and dealt with a lot of racism. nico grew up wealthy as the son of an f1 world champion. both of them were different than the other karting kids (in opposite ways) and this is probably what drew them together
-they were teammates at merc from 2013-2016. this coincided with Peak Merc Dominance (beginning in 2014) and it was man against man from 2014-2016 as they both tried to beat the other in the championship. ultimately, this is what caused their friendship to deteriorate because they both became transfixed on beating eachother. after rosberg wrecked lewis's monaco race in 2014 lewis said that they were no longer friends, and there was also the scene where rosberg THREW his p2 hat at hamilton in the cool down room in texas in 2015 (pictured above), among many many other things (not counting all the times they crashed into eachother) (perhaps on purpose, perhaps not)
-lewis won the championship in 2014 and 2015 and basically, nico refused to be a second driver to lewis and wanted to beat him, he came very close in 2015 and then sacrificed literally everything (as in. stopped sleeping in the same bed as his own wife levels of sacrificing everything) in 2016 to beat him and win the world championship. including his friendship with lewis. he says that this was because winning the championship was his childhood dream. (his dad was also an f1 driver and had won the world championship).
-the championship in 2016 came down to the last race in abu dhabi, and reportedly nico was so nervous beforehand that he couldn't eat anything beforehand except for kellogg frosties, the very same cereal that he and lewis would eat straight out of the box as teens, but now they were hardly on speaking terms and he was battling him for the championship. they were playing all kinds of mind games with eachother at this point. this was the era of f1 where yeah you knew merc would probably win the race but you tuned in to see if nico and lewis would kill eachother on track. nico ended up winning the race and the championship and announced his retirement from the sport a few days later at the fia prize giving ceremony
-since then, lewis basically refuses to say nicos name and is generally awkward about the whole thing, but he and nico reportedly live in the same apartment building in monaco and lewis gets nicos daughters presents at christmas. nico pretty much looks murderous any time anyone suggests that lewis has lost his touch with racing or with the car and has said that in his heart lewis is still his best friend.
-lewis chilled the fuck out after this, complete 180 style. started being a pr dream, stopped calling out other drivers for not following him on twitter, doing activism, all of the good stuff we know him for now. theres one really heartbreaking interview in 2021 where they ask him if hes a better driver than he was in 2016 and he says "yes. and a better teammate."
-why is this important? well. nico as i said is a sky sports presenter and he is going to be at the chinese gp next week. also, you lot have been asking me to talk about them and simply there was no other place to put this.
-also, this has been lewis's worst start to an f1 season in his whole career (18 years). this is the first time that he hasn't had a top 5 finish in the first 4 races. yes, he has already signed with ferrari, but people are still wondering if hes lost his touch with the car, or if the car just kinda sucks. and i think nico is going to shoot some absolutely firey looks over this.
-also theres probably going to be a decent amount of talk about mercedes at the china gp because of all the contract talk going on around mercedes right now, so good to at least be somewhat familiar with the merc lore
and speaking of china! again! i remind you all! i am not watching the chinese gp live because i am being smited by my work schedule! the update will be late! but it will come! trust me! its also going to be an absolutely bonkers weekend! i know i say that every weekend but!! im feeling it in my baby seal boots this time!! does anyone even read this far on the post!! idk anymore!!!!
reguardless, thank you all for watching me loose my mind once again, ill see you all at some point next week :)
guess whos back! back again! its nico rosberg the chinese gp! for the first time since 2019 f1 graces shanghai and let me tell you, it was insane, it was astounding, it was wild, it was astoundingly not really focused on the cars at all! what happened??? quite simply, the paddocked was graced, or perhaps cursed depending on who you are, by the presence of one nico rosberg. what does that have to do with the race? well today is april 28, 2024 and yes its a whole week late but i am back to take you through all the twists and turns (literally!) of the weekend
first off, as i said, the last time f1 raced in china was in 2019 and it was the 1000th f1 gp (affectionately named f1000). and at the time of the 2019 chinese gp:
-sir lewis hamilton only had 5 championship titles (he now has 7)
-max verstappen had only won 5 f1 races (hes won over 50 now)
-yuki tsunoda was racing in f3
-zhou guanyu was racing in f2
-it was lando norris's, alex albon's and george russell's rookie f1 year
-daniel ricciardo was racing for Renault in his first season with them
-pierre gasley was racing for red bull
-it was charles leclerc's third race for ferrari (this is now his 6th year with them)
-toro rosso was still a team
-fernando alonso was retired
-ollie bearman was still in karting (and 13 years old)
-haas was sponsored by rich energy (and still a half decent team)
-carlos sainz and lando norris were teammates
-valtteri bottas was leading the world championship
-daniil kyvat was still on the grid
-alex albon and carlos sainz still had appendixes
-sebastian vettel was still on the grid and racing for ferrari
so its been a hot minute.
it was also a sprint weekend (a short race in addition to the long race). meaning the weekend schedule was:
friday: 1 hour practice session. qualifying for the sprint race.
saturday: sprint race. qualifying for the real race.
sunday: real race
a normal weekend is three practice sessions, qualifying then race. which gives teams more time to run different set ups and test things, especially if they have upgraded their cars for the weekend.
so. its the first time they've raced here in 5 years. oscar, logan, zhou, and yuki have never raced the track at all. its a very technical circuit. and they decided to make it a sprint weekend and limit their practice sessions. sounds smart! boy i hope that doesnt turn out to be a bad idea!
(max verstappen thought it was a very bad idea. and he said so. he told everyone during a press conference that he thought it was "not the smartest thing to do." and well, if you can count on max for one thing its to win. if you can count on him for a second thing its to maxplain. and if you can count on him for a third thing its to be brutally honest in interviews.)
but before we can get into that. the media sillies.
aside from every team posting the "the last time we were in china!" things (which i neatly summarized up at the top thank you very much) there were some interesting gems from this weeks media
alpine posted a video of estie bestie, pierre and jack doohan (the reserve driver) dapping up the admin and well:
they are never beating the twin allegations. also what on earth is the temperature here???? why is oscar in a t shirt and landos wearing like 3 layers?
speaking of mclaren they have a goofy little lego series that they do with lego that lando and oscar voice on instagram and this episode was about wine tunnels and it was very funny and goofy, oscar turned the wind tunnel power too high and lando got blown out of the car
lando also reposted this throwback video from his instagram from the last time that f1 were in china and he got shoved off the track by daniil kyvat
oscar also finally made a tiktok. and then his mom roasted him on twitter:
and then the very long and much awaited mclaren v williams paddle match was announced (unclear if it happened? not sure i dont think it did) and oscar went on the williams team torque podcast, which was appropriately unhinged as everyone expected. they talked about who would survive the zombie apocalypse longest (not at all, just longest) and oscar was voted to die first because of his poor paddle skills, he would try to hit the zombies with his racket and then miss and die.
danny rics made a half quart basket ball shot (it could also be three point i dont know anything about basketball)
and lewis hamilton went racing in tokyo (again!) he did this a few years ago and he had to do it again
pretty much every team posted some variation of the drivers and the tortured poets department ("tortured drivers department" (____ team drivers department"). and also speaking of taylor, in the song imgonnagetyouback, she says "im an aston martin that you drove straight into a ditch" this was perhaps a dig at fernando after a whole bunch of Fernando is Dating Taylor rumors surfaced i think last year (idk where they came from and im too scared to ask)
regardless tho, aston had the opportunity to do the funniest thing and they did:
this was also zhou's home gp. he is the first chinese f1 driver to race in china. he was clearly very excited to welcome all of the other drivers into his country and he reposted pretty much everyone's special helmet reveals onto his instagram story which was very sweet. and he tool valtteri around on a tour (and valtteri did the little k pop finger hearts for some reason??? who allowed this)
speaking of special helmets. the special helmets for china fucked really really hard. normally i dont talk about them too much cause theres too many but these ones fucked so!
zhou's hemlet was inspired by the shanghai underground system:
and then alex albon's helmet was a panda. it was very cool but also slightly terrifying. especially when they showed his front driver cam.
and george and valtteri both had helmets inspired by the year of the dragon:
and silly season. lets remember what this post is actually about for a second and talk about silly season.
-supposedly, lance is going to be announced that he is getting resigned soon. though in some interviews he seems unsure of his future at the team which is odd given his dad literally owns aston martin. people have been speculating if he has a seat for next year at all.
-carlos is reportedly talking to audi, red bull and mercedes. aparently audi has made him an insane offer that red bull cant match.
-also reportedly mercedes has approved a high salary contract in an effort to get max verstappen
and with that out of the way. we can get to the good stuff. practice 1. the only practice session. and most importantly, the commentators.
we knew that nico rosberg was going to be in the paddock this weekend. we knew he was likely going to announce something or host some interviews. but we were NOT expecting him to be in the commentary box the whole weekend with crofty. or at least, i wasnt.
what does that mean? well he was commentating on the cars going vroom with our other commentary bestie (sometimes worstie) crofty. and look. the energy. the vibes. positively absolutely unhinged.
who is nico rosberg? if you need a refresher hes the 2016 f1 world champion. born in germany, raised in monaco, sir lewis hamilton's childhood best friend from karting. the two of them raced at mercedes together from 2013-2016. and unfortunately it was then that their relationship absolutely deteriorated because they were fighting against eachother for the world championship. which meant crashing, playing mind games, being generally bad teammates and insane. nico finally beat lewis in 2016 and then immediately announced his retirement. nico is seemingly over the falling out they had and talks about lewis every chance he gets. lewis basically goes out of his way to avoid saying nicos name. but they live in the same apartment building.
now, thats who he is, not necessarily how he acts. he gives zero shits. perhaps negative shits. the field in which he grows his fucks is barren and has been barren for perhaps ever. he is a sky sports presenter purely when he feels like it and already has a shit load of money so he doesnt really need the paycheck at all. meaning he can kinda say whatever he wants. and he does. he is also the number one lewis hamilton fan. he actively cheers him on in the commentary box on live tv.
nico rosberg, if he had been on tumblr back in the day, would have been the one to edit the infamous john green cock post. that is the exact energy he has.
anyway. all this to say that nico is an absolute ball of sass. he also curses people. earlier on this post we talked about the lewis hamilton thirst trap selfie curse. the nico rosberg curse is similar. if he posts a picture (usually selfie) of a team or a driver or someone on the grid is visible in the background then they usually do bad. same thing if he throws his support behind someone when hes commentating or interviewing. they usually somehow very inevitably flop.
you might be wondering, is this really real? well. it was real enough for mclaren to post this at the belgian gp last year:
so! who did nico curse this weekend? keep reading to find out! youve already gotten this far, you might as well keep going :)
is he a reliable narrator? absolutely not. not at all. hes the textbook definition of an unreliable narrator. there are several theories floating around that hes just starting to say random weird shit to get lewis to talk to him again and absolutely fabricating the truth
the meme of nico rosberg this weekend was basically: he showed up to his ex's (lewis hamilton's) workplace, cheered for him on live tv, called bs on several people, served massive amounts of cunt, actually gave very good insight onto the cars and what the hell was happening and then left.
(and here is the part where i interject my opinion here. by all accounts nico was a god awful teammate to lewis when they were fighting for the championship, theres been hints that lewis was also not the best, but most of the blame seems to fall on nico. we know nicos clearly over it and trying to move on with his life. lewis barely talks about it. outside of f1, theyre both pretty private people so basically we dont really know where they stand with eachother and were only getting nicos insane (and probably at least a little unreliable) side of the story. this all being said, clearly it was a hard time for the both of them. if lewis does not want to talk about the whole ordeal or acknowledge nicos presence, he does not have to. it is entirely his own business. personally, i dont think that lewis owes him anything. bottom line is that he basically got fucked over and betrayed by his best friend and hes totally within his right to not want to talk about the whole thing or publicly apologize to him when the whole thing was already in the spotlight and exaggerated by the media when it was happening. and should nico be talking about their shred past this much when lewis clearly is uncomfortable about it? probably not in my opinion. but that is not the point of this post. im just reporting what happened this weekend and that was that nico once again ran his mouth about lewis hamilton and lewis ignored him)
anyway. back to practice 1. nothing overly interesting happened, it was mostly just nico and crofty bantering but it was hilarious so i am going to include it.
nicos sass was evident from the exact second he started speaking. barely 6 minutes into practice and he had already mentioned lewis hamilton twice (entirely unprompted and unnecessarily) and he had rattled off lewis's 2007 race stats. as in. oh that put a gravel trap in the corner where lewis lost his championship in 2007.
they talked about fernando alonso signing an extension at aston. nico was quick to point out that fernando said it was "probably" his last contract not "definitely." and then crofty brought up the fact that fernando's team says that physically, Fernando is 10 years younger than his age. nico was terribly unimpressed by this statement, saying "let’s remember that team fernando are good at spinning the truth and exaggerating, so take that with a pinch of salt."
nico had very much to say about everyone's tire strategy. because, lets remember that despite his insane amounts of sass, he does actually know what he is talking about. he was a world champion and he knows a whole fuckton about engineering and the cars and really throughout the weekend was able to explain some incredibly complex stuff in very simple terms. im not 100% sure, but i think crofty and martin brundle who are usually in the commentary box are not drivers. is it was really cool to hear someone explain what was happening who actually knew what was happening and could explain the exact intention behind certain parts, why specific things were bad, etc. which is not normally something that we get to hear. sometimes they will have drivers come sit in the commentary box, but not for a whole weekend and none as articulate as nico.
but the tire strategy. he shitted on a lot of people's tire strategy, especially ferrari, who started the session on the soft tires. which is a weird decision because at the start of a session the track is not wam or broken in and people generally save the softs for the end when the set up is tweaked and the track is good and broken in to practice a few qualifying laps. and he also based mercs strategy cause quite oppositely they were on hards the whole time and didnt practice one single qualifying lap.
the most interesting thing to happen during practice 1 was that the grass lit on fire.
yes you heard that right.
the grass. lit on. fire.
down by turn 7, a huge patch of grass caught on fire. the reason? well our trusty commentators had this to say:
"how do you think that happened?”
“i do not even want to speculate on how that happened”
(turns out it was sparks from the titanium skid blocks on the bottom of the car getting blown by the wind and igniting the grass)
they red flagged the session to put out the (rapidly burning) grass. which was bad news for everyone cause their one and only practice session got cut even shorter.
reguardless. nico and crofty continued spitting out gems like:
“you’re the cleverest man i know nico”
“you must not know very many people”
and then nico started to talk about the french civil war (alpine). which was interesting considering he was involved in a civil war of his own back in the day.
alpine brought an upgrade to their car this weekend. well. just one car. esteban's car. because he has been driving better than pierre (pierre, for context, as of fp1 had not gotten out of q1 of qualifying once, scored any points or had even one overtake the whole season thus far, which is unfortunate cause we know he can drive hes just in a shitbox car).
why give it to just one driver? sometimes its done that way to compare the two cars to see what's working. but i think that this was because alpine had planned the update for miami but pushed really hard to get everything ready for china, so they could only get it onto one car
(danny rics also had a new chassis and haas had an upgrade and i think so did aston martin?)
nico audibly shuddered at the mention of only one driver getting an upgrade and said that it is usually a "political nightmare" when that happens, especially if it hasn't been talked about before the season starts. which sounded eerily like a flashback to his own great brocedes civil war with lewis. worry not my friends, there were more comments about this to come.
all in all the upgrade went decently for estie bestie, who finished in seventh. pierre, meanwhile, finished practice in 20th. and had this radio:
"guys this is not acceptable. i haven't learned anything. absolutely nothing."
also unhappy with his car, unsurprisingly, was one sir lewis hamilton. who at one point went on the radio and said "the car is really bad mate."
and if youre wondering if nico had something to say about this, well, he did: "i would like some more specifics other than just bad. that doesnt tell the engineers too much."
there was also something someone said about one of the braking zones being comparable to a "warm cuddly teddy bear." and man, i often wish that there is a camera in the commentary box, but i especially wished for one then so that i could see nico's face as he said "i have no idea how you managed to compare a teddy bear to a breaking zone"
they also discussed red bulls strategy of examining ferrari's tire degradation in australia (?) (it might have been japan but i have australia written so just know that it is One of those two) to help them with their tire deg in china. nico, unsurprisingly, found this utterly preposterous because australia has the Exact Opposite tire deg as china (apparently) and he said "i think thats a load of rubbish"
crofty laughed and said "nico rosberg everyone. hes here all weekend."
and boy, was he.
aside from the antics. you will never guess who was p1 in practice 1.
go ahead. wager a guess.
if you guessed max verstappen you would be wrong.
if you guessed oscar piastri you would also be wrong.
if you guessed pierre gasley i am concerned cause i already said he came in p20.
it was none other than LANCE STROLL. pulling out a p1. from who knows where. ariana what are you doing here Indeed.
though it was highly thought that red bull was sandbagging once again. and lando was on an absolute flyer of a lap until he went off the track and had to abandon the lap and didnt get to try again.
nico said that lando stood out to him. as did aston martin. we will see if one of them gets the curse.
in the meantime. sprint qualifying
it was bonkers. it was insanity. it had me on the edge of my seat. (well not really, i was sitting on the floor). and, most importantly, it was raining.
this is the first time this year that we have had some real rain during a session. and boy oh boy, nico was excited. audibly excited. i could practically hear him tapping his feet in excitement. but the rain wasnt quite there yet. it was Coming. Looming, even.
q1 was relatively chill. as chill as it possibly could be with rain looming in the distance on a track that had been recently resurfaced, which would make it even slipperier.
due to the rain threat, everyone wasted no time getting out and starting to set laps. sometimes they take their sweet ass time, not today.
nico was continually impressed as he watched lando split the red bulls with his q1 time, saying that "i got my first win here (in china) maybe he will too!!" nico, sir, this is a lot of talking about lando. hopefully you are not cursing him!
then they kept cutting to alex's (mildly horrifying) onboard camera:
and crofty of course had to ask the burning question that we were all thinking: “nico rosberg would you have been seen in a panda helmet in your glorious years in f1?”
and nico, in true nico fashion said: “no i would not but it is quite cool”
yuki ended up having some form of car problems and got out in q1, all the way down in 19th place. also out in q1 were the other predictable people, williams and alpine.
logan tried to say during the sprint that "gasley impeded me!" and when they cut to the replay nico immediately called bs saying "no he didnt! oh come on! seriously!" and race control seemed to agree with him cause no one got a penalty.
most interestingly was at the very end of q1 when the grass lit on fire again:
this naturally delayed the start of q2 a little. which gave us just enough time for nico to yap more. this time about daniel ricciardo. who! for the first time this year was set to out qualify his teammate because he had gotten through to q2 when yuki had not. and nico had nothing but praise for him: “can we praise daniel ricciardo he’s half a second up his teammate” he is doing exactly what he is supposed to be doing!
it was also at this point that the rain start time started to get projected for about 14 minutes from then, perfectly between q2 and q3, which nico thought was "perfect!" seriously. he sounded like he was jumping out of his seat with excitement.
meanwhile, ted kravitz from the pit lane came on to say he was going to investigate the grass fire part two, electric boogaloo. everyone agreed that it was strange the grass had lit on fire again, especially after it had rained recently. ted went as far as to say "is there something about the chinese grass that makes it more flammable?"
while ted tried to consult free range grass, there was a race in the pitlane to get out onto the track first. "race in the pit lane at 5kph!" once again, mr rosberg was bouncing in his seat at the rapidly unfolding chaos.
why were they racing in the pitlane? well! with the threat of rain, everyone wanted to be first on the track to have the most amount of Dry Track Time so they can potentially get in more than one fast lap.
well. everyone except for max, lewis and checo were racing to exit the pit lane. the three of them were still in the garage, with their tire blankets on. this is a gamble. because yes, they will get out later onto the track, but their tires will be warmer, meaning it will take them less time to heat up their tires and they can get fast laps more quickly than everyone else. but, if it starts to rain, they could be at a disadvantage for not getting out faster.
meanwhile. lando norris was on his first flying lap of the session. and nico was taking us through it. everytime he took us through a lap it was incredible, you really got a feel for what the driver was doing, what they were supposed to be doing and where the mistakes were. so i have very painstakingly transcribed his comments for all of you. youre welcome:
"uh here we go! so lando needs to be careful with traffic there (people coming out of the pit lane). um, yeah. into turn 1. (lando accelerates) whooooaaaa! yeah just maximum attack there, bottoming into those bumps, and its such a long corner and you need to hit that apex at the very end where he is now in order to be well positioned for the second part and then all the way out, out to the outside part. and its such a long long turning exit where the rear is always on the edge its very unusual um corners here in this track. braking, careful with the wind from the back there! and he nailed it! he hit that apex beautifully. straight line the steering wheel out there, try and straighten out and here the fastest corners of the track now. here are the fastest corners of the track now this part should be flat out and this first one, bit of sparks to put some more fire in the grass! and then flowing into the next one here, downshifting a little bit and staying all the way to the outside to catch a nice run into this next slower part. and now again oversteering on the exit there, watch out for the gravel on the exit! and here again now going into a very slow chicane, um, important to stay left out of here so you can get a nice run in this next one cause now youre going onto the longest straight, you know. oh! a big snap oversteer there from lando, that can cost time you know cause you will have lifted a little bit and now you are carrying that little bit of a loss of speed through the whole straight. so that was a little bit of a loss there, not ideall for lando. now here (on the straight) youve got the wind from the front but still nailing that braking point, i think he was a little bit careful there actually, it didnt feel like an abolsute hit. bit careful there which makes sense cause if you lock up youre gone. um, and now coming into the last corner, braking softly, taking a lot of speed in and getting on the power quite late because the start finish line comes very soon so the exit is not that important here."
which is so unbelievably detailed. he just draws you in and makes it Interesting. but not as interesting as he made sir lewis hamiltons laps (dont worry dear reader, that is coming up shortly)
everyone was doing pretty much as expected, with the exception of perhaps sauber who was in front of mercedes unexpectedly (nico was quick to point out that "mercedes is struggling")
meanwhile. the rain. it was looming. it was nearly upon the track.
"ive just put my hand out the commentary box door and it is raining and its getting heavier," said one crofty. and then it was officially declared a wet track halfway through george's second flying lap. because the rain was picking up and people were not on wet tires, several people had to abandon any efforts to make faster lap times, meaning that george, nico, kevin, daniel and lance were all out in q2.
and then we had q3. omg. y'all aint ready.
everyone flew out of the pits on their intermediate tires (cross between wet and dry tires) and according to crofty it was "bambi on ice skates. a young bambi on ice skates. absolute treachery." which was proven by charles leclerc, who went into the barriers and sustained a little bit of front wing damage, but was able to keep it together
and boy, was it an interesting session.
first, track limits were out the fucking window. everyone was slip sliding everywhere and going off the track and having to abandon their laps left right and center. (because during qualifying you have to stay in the lines of the track)
max had two lap times deleted. lando had one. zhou had one. it was becoming clear that it was incredibly hard to stay On the track due to the conditions.
but not for one sir lewis hamilton, who, in the midst of the absolute mess of the last 3 minutes of q3, managed to cinch provisional pole position. and then lando went faster! he cinched poll! until it was deleted for track limits!!! which meant lewis was back on poll for the first time since hungary 2023.
but! just as he was just about to celebrate! landos lap was reinstated! he was back on poll position!! which meant lewis was back to p2!!
