Oscar Piastri walks into the paddock looking completely normal—slightly unironed tee, shorts, the usual just rolled out of bed ten minutes ago energy. Nothing suspicious.
The curse hits mid-interview.
“So Oscar, how are you feeling heading into the weekend?”
He opens his mouth, already halfway through yeah, should be—
The journalist blinks. He blinks back.
Same tone. Same cadence. Polite. Completely useless.
It’s not even weird. It’s just his name, delivered like it’s a real answer, like this is fine, like he’s nailing it actually.
The PR handler does the tight little smile—the one people deploy when something is going wrong but we’re all collectively deciding it isn’t.
“Maybe we’ll circle back—”
Great. Cool. Nailed it.
Ten minutes later the entire paddock knows.
Lando Norris finds him by the coffee machine (which Oscar doesn’t even use, so he’s clearly just standing there like an NPC waiting to be interacted with).
“…yeah, I know your name. What’s wrong with you?”
“…no, but like—properly.”
Oscar gestures vaguely at his throat, then at his mouth, then does a little shrug like you tell me, genius.
Lando loses it immediately. full body laugh, bent over, hand on his shoulder.
“You’re fucked. You are so fucked.”
“Oscar,” Oscar says, flat, which somehow reads as deeply unimpressed.
Lando straightens up, wiping his eye, still wheezing.
“Okay. Okay. Can you—blink twice if you’re in there.”
“That’s not—mate, that’s not reassuring—”
Oscar does the shrug again. The full-body one, the eloquent one, the one that communicates your guess is as good as mine and also I’m going to need you to not make this weird with devastating efficiency.
Lando stares at him for a long moment.
“So you’re just. Oscar-ing.”
“And you’re—what, fine? You’re fine with this?”
Oscar tilts his head. Thinks about it genuinely. Does a little so-so hand wobble.
“BRO—” he’s back to bent over, fully gone, “—the wobble—”
“Oscar,” Oscar says, and somehow—somehow—it lands as yeah, it’s a bit funny, I’ll give you that, which is either a testament to four years of being perceived or something deeply cursed about the human brain’s capacity for pattern recognition.
“I’m telling everyone,” Lando says, still laughing.
“Yeah mate, they already know.“