#2016 Junior Worlds

[figureskatingcostumes]

Anastasia Mishin and Vladislav Mirzoev in the closing gala of the 2016 World Junior Championships.

(Source: mihail_sharov)

[do-you-beleaf-in-miracles]

ok so now that i’m done with my 3 month long soul sucking project from work what if i write a fic where mitch gets traded to the washington capitals for funsies

[cyarsk52-20]

When Tina Turner left her first husband - who was also her boss, captor, and brutal tormentor - she snuck out of their Dallas hotel room with a single thought in her mind: "The way out is through the door." From there she fled across the midnight freeway, semi-trucks careening past her, with 36 cents and a Mobil gas card in her pocket. As soon as she decided to walk out that door, she owned nothing else. When she filed for divorce, she made an unusual request. She didn't want anything: not the song rights, not the cars, not the houses, not the money. All she wanted was the stage name he gave her - Tina - and her married name - Turner. This was the name by which the world had come to know her, and keeping it was her only chance to salvage her career. Things could have gone a lot of ways from there. She could have labored in obscurity for decades, maybe making records on small labels to be prized by vinyl connoisseurs in Portland. She could have stayed in Vegas, where she first went to get her chops back up, and worked as a nostalgia act. And, of course, given what she had been through, she might have … not made it. What happened instead is that Tina Turner became the biggest global rock star of the 80s. I'm old enough to barely remember this, but if you aren't, it was like this: The Rolling Stones would headline a stadium one day, and the next day it would be Tina Turner. A middle-aged Black woman - she became a rock star at 42! - sitting atop the 1980s like it was her throne. She managed this because of whatever rare stuff she was made of (this is a woman whose label gave her two weeks to record her solo debut, Private Dancer, which went five times platinum); because she decided to speak publicly about her abusive marriage and forge her own identity, and in doing so give hope and courage to countless women; and also because - in a perhaps unlikely twist for a girl from Nutbush, Tennessee - she had her practice of Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhism, to which she credited her survival. She remained devout until the end. Tina's second marriage - to her, her only marriage - was to Edwin Bach, a Swiss music executive 16 years her junior. Of him, she said, "Erwin, who is a force of nature in his own right, has never been the least bit intimidated by my career, my talents, or my fame." In 2016, after a barrage of health problems, Tina's kidneys began to fail. A Swiss citizen by then, she had started preparing for assisted suicide when her husband stepped in. According to Tina, he said, "He didn't want another woman, or another life." He gave her one of his kidneys, buying her the remainder of her time on this earth and perhaps closing a cycle which took her from a man who inflicted injury upon her to a man willing to inflict injury upon himself to save her from harm. Born into a share-cropping family as Anna Mae Bullock in 1939, she died Tina Turner in a palatial Swiss estate: the queen of rock 'n roll; a storm of a performer with a wildcat-fierce voice; a dancer of visceral, spine-tingling potency and ability; a beauty for the ages; a survivor of terrible abuse and an advocate for others in similar situations; an author and actress; a devout Buddhist; a wife and mother; a human being of rare talent and perseverance who, through her transcendent brilliance, became a legend.

Credit: Will Stenberg

[staticsnowfall]

michaela mabinty deprince (1995-2024)

🩰˚✧₊⁎

today, september 13th, 2024, the ballet world lost an extraordinary dancer and woman.

michaela mabinty deprince was born on january 6th, 1995, as mabinty bangura, in sierra-leone. she was orphaned, her parents passing to due to both direct and indirect causes of the civil war in her home country. she was demonized by her caretakers for her vitiligo, being called a “devil’s child”, and suffering from other forms of neglect and abuse. in 1999, deprince was adopted by an american couple along with another girl, and they were taken to new jersey, united states of america.

her hopes of becoming a ballerina had been planted when she found a ballerina on a magazine cover in her home country. she didn’t know of ballet at the time, but treasured the picture and dreamed of dancing. this dream blossomed into truth when she moved to the states, being put into ballet lessons soon after her arrival. deprince was a four-time participant in youth america grand prix, one of the largest ballet competitions in the united states. she was awarded a scholarship to study at the jaqueline kennedy onassis school of ballet, the associate school of american ballet theatre.