"what on earth is going on!" said nico rosberg, speaking all of our minds. "oh my goodness there there will be discussion around that one! we need to see what exactly happened on that lap. but phenomenal job from lando on that lap time! look! hes 1.3 seconds off (ahead of everyone else). cause already for me, like, lewis's lap was the lap of a seven time world champion."
so, aside from nicos gushing over lewis, what on earth happened there? why was landos lap time deleted and then reinstated?
well, crofty surmised that basically. on lando's second to last lap his lap got deleted for track limits in the last corner. when that happens they also delete your next lap because it is seen as getting an advantage for the next lap cause you cut the last corner to accelerate faster into the next lap. however. the team argued back that well its fucking raining so No One would get an advantage from that.
mr nico though, called absolute bs on that saying:
"my summary is. there is gravel there! we dont even need to have this discussion! cause like! its gravel there! you cant go faster on gravel! he was on the gravel! so, um, if it really is that corner that is being debated, cmon, he did a super awesome job and uh, fully deserved (pole position)"
which left us with the following starting positions for the sprint race:
p1: lando norris
p2: sir lewis hamilton
p3: fernando alonso
p4: max verstappen
p5: carlos sainz
p6: checo perez
p7: charles leclerc
p8: oscar piastri
p9: valtteri bottas
p10: zhou guanyu
p11: george russell
p12: kevin magnussen
p13: nico hulkenberg
p14: daniel ricciardo
p15: lance stroll
p16: pierre gasley
p17: esteban ocon
p18: alex albon
p19: yuki tsunoda
p20: logan sargeant
of course though, nico couldn't pass up the opportunity to gush over lewis one last time saying that "he did a magical lap there. which is typical lewis in those conditions as well"
nico then Threatened everyone watching, saying "you better wake up for this one!" (the sprint race was at a really early hour in england. it was at 11pm for me, and originally i had intended to not watch it live, but i took nicos threat to heart and decided to watch it live. and subject my mom to it as well. she was a bit confused about who nico was and kept calling him "lewis's friend" but it was good fun
the sprint race was cold. i think it was lando who struggled to get going, putting down some rubber, which nico said was a very bad sign. nico explained the importance of doing burn outs before getting to the grid on the formation lap. “when you’re in second place like lewis you wait for the first driver a little to have them sit longer” so that you have a bit more heat in your tires than them when the race starts. how does he know this? probably because this was something that he pulled back in the day.
the lights went out. away they went.
and nico immediately started to yap about lewis.
lewis had a better start than lando and immediately into turn one, lewis basically shoved lando off the track, knocking him down to p7 as lewis took the lead.
and just like that! pam pam kazam! lando became the first victim of the nico rosberg curse that weekend.
people of course related this to 2021 sochi, the race lando almost won but didnt because he didnt box for intermediates:
lando, always the chronically online bastard, of course liked it as well.
and nico approved of the hijinks: "wow what a smart move from lewis there!!!” (remember this, my dear readers) essentially, lewis didnt even try to really hit the apex of the turn and pushed lando towards the edge of the track.
and so lewis was out in front. leading a race for the first time in awhile. with nico in the commentary box, respectively losing his mind.
but nico did briefly take. break from loosing his mind over lewis to talk about max verstappen, who was down in third position behind fernando alonso. notably, he hadn't overtaken him yet by lap three. and actually, carlos was staring to battle with max which if you know anything about max you know that that is highly uncharacteristic.
so nico said what we were all thinking once again: "can we just say that max looks like he’s struggling what’s going on”
what was going on was perhaps a battery issue or even that the car was in the wrong mode. either way, it prolonged lewis's lead out in the front. and a certain someone one was very pleased with this:
“i’m impressed with lewis so far i was not expecting him to hold on this long with that car he could get the win today” yeah yeah. nico is impressed with lewis. fork found in kitchen. we have all seen it before.
"fernando seems to be struggling to follow lewis on those fast corners” when i tell you we could hear him beaming through the tv. please remember, lewis is in a fucking shit box of a mercedes. it Hardly works.
"it looks to me like we have a lewis who is very very comfortable here today” yes yes, you are right nico, we did. i cant find the clip but i think it was in a post race interview lewis was saying that being out in front leading a race again gave him hope again that he still had it in him, which was both beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.
and it was about to get more heartbreaking because max was catching up to fernando who was by lap 7, in the words of crofty “the most passive of sitting ducks for red bull”
max passed him not too long after.
crofty at this point just kind of decided to go along with nico and said “hamilton has his old foe behind him” and i dont have it written down but i think it was round here where nico said "cmon lewis! just keep him behind today!"
lewis meanwhile could not hear the cheering fest that was happening in the commentary box. mostly because the drivers cant hear the commentary box. but also because he was having a regular fight with his car.
lets me remind you all briefly that mercedes is in the midst of their shit arc. theyre not doing hot at all. theyre behind mclaren in the championship. lewis has not finished in the top 5 so far all season. george is ahead of him in the championship.
and in case you needed more proof, here is lewis having absolutely no faith in mercedes recently:
but anyway. the sprint. it was lap 8 and max was approaching him quickly. and lewis, of course, had a problem.
“this thing won’t turn in the low speed corners!”
ah yes. that would be the problem.
and then he went wide! costing him precious milliseconds that allowed max to gain on him more! (nico, as you could guess, was disappointed)
bono, hamilton's engineer, came on the radio and said "verstappen behind" which was, you know, painfully obvious at that point. Hamilton thought so as well because he said “leave it to me man i can see him”
and well. even though he did see him, max still passed lewis on lap 9.
nico, of course, had things to say on this.
"he could have closed the door properly there’s no reason why not” as in, given max more of a fight. “pity the let him through so easily”
reguardless of how max was able to get past, he still got past. and right off the mark his pace out in front was insane. or at least, that was what nico thought on lap 11: "can i just say that pace from max is insane? hes 1.6 seconds ahead of everyone like what is going on”
and that lead would only extend as the race went on.
so we had max leading, then lewis, fernando, carlos, checo and charles. fernando, carlos, checo and charles were all quite close to eachother and had formed a drs train and were all battling it out for third.
many things were happening. checo had no traction ("believe me," crofty said, even though checo could not hear him "no one else does either") and fernando alonso was under pressure. because if one of them got past him, they were all getting past him.
crofty found it incredibly hard to believe that fernando alonso could feel pressure.
and then he did feel pressure when on lap 16 carlos finally passed him. and while the two of them were battling, checo swooped in on the inside and passed both carlos and fernando, taking third position. meanwhile, charles passed fernando.
it was then revealed that charles was able to pass fernando mostly because fernando got a tire puncture while trying to keep carlos behind him.
“i told you fernando was feeling some pressure!” nico said in a fantastic gotcha! moment to crofty
two laps later, and one lap before the end of the race, fernando had to retire the car.
meanwhile! back at ferrari! carlos shoved charles off the track. literally. charles had a very appropriate reaction which was "what the fuck?" and then, later "lets speak. we are fighting more...hes fighting more me than the others, but anyway."
the footage was replayed. and nico, who as we know, has a fair amount of experience in teammate shenanigans, originally said that it was not deserving of a penalty cause it was just racing. and then he rewatched the footage and said "actually that might be worthy of a penalty. it reminds me of my time with lewis.”
but while we waited for that to get reviewed by the stewards, max won, lewis came second and then checo came in third. lando apologized to his team over the radio for bongling the race. nico said that that was good of lando to do because he had screwed up in the first lap. and then, he seemingly remembered the curse that he can inflict upon people and called lando a "champion of the future" and said his driving the day before had been "magical"
crofty said that if lando was indeed the next nico rosberg (and lando did once jokingly day that "rosberg retired after his first championship, im going to retire after my first win") "he’s going to get it (his first win) imola cause that will be his 111th gp” (this came back later)
max and checo said the same stuff they usually do in their post interviews so we are instead going to talk about lewis who was excited! and the crowd was excited! everyone was excited! and he said that this was the “best result i’ve had in a long time” though he attributed most of it to the wet qualifying conditions because they were definitely not faster than the mclarens.
and you might be wondering what happened between the two ferraris. well. race control decided that there would be no penalty for carlos for nearly driving charles off.
one person was outraged about this. and if you guessed that that person was nico rosberg you would be correct!
“that’s a bit inconsistent considering 8 years ago” i got a penalty for that!, nico said.
crofty of course egged him on: “a bit miffed on that one?”
“that’s not fair!”
and once they were done, nico put the final nail in the coffin, saying "i would like to now leave and go to ferrari because that wouldd be incredible to hear that engineering meeting when those two drivers meet”
(i believe that it was in the post sprint interviews that we got this photo of carlos, which got memed with the caption, "what are they going to do? fire me??")
and nico didnt get to go to the meeting (for obvious reasons) but he did run into nicolas todt (who i believe is charles's manager?) and notoriously Refuses to talk to sky sports.
however, nico rosberg has what is essentially paddock immunity and he can get anyone and everyone to talk to him. no one seems to be immune. (except lewis but hes well within his right to be). and todt was no exception:
now i could transcribe what they said here. but its better for you to just watch it yourself.
(nicos jacket, btw, in case you are wondering, is like 2000 euros from louis vuitton. he really came to slay and also stunt on all the usual sky sports people in their classic workwear)
remarkably though. we are not done. because we still have a race. the real race. the main event. the real deal.
so lets go through qualifying
(just so you all know. usually i will watch on my laptop and take notes on my phone, but alas this weekend was a little insane. this weekend i watched qualifying on a bus. and i took notes by hand in a notebook. painstakingly. only for me to forget the notebook at work on a friday. so i had to rewatch it again. sorry if this part isn't as good because im trying to pause this as few times as possible)
now this was unusual because I Think last season they did sprint qualifying, race qualifying, sprint, race and this year they did sprint qualifying, sprint, race qualifying, race. this meant that teams had to pretty drastically change their set ups a little to get back into Qualifying Mode.
but! once again nico was back in the box. but he was Not allowed to talk about the sprint race (much to his general disappointment) because, according to crofty, "some of you getting up early might not have seen it"
nico was annoyed about this because "its very difficult for me because i am looking at all of these drivers and very excited about adding something that happened in this morning's sprint race in my commentary, but i am not allowed to talk about it?"
and crofty, well, gave a very crofty answer. "well you see some people back in the uk might just be getting out of bed now. unlike you they are not up with the larks every single day and i dont want to spoil any highlights for them if they might have set their sky queue to record the sprint race so lets try not to spoil it for them"
aside from that once again, people were having a proper race in the pits. some people were waiting in the "classic british queuing system," some people (like nico hulkenberg) were just plowing through eachother. this happened for all the sections of qualifying. before q2 it got so bad that crofty said "this is formula 1, nico. it is about cars going fast, not stopping in the pitlane and forming an orderly queue." again, there was a slight threat of rain.
all of that out of the way. q1. it was slightly uninteresting, it was pretty darn standard as far as q1s go. except for the fact that it wasnt because none other than sir lewis hamilton managed to get out in q1.
crofty chose absolute violence and let nico take us through the back end of lewis's last flying lap. lets hear what he had to say:
"and here is the pressure moment now for lewis trying to get out of the drop zone, lets hope he doesnt break too late with the tailwind from the back! *lewis brakes too late with the tailwind from the back* and he did! he did exactly like zhou he went off the road even there! that is going to cost definitely some time but i think he was up far enough to still make it through comfortably."
hamilton crossed the line 12th fastest. then danny rics went 9th fastest. lance stroll went 8th fastest. and then george went 5th fastest, pushing hamilton into 15th spot and at risk of getting knocked out, with pierre gasley, Esteban ocon and charles leclerc still on their last flying lap (and set to knock lewis out). pierre gasley then went 9th fastest, effectively knocking lewis out of qualifying. and man. it must hurt to get knocked out of qualifying by an alpine, thats all i gotta say. even esteban ocon managed to get out of q1!
our lovely sir lewis hamilton was set to start the race in p18.
"wow," nico said. "that is painful. that is seriously painful. i mean in 18th position, lewis. i mean though honestly, you know the wind is coming from the back there, hes had a great lap until then, it was really unnecessary to push the limit there so much for lewis. you know, 7 time world champion, thats a mistake that probably should be avoidable."
yes, it probably should have been. but nico did yap about him incredibly yesterday, so perhaps, he got the nico rosberg curse.
nico then continued his psychic reading of lewis's car:
"and he also had the brake balance too far forward, just lost so much time there. i mean, lost at least 4 tenths in that moment which would have easily put him through, i mean easily! what a disaster."
"saph," you might be asking. "surely nico is saying this much about people other than lewis?" not really no. if he was i would be writing about it.
aside from lewis, the people who usually struggled were struggling, like logan sergeant who was having massive amounts of understeer. and according to nico "he was everywhere apart from on the ideal line. in two subsequent corners." he also took a little spin on one of his flyers. he got out in q1.
we got some photos of logan sargeant walking down the pit lane after the end of q1, his hair blowing in the breeze. and people memed it, comparing him to none other than our friend nico rosberg:
(sorry i dont have the source for this, someone sent it to me)
yuki was having problems with his drs, which was not working and then working. he claimed that something must be going on with the car because his lap was "pretty good" he also got out in q1.
as did kevin magnussen and zhou guanyu (much to everyones disappointment)
q2 was also a tad bonkers because of one man called carlos sainz jr. perhaps you have heard of him.
well. the barrier at the final turn definitely has.
coming around the final corner with about 7 minutes left in q2, carlos spun out in the gravel trap and ping ponged across the track to bounce off the barriers.
crofty was quick to say right away "is there damage on that ferrari and has he kept the engine on?"
the yellow flag quickly turned into a red flag, because clearly carlos had not kept the engine on and that meant they would need to recover the car. he was fine, but his car was not and he was out of qualifying.
or was he......
nico said "it looks like that car is in one piece and it looks like he might be trying to get it going again."
and that was exactly what carlos did. he got the car going again. and if ferrari can fix the car, he can continue the session. the front wing was totally snapped and as nico pointed out, his tires were totally wrecked and flat spotted (which makes the car hard to drive because you are bouncing so much in the cockpit) but the steering seemed square (he hadn't fucked up the tire alignment)
there was a red flag, which would help ferrari immensely, because the time was stopped for them to clear debris. nico was very highly convinced that he was going to be able to get going again.
while we waited for carlos's car to get fixed, nico took the opportunity to shade some people, calling "freddy" vasseur (the team principal of ferrari) "a proper racer at heart, and that is what everyone loves about [him]. hes not a businessman, hes just a pure racer" which might as well have been a direct call out to people like, idk, lets say toto wolff.
nico also said that he "likes his dark humor and joking around" (remember that this guy looks like a mob boss and has the stupidest most french accent ive ever heard) "didn't he try to shove carlos's face into his birthday cake? he just underestimated the strength of a formula 1 drivers neck. cause carlos locked up instantly."
this, of course, is what nico was talking about:
and what time was it now? time for the restart of qualifying??? no!! it was time for nico to do another psychic reading of lewis's car!
ted came on the radio to say that mercedes had been trying to fix the car in the low and medium speed corners and had changed the set up to reflect that and asked if that would have caused hamiltons lock up in his flying lap.
"no" nico said, putting on his engineering hat. "they had too much understeer this morning in the race on lewis's car in the slow speed corners so what they would have done is soften the front up a bit which actually would have helped with that braking problem with the front lock up so it will not have been because of a set up change it was just underestimating on lewis's behalf with the wind coming from behind."
he wasnt done wearing his engineering hat though. once the restart happened, he took us through george's braking techniques:
"but now its all about tire management, yeah? youre always watching front temperature, rear temperature and how do you bring the front temperature up? you put the brake balance far forwards and you do it from inside so you brake very very hard as hard as you can and you build the temperature up from inside so from the brakes is how you build the temperature into the tire up, less so by driving and swirling and things like that, of course that force is also important for the surface especially. you want to get the whole surface prepared and softened up but the bulk temperature is what is important and you build that up from the inside so he is going to be building that up with brake balance and everything and especially on the rear you need to take it easy on the traction now hes going to be very careful on the exit from the corners cause you dont want to build up load on the rear tires case the rear is always going to be very quick to come up on temperature and you want to start with them right at the bottom of the window when you start the lap."
"like cooking your dinner!" crofty said, just wanting to be included.
nico went along with it. "its pasta aldente!"
now idk about you. but i know nothing about f1 tire temp. and i feel like i kinda get it now. and lets also remember that english isn't nicos first or even third language.
but enough engineering because sir lewis hamilton was being interviewed about his starting position.
"it is what it is," lewis said. he said that he and george have different set ups on the car. "18 is pretty bad. when i was making the set up changes i was like, it cant get any worse. and then it did!" *laughing*
unbothered king once again.
in opposition, and also as to be expected, nico was very bothered.
"lewis always tends to say that he and george has such different car set ups and that is always his excuse, and george will say 'last time i checked the cars are pretty similar' and hes gone again for that, which is quite interesting"
in case you were wondering, here has been a running list of lewis's excuses as to why george is doing better than him:
bahrain: set up risks
saudi arabia: return of the bouncing: the bouncening
australia: lest confident ive ever felt in the car
japan: i couldn't turn
shanghai: ive never had so much understeer in my life
aside from that:
daniel ricciardo though managed to out qualify yuki for the second time this weekend and for the second time all season.
nico was impressed: "yeah lets praise him! at this point he is doing exactly what he needs to do now which is clearly beat tsunoda and he has been doing that the whole weekend now. so that has been a very positive progress" he did though get out in q2.
as did, ocon, albon and gasley. lance stroll also got out in q2 by .069 of a second.
and aston martin was not thrilled about this. because guess who was not out in q2? thats right, carlos sainz. guess who also had a crash and turned off their engine? also carlos sainz.
so aston complained about it:
this complaint was dismissed because aparently the article doesnt apply if the car is able to get going again.
heading into q3 nico was back on his bs, this time reading fan signs. one that said "we just got married. this is our honeymoon. watching the formula 1 race. that is awesome."
crofty of course then had to ask: "did you spend your honeymoon at a race track?"
nico almost sounded insulted. "no. no i didnt." but then again, i am decently certain that he got married in the thick of his feud with lewis.
but back to the racing. max was chasing his 6th consecutive pole position. this would have been the first time since lewis hamilton did it in the back end of 2016 and into 2017. (nico was exited to appear in this statistic btw) and he was also looking to get the first five consecutive poles in a season, which hadn't happened since mika hakkinen did it in the opening of the 1999 season. and! red bull was looking to get their 100th pole as a team. and well. hes max verstappen. of course he got pole.
so everyone was racing for p2. and checo perez won that race, with fernando alonso coming in third. though it was very close between him, mclaren and ferrari.
mercedes once again didnt do well. with george in 8th only a tenth and a half off of a haas. "so strange how the incredible mercedes team struggles to understand these new regulations," nico said
and with that, the standings for the race were as follows:
p1: max verstappen
p2: checo perez
p3: fernando alonso
p4: lando norris
p5: oscar piastri
p6: charles leclerc
p7: carlos sainz
p8: george russell
p9: nico hulkenberg
p10: valtteri bottas
p11: lance stroll
p12: daniel ricciardo
p13: esteban ocon
p14: alex albon
p15: pierre gasley
p16: zhou guanyu
p17: kevin magnussen
p18: sir lewis hamilton
p19: yuki tsunoda
p20: logan sargeant
onwards and upwards to the race
once again, crofty and nico rosberg were in the box. and we all tuned into the madness once again.
well, i did not tune in live on account of the fact that the race was at three in the morning. but i did watch a good chunk of it in an unlikely place after i finished my work trip and was waiting for my train. and if you guessed that that place was bryant park, new york city, well you would be correct:
and if you ever for some reason get the chance to watch an f1 race in bryant park, the vibes are insanely off the charts. and if you happened to be in bryant park and saw some lunatic watching an f1 race, well, that was probably me.
anyway. is anyone even reading this anymore?
nico started off by telling everyone that "the secret to winning is taking care of your tires” and boy. did he turn out to be right.
lights out. away they went.
immediately fernando was able to pass perez at turn 1, taking p2.
down at the very back of the grid, lewis was already loosing positions because someone at Mercedes thought that it would be a good idea to put him on soft tires. over the radio, lewis said "im making no ground with this tire" and nico, who had loudly voiced before the race that lewis could absolutely work his way up from the back because hes lewis hamilton, said "oh thats not good"
despite this, hamilton put the pedal to the metal and was able to pass both zhou and kevin and was up into 17th by lap 4.
back in the front, fernando was pushing his tires very hard. perhaps too hard. definitely too hard. because perez was able to pass him on lap 5, retaking p2.
meanwhile, charles got revenge on carlos for his move in the sprint the day before by pushing carlos off the track in turn 1.
"did the meeting fred had with them go in one ear and out the other?” crofty asked.
“appears so, i’m enjoying it” nico responded.
nico then continued to be a little shit when a few laps later pierre shouted over the radio that alex albon had "pushed me wide! he just ran me off the track!”
"and that," crofty said. "looked very very similar to sainz's move on his teammate charles leclerc the other day, which he didnt get a penalty for."
"no," nico said. "thats different. im not sure actually now."
"you know," crofty said "the one down at the hairpin? where you got the penalty once and thought that it was a bit wrong that carlos got left off?"
"yeah i dont think it was comparable," nico said. we stan a king calling bs.
lando had meanwhile passed fernando, who really clearly wrecked his tires at the beginning, for third.
hamilton was finally put out of his soft tire misery on lap 10 when he was finally allowed to pit.
pierre also pitted on lap 13 but had a disaster pit stop! the tire wasnt attached correctly and hit one of his mechanics. the mechanic was alright and they were able to get everything in working order again, but it took far longer than they wanted to.
during all of this. lando was still up in p3. and nico was still continually impressed with him. he was clearly feeling bad about the curse that he had inflicted upon lando during the sprint.
red bull did a double stack pit on lap 14, leaving lando in the lead!
by lap 16 nico had decided that no one had mentioned lewis hamilton in awhile and that needed to change so he loudly announced “let’s talk about lewis hamilton a little” but was interrupted by none other than lewis's radio saying "i can’t even catch him (ocon) mate this car is too slow” and nico audibly became excited, saying “that is what i was going to say”
nicos fangirling was interrupted by charles's radio, where his engineer asked him if he was happy with plan d. which people took to mean a one stop. which could work because charles was managing his tires well.
also managing his tires well was lando norris, who was still leading the race and also likely on a one stop. but, max verstappen was fast approaching him and as crofty said: i don’t want to spoil this but if we were writing the manuscript i think max will pass him halfway down the straight” on lap 20.
and low and behold. that is exactly what happened.
nico though was still impressed with lando. and he said that he bet lando would finish p2.
and then things got Interesting. with a capital I.
lap 21. valtteri bottas went off the track into the runoff area at turn 11. his engine was gone.
this was following nico saying that the saubers had been looking goof that weekend. another victim of the curse.
immediately a yellow flag.
then a few seconds later a virtual safety car on lap 22.
everyone started to pit, except lando who was really pissed that he missed the pit lane entry and mclaren didnt call him in.
luckily for him though, he is able to pit on the next lap because there is still a virtual safety car on account of the fact that bottle's car is probably stuck in gear and they cant get it into neutral to move it. they also had seemingly every marshal touching the car to try and move it:
then on lap 24 they call a full safety car.
red bull do another double stack cause their lead gets destroyed by the safety car (because all of the cars slow down to catch up to eachother)
fernando alonso finally pits and its to put on soft tires. which is an odd choice. but ted calls it "just mouth watering"
and then pretty much everyone else who hadn't pitted comes in to pit.
meanwhile, nico, king of giving zero fucks, decided to call out the whole safety car procedure: “idk if the fia optimally managed that because there were like three different decisions there”
and honestly? good for him for calling them out on this. because the whole flagging procedure was already called out in australia when george got stuck in the middle of the track on the last lap and they refused to red flag it.
at the end of the safety car, the standings were as follows:
and everyone, apart from fernando and daniel, were going to try and get to the end of the race on their current tires.
the safety car ended on lap 26. and by lap 27 there was another yellow flag.
why?
well. lance stroll slammed into the back of daniel ricciardo's rb, who had braked as to not hit oscar before the safety car even ended.
and i mean he Literally Drove Into The Back Of Him
remember that new taylor swift song that everyone was saying was about fernando alonso? well this happened and people memed it to be about lance stroll instead, saying "im an aston martin that you drove straight into danny rics"
do i smell the nico rosberg curse? i think i do because nico was praising him not too long before this in qualifying.
lance came on the radio claiming that it was all daniels fault.
later on, after the race, lance also claimed that he "crashed because drivers ahead suddenly braked" and oscar, who also sustained damage from the crash but was able to keep going, said "yes, but everyone else didnt crash into eachother."
danny rics, meanwhile was pissed:
"aparently im an idiot and it was my fault. so that made my blood boil because its clear as day. and it was also behind a safety car. the only thing youve got to do is watch the car in front. im doing my best to not say what i want to say. but fuck that guy. and im being nice still."
and the interview footage of him wasnt much better:
lance ended up getting a 10 second penalty for this. he did not agree with it and generally was unbothered about the whole thing and refused to take blame for it. the team came out and said that the penalty was harsh and defended lance.
for now though, daniel stayed out.
and literally at the same time. magnussen tapped yuki, causing him to spin out. magnussen meanwhile got a puncture.
