so imagine you spend 3 years of your racing career in a junior team despite being quite observably better than the guy who has the 2nd seat at your Main Team and the number one guy at the Main Team is winning eeeeevery championship in that car while you're in your shitty little tractor and then one day you get The Call and it's awesome and it's cool but it turns out that the big team you're in sucks now. they're not a Big Team anymore. Although!! You're beating a several-times world champion in equal machinery, so everyone can see you've clearly got some serious talent!! except, world champion guy never wins a title again, and eventually leaves your team for ferrari of all teams.
but this just means it's Your Turn to be the big dog. and maybe now you have the car. but, oh, what's that? a puppy-eyed teenage teammate who is scarily fast and skipped a lower formula and wants it so, so bad? surely he won't- oh, he's quite... he's winning races? breaking records? ahah. well fuck.
also the whole time max verstappen is kind of obessed with you but we don't talk about that
now, question: is this about daniel ricciardo or is this about george russell. answer now.
the truly enlightened also entertain the carmen aspect to george/daniel… daniel personally sent carmen enchanté merch after george had caught her scrolling through the RIC3 shop. then during zandvoort 2022 i think(?), george donned one of her enchanté sweaters himself, which daniel of course saw and responded on insta with “russell george you’re so hot right now.” so. threesome vibes?
what i'm hearing is that George can basically be shipped with everyone and everything
F1 challengers AU where George gets injured and cannot drive anymore so becomes Max's coach and vicariously lives out his championship dreams through him. Daniel desperately wants to get back into F1 and him and Max end up competing against each other in another motorsport series.
No reply. Some rustling on the other end. Grhrgrhghr. A pitiful whine.
“George, are you there?”
A few quiet whimpers come through, then a faint sigh, “Lewis…”
“George, can you hear me? Are you okay?”
Another beat of silence, and Lewis is starting to get worried. He’s nowhere near close enough to Monaco to get to him on time, were he in acute danger and needed his help.
“Hurts,” George finally sobs out.
“What hurts?”
“Inside… I need- something, someone… need you.”
It quickly dawns on him what’s happening, what George just called him in the middle of.
“Sweetheart, are you in heat?”
George moans at hearing him use the pet name, and follows it with some more delirious babbling. “Need to feel you inside me. It hurts so bad. My toy, the knot- it’s not as big as yours, I know it’s n-“
He can hear some shuffling in the background, soon replaced by George’s cry of protest as he gets cut off mid-sentence.
“Hello, Lewis?” another voice takes over.
Huh? Who? Wait— “Daniel?”
“Yeah, listen- sorry to cut this short, but we both know George doesn’t know what he’s doing right now. You can speak to him at the next race, alright? Bye for now, I gotta go take care of him.”
He can’t even say anything back before Daniel hangs up on him.
An unsettling feeling deep inside his stomach rears its ugly head again, a sentiment he’s felt around the former driver before but always excused as irrational and then pointedly ignored. He didn’t like the way it made him feel and act, all commanded by primal instincts.
Lewis didn’t have a concrete reason to harbour any animosity towards the other alpha. Not when he saw George wearing his merch, again, posting it for everyone to see; not even when Daniel came to Spa and Budapest, two appearances in a row, as if making a home in the Mercedes garage — in Lewis’ old home.
He has a reason now.
———
George vehemently avoids him at the first race back after the summer break, his ears reddening every time he catches sight of him somewhere near.
The alpha gives him space, doesn’t try to corner him and demand answers. George does that himself instead, sneaking up next to him on the drivers’ parade bus once a spot opens up.
“Lewis- I just wanted to apologise. I don’t know what I said, I don’t remember much but- I’m sorry if it was anything inappropriate.”
He’s looking at the ground, not wanting to meet his eye. Lewis smiles up at him, puts a supporting hand on his upper arm and lightly squeezes, to convey they’re all good.
“Don’t worry about it, I know how it can get. I hope you had-“ well, no, he doesn’t hope he had a good time but, “Hope it passed fine?”
His question makes the omega blush deeply.
George nods, a small smile on his lips, “Yeah, no complications, thanks for asking. I had Daniel there to keep me company.”
Lewis’ eyes darken with burning jealousy. He’s lucky they all have to wear suppressant patches for the race and no one can smell his souring scent right now.
“Right, yes. I’m glad you weren’t alone for it.” Which isn’t exactly a lie, although he wishes he could be there for him instead.
“Yeah, we’ve been… supporting each other, especially lately.”
Lewis doesn’t really know what that’s supposed to mean, or how to respond to it.
He gets called over for an interview before he can figure it out. They don’t resume their conversation once the presenter sets him free again.
———
The morning after Monza, Lewis wakes up to a bunch of Did you see?? Did you know??? texts, confused about what it is he was supposed to know.
He opens one of the attached links that leads him to the official F1 Twitter account. Daniel’s huge grin stares back at him, in the usual breaking news style graphic.
BREAKING: Daniel Ricciardo comes out as Omega.
He navigates to Daniel’s Instagram page and sure enough, there it is, a heartfelt, lengthy post of him announcing his true designation to the world. There are some insinuations that hiding it wasn’t exactly his choice, but rather that he was forced to by someone who has recently departed the sport.
George has already liked and commented on it. Two blue hearts and a hugging emoji.
also I have to say george might be The Most Shippable man. I might have to do up a chart to confirm, but i genuinely think he has the best potential with the most drivers.
Obviously he and Alex work, i think the other two twitch quartet members work too. Britcedes is fun. and then you get into the fun, less expected ones.
Gax is obviously written about fairly frenquently. I could see a very talented writer genuinely making me ship russass (bottell?) (valeorge??), i have already seen a very talented writer make me ship gance with one phenomenal long fic. I have also seen riccrussell which I don't fully understand but i can get behind as two of my favourite drivers.
I need someone to do something with seb and the fact that they were gpda directors together. If being teammates is enough for people to ship some pairings in this sport, so should being co directors of a union.
I don't like the power dynamic of toto/ george but even i can admit it could be compelling if well written and I do quite like a fic with rancid vibes, and toto is obviously the most fuckable TP (I actually want to fuck Susie but, you know). Speaking of rancid vibes, I can absolutely picture a Nico/George fic that is so incredibly toxic and deals with the interplay of brocedes and britcedes in a world where lewis doesn't want either of them.
In conclusion george is the most shippable driver.