despite facing racial discrimination and other hardships in and out of the industry, deprince persisted in her dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer. in 2012, at the age of 16, she became the youngest member of dance theatre of harlem, and the next year, she joined the junior company of the dutch national ballet. she soon rose through the ranks, joining the main company and attaining the rank of soloist. she was the first dancer of african origin to ever join the company, and a shining advocate and role model for black women in ballet.

her other accomplishments include being an ambassador for war child holland, a dutch organization working to improve the wellbeing and resilience of children directly affected by war. she visited uganda and lebanon through the organization. she also appeared in beyoncé’s 2016 music video for ‘freedom’.

she will dance among all the stars in the sky. rest in peace beautiful michaela mabinty, you are already so missed. ♡

[blueballsracing]

the full carcar (carloscar) timeline (or, a carlos sainz and oscar piastri primer)

Oscar Jack Piastri 

He was born on April 6th, 2001, in a suburb of Melbourne close to Albert Park. He is the eldest sibling and has 3 younger sisters. His grandfathers were mechanics and his father co-founded HP Tuners, a tool used for tuning and modifying the performance of vehicles with electronic control units. His mom, Nicole Piastri (née Mcfadyen) is a naturopath who specializes in botanical medicine and natural birthing practices. The entire family is pretty private, but the family was well-off enough so that they could support Oscar’s motorsports career.

Left to Right: Hattie, Mae, Nicole, and Edie (3 of Oscar's sisters with his mom) (Photo by Kym Illman)

Unlike Carlos and a ton of other drivers where they started off pursuing a career in motorsports by karting, he started in remote-control racing. He started karting in 2011 at age 10, but it wasn't until three years later that he began taking the sport more seriously. His career then progressed rapidly; in 2016, he made his debut in single-seater racing. He moved to the United Kingdom to further his racing career in 2016, finishing sixth in the 2016 CIK-FIA World Junior Championship in Bahrain. The following year, he was the British Formula 4 vice champion, with his dad’s company HP Tuners sponsoring him.

In 2018, he participates in Formula Renault Eurocup and places 8th, spends one more year there, and places 1st. Through 2019-2021, he’s on a winning streak: he wins F3 and F2, and is Alpine’s reserve driver for the 2022 season.

British F4 Vice Champion (Photo by Jakob Ebrey) | F3 Champion (Photo by Joe Portlock)

In 2018, he participates in Formula Renault Eurocup and places 8th, spends one more year there, and places 1st. Through 2019-2021, he’s on a winning streak: he wins F3 and F2, and is Alpine’s reserve driver for the 2022 season. He is also available as a reserve driver for McLaren, and he participates in some test sessions throughout the 2022 season: he drives at COTA, Losail, and Silverstone.

In 2022, we also get the infamous tweet: Oscar saying that he will not be driving with Alpine for the next year. When Sebastian Vettel retires, he opens up a seat at Aston Martin, and reports emerge that Oscar is supposed to join Williams in 2023, and Alpine will keep Alonso and Ocon. Alpine then tweets Oscar will take Alonso’s place, and then Oscar rejects the claim. His contract announcement with McLaren comes out in September, saying he had signed with them July 2022, and the rest is history.

Carlos Sainz Vázquez de Castro Cenamor Rincón Rebollo Virto Moreno de Aranda Don Per Urrielagoiria Pérez del Pulgar

He was born September 1st, 1994, in Madrid. He is the middle child to two other sisters, Ana and Blanca, and is son to Carlos Sainz Sr, a World Rally champion. His grandfather, Antonio Sainz, was in charge of the Bolivian honorary consul in Madrid, helping with generous financial contributions. Right before Carlos Jr. was born, his grandfather got into a serious scandal when he was found shooting and killing a man after he stole a bag from his wife. He was not charged but did turn himself in to the police. Carlos Sainz Sr’s sister buys a car for him at 11, and he becomes obsessed with racing, but wants to try to be the best at everything, and is a squash champion at 17. Antonio forces him to study law, and he gets through 2 terms, before debuting in rallies. He wins 2 world rally championships and becomes vice champion 4 times. His family is extremely rich, as compound surnames like “Vázquez de Castro” in Spain belong to nobility or at least, the upper class. Blanca, the eldest daughter, received a degree in Business Administration and even studied at Northeastern. Ana, the youngest daughter, also received a degree in Business Administration and Management but works within the real estate sector. They are all very close to Spanish royalty and nobility.