“yuki and kevin incident is going to the stewards” crofty announced during the safety car that had come out again.
“it doesn’t need to go to the stewards it can go straight to penalty," nico said.
and go to penalty it did. kevin got a 10 second penalty.
several laps later, there was still a safety car and the drivers were confused as to why.
“i have a change to make," nico announced. "we need better communication between the safety car and us. he has a passenger in the car [the passenger] can talk to us” and honestly. not a bad idea.
finally the safety car came in and come the restart, “we lost bottas with engine issues and we lost yuki with magnussen issues," but “they have all seemed to survive the restart this time with out crashing into eachother”
denial though was loosing positions quickly due to floor damage. and logan received a 10 second penalty for overtaking during a safety car. but it was on a pit lane exit and not really on him, moreso it was on the team. even nico was confused, saying “i’m not quite sure what he did wrong there?”
moments later, daniel had to retire his car.
and crofty said “rb stands for really bad in terms of their race in shanghai”
back up in the front, lando was still holding onto p2 and checo was trying to pass charles to take p3
"he has to be patient," nico said.
"does he have time to be patient?" crofty asked.
"no he does not."
and on lap 39. checo finally managed to get past charles. charles was starting to get upset with the one stop strategy, but unfortunately that was what the team wanted him to do.
also upset with the tire strategy was fernando alonso, who now had to stay on the softs after the whole safety car mess and it was a very bad choice.
nico once again decided that no one had talked about hamilton recently and said "here we go hamilton!" on lap 41 when he tried (and failed) to pass nico hulkenberg. he then succeeded a little while later. crofty said that he couldn't "see if that made toto smile or not." nico said “i doubt it, that was a haas”
fernando alonso decided that he had had enough of the soft tire and decided to pit on lap 44 and came out in p12.
and then it was time for the driver of the day vote. and our favorite little shit stirrer was back. well, he was never really gone. but he was definitely back.
“am i allowed to interfere with driver of the day?” nico asked.
“you can make a suggestion” crofty said.
"my suggestion is lando norris”
and aparently everyone agreed with him, because several laps later, it was announced that lando was on top of the vote. nico was very appreciative. “i appreciate you all listening to my opinion”
and his sass continued as he fought crofty on fernando's late pit stop. crofty thought that fernando was doing well with the late pit, working his way back up through the order. nico was very adamant that it was a bad call and fernando was merely "making the most of a terrible situation”
why did aston do so badly? well. nico was interviewed infront of their garage earlier. bam! the curse strikes again.
and with the race coming to a close, nico then revealed that he was going to be doing the post race interviews when he asked crofty "see though what do you ask max verstappen? were you worried about the race or…”
crofty considered for one long moment. and then said something insane: “ask him what his favorite cheese is”
“what his favorite cheese is?”
“yes in front of the whole world”
“that might be something”
and low and behold. the race came to a close with max p1, lando p2 and checo p3.
lando accidentally pulled into the pitlane instead of the grid cause he and his engineer got distracted talking about his mums birthday, and then he looked lost the entire time.
20K likes, 7 comments - f1_landonorris_4 on April 22, 2024: "Lando’s dad giving us the content we want to see 😍
@adam_norris_pure_electric
zhou got to pull up to his own board on the grid and had a very touching moment infront of all the fans.
and in the cooldown room, our top three had a very interesting reaction to daniel and lance's crash:
nico, meanwhile, had sprinted down to the pitlane like a bat out of hell, hair wild and askew to give the top three their post race interviews. because they were really hellbent on giving him every possible job this weekend. and i did not watch the pre race show so this was the first time i was seeing him.
and i was not expecting him to be wearing A FRINGE JACKET
now i couldn't find a good picture of this so you'll have to tolerate this garbage one that i took:
and yeah its not really Fringe Fringe, but there is fringe there and i was not expecting it. anyway. he did not ask max what his favorite cheese was. unfortunately. crofty was upset about this.
reguardless. we got our lando norris champagne pop (which the broadcast cut off AGAIN but thank god for the mclaren ig account):
and the trophies were circles. so lando let his intrusive thoughts win and wore it like a necklace after:
meanwhile red bull took it one step further and went hula hooping with it:
and look. there were a lot more nico antics that i logistically cant include because this post is already long enough but heres some highlights:
he got caught instagramming on live tv:
he also turned down a dinner invitation from the other sky presenters
he had a very good conversation with lando actually where he encouraged him that he was definitely doing enough as a driver and to not worry about the first win, because he himself hadn't gotten his first win until his 111th race.
he did the pre show grid walk with ted kravitz and actually made it interesting:
and you might be wondering. did he actually talk to lewis at all? not that anyone saw. but, lewis did scooter past him, AirPods in, glasses on, hear no evil see no evil style.
(again, see my opinion from the top, i dont think lewis owes nico anything, im just reporting what happened here)
and that just about wraps up shanghai. it was insane. this took me a week to write. it was supposed to be out several days ago but alas, it was not because i got slammed by seasonal allergies and passed out for 12 hours and was also smited by a work trip. and yes, i know that other things have happened since china and they will probably get lumped in with the miami update next week but very very quickly:
-nico hulkenberg signed with stake for 2025
-adrian newey might be leaving red bull
-ferrari has blue suits for miami
-ferrari is now title sponsored by hp
-lando norris wrecked his face at a party
but thats for next time. as far as china goes, it was wonderful. had a blast. thank you mr rosberg for bringing the insanity and i will see you all in miami
🇺🇸🇺🇸its friday then its saturday sunday WHAT🇺🇸🇺🇸
🇺🇸🇺🇸ITS FRIDAY THEN ITS SATURDAY SUNDAY WHAT🇺🇸🇺🇸
what the fuck is a kilometer everyone! in case you couldn't tell, this week were in miami, florida, usa. shit hit the fan big time (probably cause its Florida), penalties were dished out, questionable guests were invited, history was certainly made, celebrations were beyond had and silly season was positively sillying. today is may 10th and lets stage dive right in. and trust me, youre gonna wanna read this one :)
please note: i think this is the longest one weve had so far. i hit the photo and video limit. i was terrified i was going to hit the line limit as well.
so. the miami race. its another sprint weekend. back to back sprints. who thought that was a good idea. idk. wasnt me.
this is only the third time there has been a race in miami. and miami has already made its mark. both of the previous times f1 has gone there there were batshit bonkers things happening. especially in 2022:
-lando and daniel did a whole bit with james corden, the very origin of this look:
-sebastian vettel protested the fia mandating (trying to mandate? im not sure) inspecting drivers underwear to make sure that it was fireproof by wearing underwear on top of his race suit. his logic was essentially, well were all adults here and we can make desisions for ourselves, the fia has other shit to worry about (look it up if you want the whole story)
-sir lewis hamilton protested the fia jewelry ban by showing up to the press conference wearing what seems to be every piece of jewelry he had on hand. at the time, he was getting fined for wearing a nose stud in the car while other people were wearing wedding rings (apparently) (there is more to this story, look it up if you want, for now tho were just using it to set the miami scene as a race that has never known peace)
and also, fernando alonso served massive amounts of cunt in miami back in 2004:
on account of the fact that it is florida, this is also where the weird sort of washed up celebrities usually appear (you know the ones who are not cool enough to make it to monaco but still somehow end up at a gp?) and there were definitely several of those. ill talk about them later. so anyway, like most races, miami is usually a trip.
now that the scene is set, lets get some lights on. prior to the race, we had a....wide variety of stuff happen.
and lets just start with lando. hes back being a pr menace again.
so lando is friends with this dj named martin garrix. he did that song animals that had clubs in a chokehold back in like 2014. anyway. he is dutch. this will play a role momentarily. lando has toured around with martin before, notably over winter break on his frat boy pose world tour that i mentioned a good many several updates ago.
so earlier this week was kings day in amsterdam. aka the kings birthday. and a good excuse to wear orange and party. lando likes to party and mclarens team color is orange (dont come for me i know its Technically papaya), and hes friends with a dutch dj. so kings day found him on a boat in amsterdam having a regular old Time. (slight flash warning)
anyway, brief tangent to say that one of the people he was on the boat with was none other than eva gutowski? the mylifeaseva youtuber? from like 2012? with the literally my life is beaches every single night, messy buns and christmas lights song? yeah not on my bingo board to see her, martin garrix and lando norris all partying on a boat in an amsterdam canal together, but cest la vie i suppose!
all was going well for lando until this photo started circulating:
turns out he did not break his nose, he somehow just managed to cut it on some smashed glass. presumably by smashing a glass into his face, as he later mimed to max during the drivers parade. thankfully that meant that he was going to be able to drive in miami!
his official statement to the press during media day was its "a little bit silly. looked a lot worse, everyone thought it was horrendous and it was just a little cut. I wish i had a cooler story, but sadly its not"
martin garrix later said that it was from a cup that had a chip on the rim and he took a sip from it and the rum cut his nose, but because of the placement it started bleeding a lot and they put bandaids on it and then someone mummied him with the gauze, someone else took a citure of it which went viral and everyone (including mclaren) saw it and thought that martin had broken his nose.
in a mclaren video that he did later on with oscar, he jokes that he had gotten a nose job.
aside from that, lando also went to the miami heat game. so did some other drivers (like pierre), but his teammate oscar also went.
you might be wondering oh thats nice, did they go together?
well. look at the comparison of where they were sitting:
lando has court side tickets and is dressed like a frat boy (complete with a nose bandage) and oscar is seemingly on the other side of the court about 10-15 rows up. i sincerely doubt the other knew they were going.
moving on from mclaren. we have mercedes.
for some reason, and i really could not tell you why, merc decided to create an emoji car on WhatsApp and premier it on the empire state building. yes, on it.
toto and lewis flipped the switch themselves, and it looked vaguely like a wedding photo or baby announcement or something equally insane.
aparently he was told by the mayor of new york to Not do doughnuts but well, hes lewis hamilton, and he did them anyway and said hey guys its not my fault that i had to do doughnuts its the Car's fault cause i cant really u turn in it
and side note, in case you are wondering, the marks from his doughnuts are still there (at least as of may 4 cause i marched my ass down 5th avenue when i was in the city this weekend and gazed upon them. would recommend)
reguardless of just how much lewis slayed though, the emoji car did look decently silly:
the mercedes social media admin, who are notoriously bonkers, also shitted on how shit the actual merc f1 car is by making their twitter bio to "home of the whatsapp emoji car"
george was notably nowhere to be found at the emoji car reveal in the city (i know hes in the photo, that was from the race weekend itself) worry not everyone, we will get to him later.
meanwhile, alpine.
in case you need a refresher, alpine are not doing too hot at all. theyre doing pretty bad actually. but, people own stake in the team. and one of those people happens to be travis kelce, football player for the kansas city chiefs and taylor swifts boyfriend.
idk why he owns stake in alpine, but he does. and leading up to the race, reportedly, he and taylor were going to be in the paddock at the alpine garage. this was all very much according to rumors, but it was rumored to be plausible because this would be the last weekend taylor has off before the next leg of the international eras tour starts.
why do we care if taylor is in the paddock?
well.
a decent chunk of fernando alonso's internet presence is entirely based around the insane omg hes dating taylor swift rumors. (he wasnt, but as we saw in the last update, the social media team can really get him to play into it) and wouldn't it just be hilarious if they were in the same place, but thwarted by estie bestie and pierre gasley??
taylor though did not end up in the paddock. but travis kelce did. but there will be a weird celebrities section later.
checo was asked aparently what taylor swift album was his favorite. he said that he was in his tortured poets department era because it was hot. i dont have a source for this one, y'all are just going to have to trust me that it actually happened.
yuki also shoved a bunch of footballs under his shirt on media day: (unfortunately i seem o have lost the link to this video)
and this weekend was logan's home race. technically, cause hes american, he has three home races, but since this one is in miami and hes grew up a hop skip and a jump away in fort lauderdale, this is the one that really counts for him. and they made him do some interesting pr including wearing a duracell sorts bra over a shirt to play soccer with a bunch of professional soccer players (idk who they are ok, sue me ig)
he also quizzed alex albon on america slang. but it wasnt really american slang, it was more like tiktok slang. reguardless, we got to hear logan stay stuff like pookie and no cap.
also. tom brady was in the Williams garage. he looked like he would murder for logan sargeant. (to be fair so dod jenson button)
and. on a more somber note. this weekend was also the 30th anniversary of ayrton senna's death. senna was a Brazilian driver in the 80s and 90s and won the championship in 88, 90 and 91. he died during a crash in the 1994 imola gp while racing for williams. (he was also not the only driver to die that weekend, with roland ratzenberger dying the previous say during the qualifying session). (again though this happened 30 years ago and i dont have time to talk about it on this post, if you want to know the full details of that entire very tragic weekend you can read about it here)
senna is famously known for the line "if you no longer go for a gap that exists you are no longer a racing driver." this will become relevant later.
sebastian vettel made an instagram announcement saying that he was going to be driving one of sennas cars at the imola gp this year in honor of ayrton sennas memory. why is he the one doing it? because im pretty sure he owns the car
aside from that. before we get into the really good juicy shit. we also had some new pet pics.
zhou posted some new pictures of his cat sweetcorn and charles's dog leo continues to serve lost in the sauce realness:
and we learned that valtteri has a reindeer named rosa
leo was also featured in charles's instagram post from miami and yes Technically this was from After the race but its my post and i can do what i want so heres leo:
he posted these photos, plus a few more on his instagram with the caption:
"he is very fast, he is very cool, he is very scary and very brave, he is everything. Leo 👑🤍"
which is just. heart melting. also his dog has a paddock pass?????
lance stroll has a new sponsor, its krown produce.
charles leclerc once again pulled up to the track in a fancy little sports car that was decked out in maimi ferrari blue and failed to park it
george russell nearly killed ed sheeran on a hot lap
and that of course takes us to the washed up celebrities. there were many famous people there but im just going to touch on the unholy trinity of (and yes i am being serious here) jake paul, james charles and the previous president of the united states of America.
now. while it is baffling that jake was in the ferrari garage (and seemingly a charles leclerc fan and also who on earth told him that beard looked good?) and understandably hilarious that max and checo clearly are scared of james charles, the trump thing is decently upsetting.
here, once again, is where i will interject my opinion.
should they have done this? fuck no. aside from what trump stands for (in case you are somehow unfamiliar, hes being tried for several crimes and also wants to destroy democracy and is trying to run for president again this year, to put it very very mildly he is controversial especially to americans and this was an american race) f1 is supposed to be a non political sport (a rule put in place by the fia following lewis hamilton and sebastian vettel speaking out for black lives matter and gay rights respectfully)
and mclaren did make a statement about this which said:
"mclaren is a non political organization however we recognize and respect the office of the president of the united states. so when the request was made to visit our garage on race day we accepted alongside the president of the fia and the ceos of liberty media and formula 1. we were honored that mcalren racing was chosen as the representative of f1 which gave us the opportunity to showcase the world class engineering that we bring to motorsport"
which makes it sound at least to me like this was not their idea to invite him and if the fia president is saying hey this guys coming to your garage you cant really exactly say no to him (should they have fought it? yes. mclaren might be a british team but zak brown is american and he also follows trump on instagram so at the very least he Definitely knew what message this would send if no one else did)
lando was asked about his presence and im not going to quote his response here cause simply i dont want to take up more space writing about trump than i need to. but i will say that he looked uncomfortable during the question (which also shouldnt have been allowed to be asked in the first place) and at the end he kind of looks at Charles and shrugs like "idk man" and yes his response is not worded very well and im not saying that he supports trump, im also not saying he doesnt. i dont know the guy. but i would like to take this moment to remind everyone of a few years ago when lando did defend lewis on social media and called out people who were being racist towards him and remind everyone that he was one of very few drivers to kneel at a race in support of black lives matter. not everyone participated and also not everyone of those participants kneeled. so do with this information what you will. if you want to see his response it can be found here
but obviously, we are all here for the racing. so lets get into it.
miami saw two special liveries.
rb dropped their livery with zero lead up and pretty much as a total surprise. it fucking slayed:
on instagram someone asked why they didnt hype it. the vcarb admin responded with "no need to hype when you can COOK! 🧑🍳"
this was definitely a dig at ferrari who also did a special miami livery that they hyped up to no end. like seriously, it was stupidly drawn out. china had barely ended and they were like hey. psst. hey guys. to distract you all from the fact that this was the first time all season we haven't been on the podium we've got a little secret. were bringing back the blue for the miami race!
and everyone was like huh?! theyre going blue!!! how cool!!!
and it did seem like it would be cool. they revealed the suits first:
and then they talked relentlessly about the two colors they were using and how important they are to historical ferrari and blah blah blah
and then carlos and charles did special edition blue helmets and we were all like ok ok its serious omg its real ok this is going to be like dinoco lightning McQueen!
and then. they revealed this: (please imagine that one dan howell womp boat noise esque sound effect here)
which is just. a disappointment. really. the blue looks kind of gray. we could have had it all but we lost it.
and will buxton, who i have talked about before hes one of the sky sports presenters, had this to say about the whole blue car ordeal, which is just so real of him:
"ferrari have been teasing this livery for ages oOooOooo its gonna be blue!!! going back to north america! in 1964 ferrari ran a... well not to get too complicated but they ran a blue and white livery in north america, mainly because they were upset with the italian federation and the fia who failed to validate one of their sports cars... ANYWAY so they ran a blue and white car, ferrari have decided to may homage to the history by....not doing that kind of a livery at all. just...chucking on some light blue and some other blue. bit of a mish mash hodge podge weirdness that doesnt really work. BUT the overalls look Amazing. the shirts look Amazing. im not a fan of the car livery, i just think its a Mess. its a Mess, like you could have done something Classic and Beautiful kinda like that *gestures to his shoes* blue and white!"
will buxton, everyone!! and before you ask, yes that is exactly how he speaks. you can watch that clip here if you dont believe me.
and you might be noticing one or two or eight or actually 15 hp logos on that car. (personally i think they did blue for the hp not for north america but thats just me) and that is because hp is now a title sponsor of ferrari. they are now scuderia ferrari hp. and yes, the hp logo on the suits makes it look like they are telletubbies and yes everyone in italy is like hello Why did we do this and for those answers we will have to get straight into silly season
now. silly season has officially started. i know everyone was like oh it wont Really Start until merc decide whos got the second seat. well throw that straight out the window like a snake in a bag cause theres a new contender in town:
adrian newey.
we've talked about him before. hes the chief technical officer of red bull racing. hes a very good car designer and aerodynamicist.
how good is he? you might be asking. allow me to enlighten you:
newey joined williams in 1991. in 1992 they won the constructors championship. they won again in 1993 and 1994. and 1996 and 1997.
newey joined mclaren in 1997. in 1998 they won the constructors championship and in 1999 they won the drivers.
newey joined red bull in 2006. red bull won the constructors championship in 2010. and again in 2011, 2012 and 2013. then again in 2021 (drivers only, not constructors), 2022 and 2023.
he has helped to build 14 championship winning cars. soon to be 15 if max wins this season again.
well! mr newey has decided that he has had enough of the weird red bull politics (reportedly he didnt like how the assault thing got swept under the rug and largely ignored and tbh good for him) and he has announced that he is leaving red bull at the end of the year.
despite the fact that it really seems like newey is leaving Because of christian (at least somewhat indirectly), christian had this to say about him:
"for me, when adrian joined red bull, he was already a superstar designer. two decades and 13 championships later he leaves as a true legend. he is also my friend and someone i will be eternally grateful to for everything he brought to our partnership. all of our greatest moments from the past 20 years have come with adrian's hand on the technical tiller. the legacy he leaves behind will echo through the halls of milton keynes and the rb17 track car will be a fitting testament and legacy to his time with us."
horner did claim that this was "coming for some time" and was not a result of tensions at red bull
now thats all fine and dandy and slightly ironic but where is newey going?
the short answer is, we dont know!
the long answer is that there have been rumors that he has talked to basically every team on the grid. there is also speculation that he will retire. but the rumors about this are kinda funny and literally every day someone is claiming something different.
at the start, we knew it was likely going to be aston martin or ferrari signing him. but now seemingly everyone has talked to him.
important to note that theres a whole lot of clauses and technicalities on him signing with another team because of how the cars are built and when they are built. originally it was proposed that he would not be able to work on a car until 2027, but it seems that red bull agreed to an exit that allows him to join a rival team as soon as he departs red bull in early 2025.
so who wants him?
-reportedly lawrence stroll wanted him to sign with aston martin. i haven't heard anything about this in awhile but aparently they asked fernando Alonso about this this weekend. newey had said before that he would like to work with fernando. i cant find the link but i think that newey previously said that he doesnt like lawrence stroll
-toto wolff is desperately trying to get his grubby little hands on adrian and at this point its so funny. aparently adrian doesnt want to work with toto cause he also doesnt like him and he also doesnt want to work with the team in a post lewis state (rip) and he thinks it might take merc too long to get back on top and after a long time at red bull, he doesnt want to be with a team that long again. this has not stopped toto from trying to sign him tho. its still rumored that newey might be talking to merc after the miami race.
-williams aparently has also talked to mr newey. its no secret that williams absolutely suck right now. so they need all the help they can get. which is essentially what james vowels said about talking to newey: "I think we as Williams have a huge amount of work to do. Adrian or not, our task is enormous -- and Adrian wouldn't make it easier, but that's the whole point." he said that discussions with adrian have been "light" but there still have been discussions
-zak brown of mclaren has also talked about how he is "not surprised" that newey decided to leave red bull at all and thinks it is in fact because of christian (aparently lots of people have left red bull to go to other teams) and he has seen an "increase in cvs" coming from red bull employees at mclaren. (its also implied that zak thinks this might cause red bull to eventually leave the grid, remember that they are just an energy drink company after all) it doesnt Seem like mclaren have been talking about signing newey, but whos to really say at this point (toto wolff also agrees with zak on increase in cvs and was quoted as saying "zak is absolutely correct, we are seeing red bull cv's though all the levels" and then horner clapped back with a statement that toto should be more worried since red bull poached "over 200 staff from the mercedes engine department"
-there was also weird hinting about newey from stake??? of all teams??? in the form of this instagram video that they posted which unfortunately i cant insert in here cause i have more important videos that take precedence but from what i van understand its a video of several stake employees doing tests very very distractedly to an audio from the kardashians dishing tea and dirt, with the caption "Us when there’s Adrian Newey rumours in the paddock 👀" (red bull commented on this video with " Everyone is an Adrian Newey fan 💁"
-also pierre gasley posted an instagram photo in his miami dump with newey. which is interesting timing.
