i think one of the biggest issues in F1 discourse is that a lot of people fundamentally misunderstand what others mean when we talk about favouritism or even sabotage within teams. they immediately think that one side of the garage is secretly loosening bolts, deliberately ruining pit stops or intentionally giving one driver a slower car every weekend. that's what people immediately jump to, and then they dismiss the entire conversation as a conspiracy theory. and suddenly you're delusional, or the crazy one, or a you're just a hater and you know nothing about F1.
but what they don't want to admit is that Formula 1, by its very nature, makes true equality between teammates impossible. but it's easier to believe in meritocracy and the myth of the two number one drivers. however, every single team has a driver they are more invested in. sometimes it's because that driver has been with the team longer and therefore they have more political capital within the organization. sometimes it's because they represent the team's future or they're simply more marketable. one driver may have been part of the team's junior program and the other one was an "outsider". sometimes it's a combination of all of these things. and more often than not performance has absolutely nothing to do with it.
sometimes that favouritism doesn't have to be malicious to exist. but regardless of that, it's reflected in who gets built up by the team's marketing and PR, who becomes the face of the brand and sponsor campaigns, whose narrative gets reinforced in interviews and in the media, who receives the benefit of the doubt after mistakes, who gets described as "the future," "the chosen one," "the leader of the team", or "the villain" "the challenger" and "the underdog". once that narrative exists internally, and the team voices it publicly, the media amplifies it, fans repeat it, and from then on every decision gets interpreted through that lens.
i've talked about this before, but F1 isn't just a sport anymore. it's an entertainment product. characters and narratives matter just as much as racing; if not more. arguably, they're one of the most valuable assets a team has. and fans ignoring that won't make it disappear.
let's take McLaren for example. for years now, they've insisted they have "two number one drivers." but if you actually look at how they've operated, especially over the last few seasons, almost every strategic, political, and media decision has consistently reinforced Lando Norris as the centrepiece of the team. before the 2025 season had even started, Zak Brown was publicly saying that it was going to be "Lando's year" and that it was the start of the "Lando Norris era". how can you claim both drivers are equal while telling the entire media ecosystem which one you expect to become world champion before a single race has happened?
of course, teams should support their drivers and believe in them. that's not the issue. but they have two drivers. and the issue is pretending you're treating both drivers identically while simultaneously constructing one driver's championship narrative from the very beginning without considering the other one.
Red Bull, on the other hand, doesn't bother pretending. everyone knows Max Verstappen is the number one driver, everyone knows the team is built around him. any driver signing with Red Bull understands the situation and what they're getting themselves into. and me personally, i respect that more than teams pretending to treat drivers equally.
Mercedes right now is another great example. George may have seniority and theoretically he should be the focus of the team, but Antonelli has been presented as the future of the team even when Lewis was still there. Toto Wolff has been building that narrative long before Kimi even entered F1. if Kimi wins the championship in his second season, becoming the youngest world champion ever, after replacing the greatest driver in Formula 1 history, that's an incredible story. and above all, it's marketing gold. and teams know that narratives like this have value.
Ferrari this season is another fascinating example. one of their drivers is genuinely in the title fight while the other one isn't, pretending they should be treated exactly the same makes very little sense if Ferrari is truly serious about the championship. just saying that Leclerc should be treated equally compared to Hamilton makes some people raise their eyebrows. but the thing is Ferrari can't admit they're prioritizing Hamilton over Leclerc, without receiving significant backlash. that's because they've spent years building an identity around Leclerc as Il Predestinato, the homegrown Ferrari hero, the face of the brand etc. and those emotional and commercial investments matter just as much as what's happening on track (if not more).
so, it's not just about lap times and competitiveness anymore. contracts, politics, branding, media, sponsors, marketing, history with the team, emotional investment, fan engagement; they all matter.
and i think that's the biggest myth in F1, that two teammates can ever truly be equal. your teammate is your true benchmark, because they're driving the same machinery as you, therefore they're your biggest rival. that's how the sport is structured.
which is why i find the constant "we're one big happy family" narrative so frustrating. i'm not saying all teammates have to hate each other or for teams to manufacture toxicity. but i am asking teams to stop pretending complete equality exists when it clearly doesn't.
because what frustrates me, and a lot of other people, is that whenever someone points out obvious patterns, they're immediately called delusional, a conspiracy theorist, or a hater, as if acknowledging structural bias automatically means you're accusing mechanics of sabotaging the car. there's a huge difference between pre-planned malicious sabotage and a system that naturally evolves around one driver.
but what i think is a bigger problem is that, i don't think most fans actually want teams to admit that. i think a lot of people genuinely prefer the illusion that both drivers are treated equally because it preserves the idea that F1 is a pure meritocracy; that the drivers get the same opportunities and the best driver naturally rises to the top.
but i also think this goes beyond just teams, because Formula 1 itself contributes to it. nowadays F1 markets drivers as characters, heroes or villains, and there are different eras. after the Hamilton era came the Verstappen era, and after Max established himself as the dominant driver, it felt like F1 was already looking for who would come next. for a while, it seemed like they were trying to build the Lando Norris era. a lot of the marketing around 2024 and especially 2025 revolved around Lando becoming the next face of the sport, the driver who would finally dethrone Max and lead F1 into its next chapter.
and even though he won the championship, i don't think that narrative ever landed quite the way F1 hoped it would. Norris is undeniably one of the faces of modern F1, but he's also an incredibly polarising driver and his championship win felt quite anticlimactic for a lot of fans. so now it feels like the Antonelli narrative has been brewing for some time. not just because he's performing well right now, but because the story writes itself: the teenage prodigy who replaced Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes and, potentially, becomes the youngest world champion in history. that is the exact kind of narrative F1 loves.
of course, these narratives in some way follow who's competitive, but Formula 1 has enormous influence over which stories get told, which drivers get pushed to the forefront, and which rivalries become the defining ones of an era. teams aren't the only ones shaping perception, the sport itself does it too. we constantly get asked: who will be the next Senna? the next Schumacher? the next Hamilton? the next Verstappen? and so on.
frankly denying the existence of favouritism in Formula 1 is pointless. because how could there not be?
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