Photo from Twitter

Carlos begins his career in karting in 2006. (Mind you, Oscar is 5 in 2006...) After competing in smaller series, he wins the Asia-Pacific KF3 title in 2008 and finishes runner-up in the Spanish Championship. In 2009, he secures the Junior Monaco Kart Cup and comes 2nd place in the European KF3 Championship. Carlos becomes a part of the Red Bull Junior Team in 2010. He makes the switch from carts to open-wheel cars in 2010, and although he competes in a variety of series, his most notable finish from 2010 and 2011 is 1st in Formula Renault 2.0. 2012-2014, he competed in F3, GP3, and Formula Renault 3.5. Before GP2 became F2, he never actually competed in it, skipping the series. He races in an F1 car for the first time in Silverstone in 2013, and at 20, he signs to race with Toro Rosso for the 2015 season. 

“Spanish youngster Carlos Sainz, whose father and namesake was a double world rally champion in the 1990s, will race in Formula One next season with Toro Rosso in the youngest line-up on the starting grid.” - Article by Eurosport

For a lot of his career, Carlos was always compared to his dad, living in his shadow. From the beginning of 2015 to the middle of 2017, Carlos races for Toro Rosso. He gets a new teammate in 2016, partnering with Daniil Kvyat after Max is promoted to the Red Bull senior team and Daniil is demoted. His results in the F1 world championship went from 15th to 12th to 9th.

In 2017, he leaves Toro Rosso for Renault. Helmut Marko spoke about his decision, saying “"It was his bad luck to get Max as a teammate. The atmosphere between the two [Sainz and Verstappen] at Toro Rosso was quite toxic.” He referred to both of their parents as being toxic and creating that toxic atmosphere, making their children hard to compete with each other.

“Sainz was a strong performer at Toro Rosso alongside Max Verstappen in their rookie 2015 season, matching him in qualifying. But his reputation never took off, and while he was always a promising young driver, clearly capable of some excellent performances, few seemed to believe Sainz was a prodigious talent. When Verstappen got promoted to Red Bull’s senior team a few races into 2016, Sainz was left at Toro Rosso. Though not in the same spotlight as Verstappen, he comprehensively outperformed the demoted Daniil Kvyat over the next 18 months. However, it had become clear to Sainz he lacked a path to the front with Red Bull. He always denied that Verstappen refused to be his team-mate again, but if it was not the young Dutchman’s preference it was almost certainly Red Bull’s, as the team did not want to pair Verstappen with Sainz.” - Article by The Race

He spends 1.5 years at Renault, then signs with McLaren. He was on loan from Renault to Red Bull, and he was unable to resign with them due to not being free from his contract early enough. Renault also conveniently decides to replace him with Daniel Ricciardo, who ultimately joins Renault in 2019, and Carlos goes on record saying he left Renault without any bad feelings. Ultimately he decides his Plan B is McLaren (as Alonso decides to retire at the end of 2018), and he signs with them, a “multi-year” contract.

He takes his first podium with McLaren at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix, finishes in 3rd place, and in 2020, he takes his second podium at Monza, finishing in 2nd place. He also takes 1 fastest lap at the 2020 Styrian Grand Prix. Ultimately, he had very successful seasons with McLaren, finishing 6th in the WDC back-to-back, and he is offered a 2 year contract by Ferrari to replace Sebastian Vettel for the upcoming 2021 season. Daniel Ricciardo, funny enough, replaces him at McLaren (they are swapping seats lol).

Photo from SkySports

From 2021-2024, he remains with Ferrari, scores 3 wins, a number of podiums, and stays close behind his teammate, Charles Leclerc. And now, we are here, the start of The Carcar Timeline.

The Carcar Timeline

Australia 2015 - A String of Invisible Fate

"Piastri shares another memory from the Australian GP Oscar Piastri has another memory from the Australian GP. Back in 2015, the Aussie was one of the grid kids for the event. Grid-kids were children who used to hold the flags of each driver’s nationality. Piastri was assigned Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat. Unfortunately for young Oscar, he was unable to meet the Russian driver as Kvyat was unable to start after a transmission failure." - Article by The Sports Rush

He was standing not far from Carlos!!! THE FIRST CARCAR CRUMBS! Thank you @a-amvryllis for posting these photos!