-there is also the chance that he could retire. newey said, in response to lewis and charles complimenting him "im very flattered by their words, at the moment I just want to take a break. we'll see..." and a reporter (dont know how reliable this reporter is) named jeremy clarkson from the sun said "late last year, newey started working on a new sailing boat. and as hes now 65 years old, who knows? he might just decide to be better off and spend the autumn of his years sailing around the world in that"
-and the last people we know who are really Interested are ferrari. and this is an interesting one. from an outside perspective, it seems like ferrari have the best chance. they have reportedly offered newey a contract of 100 million euros for four years and there have been rumors that fred vasseur has met with him in london. and even other rumors that he is actually going to ferrari. newey has also said that he wishes he had worked with lewis hamilton during his career, and that happens to be where lewis is going next year.
but when looking at ferrari, we need to consider something else. the hp sponsor.
now. this is all speculation. it is also mostly all my own personal speculation, but i needed to include it so forgive me.
people have been speculating and wondering why ferrari would accept a title sponsor. they have had them before with Marlboro, and mission winnow. and now we have hp. but there were a few years in the middle of mission winnow and hp where there was no title sponsor. now they have one and they are scuderia ferrari hp.
this is interesting. especially when you consider that hp is rumored to be covering "about 66% of the teams budget cap."
this is estimated to be about the same amount of money as red bulls oracle title sponsorship, which is 90 million a year, roughly.
now. come with me down the rabbit hole for a moment. i invite you in.
lets first look at the facts. ferrari announced lewis would be driving for them in 2025 on feb 1, 2024. but we know the contract was signed sometime in january and the talks must have predated that. reportedly, theyre paying lewis a whole fucking lot.
but! i dont think they would have promised to pay him money that they didnt have. hence, i dont think that the hp sponsorship was signed to afford lewis. also, again this was back in january and its now may.
the horner situation blew up inearly february, right after it was announced that lewis had signed with ferrari. and yes there had been some speculation that newey was leaving the team before then, but then it became more official, with newey only making it known it was a real possibility within the last month.
i propose that ferrari had only planned to sign lewis initially and they had the money for it, hence why they did it. but as soon as it became clear that newey was also on the table (which again, wasnt until recently) that must have sparked the search for a title sponsor. (again, i know these things take time, but i really dont think this was a thing pre lewis contract)
so. im thinking that ferrari partnered with hp to help them afford newey.
and! if you doubt me!!! look at what lewis had to say at the press conference this weekend!!!
"id love to work with him in the future, he'd absolutely be at the top of [the list]"
like LOOK at that SMIRK. he knows things. we've seen this smirk before. when he was signing with ferrari. im telling you all. 8th world drivers championship for lewis. its coming. its happening. i feel it in my toes.
anyway, back to what's really going on and not just my unadulterated opinion.
silly season.
our next driver contract was signed. and it was nico hulkenberg for audi. now audi will not be an official team until 2026 (they are replacing stake) so. this means three things:
there is now an open seat at haas for someone new to enter the team (likely for ollie bearman, who is already a reserve driver, will have 6 practice sessions with haas and replaced carlos in saudi) (kevin magnussen was asked what he thought about this and he said "i’m not really here to take care of young kids, you know? I do that at home...so, hopefully, the guy we have in the car will be competent, professional, and consistent like Nico has been, and we’ll see if I’ll be in the other car."
since nico is singing at sauber for 2025 and its understood that he technically singed with Audi so, this means he has at minimum a 2 year contract
either valtteri or zhou will lose their sauber seat to nico hulkenberg
as people online pointed out this has massive parallels to 2013 when lewis hamilton joined a new team, nico hulkenberg joined sauber, there was a massive regulation change for the nest year and it was the fourth season of red bull dominance. of course, 2013 was also the last year of the red bull dominance before it got passed off to merc. so does that mean .... red bull will lose their dominance in the rrew 2026 regulation changes without newey??? will history once again repeat????
valtteri said that he is "speaking to multiple teams. some talks have advanced more than the others"
also talking to audi, we know, was carlos sainz. reportedly audi offered him a fuckton of money. and also reportedly, carlos has rejected the offer. he seems to be holding out for merc or red bull. but there have been several statements from people at audi that carlos is still their prime target. dont know how accurate that actually is.
yuki tsunoda is reportedly on audis short list of drivers. we will see if he gets offered something now that carlos has reportedly rejected audis offer.
carlos is still unemployed.
and what of max verstappen?
well. he seems generally unbothered. despite the fact that toto is still actively trying to recruit him.
he is supposed to have a conversation with mercedes on monday (may 6) about moving to merc. they reportedly want to offer max a ridiculously high salary. (for context, i think max is making around 55 million USD per year now and is (likely) the highest paid driver) (this does not include money from sponsorships either)
what the number is is disputed. some reports say 160 million USD. some day 270 million USD. whatever the real number is, it is high. theres also rumors that they would bring in helmet marko for him.
heres what max had to say earlier this week:
"250 million euros? no. im happy with what im earningg already. if youre driving for p5 or p6, you get quite grumpy. its always about performances at the end of the day, everyone knows that and toto knows that."
essentially. he doesnt care if hes making a shit ton of money and loosing when he could be making a bit less of a shitton of money and winning. worth pointing out, we really dont know anything because toto said this earlier this week as well:
"people make up meetings, make up what's happening with the drivers but those things should be behind closed doors and everything thats been out there was not really the right thing."
christian horner, of course, had a response to all of this. because he cannot resist a good cat fight with toto wolff:
"why on earth would you want to leave [red bull]? mercedes are the third team, behind their customers at the moment. i dont think toto's problems are his drivers. his time would be better spent perhaps focusing on [mercedes] rather than the driver market"
and hes right about some of it. but also there are plenty of good reasons to leave red bull given what happened earlier this year and the power dynamic theyre stuck in, as we have seen many people doing (reportedly via zak brown) including adrian newey.
and, you might be wondering, didnt merc want to sign kimi antonelli at one point? and you are right. and funny you should mention him.
he did a test drive of the 2022 (? might have been 2021 ive seen conflicting reports) merc car i think it was just before chinese gp. and his one lap time record was a 1:21.00. people have compared this to george russells personal fastest lap in the 2022 car which was in imola and was a 1:20.962. now theres a lot that goes into a lap and these were on two different tracks and track conditions were different and all that. not to mention that in imola when george did that lap it was sorta wet ish and the fuel loads were different and a million other things. it is still though impressive.
(but lets remember when daniel tested the red bull last year before he replaced de vries he was a tenth off max verstappen and now hes struggling for points so)
now. there are also rampant rumors that kimi is going to replace logan sargeant for the imola gp. which is the race after miami. the rumors speculate that merc is going to loan kimi to Williams (remember they all have the same engines so this isn't unheard of) for 2024 and 2025 and then have kimi join merc in 2026.
this is unlikely, but then the fia reportedly received a request to allow kimi his super license, which they would need to get special permission for because he is under 18 until august 25. reportedly, both toto and james vowels denied that they made this request. which is interesting. well, it was explicitly denied by toto, james just said that kimi would not be racing for williams at imola.
james vowels, williams team principal, was asked about this possibility on media days and he said that logan would not be replaced:
"lets put it this way. I haven't spoken to kimi since abu dhabi last year. hopefully that puts it in context, i knoe nothing about what's going on. with mercedes tests right now. we are looking, as everyone else is, for where we wanna be on driver line up for next year. sane we have our own young driver program. in the case of kimi, i cant really adjudicate the level hes at. in case of him coming into the car this year, ive always said from the beginning its a meritocracy, logan has to earn his seat and at the moment he has sone tough targets where he was to get much closer to alex but there was nothing on the radar at the moment for replacing him."
now, its already regarded that williams wrecked logans career by taking him out of f2 before he was ready (he was supposed to have another year in f2) so it would be bad for them to wreck two peoples careers in a row.
nico rosberg had something to say on the matter of kimi last week:
"antonelli is definitely a superstar of the future, but unfortunately timing wise its really too early for him, and especially too early for toto to be able to make a decision. i mean, he needs to wait until somewhat later in the year as we see how antonelli does in f2 also, because he does need a really strong season in f2 to even make it a possibility for him to go straight to mercedes"
cause remember, merc doesnt usually sign rookies. actually they never have. they've only ever had michael schumacher, nico rosberg, sir lewis hamilton, valtteri bottas and george russell drive for them. nico, valtteri and george were previously at williams, lewis came in already a world champion from mclaren with one of the strongest rookie seasons in f1 history and michael schumacher was, well, michael fucking schumacher. no rookies to be seen.
aside from all that. theres some rumors that gunther steiner wants to take over the vcarb team with investors. and that hes suing haas for essentially not paying him.
now. ive already said a million times on this post that lando and oscar are perpetually unbothered by silly season in the funniest way possible. but now we have two new contenders for that spot: our friends the mercedes drivers.
that is right! sir lewis hamilton couldnt give less of a fucking shit this year. maybe its cause he finally knows that hes going to be free of the absolutely ass mercedes car after this year and have a decent and real shot at winning again next year at ferrari, esp if they're going to sign adrian newey.
well. at the beginning of the season he was giving no shits and signing ferrari caps left right and center. then, aparently mercedes pr yelled at him for this, and hes now only allowed to sign mercedes hats only. video link to this is here. this has not stopped lewis. he now wears a bracelet that says "forza ferrari"
he was also tits out pretty much all weekend, which is not unusual, but its good to see him slay:
and then we have george russell.
george, as we know, will be staying at mercedes for 2025. and as we also know, the mercedes second seat is a hot item in the paddock. Everyone has been speculated to be going to mercedes. from max to carlos to kimi to even esteban ocon. toto is reportedly trying to spend over a hundred million dollars on getting a second driver and trying to sign adrian newey. the current car is a shit box.
and what, pray tell, is george up to in all of this???
hes chilling, tits out, on a beach:
not an absolute care in the world.
but. with all this in mind. with all of that in mind. lets dive into practice 1.
i didnt actually watch practice 1, but my sister did and she sent me some notes.
the most interesting thing to happen at practice 1 was that charles went for a little spin on the track because his clutch decided to give up because his car overheated, resulting in a red flag. he did not restart the practice session and only did 3 laps in total. not great when you remember the next thing is a sprint qualifying session. also, he asked his engineer what he should do. and his engineer kinda ghosted him.
there were also a slew of upgrades on various cars.
pierre now has all the upgrades that esteban has (which is mostly a lighter chassis), mercedes had an upgrade as well, but everyone was really looking at mclaren.
mercedes also had upgrades. as we would see throughout the weekend, they basically did nothing.
mclaren pretty much revamped their whole car. lando had the full update and oscar had about half and would get the other half for imola (the next race). the update included changes to the:
front wing
front suspension
front corner
floor body
sidepod inlet
coke/engine cover
cooling louvres
rear suspension
rear corner
beam wing
all in all to say, it was a lot of upgrades. according to zak brown, oscar, who had half the upgrades, was running .2 seconds a lap slower than lando was on set up alone. despite this, oscar still took p2 in practice. only .105 seconds behind max verstappen. unfortunately, lando was tweaking the set up during practice and was not able to do a flying lap, so heading into the sprint qualifying we didnt know how fast the full upgrade package actually was. but given oscars pace, we could only assume that it was fast.
moving onto the sprint qualifying
first of all. it was hot. fucking hot as hell. this meant several things, the most important one being that the cars were going to absolutely eat the tires. the first two quarters of qualifying were all done on medium tires, so it wasnt as much of a problem, but the last quarter was done on softs (as per the rules) which were only good for one lap.
valtteri bottas had a new race engineer starting this race and at one point he failed to tell valtteri while he was changing some settings that oscar piastri was coming up behind him at full speed and the two of them nearly collided. but they did not. there was no contact between the two cars. valtteri did though get a three place grid penalty for the sprint race. later on, zak brown referred to the incident as a "alpha make turf war." i am not making this up i promise.
logan sargeant, everyones favorite poor little meow meow, was down in 20th at the end of q1 (but did managed to go fastest in the third sector of the track) and was thus knocked out. his teammate, alex albon, was up in p16 (and also knocked out). but!!! alex got his lap time deleted for violating track limits (literally he just drove over the whole chicane, didnt even bother to turn) which knocked him down to p20 and logan up to p19. it also meant that for the first time EVER logan had out qualified his teammate
despite this, he still called himself a dumb fuck over the radio and slammed his hand on his car
someone (maybe it was martin bundle?) was telling everyone that when he did a hot lap with george around the track earlier, george was telling him that there was one section of the track at turn 16 where the sponsor boards around the edge of the track turn into a darker purple and george was saying that it was harder to judge there where the wall was because of the color change. and the commentators deliberated over whether or not this could be a legit thing.
but then one by one, pretty much everyone rammed into the wall. including sir lewis hamilton who, according to martin brundle "made more mistakes in that sector than he used to in a season." he got out in q2.
and then all eyes were on george russell, who might just be able to save merc, but, he was running a little slower than he needed to be and crofty said "george russell might make it a double miserable day for mercedes and he did” and he was out in q2 as well. the camera cut to toto sitting in the garage and he looked Less Than Pleased. and then merc also got investigated for their pit crew not wearing their helmets when lewis came through the pit lane.
so heading into q3 there were a butt ton of pissed off drivers that were out. how do we know they were pissed off? well when they got out of the car and walked down the pit lane, they all still had their helmets on, which i believe it was one nico rosberg said once meant that they were pissed and didnt want to deal with the cameras.
but the 10 people who were still in were all sitting in their garages. waiting.
waiting for what? for the session to be half over so they could all go out and get in everyone else's way. because remember, they are all on soft tires and the soft tires are only good for one lap. everyone came out of the garages with about 4 minutes left. so everyone had one shot to get a good lap.
lando norris had been p1 in both of the previous rounds while he was on the medium tires, but now that he was on the soft tires he couldn't find the pace. or, perhaps it was that his tires were not warm enough, because he did manage to go fastest in the last sector of everyone.
which meant, of course, that max verstappen pulled out a p1. he was very surprised that he managed it because he had a screw up at one point where he lost time. upon being told that he was in fact in pole position he said "lol, what happened to the others? that was terrible! ill take it" in his post interview he as asked how his lap felt and he said "to be honest with you it felt pretty terrible" would this be an omen for max? idk lets find out!
most surprising out of everything was daniel ricciardo managing to get p4. not only did he out qualify his teammate, but he hasn't been that high up on the grid since the texas gp in 2023. he was positively Thrilled with it to. he did his little "KI KI KI AY AY AY" over the radio and in his interview after said that "we belong towards the front, so happy for everyone"
max also stared at charles's ass afterwards
and for some reason, before the sprint race, lando cohosted a yoga session on a beach that was sponsored by hilton???
yeah man i have no idea either. he kept saying he didnt like the sand and brushed off his hands a million and seven times. (this was also funny cause it was star wars day (may 4th))
and the next day everyone geared up for the sprint race. and it was fucking bonkers. i know i say lots of things are bonkers. this one takes the cake. it was a race of penalties. with the first one going to esteban ocon before he even made it to the grid for running into charles leclerc in the pitlane and breaking his front wing.
everyone pulled up to the grid in their starting order:
p1: max
p2: charles
p3: checo
p4: daniel
p5: carlos
p6: oscar
p7: lance
p8: fernando
p9: lando
p10: nico
p11: george
p12: lewis
p13: esteban
p14: kevin
p15: yuki
p16: pierre
p17: zhou
p18: logan
p19: alex
p20: valtteri
martin brundle was discussing tires. specifically he was discussing the importance of warning up the tires. saying that the tires need to go through a "heat cycle." which is just. such a choice of words. i know this is probably a real legit term. but sir, i grew up on tumblr.com. such sentences are jarring.
and then the lights went out. away they went. and immediately it all went to hell in a flaming hot hand basket.
the aston martins of fernando and lance decides to kiss, lewis went for a gap and knocked into them and that whole kerfuffle shoved lando off the track in turn one.
this brought out an immediate yellow flag and left the rest of the midfield picking up the pieces.
"whoa," fernando said over the radio, 'hamilton arrived like a bull!"
"i think you'll find it was your teammate that arrived like a bull first," crofty said up in the commentary box. "and then hamilton came and doubled the trouble."
meanwhile, in his own car, hamilton said "there was a gap on the inside so i took it," all but dedicating his move to the late and great ayrton senna
reguardless of whos fault it really was, the stewards didnt care because they chose not to investigate it further. zak brown thought that this was stupid because it was clearly a driver error.
lando gave no shits even though he had been knocked out of the race at no fault of his own and decided that he was going to walk across the track after he got out of the car. that walk later cost him 50,000 dollars worth of fines. thankfully. the damage on his car was minor. meaning he could still do qualifying for the race later in the afternoon.
in addition to lando, lance stroll was forced to retire his car as well. and fernando alonso had a tire puncture.
later on lando said "nothing i could have done. i think today we payed the price for being around others that are careless..... ill get it back tomorrow."
a safety car was called on lap three to clear the damage.
when the safety car ended on lap 4, the grid had been properly shuffled up:
p1: max
p2: charles
p3: daniel
p4: checo
p5: carlos
p6: oscar
p7: ncio
p8: kevin
p9: lewis
p10: yuki
p11: pierre
p12: logan
p13: zhou
p14: george
p15: valtteri
p16: alex
p17: esteban
p18: fernando
and a reminder: in a sprint race, only down to 8th place gets points. this will become a key detail.
on lap 5 checo overtook daniel, putting daniel into 4th infront of carlos sainz.
now, one thing you need to know about danny rics is that hes a late brake king. meaning that he knows Exactly how to milk the most out of his car by pushing it to the last possible second before braking into the turns, giving himself just a slight edge and a few tenths of a second of space between him and whoever is behind him. notably, this is how he was able to win in monaco in 2018, with an MGU-K failure that made his engine have 25% less horsepower, and only two (out of eight) functioning gears while holding off sebastian vettel in a ferrari. hes a regular expert at late braking.
and his next victim was none other than carlos sainz. because, lets be honest here, hes in a shitbox car, defending against a ferrari while trying to catch a red bull.
and at the beginning, checo was holding daniel in his DRS zone (within 1 second of him to give daniel a speed boost so that he could stay in front of carlos so that carlos wouldn't pass daniel and then pass checo) while carlos was still only .3 seconds behind daniel with DRS. late brake king indeed.
but while that battle was shaping up, there was another battle.
on lap 8 we had the return of another king. the kevin magnussen menace king.
if you recall, in saudi arabia, kevin got 20 seconds worth of penalties and used that to drive like an absolute madman, royally holding up the whole back of the grid so that his teammate nico could score a point in the race.
and well. nico was in 7th, kevin was in 8th and sir lewis hamilton was in 9th. and yes, sir lewis might be driving an absolute shit box car, but he is still a 7 time world champion. hes got some moves. and he was itching to pull them on kmags.
lewis was a very solid half a second behind kevin. and according to our friends the commentators "mercedes dont look like they a great race car"
hamilton agreed with this saying "im very slow on the straight." he tried to pass kevin. and he failed.
two laps later, they were still battling it out, this time though, kevin skipped over the chicane.
"he just gained an advantage!" lewis said "he skipped the chicane!"
and so it was all aboard the struggle bus, population lewis, falling victim to kevin, carlos, who was still unable to pass danny rics , and max, who was having terrible time with his tires.
lewis briefly escaped the struggle bus when he was able to pass kevin on lap 11. kevin also reviewed his first 10 second penalty for skipping the chicane. but this did not seem to deter kevin because then he drove into lewis and left the track again.
"i wonder how many penalties he wants to pick up today" crofty wondered aloud. hint: this would not be his last penalty.
because! kmags was busting out the saudi moves to an absolute t again: going super fucking fast on the straights and then slowing down in the corners. and this was really, really effective because lewis did not have any speed on the straights, so he couldn't catch him.
when lewis finally did pass him on lap 15, kevin went incredibly late on the brakes, like purposefully late just to shove lewis off the track, shoving both lewis and yuki (who was behind him) off the track. even the commentators thought the move was insane, saying that "there was no way he was going to make the apex on that" however! lets remember that kevin was protecting his teammate nico from the cars behind him so that he could be guaranteed points. so nico had a sizable gap (6 seconds) between him and the cars behind when hamilton and yuki passed kevin on lap 16.
closing in on the end of the race. carlos was STILL stuck behind daniel, who had defended his ass off for 15 laps. kevin magnussen had received yet another penalty. and hamilton managed to pass yuki on the last lap for 8th position (but then he got a 20 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane so it meant nothing)
all in all, an interesting race. especially if you were daniel ricciardo who managed to finish in fourth and then barked like a dog over his radio:
and after the race, they caught up with kevin and asked him about his million penalties (he ended up with 3 ten second penalties for leaving the track and gaining an advantage and one 5 second penalty for track limits) (crofty and martin brundle were in agreement that the penalties that kevin received were not consistent with the severe lack of penalties that were given for the turn one lap one incident. the consensus from them was “i think he was over the limit in many ways on many occasions there" and it was a “little outrageous but he wasn’t plowing into the side of people”)
reguardless, here is what kevin (and lewis) had to say
basically, kevin seems pretty upset that he is playing the teammate game and nico is not. nico though does have a contract already at a different team, so he really doesnt have to worry about impressing haas
and well, in case you were curious, max won. charles was p2, checo was p3. with all the penalties, kevin ended in 18 and hamilton ended in 16.
and!!! mr logan sargeant!!! for the first time EVER finished ABOVE HIS TEAMMATE in p10!!! (alex was in p13) he came and he DELIVERED!!! he was driving on SOFT TIRES in MIAMI in the HEAT and he SLAYED getting replaced rumors WHOMST
(sorry. i am american. can you tell?)
onto the qualifying session! full steam ahead!
all in all, it was kinda boring. the most interesting thing to happen was danny rics getting p17 (not including his three place grid penalty from the last race) after coming in p4 in the sprint. logan missed out on getting into q2 by .034 seconds lando opted to stay on the medium tires for the last part of qualifying because mclaren didnt want a repeat of spring qualifying where he couldnt get the softs up to temperature. despite this, he still only managed a p5.
oh and this headline:
and so, the grid was set, locked and loaded:
p1: max
p2: charles
p3: carlos
p4: checo
p5: lando
p6: oscar
p7: george
p8: lewis
p9: nico
p10: yuki
p11: lance
p12: pierre
p13: esteban
p14: alex
p15: fernando
p16: valtteri
p17: logan
p18: danny rics
p19: kevin
p20: zhou
and it was time for the race to start.
and it started with a definite bang because checo almost took out max on the first lap:
the near crash shuffled the front up a little. oscar was able to gain three places and ended up right behind charles in p3. lando, meanwhile, was shoved further back down the grid in the mayhem (as well as checo) to p6. and on lap five, oscar managed to pass charles for p2. clearly, the upgrades, even the half upgrades that oscar had, were clearly working. he was only 2 seconds behind max (unusual as max usually flies off into the sunset) and was defending like hell against the two ferraris.
meanwhile, estie bestie and pierre were fighting. literally fighting. they were driving Next To Eachother, Wheel To Wheel on the track from turns 13-16 on lap 1. at very fast speeds. it was truly nail biting stuff. alpine even posted about it on instagram:
and who else was fighting? the ferraris, they were fighting. carlos was behind charles, but was convinced that he had more pace than charles did and wanted to pass. Ferrari basically said fuck it whatever and let them fight it out, no team orders. carlos did not end up passing charles.
pit stops played an important role in this race. and many people pitted early. albon, stroll, sargeant, bottas, hulkenberg and gasley. the majority of the back of the grid. all pitted before lap 13. which was interesting because the undercut (pitting for tires before the people around you) is really not effective on the track due to the amount of tire degradation.
anywhoozies. it was shaping up to be a fairly normal and boring race. max was out in front, the ferraris were fighting, the french civil war was alive and well. all normal things to see on a sunday afternoon.
well. it was almost normal. charles and oscar were feuding in the front. as in not they themselves were feuding, but their teams were feuding. charles was told to do whatever oscar didnt do. and oscar was told to do whatever charles didnt do. ferrari even faked a pit stop on lap 15 to try and trick mclaren into pitting oscar earlier and putting charles up into p2. it did not work.
and the normal continued. lando fought with perez for fifteen laps before checo finally pitted on lap 15 and lando was able to get in front of him.
"i dont know what the lando norris equivalent of hammer time is," martin brundle said as checo sailed into the pits. "he needs to bring it."
and bring it he did. he in p5 behind carlos sainz. his race engineer, will, said on lap 20 they should stop defending against the cars behind him and go get carlos. lando was pleased with this. "yeah! ill agree!" he said "i'll go get him!"
while he was chasing carlos, max hit a cone on turn 15 during lap 22.
it was the cone that was on the chicane, showing the cars where the curbing was, and max just kind of plowed into it:
he was asked about this moment late in the post race press conference and said:
"i didnt like it. so i decided to take it out. and test the durability of the front wing as well. so thats a crash test done. yeah, there was no damage. the cone was out of the way for everyone so everyone it was basically free for all."
the williams app, giving a race play by play had this to say about that lap:
"not satisfied with all his recent trophies, verstappen has picked up a board from the chicane as well... unfortunately for him hes dropped and left it at T16"
but regardless. there was a cone on the track. a Cone was On The Track. according to george it was in the racing line. what are they gonna do? call a virtual safety car on lap 23 for like half a lap.
after the virtual safety car ended and the cone was cleared, max decided it would be a good time to make a pit stop, which meant oscar was now leading the race! being him was carlos, lando and then max. max was a solid 10 seconds behind lando, who was catching up to carlos.
lando got the fastest lap on lap 25 and according to ted down in the pitlane "lando norris [was] doing brilliant laps" and max was loosing time chasing him, and he (max) had very very low grip
and he did not get past carlos, but he did end up leading the race on lap 28 when oscar and carlos both pitted.
and then. the race was about to heat up. menace k mags was back and he had a new target: logan sargeant. kevin had tried to pass logan and rammed into him, sending loan sailing into the wall.
to say logan was upset about it would be an understatement:
for real, this poor kid cannot fucking catch a break. you can tell how upset he is because he wants the team to think well of him and he knows that he only has one shot to prove himself and doesnt want to waste his chance in f1. and to be knocked out at your home race is absolutely brutal.
after the race, he posted an instagram post of him fishing in front of a sunset to the song something in the orange. please give this man a break he deserves it.
regardless. this caused a safety car. and people pitted under the safety car. pretty much everyone who didnt pit already pitted under the safety car. including lando norris. and he came out of the pits in front of max.
by the time the safety car ended on lap 33, lando was still leading and max was still behind him, charles was in p3, oscar in p4 and carlos in p5. lando had new tires but red bull had speed.
max tried to overtake lando once the safety car ended but he wasnt able to, and then max made a mistake at turn 8 and fell behind with carlos catching up to him.
by the time the drivers could use their DRS again, lando was already more than a second ahead of max and out of DRS range, which would make it harder for max to pass him.
now might be a very good time to remind you all that lando norris has never won a race in f1. he has come close, but he has never won. he really really really wants to win one. people have even started calling him lando no wins cause he has no wins. hes been in f1 for 6 years. he has not won. hes leading a race. he doesnt need to pit. his car is freshly upgraded. and max verstappen is behind him.
while lando was creating a gap, carlos was fighting with Oscar.
now. carlos and oscar have a feud. i dont really know why. but they always seem to pick fights with eachother on track. well, carlos usually picks fights with oscar on track, oscar is usually just chilling.
previous incidents between these two have included but not been limited to:
oscar saying "Classic Carlos, just sitting in the middle of the road, I see nothing has changed" over his radio during the 2023 abu dhabi practice session
a tweet from carlos after the 2023 spa gp that said "not what we wanted today. racing incident, but oscar was too optimistic. he was never side by side and that move has never really worked in spa" (ps. they both dnf'd here after crashing into eachother)
oscar saying "mate, is carlos blind or what?" during practice at the 2023 monza gp
carlos saying (in response to nearly running into oscar during monza practice) "its like hes doing it on purpose"
and well. the feud is still alive and well:
"he pushed me off the track!" carlos said on lap 35 when oscar had definitely not pushed him off the track.
"just tell him to give me a positon and he doesn’t get a panelty" carlos said a lap later. "tell mclaren to be telling him because they need to be telling him."
oscar did not give him the position back and instead got his elbows out.
meanwhile! back at the front lando was a whole tWO SECONDS AHEAD of max on lap 37 AND he had the fastest lap.
mclaren told oscar that ferrari wanted him to swap with carlos but they didnt agree and told oscar not to do anything. so oscar kept defending. and carlos continued to complain.
max, who was still 2 seconds behind lando, came on the radio saying "i can’t get the car to turn it’s a disaster” which was just “music to the ears of everyone at mclaren and charles leclerc”
well. maybe not everyone at mclaren. because oscar was still battling with carlos. carlos tried to pass him on lap 39 but failed. then he did pass, oscar passed him back and then carlos went to pass him Again, but failed and they touched eachother. Hamilton and perez managed to pass oscar before it was revealed on lap 41 that oscar had front wing damage and needed to box for a replacement.
CARLOS TWEET
and also during this time, kevin managed to get another penalty for not serving his previous penalty correctly.
lando was 3.1 seconds ahead of max
lap 42. lewis was challenging perez for fifth. "if youve got any more power give it to me!" he shouted into his radio, .5 seconds behind perez.
oscar had a truly abysmal pit stop and came out in 19th.
lap 43. lando was 3.8 seconds ahead of max.
alpine was somehow in the points with esteban ocon in 9th.
matin and crofty were discussing kevin and his infinity gauntlet of penalties.
“kevin magnussen must have his own seat up in the stewards office he’s been up there so often” said martin.
“i’m astounded that kevin as a different penalty for something he didn’t already have a penalty for," crofty said, agreeing with martin.
they were studiously ignoring lando, very not wanting to jinx him as he was 4.7 seconds ahead of max.
k mags got another penalty. this time for entering the pit lane. lance stroll got a track limited warning. lando was 5.2 seconds ahead
ten laps to go.
lap 48. fernando was fighting with esteban ocon for 9th. oscar was up to 17th with the fastest lap.
lap 49. the camera panned to the mclaren garage. everyone looked stressed to hell.
lap 50. lando was 5.6 seconds ahead of max. the commentators were scared to find him even more now. somewhere in the world, nico rosberg was loosing his god damned mind.
lap 51. lando was 5.8 seconds ahead. oscar was fighting daniel for 16th
lap 52. oscars race engineer reminded him that "lando is leading the race we do not want to cause a safety car here." lando was 6 seconds ahead of max. lance stroll went off the track and gained two positions.
five laps to go.
lap 53. hamilton was still railing the back of perez. ocon was holding onto 10th.
lap 54. alex albon locked up. yellow flag. everyone held their breath and prayed for no safety car. but he went into the runoff area. there was no safety car. alex rejoined the track in p19.
three laps to go.
lap 55. oscar passed daniel for 15th. lando was seven seconds ahead of max.
lap 56. this would be the first time mclaren had won in America since 2012 with lewis hamilton in austin, tx. their last win basin 2021 with danny rics in monza. lando was 7.3 seconds ahead of max.
last lap.
lap 57. everyone was screaming. i was on the edge of my seat. we waited with baited breath. through the corners, hurtling down the straights. around the last bend. across the finish line.
and charles and max absolutely soaked him on the podium
famously, lando said a few years ago (jokingly) that nico rosberg retired after his first championship im going to reture after my first win (he is not going to). but he also said a bit less jokingly that if he won he would jump in the lake outside of the mclaren technology center. and he has not done that yet. shame on you lando.
now a little interlude on max and charles here. the miami race weekend was the 12 year anniversary of their "inchident" from karting (you know the one) and tbh, the funniest thing that could have possibly happened this weekend was for both of them to be on the podium, but not win.
and ive talked about the Maxplaining and Leclercifying that has happened before, but they took their yapping to a whole new level now that the cameras weren't really on them.
YAP PICS
max also chose violence in the cool down room. upon being shown the footage of the logan crash he said "at least they have a spare chassis now" and he was Positively Shocked at hoe close perez came to knocking him out in turn 1
max even waited for charles to finish his interview so that they could ride to the podium in the same car together (there were three cars, one for each of them). and yet.
they were also unhinged in the post race press conference. max first tried to sit in the middle (the winners seat) to keep yapping with charles and charles had to point to the other side of the couch and be like buddy no youre over there
the post race press conference was unhinged as all shit. lando said that he was going to party very very hard that night and he might not come out with just a scratch on his nose this time.
and by all accounts he did party quite hard afterwards. first, the day he won was cinco fucking de mayo in miami florida and after wards he posted a photo on his instagram at NINE AM LOCAL TIME (presumably when he was about to get on a flight) that just said "recovery 1%" with the caption "worth it" (later he said that he actually didnt wake up really until tuesday morning. man had an insane night)
and later on at the mclaren celebration back in england they did a toast for him and he said "ive had enough alcohol to be honest"
lando also said during the press conference that he really finds the lando no wins nickname funny, and seeing people call him that over the years gave him so much drive to win. he also said that he wanted to use the valtteri line "to whom it may concern, fuck you" while he was on the radio in his car, but that was "copyrighted"
max was asked if he thought that lando would have still won if there hadnt been a safety car. and if you watch one video on this whole damn post, let it please be this one:
it was just. so nice to see him win. everyone was so happy to see him win. even fred vasseur, the ferrari team principal, was given a mclaren hat and a bottle of champagne to soak lando with:
not to mention that seemingly everyone went out with lando to party afterwards. there weren't too many videos that i could find of that, but from what i saw, pretty much everyone was there.
in everyones post race interviews they all seemed to really express that they were very very happy for lando. will buxton even went as far as to say “i haven’t seen max that happy all year and he’s usually winning”
george was asked in his interview "sorry to say, but you are no longer the last british race winner" and he absolutely clapped back with "thanks. thats a very negative way to say, 'how do you feel about lando winning the race?'" and then he later said "yeah obviously happy to see lando finally get a victory. its well deserved for him. hes been doing an amazing job for a long time so"
this was a common thread among the drivers (not taking peoples negative shit about it), because max also said "if i had to get beaten today im happy it was lando, he deserves it. he did a really good job, he was flying. so yeah. its always nice to see someone win his first grand prix. its always a special day."
and lewis as well said "massive congrats to lando. i won my first grand prix with mclaren, i know how special it is to get that first one, huge congratulations to him, he truly deserves it. and mclaren, wow, im really happy for them thats my old family."
even fred vasseur said "well i want to congratulate lando and mclaren i think that they deserve it and they did a great job and im happy for them"
carlos as well said "i think he deserves it for a long time now to win a race. hes a driver that for me is going to win many many races in f1 hes been driving at an exceptional level. today he was on the lucky side, as i said but i think luck comes to the people that deserve it. and today he definitely deserved to win."
and charles said "we all grew up with the same dream of being in formula 1 one say and its always emotional for me to see him obviously realizing one of his dreams and winning his first race in formula 1 its a very special moment for him."
and then danny rics said "yeah proud to see him get his first win obviously saw his talent and ability and yeah kinda felt like it was going to happen sooner or later. and yeah really happy for him to have a day like this"
and then, pretty much every person ever made a post or commented on his congratulating lando:
oscar piastri: "well done man"
carlos sainz: "CONGRATS CABRON!"
lewis hamilton:"WELL DONE"
alex albon: "congrats!!!"
george russell: "it was always whe, not if, mate. congrats you deserve it"
max verstappen: "very happy for lando norris, congrats mate!"
daniel ricciardo: "and not sure if he is still alive today but very happy for lando norris on his first win"
fernando Alonso: "Bravoooooo"
martin garrix: "LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"
max fewtrell: "So proud brother 🧡"
pato oward: "GUEYYYY!!!!!! 🚀🚀"
antonio giovinazzi: "Bravo Lando ! 🙌💪🏻"
Heineken: "What a race!!! 👏👏👏"
hollister: "🙌🔥👏 YOU DID THAT"
landos initial celebration post, by the way, was a bunch of funny and kind of terrible selfies of him with his trophy with the caption:
WWE FUCKIJG DID IT. P1 🏆
a few days later, when he was no longer hungover he made an instagram story that said
"genuinely had the most insane couple days of my life.
still dont know what to say but this was a dream since i was a kid.
i literally havent stopped smiling since lap 33.
so much hard work to achieve this and it all finally paid off
the support from my team, the mclaren papaya fans, other drivers and so so many more. ive appreciated every single bit of it.
love you all.
and after all this...were just getting started...
and yes...still smiling"
lewis hamiltons dad even texted landos dad congratulating him!
and interestingly enough, they interviewed lando's race engineer, will. who said that the upgrade "package should favor other circuits more than miami."
so do we actually have a proper championship battle on our hands? will it just be a max sweep from here on out? whos to say. we dont know.
but what we do know, according to martin brundle, is that "the secret to beating max verstappen is injuring yourself right before the race: "we realize now the secret to beating max verstappen, remove an appendix, do an injury to your nose, some sort of operation or injury is the way now to beat max verstappen in formula 1."
and most heartwarmingly, nico rosberg seemingly predicted this. if you all recall, two weeks ago at the chinese gp, he told lando this:
"we have a race the two of us because youre at 109 and i won then i was at 111 (races) my first race so were close. your time is coming. maybe next race cause you got upgrades coming in miami! so it could be good."
and then lando won his 110th, beating nico out by one race and jenson button by four. and both of them are world champions. nico finally figured out how to use his witchcraft for good.
will buxton wrote an article for f1 about the phenomenon of lando no wins and he concluded it with this:
The universal outpouring of joy in his victory tells you another side to him. Its rare in the highly competitive world of Formula 1 to make many true friends. To a man, I can’t think of a driver who wasn’t delighted for him in Miami. I haven’t seen Max Verstappen as happy all year, and he’s won pretty much everything. That affection is real. The friendships are true.
And as he brought his car to the pits, after acknowledging those who try to drag him down, he spoke words for the truly private man. For his parents and his grandmother. The part of his life he keeps closest and most guarded.
For his entire Formula 1 career, he’s had to be what people expect of him. Carry the weight of manifesting the legend of the version of himself he’d always portrayed himself as being. As he grew from teenager into adulthood, an ever growing fanbase of millions expected him perhaps never to change and to always stay the same.
On Sunday he received the only reply he’s ever sought. Validation. A Grand Prix winner. Just as he always knew he would and could be.
What stands before him now is a level of freedom he has never known, to truly embrace the destiny that stands before him.
Beyond the memes, the engagement, the lifetime lived in the spotlight of social media stardom, the witty quips and the potential to be the perfect media personality, there has always existed the hunger of the competitor. The desire to be the best. To win it all.
The posts, the stories, the reels. They can write themselves now.
The man, not the meme. Lando “No Wins,” no more.
thanks for reading and waiting for the update of this monstrosity. thank you for continuing to read this insane post. ill see you all in imola! o7
and welcome back to imola. or sorry. the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrariwe are more than a quarter of the way done with the calendar and jumping straight into a double header weekend. today is may 19, 2024 and lets get into it.
before we even start. can we talk about the fact that i managed to get this out on THE DAY OF THE RACE. this never happens. im so fucking proud of myself. idk how i did it. but i did. this makes up for the fact that china and miami were both posted like a week late lol. and i even handwrote all of my notes instead of fumbling them into my notes app with a million spelling errors. and i managed to watch all three practices, qualifying, race and post race. but anyway. you are all here for the good stuff. and good stuff abounded:
first, some stuff that happened during the off week:
-xavi stepped down as charles leclercs race engineer. he will still be at ferrari just not as his engineer. the engineer is the person in their ear during the race giving them instructions. xavi is famous for saying the infamous "we are checking" to charles. it is truly the end of an era.
-there are rampant rumors that there will be a grand prix in chicago, Illinois, USA, starting in 2026. it was confirmed, then disproven. and if you are european and mad about the growing amount of gps in the states purely because you think the us has too many, might i direct your attention to this handy map that i made:
the us gps (plus canada) are in yellow and purple. the European (and middle eastern) ones are in red and blue.
to put this further in perspective:
lets say i live in new york city (which i do) and lets say i want to go to a race (which i also do). what are my options?
Montreal, 6 hour drive, 600 kilometers
Chicago, 13 hour drive, 1272 kilometers
Miami, 19.5 hour drive, 2068 kilometers
Austin, 26 hour drive, 2805 kilometers
Las Vegas, 38 hour drive, 4065 kilometers
just for shits, i looked up the distance between new york city and silverstone, england. 5488 kilometers. for comparison, there are 274 kilometers (2.5 hours distance) between monza and imola, the two Italian gps.
i rest my case!
now, if youre mad about the number of gps in the us cause you would rather there be more in other countries because you want to see other cultures represented and not just hating on the us, then youre justified. it would be cool to get some more in some other countries. give us more in south america, bring back some tracks like Malaysia or even portugal. but im tired of seeing just the too many in the us argument when no one clearly knows how Big the us is.
-sir lewis hamilton went to the met gala. he slayed.
he was wearing burberry and the outfit was honoring the first black gardener in the uk, john ystumllyn. the flowers on his jacket and his flower earrings represent the gardening, the thorn necklace the adversity he faced and overcame through the slave trade. and there was an excerpt from an alex Wharton poem on the inside of his jacket about ystumllyn that read "I hope the sun pours light upon our skin. And we melt into each other, into everything. Maybe the trees will speak, as they sometimes do. Whispers from the shade — Run, run away."
so in short, he was absolutely on theme and he slayed.
and of course. what did the internet think of it.
there were two trains of thought.
the first being: why is he posing like his pregnant (to show off his jewelry clearly ffs)
the second being:
which is correct.
(he also posted a my space esque selfie. which doesnt Quite count as a thirst trap selfie but it was truly something) (and i absolutely SCOURED THE INTERNET FOR IT and came up empty. this post would have been up a few hours ago actually but i was still scouring)
and he also helped the broncos (the american football team, he owns stake in them) reveal their season schedule. this has absolutely nothing do do with f1 remotely, but i am still including it because its a hilarious video
-lando norris posted a birthday shoutout for martin garrix. which sounds innocent enough. until you see what it actually was:
the first was the original post. the second was what he changed it to. there was some speculation that he initially meant to post this on his private story and then accidentally made it public because it was taken down literally within two minutes. i dont have an explanation but it sure is Something.
(also while we are talking about lando, shoutout to that person on twitter who called me a norris dickrider. i think i was supposed to be insulted. i printed it out and hung it in my living room)
-oscar went wakeboarding. this is not really the interesting part (though why do they keep putting him in wet suits ???) the interesting part was that his mom flamed him on twitter for not knowing how to use a dryer:
-pierre gasly went to target.
this in itself is not really interesting, but as an american myself i am baffled. he went to target in what i can assume is miami and bought caramel pecan brittle quest bars and chocolate muscle milk.
for all of you non americans. quest bars are like literally blocks of chalk. like someone took several cups of protein powder and then maybe a half cup of water and mixed it together into a big hard brick of protein and coated it in kinda shitty chocolate. and muscle milk is like chocolate milk with protein in it, so its kinda thicker and tastes worse. in short, its the frat boy choice of protein (and as someone who dates a frat boy i say this with confidence)
also he decided to wear a yellow camouflage shirt??? im sorry i know hes french but this is just so frat boy coded
-george won the lorenzo bandini award. which is awarded to a driver or team that shows "commendable performance" and is pretty prestigious. he went to collect the award in a 1924 Mercedes Targa Florio:
-logan did lap of legends. what is lap of legends? you might be asking. well williams posted very little about it which is probably why you might be confused.
so basically logan was racing in his car on the track against 6 famous ex williams drivers (mario andretti, nigel mansell, alain prost, damon hill, jaques villenuve, and jenson button) (cause remember williams used to be a really really good team before everything went to shit a few years ago) though the power of ai. so logan was in his car and racing virtual cars. jaques, alain, and nigel actually all came to silverstone to watch it, jenson was one of the hosts and they even got crofty to announce it. overall a big ass deal, especially for logan who has as we know not been having the best season so far.
but williams only made one single instagram post about it. which is wildly insulting. and they did something even worse, actually that overshadowed the whole damn thing. but we will get to that shortly.
if you want to watch it, its here
-charles posted another video of leo. hes cute idk. not much else to report about that. people did compare leos smirk to baby charles's menace smirk.
-max participated in the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring iRacing event. this is kinda funny cause it was the exact same weekend as the imola race. did he do this on purpose? did he accidentally double book himself? idk. either way its kinda funny. and evidently max also thought it was kinda funny that people took issue with the fact that he was doing two races in the same weekend (given that he might not be as focused on the f1 race and crasher something):
" I am professional enough to see what can and cannot be done. I'm not someone who thinks anyway: if I hadn't done that yesterday, this wouldn't have happened today. Look, if you don't go to bed and don't sleep, it won't be good for your race on Sunday. But the last few races I have also gamed afterwards, there was just no focus on that then. It doesn't matter all that much."
max was also asked if he had to ask red bull permission to participate in the race and he said no:
"I decide that myself. You can't decide what people do on their Saturday night. It's my free time. I am professional enough to see what can and cannot be done."
-valtteri bottas. idk how to describe it but stake is really having him pop his pussy. stake in general has just kinda been off the fucking rails this week.
but enough of that. lets get to the good stuff.
silly season
now Technically no one Else has singed (else being the key word here). there are rumors that zhou and logan are both talking to haas. (gunther had already been interested in logan on account of the fact that hes american) and it looks like kevin is not going to keep his seat.
there is the fact that aparently valtteri had a meeting with james vowels in the williams hospitality. i say aparently because he was seen leaving the williams hospitality on practice day and the official reason that was given was that to was because valtteri had run out of coffee and was taking some from williams. which is just so stinking funny no matter which way you spin it. but there are rumors that both williams and alpine want to sign him.
and lewis hamilton said that he would support kimi antonelli taking his seat. "honestly i have no idea what toto's plans are, but i think for me, hiring a young person would be, if it were my job, i would probably hire kimi."
and i am pretty sure that carlos needs to give audi/stake and answer by monaco. which is next week.
and mercedes lost their chief aerodynamicist, jack vino, to ferrari. (im pretty sure he went to ferrari)
the real news here is alex albon
you might be wondering. hold on. didnt alex already sign with williams? yes. he did. this was announced at the 2024 williams car launch by james vowels (the team principal). his exact quote about being at williams past 2025 was:
“Let’s see. Time will tell. But my focus is on 2024. Let’s keep it like that. The real focus is on making sure that we make progress for 2025. That’s really where I’m at. I realistically want to be with the team — if the team are where I want them to be, it will be a long-term contract. We’re going to go all the way or nothing. That’s my idea of it, I guess.”
he said "I realistically want to be with the team — if the team are where I want them to be, it will be a long-term contract."
now, im no expert in f1 cars by a long shot but lets look at williams's stats for the 2024 season so far:
bahrain: alex p15, logan p20. alex made it to q2 of qualifying. during the race his car showed an error message saying that it was too hot and logan had steering wheel problems
saudi arabia: alex p11, logan p15, alex made it through to q2 of qualifying
australia: alex p11 after crashing his own car during practice and having to race in logans cause williams didnt have a spare chassis, alex made it through to q2 of qualifying,
japan: alex dnf, logan p17, neither had confidence in the car and were racing in each others cars still, alex made it through to q2 of qualifying
china: alex p12, logan p17, alex got into q2 of qualifying for the race, but not the sprint
miami: alex p18, logan dnf, logan did very well in the sprint race and placed above alex, but still no one got points. Williams finally got a spare chassis.
that doesnt seem like very good stats. they've gotten no points. the car is a disaster.
and yet! alex albon signed an EXTENSION at williams.
why on earth did he do this?
well i have some speculations. lets belly flop right into the deep end, shall we?