Spa 2023 - The Story Begins with a DNF

Lewis Hamilton starts 3rd, Carlos Sainz starts 4th, and Oscar Piastri starts 5th

Lewis is fighting with Carlos going into turn 1, on the outside of Carlos

Carlos has a slight lock-up going into turn 1, and to avoid contact with Lewis, he has to turn inward

Oscar ultimately has to take the inside line to Carlos going into turn 1, and is squeezed into the wall by Carlos

They both DNF due to damage from the incident, deemed a “racing incident” by the FIA

In an interview, Oscar tells the media: “I had a pretty good launch, I was getting alongside Carlos and then he kind of jinked to the inside a bit and I obviously had to get out of the brakes to not get hit. My nose was kind of there and at that point, it was too late to try and back out, so unfortunately I ended up in contact. A shame to end so early."

Carlos, on the other hand, tells the media: “I was on the attack with Lewis into Turn 1 and I think I pretty much had the move done and then I received a bit of contact on my rear-right,” reckoned Sainz afterwards. “If you want my honest opinion, I think it was a bit of a mistake by Oscar trying to go through side-by-side into [Turn] 1. If you look at the last seven, eight years, everyone who has tried that move, it’s never really worked and has generated a bit of a crash when you look at the past races. So yeah, I don’t know if it was a bit of a lack of experience, a bit optimistic, but again a racing incident that cost us a race."

The Infamous Tweet that got Carlos slightly cancelled because he blamed Oscar 😭

Zandvoort 2023 - Big Yikes in Qualifying

During Q1, Carlos was exiting the pit lane behind Valtteri Bottas, and was unaware of Oscar's presence

Oscar was on a slow lap

As Carlos pulled across to take the natural racing line into turns 2 and 3, Oscar was forced off track and had to brake suddenly to avoid contact with Carlos

Carlos is ultimately given a 5000 Euro reprimand, as Ferrari did not warn Carlos about his proximity to Oscar until they were alongside each other

Monza 2023 - Free Practice 3 Inchident

At turn 1, Carlos and Oscar go side-by-side, and Carlos forces Oscar to go wide to avoid a collision

Carlos is shown the black-and-white flag for the incident

The commentators go on to say "it's always these two, isn't it?" (and it's true because sometimes you just beef with your younger enemy)

Yuki is also upset with Carlos too due to some congestion on track, and him getting in the way 😭

Abu Dhabi 2023 - More Free Practice Inchidents

Oscar is approaching a turn when Carlos is in the racing line on a slow lap

Oscar believed that Carlos had impeded him on his lap, accusing him of "dangerous driving"

Ultimately, nothing comes of the incident, except for the fact that we get our signature "Classic Carlos" moment

During qualifying, Carlos also is criticized by Daniel Ricciardo, saying he's "always the culprit" with impeding (thank you @scrappyracers for sending this)

Saudi Arabia 2024 - Minor Complaining

During FP2, Oscar is told that "Sainz is pushing" and slows down to the left side of the track, to let him pass

But then, Carlos doesn't think that this is sufficient, throws his right hand up and gestures at Oscar as he passes him like "what tf are u doing" and says the following radio message

The onboards can be found here, thank you @eightyonefour for posting!

Miami 2024 - When Carcar Went Mainstream

Through the middle of the race, around lap 34, Carlos attempted an overtake on Oscar

Oscar pushes Carlos wide to defend his position

Carlos then states that Oscar should give the position back for pushing him off the track

No penalties were given here, as Oscar was overtaking on the inside and his front tyres were ahead–therefore, this was a legal move

On lap 35, Carlos attempts another overtake on Oscar, and has a slight-lock-up

There is contact! The cars touch, but Carlos makes it past

Oscar tries to retake the position, but has a major lock-up, and has significant front-wing damage. He ends up replacing his front wing, falling from P4 to P13

Carlos is given a penalty after the race for causing the collision due to "losing control of his car" and he drops from P4 to P5

(it's worth noting Oscar literally has no radios of him even acknowledging this fight with Carlos, he just talks about the vibrations of the rear wing)

Monaco 2024 - The Soulbond is Acknowledged

We got this very funny moment of Oscar trying to offer Carlos the microphone but getting ignored

While Charles was on pole, Oscar was in 2nd and Carlos was in 3rd, and on the first lap, Oscar didn't get away as well as Carlos did so Carlos caught up to Oscar

They went side by side at the first corner and Carlos rubbed against Oscar's floor, leaving him with a front-left puncture

After the red flag, all the grid positions were restored, so they ended up racing each other all the way until the end of the race

At the press conference, Carlos was lying down first and then Oscar decided to come join him

Then, when starting the press conference, Carlos tried to offer his phone to Oscar (boyfriend behavior)

In the interview, Carlos goes on record saying:

"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 always seem to find each other on track" from here

They acknowledged the soul-bond

The Crusty White Dog

They both own crusty white dogs. Do you guys think they share it

Instagram Saga

Carlos does not follow Oscar on Instagram.