(as a note. i found out about this approximately 5 minutes before arriving at work and sent approximately 53 unhinged voice memos of speculations to everyone i could think of during my breaks. i will attempt to recreate the seer unhinged insanity that i achieved there here)
number one: multi year contracts
everyone who has signed a contract so far has signed a multi year contract. charles is at ferrari through 29, lewis through 26, lando is at mclaren until 27, oscar until 26, nico hulkenberg signed at least a two year contract at stake, fernando signed a who knows how long contract at aston. NO ONE HAS SIGNED A ONE YEAR CONTRACT!!!! admittedly there are still a whole lot of seats left, but so far no rookies have been signed (often they get 1 year contracts) and likely wont be until later in the season. but if no one signs a one year contract, then theres relatively little options for movement at the end the year and the chance that you could get dropped.
who has signed a one year contract???? alex albon. at williams.
number two: 2025 contract sillies
so! originally! george, lando and lewis (and mayyyybe oscar??) all had contracts expiring in 2025. lando extended at mclaren until i think 2027, lewis signed with Ferrari for at least through 2026 (oscar also extended to 2026).
this leaves george with the only current contract expiring in 2025.
number three: saph loosing her mind and going off the deep end (im not even sorry)
so currently george is on a one plus one contract which is one year guaranteed and option of resigning for a second year if everything goes well and dandy (in short, essentially). 2025 would be the plus one part of the contract. so he has an out. basically. im pretty sure. he could leave at the end of this year if he wanted to. (will he? idk probably not but just embrace the insanity of this ok)
so. mercedes. they're going downhill hard and fast like a giant snowball in a parable you have to read for an ap english test which is not good cause like yeah they sucked last year a little, but they still came second in the constructors championship IN FRONT OF ferrari. this year right now theyre in fourth in the constructors championship with 62 points (mclaren are in third with 124 and aston martin are fifth with 42) and yeah were barely a quarter into the season but thats kinda bad stats, especially for a previously champion winning team.
SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ALEX ALBON??? well williams is associated with mercedes cause williams uses a mercedes engine blah blah seen it lived it breathed it whatever SO alex COULD go to mercedes for 25 and take georges seat BUT mercedes is deep in their shit arc so he probably doesnt want to do that and lets not forget than george and alex are friends like best friends like sky sports implied that they hooked up one time so you reALLY THINK that george wouldn't give a few wink wink hint hints to alex about the fact that hey man merc kinda fucking sucks dont come here please???? like i know theyre not supposed to but people do stuff theyre not supposed to all the damn time!
OR the OTHER OPTION is that say alex WAS banking on taking george's seat which would become available in 2025 BUT george is on a one plus one and what if hes LEAVING. george would have Definitely told alex this esp if he knew alex was looking at merc as an option and also cause theyre friends and he would have been like hey hey man there wont be a seat for you to take because im leaving this year and your contract is up next year (why would george leave???? dance with a better team (tho tbh idk what team that would be) and more options in the driver market are available this year) so that COULD BE AN OPTION
AND LETS NOT FORGET that red bull wanted first refusal of alex albon for the 2026 season but this was kinda back when it looked like they still might have signed daniel ricciardo which would have probably been on a one year contract only and would have made sense then to want to have options for 2026 BUT NOW it looks like red bull want to keep checo and if alex albon is signing a multi year williams contract then red bull are probably multi year signing checo so there would be no more first refusal for 2026 and thus stupid for alex to hold out for them if they are already filling their second seat. that of course would mean that all the seats at the top teams are taken (provided that george stays at merc through 25 and they sign kimi or whoever for the second seat) for at least a few years cause george will likely sign another merc contract if he stays through 25 cause of the limited driver market, ferrari and mclaren have no open seats until 26 at least, and red bull have at least few years as well. this is all to say that alex would not be able to promote himself to a better team and if he wants to stay on the grid to potentially get back to a better team he needed to tie himself down in the shitbox car like a lady on a railroad track in the olden days.
does that make sense? no probably not. but i rest my case.
tldr: pretty sure alex albon knows something we dont. im watching you buddy. or he just wants a seat on the grid until he can get somewhere better (but i like my theory more)
also though. alex's contract news entirely overshadowed logans lap of legends which was something that Williams did specifically For Logan. and also also, alex signing an extension on top of his current contract doesnt look very good for logan at all.
aside from alex, carlos was asked when there would be news on where he was driving next year and he basically said "when i have it you will know" and that it is still a "long way off" which is. not so great sounding. if youre carlos sainz.
but with all that said. lets get into media day.
normally i dont Explicitly cover media day (i am an adult with two jobs taking college classes on the side ok i need time to sleep believe it or not), but this media day was kinda focused on senna so ill make an exception.
(senna was a Brazilian f1 driver who died at the 1994 imola gp, along with ronald ratzenberger who died in qualifying. i talked about them last week, if you want to read about that weekend in more detail i redirect you to here. it is not. fun story, theres a lot of death)
the senna tribute was organized by sebastian vettel, everyones favorite unproblematic, freshly shaven bloke and probably the only person capable of uniting the entire paddock.
essentially, as i said last time, this is the 30 year anniversary of ayrton senna's and ronald ratzenberger's deaths. in memory, sebastian vettel (4x world champion and previously a red bull, ferrari and aston martin driver who retired in 2022) returned to the paddock to organize a tribute and also drive ayrtons mclaren mp4/8 car in a demo drive around the track.
on media day he also organized a run around the imola circuit (most people ran, some people decided to bike and someone else (*cough* LEWIS *cough*) decided to scooter. they stopped at the curve where senna died for a moment of silence and a speech.
he made all of the drivers custom senna shirts with their own driver numbers on them, and gave them all a lock to put on the fence at the senna statue/memorial site.
(everyone shit on max for not wearing the shirt. aparently he was late cause he got caught up in the media pen or something. i also saw that perhaps he decided to wear the red bull kit to honor ratzenberger who was austrian and red bull is an Austrian team, or some people even speculated he didnt wear the shirt because nelson piquet, his girlfriends father, hated senna for some reason. whatever the reason, it doesnt matter. valtteri was wearing a blue cycle suit and no one gave him shit for it)
the track walk run cycle scoot (as it was named by the f1 instagram account) was certainly....something
seb also took being back in the paddock as the opportunity to cause problems.
first he arrived in what is either a denim or linen dad shirt with a fresh haircut and shave and a paddock pass that says f1 world champion:
then he hung out in the red bull garage and had max sign the helmet that he had given him
then, he made fun of charles's pants
then he stood right next to logan (which is funny because logan said recently that he feels kinda left out of stuff and then no less than three retired world champions (nico, jenson and seb)came out of the woodwork to cheer him on)
and he (thirst???) posted a photo of lewis
the tribute lap he did in sennas car was done i think on saturday, but im throwing it in here with the rest of the tribute stuff.
he bowed to the car in true sebastian vettel style
he was left very emotional
i could keep going on about seb, but unfortunately this post is too fucking long already
and we have several people whos home race this is. well kind of. its a home race for ferrari because they are an italian team so the tifosi are going to go crazy go stupid. and its also rb's home race because they are based in italy. none of the drivers are really From Italy though. but! yuki does live very close to the racetrack and helped out the locals last year clean up from the floods that affected the region and canceled the imola gp. pierre lives in i think milan (?).
and then theres oscar:
but onto the racing.
starting with the practice sessions.
very, very surprisingly, i actually watched all three practice sessions this week. and even more surprising, max verstappen was on the back foot. how far on the back foot was he??? well!!
in practice 1 he finished in 5th, and ended up driving across the grass in the middle sector and then later across the gravel on his last lap. he was loosing up to .4 seconds in the middle sector or the track. after the session he called his car a "catastrophe"
in practice 2 he finished 7th. he said that the car was better, but he was struggling with the grip. he went into the gravel again. the car wasnt really responding to his turning the wheel fast enough. there was speculation that he was going to have his set up changed overnight. the announcers said many times "all is not well with max verstappen."
in practice 3 he finished 6th. red bull cancelled their pit stop practice to finish the set up changes. red bull went out early in the session which was unusual for them to test the set up changes. at the beginning he was doing a little better .19 of a second behind charles (who was on soft tires when max was on medium tires). and max did say that the car "cant get worse."
and, red bull was on a redemption weekend. they had just lost in miami to lando and according to one ted kravitz, red bull "will make these comments and then qualify on pole by hand a second then win the race by 20 seconds" see: japan (post australia).
so if max wasnt doing well. and checo by default also wasnt doing well (and crashed in practice 3), who was doing well?
ferrari. mclaren. and yuki tsunoda.
ferrari brought massive upgrades to imola, and at least in the practice sessions they looked like they were doing well. charles went fastest in practice 1 and 2 and fourth in practice 3. carlos was a bit behind charles, the new set up seemingly favoring charles's driving style over his, but he managed to get a handle on the car as well, coming in 3rd in practice 1, 6th in practice 2 and 3rd in practice 3. ferrari was confident in the upgrades. charles was even favored for pole.
one thing was for sure, leo was excited about the success. (unfortunately since this was posted on charles instagram story this is the only version of this video i could find)
1,129 likes, 11 comments - podiumsundays on May 17, 2024: "This video is a work of art. #charlesleclerc #f1 #ferrari".
mclaren also brought upgrades. oscar now had the complete upgrade package that lando had had in maimi and they also changed the rear wing a little. lando and oscar came 8th and 9th in practice 1 respectively, still testing the set up. oscar came 2nd in practice two and lando came 12th, but didnt get to complete his flying lap. oscar came 1st (and fastest in all three sectors) and lando came 2nd in practice 3. (the mclaren instagram admin was personally thrilled with this result, posting the caption "nobody say its just practice). oscar even had time to insult alpine's driving style: "that's so intelligent...incredible."
and then there was yuki tsunoda. who Positively Slayed. the announcers first discussed that he was staying in his own apartment for the race weekend and "enjoying his own coffee machine." (one of the announcers, karun, said that he stayed at his own apartment before silverstone in 2010 and had to go to tesco on friday of the race weekend to buy cereal cause he didnt have any and it was "confusing"). in practice 1 he came 6th, in practice 2 he came 3rd and in practice 3 he came 13th. he was never very far from the top 5. it was incredible to see.
aside from that. there were problems abound.
danny rics did Okay. not nearly as well as yuki but Okay. according to him "half of it was because of the floor, half of it wasn't because i was a bit rubbish."
aston martin brought upgrades. they didnt really work. they said that this was part of a bigger upgrade package that was coming, but they still didnt do very well. considently in the mid field section. and fernando alonso crashed into the wall in practice 3 after loosing the rear on a gravel trap (imola has a lot of gravel traps).
williams had a decently williams day. alex albon had to retire his car in practice 1 because he ran over a curb and shorted out the electricity in the car. like it just stopped working. at the start of practice two both cars has the floors off of them with people working on them for at least half the session.
haas was pretty normal as well. ollie bearman was in kevins car for practice 1 and he finished 15th, hulkenberg 20th. aparently the drive to survive cameras were following him around the paddock (and hes not even in f1 yet!" the announcers regarded him, not for the first time, as a star of the future. nico hulkenberg has never raced in anything at imola before, somehow. and he did about as well as he usually did, which is better than kevin.
stake was also just kinda there, idk. they didnt get talked about much. in practice 1 they had some porpoising (car bouncing). and there was contract talk. the announcers were doubtful that zhou was going to be in f1 past this year.
alpine was, well, alpine. the french civil war was alive and well and the car was pretty mid. pierre went spin a few times.
and the french civil war was alive and well. at least on pierres side. post fp3 on the radio he said: "why! we are always in the same situation"
his engineer said "everyone bunched up there, nobody got a lap"
this was not acceptable for pierre. "yeah," he said "except esteban. except esteban. its always the same. i thought i had priority this weekend."
and mercedes. they also had upgrades. they were Okay. better than some, and slightly better than usual. but still not quite where they wanted to be. aparently these upgrades were upgrades that they had started planning around launch and testing, the real good batch of upgrades are going to come around summer break. they did have a few problems with the ride heights and some porpoising, but that was likely due to the track being bumpy and not the car. according to the announcers they were "better than usual" and ended up ahead of red bull quite a few times, but they usually do well in practice but not qualifying.
speaking of qualifying.
remember how max didnt do well at all in any of the practice sessions and was generally not having a good time? and the announcers were excited that there was finally a five way battle for pole!
yeah. max got pole.
even he was surprised, and he actually sounded excited. and he set a new world record for 8 consecutive poles.
so if max got pole, where did everyone else end up?
im glad you asked.
first, imola is a tight track, its twisty, theres elevation, only one DRS zone. your qualifying position is very important because its hard to overtake here. not quite as bad as monaco, but still not fun.
heading into q1, fernandos car was barely fixed. mclaren was slaying with lando saying his lap was "only average" before going fastest. nico hulkenberg briefly went fastest. pierre even got as high as fifth. and kevin magnussen got massively impeded by oscar piastri (who later got a three place grid penalty for it) and ended up out in q1. also out in q1 was bottas, sargeant (who had his lap time deleted and ended up in 20th), zhou, and fernando alonso who had to abort his lap due to a technical issue.
and kevin, when asked about visiting the stewards to discuss the impeding, said "it was nice to see the stewards again and make sure they are doing alright. it would be weird to go a whole weekend without seeing them."
(and some of you got pissed at me for not talking about kevins almost race ban last week and i didnt talk about it because it hasn't happened. but basically kevin has 10 penalty points on his superliscense for penalties and violations this year, if he gets to 12 he gets a race ban, so hes gotta be careful.)
q2 was a bit more exciting, with lecelrc briefly taking p1 away from max, and yuki tsunoda going third fastest. out in q2, surprisingly, was checo followed by ocon, stroll, albon and gasly.
which meant that for the first time this season, danny rics was in q3, continuing his 100% q3 appearance at imola streak. meanwhile. fred vasseur, ferrari team principal was stressed. andrea stella, mclaren team principal was not. but he never is. and one by one both ferrari and mclaren came up just slightly short. with the final order being max, oscar, lando, charles, carlos, george, yuki, lewis, daniel and nico.
notably!! max ended up on pole for one reason and one reason only. because nico hulkenberg gave him the slipstream. when asked about it, nico said that "he helped me out in q2 and i returned the favor." without this, oscar would have likely been on pole.
and, as oscar piastri said "you cant count out max in a red bull as we've seen."
and boy, was he correct.
everyone lined up for the race
well, except for fernando alonso who was starting from the pit lane.
and even though crofty was not there to say it, the lights went out and away they went.
lap one was fairly uneventful. actually the first chunk of the race was fairly uneventful.
oscar had been given a three place grid penalty for impeding magnussen and started from fifth, behind carlos. and as we saw last week, they do not quite get along on the track. and oscar barely gave carlos room to breathe for the first 24 laps of the race, riding his rear wing until he pitted.
and speaking of pit stops, imola has the longest pit lane of the calendar, you loose about 30 seconds pitting (from entering the pit to exiting it) so it was Ideally a one stop race. meaning tire strategy was important. and boy, did we see some Interesting tire strategies.
beginning with checo, who was the only one starting the race on hard tires, meaning that he planned to go really really long on the hard tires and then swap out for a softer tire towards the end to hopefully make up some positions because he was starting from 11th. it almost worked for him too.
fernando and pierre did the exact opposite, starting on soft tires with the hopes of overtaking many people on the opening laps (because remember its hard to overtake on this track), but that epically failed for both of them, mostly because there was no early safety car and before lap 10 both of them had ditched the soft tire. (with the added extra bonus of fernandos brakes lighting on fire after his pit stop! they went out tho)
everyone else was on mediums for the most part.
including alex albon who had a horrendous start to his race. he was starting from 14th, which was fairly average for williams. and he pitted on lap 10, but went extremely slow out of the pit lane and came on the radio to say that "i have a problem, tires aren't on properly"
which is indeed a problem, and also very unsafe.
we have seen this happen before, not really this season but definitely back in australia 2018 when it happened to both haas cars at the opening race of the season and they both had to retire the cars.
alex albon though, was able to somehow get back around the track and back to the pits safely, boxing for another set of tires. but he came out a lap behind everyone. and then he got a 10 second stop and go penalty (which is saved by driving through the pit lane) for an unsafe release (leaving the pit with loose tires), which put him almost two laps down. and! the tires that he had boxed for that had gotten screwed up were his only set of hard tires, meaning he had to do pretty much the whole race on mediums. not a good day for alex albon At All.
and if alex was having a bad first half of the race, yuki was having a fantastic one. after loosing two places at the beginning, he pitted for tires on lap 12. he had been running right behind nico hulkenberg, who pitted on lap 14 and yuki just managed to cut him off at the pit lane exit, overtaking him as he came back onto the track, with the announcers saying "this has unleashed him" and unleashed him it had, this would not be the last we saw of yuki slaying.
checo meanwhile took a little dip into the gravel on lap 15
but it was fairly standard for the first 20 or so laps. max was running out in front in p1, about 4-5 seconds ahead of lando, who was about a second and a half infront of leclerc, who had moved froward to catch lando and no longer had carlos in his drs to protect him from oscar who was between .5 and .7 seconds behind carlos.
it was becoming clear that mclaren was going to be fighting with ferrari for second and not with max for first as they had originally thought.
but then the top 5 all began their pit stops and things started to heat up a little.
lap 23. lando came into the pits. in order for him to get back up into fighting positions he needed to come out of the pits in front of checo who was in 6th. and he didnt. he landed just behind checo in 7th.
as this was happening, max got a black and white flag for track limits. meaning he needed to be careful or else he would be getting a time penalty if he did it again.
lando, meanwhile, was able to overtake checo on lap 24
also on lap 24, oscar pitted and came out in 8th behind stroll and checo. another not ideal position. he had ground to make up if he wanted to undercut sainz.
lap 25. max pitted and came out in 4th. oscar passed stroll for 7th.
so we had leclerc in p1 and sainz in p2. hamilton was in p3, verstappen was in p4, norris was 4 seconds behind him and with the fastest lap time.
hamilton had a dip into the gravel and pitted, coming out in 9th.
lap 26. charles pitted and came out, just like everyone else, behind perez in 6th. oscar them pulled out a fastest lap that was almost a whole second faster than landos fastest lap.
lap 27. charles passed checo for 5th, oscar passed checo for 6th. sainz pitted and came out behind perez, just like everyone else. almost like passing perez was some kind of community service.
and yuki! again! passed logan sargeant and nico hulkenberg in the middle of the pit stop drama.
mclaren were still confident. apparently the tire degradation was high on other cars than it was on theirs. this was good news cause no one was going to pit again.
but, this did mean oscar piastri was going to be stuck looking at the back of a ferrrari again. and he wasnt too happy about that. the race to the end was on.
meanwhile, oblivious to the fight raging ahead, yuki passed zhou for 11th on lap 33.
by lap 35 tho, lando was struggling. "why am i so much slower than the guys behind?" he asked on the radio "theyre using their tires much more than we are," will, his engineer said. "yeah," lando said, "but i have no pace"
and then charles starting flooring it.
meanwhile! perez. he finally pitted on lap 39. and he came out in 11th behind danny rics. by lap 40 he had passed danny and then by lap 41 had also passed hulkenberg for 9th, and also passed yuki for 8th on lap 43.
but, back to lando. he was loosing time against charles. by lap 43 charles was only 1 second behind lando. and the gap between max and lando had grown to 7 seconds. but lando was still fighting. he just had to keep charles out of drs (more than a second away from him) and by lap 48, after doing his personal best fastest lap, the gap was back at over a second. he was safe. for now.
checo was stuck behind hamilton. like 30 seconds behind hamilton. but he had been 30 seconds behind hamilton for a good several laps and hadn't even remotely started to close the gap even a little. despite having new tires, he was seemingly struggling for pace.
also on lap 48, charles decided that the grass needed cutting in one of the chicanes. and he ran over it, increasing the gap between him and lando to 2 seconds. which was bad news for him, but great news for lando.
by lap 51 something interesting had happened to lando's tires. they had come back to life. because max was only 4 seconds ahead of him.
and according to GP, max's race engineer, he was experiencing the most loss in turns 2 and 6. max's response was, very helpfully, "yeah my tires aren't working!" which was great news if your name was lando norris!
lap 52. lando was 3 seconds clear of charles. mclaren was officially bringing the fight to red bull. no safety cars, no luck, just pure racing.
weirdly, in the middle of this, george pitted for medium tires. because his tires were dead.
the radios previous to this pit stop were...interesting:
george was asked if he minded pitting. he would loose a position tho to lewis (george was 6 and lewis was 7, checo was 30 seconds behind so they had the window to pit) and george said "yeah I dont mind....but well do a switch at the end or...?"
and his engineer said "negative." they talked about the car some more.
and then george said "why would we box? i really dont get that"
(they wanted to box because they had been concerned about george even finishing the race on the tires that he had because they were so dead)
his engineer said as much "were just concerned on getting these tires till the end, up to you."
george was not pleased with this. "I dont want to confit a position for no reason" he said.
his engineer was silent for awhile. and then he said eventually "box, before we lose the window to perez"
so george pitted. and lost the position to hamilton.
he was asked about this in the post race, but seemed to be over it, saying that "you are never going to be happy with a P6 and a P7. at the end of the day, as a team, we scored an extra point. I lost my position to lewis. but, I am not going to sulk over losing a P6, to be honest."
10 laps to go!!
and things were finally, finally starting to heat up!
lap 53. max was told to mind the track limits because he already had a black and white flag and couldnt afford a 5 second penalty
lap 54. alex albon retired his car. mostly because he was so far behind everyone that it really didnt matter if he finished the race or not. later, everyone would flame williams on instagram for being concerned about logans performance when they themselves couldnt put wheels on a car correctly. alex albon though was weirdly optimistic in his post race interview about the dnf, saying that it was the "best the car has felt set up wise."
max, meanwhile, was only in the lead by a slim 3.5 seconds. insane when you remember that max is used to winning by 20 seconds.
the announcers were starting to speculate, and karun said what everyone was thinking. "could it be two in a row" for lando norris?? no one had done back to back wins after their first gp win since charles leclerc at ferrari in 2019!
lap 56. and max's car refused to turn.
by lap 57 lando had closed the gap to a very small 1.6 seconds. he told his engineer, who was trying to give him advice "im pushing as much as i can mate, thank you." it was was projected that he would be within drs range in 3 laps.
but! horrors! on lap 59 he had a snap of oversteer and lost a few tenths. the gap was 1.4 seconds and it increased to 1.8 seconds on lap 60.
three laps to go!
and landos tires were losing grip. victory was slipping away from him.
lap 62. max was almost out of battery power and he sounded panicked about it. he had 30% and lando had 60%. he could slow to change the battery but that would close the gap to lando which was already only 1.1 seconds. he would have to do it without the extra battery power.
lap 63. the final lap. the gap was down to less than a second, lando was still gaining, he was still going, he was still flying, but he didnt quite manage to pass max.
but he did come close. .7 seconds close.
yes. max had only won by .7 seconds. he had to work for it in ways we havent seen in awhile from him. the days of easy red bull wins seem to be done. the fight that the other teams have been saying that they are taking to red bull since 2022 has finally arrived.
"fuck my life," max said. "i had to work hard for that."
during the post race press conference, max said "im just looking forward to laying in bed, maybe taking some painkillers." and was generally very exhausted due to how hard he was pushing and the bumpy track.
lando said himself during his post race interview "were in the position to fight with ferrari and red bull" and mclaren has "to get used to fighting for 1st and 2nd now" which coming from lando, mr glass half empty, is really something. lando said that he could have gotten max of he had a few more laps. dare i say that we might have a title fight on our hands here.
by comparison, max said in his post race interview that it was "very tricky at the end" the hard tires didnt really work in the car, it was kind of "like driving on ice...so difficult to be consistent." and he even admitted that "ferrari and mclaren have taken a big step forward."
and so, the race finished with
p1: max verstappen
p2: lando norris
p3: charles leclerc
p4: oscar piastri
p5: carlos sainz
p6: lewis hamilton
p7: george russell (and fastest lap)
p8: checo perez
p9: lance stroll
p10: yuki tsunoda
p11: nico hulkenberg
p12: kevin magnussen
p13: daniel ricciardo
p14: esteban ocon
p15: zhou guanyu
p16: pierre gasly
p17: logan sargeant
p18: valtteri bottas
p19: fernando alonso
DNF: alex albon
the cooldown room was really something. as in. well. for some reason they showed a clip of sonic the hedgehog before the race highlights? it was probably a sponsor, but max, charles and lando were entertained:
and when they showed the clip of lewis going off into the gravel, everyone had something to say about it:
lando: "someone went off in ahead of you"
max: "yeah who was it?"
lando: "someone went through the gravel. and I was like, please be max!"
max: "ah, it was lewis"
charles: "ah I thought it was you lando"
lando: "no i thought it was max"
max: "no you were hoping it was me."
they were properly silly. and it continued on the podium when lando tried and nearly succeeded to chase max off the stage with the champage.
speaking of the podium, we are now 3/4 lando podiums that haven't shown his full champage pop. but at least we have the mclaren instagram page:
heading into the post race show, there was a lot of talk about max. mostly about how red bull might have hit a ceiling in terms of development. but remember!!! adrian newey has been taken out of the meetings now at red bull and is not working on the f1 car at all anymore....could be correlated. especially because max was not consistently the fastest car. we all saw where checo ended and where he qualified. max winning came down to his skill, and not really the car itself.
and zak brown said in the post race interview "i think we actually made max sweat a little...bring on monaco, we're ready to go." (zak brown also did tell lando that he should have shaved his beard and then he would have gone faster)
aside from max, yuki was pleased at his result and said that he feels like he has matured as a driver. and we got yoints!!! incredible day!!!
carlos on the other hand was anything but pleased. his energy and his body language were terribly off. like yes, he had a bad race, yes he was fighting with oscar again, but in the words of john mulaney, Something Hinky Is Going On. first. he didnt look once at the camera. second he read laura winter's notes as soon as he picked up the microphone, to see what she was going to ask him. which is odd. and based on his body languge, probably he didnt want to answer any contract questions. he also interrupted her a lot to jump straight into his answers.
he said that the race was "vowed tricky for me on the personal side" and a "far from ideal race" and he was "disappointed." upon being asked if it was a set up related issue he said "not related to set up, it is related to other things in f1 that we cannot comment about."
so, maybe something contract related was going on with carlos. or maybe even hes starting to get shut out of ferrari meetings, as is normal when a driver isn't renewed because they cant share future info with them.
oscar was not nearly as disappointed as carlos. he polite catted left right and center all over his interview. "i think as a team we finished in the two most painful positions, 2nd and 4th" he said. but he wasnt disappointed. he was very pleased with his start, but said that "it would have been good if we could have had a bit of fun at the end of the race."
and lewis was Slightly more confident in the mercedes. Slightly. Very Slightly. he said that "we dont have the pace at the moment but we are slowly ekking." which is progress.
and charles!! he had life in his eyes!! he was optimistic!! he didnt think they were far off the race pace!! and he was excited for monaco, his home race!!!
most importantly, we've had some changes in the drivers championship standings. leclerc is now up into second, ahead of checo. and lando is up into 4th, ahead of carlos. with oscar directly behind carlos.
and the constructors championship currently stands at:
what else happened in imola??? a lot. but the best bits:
-max was running on the track in the rain holding a pizza. i dont know how or even why. i have no context. but he was evil laughing.
-lando and oscar did a tour of their driver rooms. lando called oscar a "freaking muppet" for hoarding all the hangers and was drinking his ""morning coffee"" at 2 in the afternoon. they also made up a handshake.
-logan said that new york pizza is better than italian pizza. he is correct.
-esteban ocon told sebastian vettel that he had "lost some neck"
-valtteri taught zhou how to do asmr, with some success. they also called the car pookie
-lewis hamilton tried to fix his car himself:
-george russell went around the garage and asked merc people what their favorite pizza toppings were. as usual, he was very British about it
-leo got a closeup:
-lando posted this instagram post:
max had an interesting comment:
-a fan flipped off max when he was driving, so he flipped them off back. the next time he came around, they were clapping for him. (the same fan also clapped for lando and gave oscar a thumbs down)
-zak brown got champage dumped on him and stole lewis's look. he also was wearing a ferrari cap ala fred wearing the mclaren cap in miami
-the red bull account compared george, max, lando and charles to one direction?? i cant find the source but i know it happened
-george also said during the fan stage that he would pay for lewis and max to go on a romantic date. i have no idea why.
-also on a fan stage, danny rics said we could all call him daniel "richardoe" (the italian version of his name)
-and lastly, rounding out what ive managed to find, carlos posted a video of charles and leo on his instagram story. leo pooped in the middle of the paddock. and it was very funny.
and theres more. theres always more. but i am one person. and this is all i got.
so so long, farewell. and since this is a double header week, i will see you all next weekend in monaco, where we will see if monaco will finally love charles back. thank you for reading and watch me continue to loose my sanity. i love you all.
boy was it fucking ever. welcome back everyone to monaco. The Race on the calendar. today is june 2, 2024 and lets fucking go shall we
(yeah i know its a week late, what did you expect?)
first, before we can get into monaco, a few last updates from imola:
valtteri was actually at williams to get coffee and not have a meeting with james vowels because his coffee machine shorted a circuit that was also hooked up to max's sim racing rig for the weekend and he talked about it in a stream
max and valtteris senna shirts were aparently stolen, hence why they weren't wearing them in the photo
aparently i linked the wrong video in the imola update of max running with the pizza, i found that clip again and it is here. i still have a lot of questions about it and no answers.
and now your regularly scheduled programming. we started the week out strong, with an adoption.
as you might know, oscar has been playing mr worldwide, mr 305 in terms of finding reasons to make every race his home race. and well, this exchange happened on twitter at the beginning of the week:
i do not think that leo ever actually popped to mclaren actually, sadly.
oscars mom of course had a few questions:
but reguardless, he was seemingly adopted into the leclerc family and set about exploring his new homeland on instagram:
his next post was him enjoying the view with the caption "Finding my Monégasque roots"
(as an aside, people also started changing charles's wikipedia page to reflect his new son, but the page was locked soon after, with lorenzo no longer being listed as his brother now. he was a casualty in the war.)
but this whole interaction was very funny for two reasons
it continues to provide evidence to the rumored fact that carlos and charles actually do not get along
it bring up once again the discussion of the Monaco Curse
its been long speculated that carlos and charles dont actually like eachother very much and the relationship they have on camera is for pr only (i think this was captained by one of their moms liking tweets about how the teammate was bad or something?? i dont remember, and lets not forget nico rosberg comparing them to 2016 nico rosberg and lewis hamilton and commenting on their "driving feud" in china, if anyone knows a teammate feud its him).
anyway. charles publicly "adopting" oscar, just a few days after he had his second battle of the season with carlos and ultimately cost carlos points and places in not one but two races was kind of a very hilarious fuck you to carlos by charles. like a "hey man i know you hate this guy but im about to do the funniest fucking thing"
and then we have the Curse.
the monaco curse.
which applies to pretty much charles only.
essentially, charles has never once ever had a good race in monaco. ever. at all. take a look at his stats:
2017: f2 race, DNF
2018: f1 race, DNF
2019: f1 race, DNF
2020: no monaco race due to covid
2021: f1 race, DNS (notably, he had qualified on pole position this year and monaco is a hard track to overtake on so qualifying is very important but he had a crash in qualifying after he set his pole lap and the car had to get fixed, but there were problems with it that they didnt realize because the gear box blew out on the formation lap of the race)
2022: monaco historic race, crash
2022: f1 race, p4 (from pole)
2023: f1 race, p6
and if charles has adopted oscar, does that mean that oscar is going to get the curse? whos to say.
what we Do know though is that the ferrari has upgrades that seem to work (at least by imola standards) and they are bringing a new rear wing to monaco that will get them a bit more downforce (make car go faster) which is Very Exciting for charles, this could be the year he finally defeats the curse!!
(though carlos did say that the new upgrade package that ferrari is running is "not optimized for monaco" because of the track layout. helmut marko though (one of the red bull higher ups in case you forgot, we havent mentioned him in a whole hot minute but hes making a valiant reappearance on this post) said about monaco "it will be one of the most difficult races for us, due to the bumps and the curbs. i expect a lot from ferrari, and especially from leclerc")
but before we get into the nitty gritty of monaco, the rest of the media day sillies. because believe it or not, charles is still not off the hook here.
so george russell. i dont think we've talked about him an abundant amount as of recently, aside from him being utterly unbothered about the whole Whos Getting A Mercedes Seat situation, but he is a total and absolute menace. legitimately.
first, i think ive said this before, george had a tumblr back in the day. its unclear if he still ever goes on it but he did definitely have one which is hilarious. also hes a power point king. aparently part of the reason he got signed to mercedes (?) (i think it was mercedes) was because he made a power point presentation for toto wolff explaining why he would be a good fit for the team. legitimately. he also made a powerpoint for alex and lando back in 2019 explaining why he should be rookie of the year (he didnt win rookie of the year, lando did, probably because lando was in a slightly better car). anyway. hes a menace. and like all good menaces, he has receipts.
at the press conference on thursday charles was talking about his favorite movies and was talking about harry potter and how well he knew the movies as a small child. george very politely waited his turn to say that one of the first videos he has on his phone is a video from 2012 when they were all still in karting where charles is pretending to be a wizard on a broomstick.
max (and the interviewer) expressed their desire to see the video and that george should post it. charles said "keep that video to yourself."
george did pull out the video and we got a little sneak peek of baby charles on a broom stick
yes, this is a very serious sport, why do you ask?
zhou posted ai photos of his cat sweet corn in the paddock with him. i cant find them right now, trust me that it happened.
mclaren were the only team running a special livery and no, it was not a historic one like their monaco merch would have suggested, but a teen and yellow one for ayrton senna, who dominated at monaco. the car itself was fine:
the suits looked like sprite cans
both lando and oscar ran special senna themed helmets and oscar ended up auctioning off one of his for the senna foundation.
and of course, we had our weekly game of Can You Guess What The Weather Is Based On What Lando And Oscar Wear To The Track? the answer was again, of course, like always, no!
also on the outfit game of course, as always was sir lewis hamilton. and he was back on his tit agenda. the general reaction was this:
tho he did have one outfit that was giving Oh No My Husband Just Died Of Mysterious Circumstances!
and, williams decided to put the duracell bunny on their car:
but now for the real news. what everyone wants. silly season.
i know i said last week silly season was properly sillying but now were seemingly in the full swing. no one is safe. so lets just run down the whole line and get a general refresher of what the hell is happening.
lando: signed with mclaren, through at least 2027
oscar: signed with mclaren, through 2026
charles: signed with ferrari through 2029
lewis: signed with ferrari through probably 2026
fernando: signed with aston for some period of time
nico: signed with stake (audi) through 2026 at least
lance: hasn't been officially announced but hes likely staying at aston cause his dad owns the team
alex: signed an extension with williams through 2026
george: signed with mercedes through 2025
and then shit really hits the fan
there are 11 remaining seats, no one has officially announced retirement and there is speculation that several rookies or ex drivers could be making a reappearance in 2025, meaning some people are going to end up without a seat. and its an absolute mess, but i will do my damn best to straighten it out
starting with max verstappen, who seems to be the person that everyone is waiting on. technically yes max has a red bull contract until 2028 but there has been speculation that he might leave following the whole Jos and Christian Fiasco post the Harassment Allegations. max has sort of kind of said he doesnt want to leave, but that hasn't stopped the rumors and also hasn't stopped red bull from keeping their options open should max decide that he wants to leave. lets also remember that adrian newey left the team and max won the imola race by .7 seconds. and im decently sure that if the red bull isn't a championship contending car, max can leave the team. where would he go? probably mercedes at least according to the rumors of toto wolff wanting to sign him and give him an insane amount of money, but none of that hasn't been confirmed and right now there mercedes is more shit than the red bull by an absolute long shot.
also in contention for the mercedes seat is kimi antonelli, current f2 driver. hes in his rookie f2 season but is generally regarded as the next max verstappen, as we know toto missed out on signing max several years ago to horner and isn't keen on repeating that mistake again. lewis hamilton also has said that he supports toto signing kimi and kimi seems to be the favored choice for the second mercedes seat, even over carlos sainz. arlos could also reported even go back rb and wait for a seat to open up at red bull, though again this seems unlikely.
reportedly toto and mercedes have lost interest in carlos and so has red bull, leaving his only option as stake/audi, which he doesnt seem to be too pleased about. aparently they also want an answer from carlos this weekend. there are some rumors though that carlos has been talking to williams as well, though james vowels kind of denied this during practice 1 this weekend when he was asked about it and said "carlos who?" logan sargeant is definitely at risk at williams and likely wont get re signed there.
and if carlos doesnt sign with stake/audi then they have to look for someone else, yuki tsunoda being one of the options.
and red bull are no longer interested in carlos because it seems like they are going to re sign checo perez as their second driver because he has been consistent all season so far (but usually checo is good at the beginning and then falls off) and reportedly they have offered him a one year contract, which he has also reportedly countered for a 2 year contract (interesting if this is true cause remember alex albon signed an extension with williams and red bull at one point wanted first refusal of him for 2026 so if they were only ever going to sign a one year with checo then why did alex extend at williams?? all questions we will not get answers to). aparently according to helmut marko, yuki tsunoda could be an option for red bull as well, given how well he has been doing at rb. daniel ricciardo seems an unlikely option for red bull, tho later in the week it was said that yuki was no longer an option but daniel was, though there are rumors that his contract says he is set to stay at rb or red bull, but given his recent performance he is unlikely to move up to red bull.
yuki tsunoda on the other hand has some options outside of rb, such as aston and haas. though for yuki to sign at aston would mean that lance stroll would be leaving the team which seems unlikely while his dad owns it. and lets not forget liam lawson who was also all but gaurenteed an rb seat for 2025 by helmut marko and remember that he did manage to knock max out of qualifying in singapore last year when he was subbing in for daniel.
haas though has several options for drivers. they have one confirmed open seat because nico went to stake/audi which is likely going to get filled by ollie bearman, currently in f2 (kimi's teammate) and the haas/ferrari reserve driver. he has 6 practice sessions with haas this year and has so far done one of them, hes also driven in an f1 race for carlos in saudi arabia and finished in the points. kevin magnussen does not seem like he is going to get re signed because of all the penalty points that he has accumulated so far this season (10) and if he doesnt get re signed at haas several drivers have reportedly been talking to haas, like zhou guanyu, esteban ocon, logan sargeant, yuki tsunoda, and valtteri bottas. it is unlikely that haas will sign two rookies as they have done this before and it hasn't worked out for them.
valtteri bottas has also reportedly had negotiations with williams (but most of this seems to stem from last weekend when he was in fact going to the williams hospitality to get coffee), and he could also be in talks with alpine. but alpine seem to be looking at mick schumacher as a potential driver for 2025 (mick was previously a hass driver from 2021-22 and is the mercedes reserve driver currently but has done a bunch of endurance testing at alpine, also mercedes had him do testing to compare his performance directly to kimis recently, or maybe its coming up??)
and of the two current alpine drivers, pierre gasly seems less likey to resign with the team because lets remember that when he signed with them two years ago they were fighting for fourth in the championship and now they are pretty much the slowest car on the grid. as for esteban ocon he seems to still view himself as a mercedes junior driver who could still be in contention for the second merc seat, its unclear if he will stay at alpine though it seems like he is getting favored over pierre there. or at least he was until the race this weekend...more on that later.
make sense? clear as mud? perfect!
certainly we are in the thick of everything here. and were heading into monaco, one of the techiest tracks on the calendar. could be a great opportunity to prove yourself.
what makes monaco so challenging? well it is a street circuit through the streets of monte carlo. its i think the oldest track on the calendar and i also think has been used pretty much every year of f1. all the greats have won in monaco.
since its a tight street circuit, passing is very hard. theres elevation changes, theres a tunnel, theres tight turns, theres the slowest turn on the calendar at this track. its a slow speed track, meaning that they are not pushing their cars to the limits. the top speed here is only about 192MPH (significantly slower than other tracks) and all bets are off if its raining. pierre once said in an episode of drive to survive that monaco in the rain is the level on the video game that everyone crashes during, and they get to do it in real life.
charles, as we already know has had absolutely shit ass luck here and after 2021 after his DNS he tweeted this:
checo has also had weird luck in monaco. he won monaco in 2022 (after crashing in q3 of qualifying and ending the session early, mainly meaning that he was going to be starting 5th and ahead of max who could not complete another qualifying lap in order to get pole, there was speculation that he did this on purpose). after he won he was given a contract extension at red bull (which is taking him through the end of this year) but! it has been heavily speculated that he also cheated on his wife after he won in monaco, because there was footage that circulated of him partying and dancing with several women very closely. he claimed that that was not true, but again that has never been distinctly proven to have been true in the first place. in 2023 he qualified 20th and ended 16th. would the bad luck for him continue? idk i guess we will find out!
one person who has managed to defeat their monaco curse though was daniel ricciardo back in 2018. this was when he was still racing for red bull. in 2016 he had been set to win but got fucked on his pit stop because they didn't have the tires ready for him and he came out of the pits too late. in 2018, which was during the peak red bull v rennault engine woes, his engine went and could pretty much only operate in 2 gears (not ideal for an f1 car) (and especially when the monaco track requires a good 40+ gear changes PER LAP) but he didnt retire the car because he was leading the race and managed to hold off sebastian vettel (in a ferrari!) and win. this is where we got the infamous pool dive pics:
and yes, i probably have told this story before, but i am telling it again because its my post and its a good story. of course after this he signed with renault and everything went downhill from there.
but enough about the past. lets get into the present. starting with. practice.
i only watched practice 1 because i was on a train and the internet connection was bad At Best, but i feel like i got all I really needed to know from that.
we had three people in the box: anthony davidson, natalie pinkham and eventually they were joined by jenson button. this was a good and actually very informative practice session because anthony and jenson were both formula drivers who had driven around monaco in the car before.
(as an aside, nico rosberg was in the paddock for the monaco race, on account of the fact that he lives there, but he was not in the box, he was there with his company (?) rosberg ventures, his wife, and his commitment to looking like he has just stepped off of a boat at all times:)
(people also claimed that nico and lewis spoke to eachother in the background of a sky sports germany streaming clip, but no one could find the footage)
now, the interesting thing about monaco, according to anthony and jenson, is that the drivers cant do a track walk before the race because its a street circuit and monaco is pretty much the race track, some casinos, and very little else. so they only close the street for the race. so practice is very very important.
monaco is also an outlier track on the calendar because of how slow and techy it is. so every team brought a Monaco Specific High Downforce Rear Wing (to make car go faster) but no matter how good your rear wing is, if you get stuck in traffic on your qualifying lap then youre royally fucked.
(well, nearly everyone had a monaco specific rear wing, it was much later revealed that logan was using a 2023 rear wing because williams is still short on parts. whos suprised? literally no one)
according to jenson button, one thing is key in monaco and that is bravery. there are not many options to overtake, and if you get the opportunity you do. you also have to nearly clip the walls to make sure you are going as fast as you can and getting the best line. but at the same time, "one tiny slip up can cost you 2 or 3 places." so it is very important that you are on the top of your game.
so. monaco is about qualifying. often, whoever gets pole usually wins the race. with some exceptions, but this is true for the most part. so again, practice is important. and its important that you get as much practice in as possible, something that pierre gasley could not do because his car had a power unit issue and spent most of the session taken apart in pieces in the garage. ferrari were clear favorites heading into the weekend with their most recent batch of upgrades, as were mclaren (who were taking all of the curbs well, as in they could handle driving over them whereas some of the other cars couldnt). red bull were not. max even said "the car is on a knifes edge mate." but lets remember that max often complains to hell and back during parctice and then manages to qualify on pole. so dont get your hopes up (yet)
by far, the most interesting part of practice 1 was when they talked to mr james vowels, who was on pit wall call duty this weekend. mr vowels as we know is the williams team principal. and he was very "cautiously optimistic" about the weekend because the car was "well suited here."
they asked him if he was in talks with carlos, and he had the audacity to say "carlos who?" which is an interesting tactic. especially when its kinda down to either stake or williams for carlos cause he rejected everywhere else. he also continued his icon behavior while talking about vcarb, saying "dont ask me what they're called. alpha tauri, visa cash app, buy one get one free." and weirdly, he was not the only person to shit on a team name this weekend because ted managed to call alpine renault. alpine has not been renault since 2020.
charles's monaco curse made a brief appearance in the form of running over a bit of zhou's front wing and damaging his car, redflagging the session for everyone. they used this time to have a very very long pan to mark webber.
and. most interestingly. jos verstappen was back. for the first time since bahrain. this is interesting cause hes usually in the paddock a bit more than this, but he and horner were feuding for awhile, so maybe this means that everything has settled? whos to say, it is formula 1 after all. anything is possible!
and the f1 official account took that literally, as this was how they displayed oscar's name on the official practice 1 time boards:
even oscar was shocked:
oscars mom was so shocked that she adopted yuki
i dont think that yuki ever actually responded to this, but it was still nevertheless hilarious.
charles, meanwhile, who ended the session with damage on his car from the debris incident was less pleased with the results but still played along with the bit:
charles then got his revenge by coming in first in practice 2 and 3. mercedes also, weirdly was near the top. perhaps they were done being shit. perhaps it was too early to tell. any way you spin it, it was time for qualifying.
and this boat was so excited about qualifying that it beached itself like a whale.
and as christian horner said. "this race will be won in qualifying." because its hard to pass.
there was much at stake. such as if max verstappen were to get pole it would be his 9th consecutive pole position, which im pretty sure was either going to create a new record or tie with someone else's.
but first they had to get through q1. which was very hard to do, mostly because of traffic.
as we know. f1 cars want to go fast. monaco is tight, it is twisty, its relatively low speed and its a shorter track. and if everyone is trying to go as fast as humanly possible, it can be a bit tricky. the best they can get is a 3.6 second gap between each car, and that is if everyone was driving exactly equidistantly.
ted, down in the pit lane, came on the radio and said that when the broadcast was playing the intro (which he sang), everyone started pulling out of their garages and into the pit lane, then turned off their engines and sat in a "super market traffic jam queue" to reserve their spot to exit onto the track, so that they had as much time as possible.
and a short while later, our first batch of drivers were out: alonso, sargeant, perez, bottas, and zhou.
yes that is right, bit fernando alonso and checo perez were out in q1.
checo's radio about the ordeal was... interesting. "what a joke, fuck....ha." and personally i dont think that the red bull pit wall found any of it particularly hilarious, especially considering logan sargeant was able to go faster than him with LAST YEARS REAR WING.
they all lined up again for q2.
max and charles, notably, were on the same set of tires that they had been in in q1, so that they would have an extra set for q3, as the two of them would be battling it out for pole position.
aside from them, both of the alpines were in q2 as were both of the haas.
but all of that turned out be fruitless, except for pierre, who made it through to q3 and he was Thrilled. also through for the first time this season was alex albon, who was also Thrilled..
ocon, hulkenberg, ricciardo, stroll and magnussen were all out.
into q3.
max and charles were duking it out for pole position, but chasing them was none other than oscar piastri, also desperately trying to get his first career pole. and max was was still having problems. and red bull couldnt fix it. heading into the very last minute, the last lap, charles was in provisional pole, with oscar second, carlos third and lando fourth. max was on his last lap, flying around the track until his radio crackled to life with "ive hit the wall. man this car is slippery."
and so with max tapping the wall, he aborted his lap, putting him down in sixth spot. which meant we had a double lecerlc front row!!! a father son lockout !!!!
arthur and oscar continued the bit
they even shit on the joke in the press conference:
oscar and carlos also seemingly ignored eachother in the immediate post interviews that they do on the track, but i cant find the clip so you'll just have to trust me
meanwhile, max was asked about his qualifying session and he said: "i would happily invite everyone in this paddock to drive that car and try to go faster than me"
and, when asked what he could do from p6, he said: "not much, we'll see. but I don't really care, haha!"
two people who Did care about qualifying were nico hulkenberg and kevin magnussen. who got disqualified from qualifying because their rear wings were slightly too wide.
surprisingly, the disgraced ex has team principal, gunther steiner, had something to say abut the incident:
so nico and kevin were both starting in the pit lane.
everyone else lined up for the race:
p1: charles
p2: oscar
p3: carlos
p4: lando
p5: george
p6: max
p7: lewis
p8: yuki
p9: alex
p10: pierre
p11: esteban
p12: daniel
p13: lance
p14: fernando
p15: logan
p16: checo
p17: valtteri
p18: zhou
thankfully, everyone was able to survive the formation lap with no gearbox blowouts. lap one though, was a very different story.
first, carlos got a puncture. he and oscar had contact during the beginning of the lap and carlos fell back in the order, which is absolutely disastrous for monaco.
but then! a red flag was called! and it wasnt for carlos, it was for an incident between checo, kevin and nico. essentially, kevin tried to pass checo, but there was not enough space, so he ended up ramming into him, nico tried to get past them and instead got involved in the scuffle.
later, checo was adamant that he had not seen kevin, saying that: "if you saw my onboard, at no point do you see kevins car. not even close to being alongside me...there was just simply no room for both cars"
meanwhile kevin said: "he clears wasnt leaving space, i thought he would...my whole front wheel was ahead of his rear wheel...he just squeezed me into the wall."
nico, who was just collateral in the whole thing only said "ah damnit, that was unnecessary."
so it was a disappointing monaco race for both haas drivers, who found themselves out after also being DSQd from qualifying. and it seemed that checo was continuing his shitty monaco streak. perhaps this was the universe getting back at him for probably cheating on his wife.
anyway, everyone was wondering what the stewards were going to say about the ordeal because, as we know, kevin magnussen is only 2 penalty points away from missing a race. but the stewards elected to not pursue the incident further and no one received any penalties for the accident.
the marshals though decided to pose with checo's wrecked red bull:
the wrecked red bull in question:
but there was still one more lap one incident! and that was esteban ocon playing bumper cars with pierre gasley:
(that is esteban's alpine in the air)
pierre was rightfully pissed off, especially considering that he had gotten his highest start of the whole season, saying over the radio: "what did he do! what did he do! why did he try to attack me? oh my gosh! the whole car is damaged now"
later, pierre told the press:
“I’m just disappointed, you know. I’m just disappointed with Esteban, and it should not happen. And for the team, we’ve got 1200 people working for us. And we can’t afford to have this sort of behaviour. We had clear instructions before the race, and this hasn’t been respected. You should never take that much risk, take both cars out with your teammate. I’m sure it will be discussed, and we can’t afford to have a similar situation in the future.”
fortunately for pierre, they were able to fix his car during the red flag. unfortunately for esteban, they were not able to fix his and he had to retire from the race.
Esteban totally owned up to this as his own mistake on twitter, saying "today's incident was my fault, the gap was too small in the end and i apologize to the team on this one"
alpine team principal bruno famin was later quoted as saying the following about the incident (and i am pretty decently sure that this was a translation from french)":
“it’s exactly what we didn’t want to see. Esteban’s attack was totally out of circumstances. We will draw the consequences, we will decide straight away. If we were fighting for a podium finish at the end of the race, why not, and still… But there, on the first lap, at Le Portier, frankly, it wasn’t the place to make an attack, leaving zero room for his teammate.”
everyone took this to mean that esteban could be benched for Canada, the next race. there was mass speculation whether or not it was going to be mick schumacher or jack doohan subbing in for him at the Canadian gp, and aparently people got really mean to esteban about it because later in the week he came out with this statement. and because we live in a world where i cant update this post on time to save my life, i will include it here:
"much has been said in the aftermath of the monaco gp. while i have received many messages of support, i have been deeply saddened by the amount of abuse and negativity that i have received online regarding my character, my driving, and my career.
thanks to the bard work, support and sacrifices of many people, ive raced in over 140 gps so far since my debut in 2016. i have always been a tough competitor, and, like most drivers, ive had my share of incidents. i have been lucy to race alongside talented and experienced teammates, including race winners daniel, checo and pierre and a double champion in fernando. as teammates, we would often start races very close to eachother which in some cases meant some tough battles on track, and sometimes contact.
of course, i have made honest mistakes. we are not robots; we are athletes pushing ourselves to the limit every day to achieve our dreams of winning races. f1 is a sport where emotions run high, and passions run deep. i see and feel this every weekend at the track and on social media... the good and the bad. but the misinformed statements and gross distortions that i have seen online in recent days about my ability to work with a team have been inaccurate, hurtful and damaging.
since my first laps in motorsport, i have approached this sport with humility, professionalism, and respect. these values were instilled in me from a very young age. while each driver chases individual glory, this will always be a team sport first and foremost. i have always followed to instructions i have been given and raced to achieve the maximum for and with my team.
i took responsibility for the incident on lap 1 last Sunday an, despite my DNF, i am glad the team added a point to the tally in what has been a difficult start to the season for all of us. I respect pierre as a teammate and as a competitor. we have always worked collaboratively and professionally inside the team, and this will continue to be the case.
there is no reward without risk in formula one - and race starts are intense, even more so in monaco where the opening lap can dictate your finishing result. in the end, we are all competitors and hard, fair racing throughout the field is what makes our sport so great and the main reason why i love this sport so much. im looking froward to committing in Montreal, in front of the fantastic canadian fans, and to the exciting opportunity the future holds."
esteban got a 10 second penalty for causing an incident, which he didnt serve because he didnt continue the race. and he has a 5 place grid penalty for canada.
but anyway! back to the red flag!
aston martin were once again serving during a red flag, as they had done last time:
people even compared fernando alonso to the woman with the pearl earring picture.
aside from that, the hot topic of discussion was Tire Strategy
without getting too far into the weeds here, everyone has to run at least two different tires each race, the options are soft medium and hard. which tire works best depends on the track, the temperature, and a million other factors. softer the tire the faster it will go, but it will also wear out faster. softs and generally used for qualifying and mediums and hards are the race tires.
now Technically, everyone had already run one kind of tire in the first start of the race. so they could change to a different tire, as long as it was a different compound tire, and not have to stop again for the entire race. only problem was that that was 70 long laps. and the tires might not last that long. but you lose 30 seconds on a pit stop and if not everyone is going to pit AND its monaco so its very hard to pass, would you be shooting yourself in the foot? probably.
so most people made the decision to run a different tire compound for the restart and see if they could make it to the end of the race without pitting. notably, the front half of the grid did this.
and finally, race control announced the restart order. this was going to make or break many people's races because some people had managed to pass a few cars on the original opening lap, but not everyone had gone through a time detention point when the red flag was called, so they were back at the original start order. meaning carlos sainz was back starting in third, despite his puncture that had caused him to drop back down the order.
take two! they all lined up:
p1: charles
p2: oscar
p3: carlos
p4: lando
p5: george
p6: max
p7: lewis
p8: yuki
p9: alex
p10: pierre
p11: daniel
p12: lance
p13: fernando
p14: logan
p15: valtteri
p16: zhou
and away they went. everyone survived the first lap this time. everyone survived the next several laps, actually. no one passed anyone, though george did get pretty close to lando for a bit before he was told to back off to preserve his tires. he started to create a large gap to lando. max shit on him on his radio for being slow.
charles, oscar and carlos all traded fastest lap back and forth for awhile, but no one made eforts to pass eachother. oscar had lost a bit of downforce in the damage he had taken from his contact with carlos, but was otherwise fine.
many people started creating gaps to the cars in front of them, especially those in the points. george, yuki and fernando. the reason for this was to preserve their position on track and help keep their tires alive. so by f1 standards, it was a very slow race.
ted was not pleased with this. "hes trapped in a mercedes jail cell right now," he said about max. he wanted him to "have a bit of fun!"
max did not have any fun.
but, there was speculation among the top 4 that someone would pit and that someone might be lando. there was a 16 second gap to george behind him so he could pit and retain his position and have a shot at overtaking carlos who was on pretty dead hard tires for a podium spot. charles was even told to "drive even slower" to stop the gap between george and lando from increasing so that lando couldnt pit. charles thought this was utterly pointless cause his tires were already getting cold. and meanwhile oscar thought that charles had an issue because of how fast he was going.
"first lap was interesting. next 38 have not been as interesting" crofty said.
the only real interesting things were the team radios:
george: "i recommend about 3 seconds in the pocket here. just pootling around at the moment"
max: "fuck me this is boring. i should have brought my pillow."
charles, upon being told that his team want to hear about his tire margin because they didnt want that information to be known to other teams" "that's rude."
ultimately none of the top 4 ended up pitting. lance stroll pitted though, on lap 43, and he was able to retain his 11th position because fernando had slowed to create a gap for lance.
not even a whole lap later, lance managed to get a puncture and had to box again and got shoved back to the back of the grid, completely destroying all of the work that fernando had done for him. the tire ended up flying off of his car, but it landed right outside the pit lane and didnt cause a safety car, much to the general upsettment of lando who would have gotten a free stop.
still, a few other people pitted, including hamilton and verstappen, who retained their positions due to the gaps they had made.
hamilton got mad that he was not told to "hammer time" (go as fast as possible) when max was pitting, but despite this he was still able to take fastest lap.
still, mad max was back, jammed in the middle of the mercedes sandwich, and he was gaining on george, 2 seconds per lap. but no one had been watching max's battery, which was very low on power. so he had to back off a bit. still, by lap 62 he was able to get within 1.2 seconds of george. and george, somehow, had been able to save just enough juice in his tires to fend off max for the last 15 laps.
meanwhile, charles was still leading. 8 seconds ahead of oscar.
"i'll just bring it home" he told his engineer. and he did.
and now i'll toss it to alex jaques, who was announcing the race for the sky sports broadcast, to take us through the last lap:
"in 2017, charles leclerc lost his father. in his final days, he told his father a white lie. that he'd made it to formula one, that he'd signed the contract. it wasn't true, but his driving has made it true now. and look what he's done with the opportunity. the grandstands he saw built as a kid growing up now rise for him. and for the first time in 93 years, this fabled race is won by one of their own. charles leclerc wins the monaco grand prix, to achieve his dream!"
and pretty much everyone was happy for him. jenson was doing the post race interviews and charles made pretty much everyone emotional with what he said:
the podium was filled with relief and joy and lots and lots of champagne. someone even gave the prince of monaco champagne. and fred vasseur, ferrari team principal, sprayed the prince of monaco with champage. hopefully he wouldn't get arrested for that!
everyone was so busy celebrating charles that they made him late to the post race press conference, so when it opened carlos and oscar were just sprawled out on the couches, chilling:
which was Astounding to everyone because these two seemingly hate eachother
oscar was so unbothered he even started stretching
carlos even addressed the situation between him and oscar, saying that:
"for some reason, oscar and i, we seem to have a magnet recently between each other for some reason that I don't understand, because we get on well and everything is okay, but we seem to always find each other on track"
charles did eventually show up, and most of the questions ended up getting geared towards him, naturally. he told everyone that he ate pizza for dinner the night before and that there was a period of the race near the end where he couldnt actually see because he had started tearing up, realizing that he was probably going to win.
and then, of course, like anyone would, charles went for a little dive in the harbor, after shoving fred in
aside from that. we had alex albon get points, yuki tsunoda get points AND pierre gasley get points. now the only team without points is stake. and lewis hamilton got the fastest lap, he now holds the record for most fastest laps with a single team, which is 54.
also, Kevin magnussens daughter told him to sign a fans book
it was also max's first non podium finish of the season. he found the race boring. not charles win boring, just the race. "no workout whatsoever, its just really really boring." and he and george said they were going to go for a run afterwards to get some exercise, because they didnt get any during the race.
he did congratulate charles on his win though! as did pretty much everyone else! and the italians were all beside themselves as well:
as for oscar, he proudly proclaimed on social media that he should make every race his home race.
charles rode his bicycle home, and then got ready for an absolutely insane night out. which pretty much just consisted of him hiding under a monegasque flag (ghost moding) and clinging to his girlfriends hand for the whole night, looking positively lost in the sauce, along with everyone else who went (literally i think the whole country was partying)
so! we have now had four different race winners in the first 8 races of the season. and tbh, as i have said. we could very well have a title fight on our hands here. lets take a look at the points:
as charles said on that stream back in quarantine, "lando, we could be world champion i said"
(also. people were also quick to point out that max has not won at the three races that charles wrote songs about: monaco, miami and australia - mon, mia and aus)
everyone thinks that oscar could win canada. i say bring it on. see you next week!
Fan cast for Dan McFadyen (Paul Francis) and Vadim Krasnorada (Levi Poulter) from the Special Forces series by Aleksandr Voinov and Marquesate. Source: fan review on Goodreads
often fandom will take a repressed man and unrepress him a little bit for fanfiction to make him say the things you want him to say. But the stargate atlantis fandom is not scared to let those men remain repressed so nothing is truly said to each other in 20,000 words and yet they still manage to fuck and have a half functional relationship. I love it. I love it. these are the type of characters people invented the truth potion trope for. These guys under the threat of death could barelt utter a heartfelt and truthful sentence to one another the only thing that could make them talk is if you completely removed their inhibitions and bodily autonomy
john going to the pegasus galaxy to run away from his life on earth. john not communicating with his family. john saying that to his father, getting married was the best thing he’d ever done. john adding ‘or a man’ when asking ronon if he was dating anyone. how did the writers manage to accidentally write a character who’s so easy to read as a deeply closeted queer man
Lol this reminds me of an @eleveninches fanfic where Ronon tells Rodney why he doesn’t like to discuss his sex life with Sheppard: „I asked him once and he started talking about feelings. And then he asked me if I had a boyfriend.“
The fact that Sheppard doesn't actually want to be separated from McKay, doesn't actually want there to be distance between them, is underlined by the fact that as soon as he reaches the jumper, he contacts McKay on the radio. It's literally the first thing he does. He both wants and needs McKay's company, even though his priority is keeping the man safe (and hence, away from him and what he thinks is his deleterious influence).
They have the following exchange over radio:
Sheppard: McKay.
McKay: Still here.
Sheppard: The son of a bitch beat me to it. He's fast.
McKay: I think you should get back here.
Sheppard: Negative.
This conversation has no point. Sheppard informs McKay of a situation he can do nothing about. McKay reiterates that he wishes for him to return, to no avail.
Sheppard is attempting to reconnect but he's terrible at expressing, what you'd call it, feelings. Sharing what he's doing, what's going on with him here, is him trying real hard to show McKay that he's important to him. To make amends. To tell him that he didn't actually mean to yell at him back there.
John Spartan:
Look, I'm sorry I yelled at you back there.
Lenina Huxley:
No need to make a de-hurtful retraction. I've just assimilated too
As relieved as McKay is to be hearing from him, his terse reply betrays that he is both upset and worried for the other man. Much more important than his hurt feelings is that he, too, just wants Sheppard to be safe. To keep him safe he's trying to use the most powerful weapon in his arsenal: logic. Only, logic isn't going to work because the motivation for what Sheppard did and is doing was irrational from the get-go.
I noted before that Sheppard rarely uses military parlance with McKay but then started acting extra military toward Dr. Gaul to put him in his place. Here, while Sheppard was the one that needed to contact McKay (because he wanted to have him near, hear that he's alright, know that he's fine, just called to say hello), he suddenly gets all military with "Negative."
It's not because he's suddenly on mission mode. It's not that he's trying to show the civilian his place. It's not even to maintain that all-important distance between them. It's to remind himself that he can't go back even though he really wants to. He's not saying "No, I won't". He's not saying "No, I can't." He's not saying "I'm not going to." He's not even saying "No."
The only thing he can say in this situation is "Negative" because every bone in his body wants to do exactly that without Rodney even having to tell him.
And it's fortunate for Sheppard that McKay was attempting to logic him because that's what he himself knows best -- knows that it would work on him the best. Because if McKay had done what Brendan did and begged Sheppard to stay with him. If he had pleaded. If McKay had simply asked, Sheppard would not have been able to leave. Like earlier, when he didn't even have to say the words out loud for Sheppard to do what he asked:
But instead, McKay continues trying to use reason to sway him:
McKay: There's no point in you being out there, this--
Sheppard: He's aboard my ship.
McKay: What are you, Captain Kirk?! What good's it gonna do him?
This is the second reference to Star Trek in rather short order. So. Let's talk about Star Trek for a bit.
In Poisoning the Well (S01E06), it was Sheppard that called Dr. Beckett McCoy, "the TV character [he] plays in the real world". Note that he makes a reference to TOS, the television series, and not to the films through which the majority of the general audience probably know him. Sheppard makes the reference unprompted, associating Beckett's fear of the dematerialization through the wormhole with Bones' fear of transporters. McKay catches the reference immediately, yes, but he's not the one that brings it up. While we saw him watching "a strange episode of The Outer Limits" in Home (S01E08), watching cheesy science fiction seems much more up Sheppard's alley than McKay's.
And, given how we see McKay reference Star Trek here (and in the future, very notably a few episodes hence, in reference to Kirk "romancing the alien priestess"), McKay's knowledge of the franchise seems a lot more cursory than Sheppard's. He displays a more superficial understanding of the character of Kirk. Yes, Captain James Tiberius Kirk was an All-American Action Hero, brash and impulsive, headstrong and braggadocious. He had a beautiful girl on every planet and loved his space ship more than anything else. Admired by women, envied by men. This is the image of Kirk that McKay seems to have.
With John Sheppard, there is noticeable deconstruction of the hero-myth going on. He is a hero, but certainly not the kind of hero that we had in 1967.
We'll get to the other aspects of Kirk later but here, upset, McKay seems to indicate that Sheppard cares more about the space ship, an immaterial thing, than he does about people -- feeling abandoned, he feels that he is less important to Sheppard than the ship is. In this, he is to McKay like Captain Kirk. His caring for the Enterprise was one of his most notable characteristics, after all.
Only, as much as he loved his ship, Kirk destroyed it to save one man.
One of the most painful scenes in all of Star Trek happens at the end of the second movie, The Wrath of Khan. Kirk has to watch Spock die right before his eyes, helpless to do anything to stop it. How ever you interpret their connection, there is clearly love between them.
To comfort Kirk, Spock tells him that in the grand scheme of things his life is not worth more than anyone else's and if he can use it to spare many others, it's his choice to make. He's just one man, Jim. It will hurt, but you'll survive. It's the logical thing to do.
Only, Kirk doesn't see it that way. The entire third movie, The Search for Spock is Kirk willing to sacrifice everything and everyone for this one man, to get him back. That one life was worth more to him than all other lives combined. Even his ship, as one of the sacrifices he has to make is to allow the Enterprise to be blown up. And Jim, well. He did love that ship.
This is shown especially in the series to the point of lampooning. So yes, calling someone that excessively cares about their ship Kirk would make a kind of sense. But that's not what Sheppard does. He likes the jumpers fine. He likes flying things and they are advanced space craft, what's not to like? But they're not, never have been, and never will be more important to him than people. In fact, just a few episodes ago he was willing to sacrifice a jumper just to forge some kind of a deal with the Genii.
At the end of the third movie, Kirk comes to as close to a confession of love as one can without saying the actual words. He tells Spock "Because the needs of the one... outweigh the needs of the many," a reversal of his dying words. To James T. Kirk, Spock was worth all the other lives combined and then some.
So, Sheppard compared Beckett to Bones a few episodes ago. Now McKay implies that Sheppard is acting like Kirk. And yes, Sheppard and Kirk certainly have some things in common. But it's not the things that McKay thinks.
I mentioned the homoerotic nature of Kirk and Spock's relationship previously. While it may not have been the original intention of the creators, they certainly acknowledged the existence of this undercurrent between the characters. They even created a special kind of love, a word for a type of love felt by the Vulcans that was somewhere between friendship and erotic love. In the novelization of the first movie, their relationship is described as follows: "Theirs had been the touching of two minds which the old poet's of Spock's home planet had proclaimed as superior even to the wild physical love which affected Vulcans every seventh year during pon farr."
What ever his sexuality was, how ever many alien priestesses he may have romanced, Spock was the closest person to Kirk. It was Spock that he loved the most, no others could compare. Not the mother of his son, not even his son. Kirk and McCoy, the ship's doctor, were very good friends. Their interaction showed us what close male friendship could look like. And Kirk and Spock's relationship was always something different. It was something more. Deeper.
They were in love. However you interpret the nature of this love (or whether it was ever physically consummated; but let's note that the touch-telepathic Vulcans may have had very different ideas to humans as to how such things were consummated), they were lovers. And this is more obvious watching the show. I cannot imagine that any young bisexual boy watching TOS would fail to notice the undercurrent. Would fail to notice the love between the two characters. And might even have been inspired to, say, join the air force to find something like that.
As mentioned, McKay was attempting to logic Sheppard during their exchange. Sheppard called Beckett McCoy, McKay called Sheppard Kirk. By method of elimination that would make McKay himself Spock. And they do have much in common.
Intelligent, logical and socially awkward science officer repressing his feelings, feeling shame for them. Willing to do anything for the dashing starship captain that he doesn't realize, can't even understand cares for him more than life itself.
Yes, Sheppard does have many things in common with Captain Kirk. Caring about his ship is certainly one of those things. But like for Kirk, the ship would never hold the tiniest candle to how much he cares about the man he wants to keep by his side at all times, at all costs. The one he can't lose. The one he can't live without.
"Of my friend I can only say this: of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most... ...human."
titsay
vaporwave
dededos
gummygunk
germansingergirl
izzy806
andulkaphoto