Oscar follows Carlos on Instagram.

Oscar has never once liked any of Carlos' posts (I can confirm. I have scrolled through the thousands of posts he has.)

this is the current timeline, let me know if i've missed anything! and i hope you enjoyed my little brief intros about the drivers too!

[jazzcathaven]

When Tina Turner left her first husband - who was also her boss, captor, and brutal tormentor - she snuck out of their Dallas hotel room with a single thought in her mind: "The way out is through the door." From there she fled across the midnight freeway, semi-trucks careening past her, with 36 cents and a Mobil gas card in her pocket. As soon as she decided to walk out that door, she owned nothing else. When she filed for divorce, she made an unusual request. She didn't want anything: not the song rights, not the cars, not the houses, not the money. All she wanted was the stage name he gave her - Tina - and her married name - Turner. This was the name by which the world had come to know her, and keeping it was her only chance to salvage her career.

Things could have gone a lot of ways from there. She could have labored in obscurity for decades, maybe making records on small labels to be prized by vinyl connoisseurs in Portland. She could have stayed in Vegas, where she first went to get her chops back up, and worked as a nostalgia act. And, of course, given what she had been through, she might have ... not made it.

What happened instead is that Tina Turner became the biggest global rock star of the 80s. I'm old enough to barely remember this, but if you aren't, it was like this: The Rolling Stones would headline a stadium one day, and the next day it would be Tina Turner. A middle-aged Black woman - she became a rock star at 42! - sitting atop the 1980s like it was her throne. She managed this because of whatever rare stuff she was made of (this is a woman whose label gave her two weeks to record her solo debut, Private Dancer, which went five times platinum); because she decided to speak publicly about her abusive marriage and forge her own identity, and in doing so give hope and courage to countless women; and also because - in a perhaps unlikely twist for a girl from Nutbush, Tennessee - she had her practice of Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhism, to which she credited her survival. She remained devout until the end. Tina's second marriage - to her, her only marriage - was to Edwin Bach, a Swiss music executive 16 years her junior. Of him, she said, "Erwin, who is a force of nature in his own right, has never been the least bit intimidated by my career, my talents, or my fame.

"In 2016, after a barrage of health problems, Tina's kidneys began to fail. A Swiss citizen by then, she had started preparing for assisted suicide when her husband stepped in. According to Tina, he said, "He didn't want another woman, or another life." He gave her one of his kidneys, buying her the remainder of her time on this earth and perhaps closing a cycle which took her from a man who inflicted injury upon her to a man willing to inflict injury upon himself to save her from harm.

Born into a share-cropping family as Anna Mae Bullock in 1939, she died Tina Turner in a palatial Swiss estate: the queen of rock 'n roll; a storm of a performer with a wildcat-fierce voice; a dancer of visceral, spine-tingling potency and ability; a beauty for the ages; a survivor of terrible abuse and an advocate for others in similar situations; an author and actress; a devout Buddhist; a wife and mother; a human being of rare talent and perseverance who, through her transcendent brilliance, became a legend.

Credit: Will Stenberg

[mecachrome]

pre-mclaren oscar piastri primer (ft. maxf, landoscar)

0. introduction

for a few months now i've been wanting to make both an oscar primer and a timeline of pre-mclaren landoscar moments, but i couldn't figure out which one to prioritize… then after some deliberation i finally realized i could just combine the two things together! so. here is an oscar-centric timeline that is mainly about his racing background, moving to the uk, and how he became acquainted with other members of the rfm pack—aka lando, maxf, and logan. i don't know whether any of this information is useful or even vaguely interesting, but i mostly just wrote it for myself and thought i'd share what i had in case anyone else wanted to check it out. please feel free to comment or shoot me an ask if anything here is egregiously incorrect; i've checked and linked as many sources as i could but it's of course possible that some errors remain :)

1. background, rc racing, early karting days (2007-2015)

oscar piastri was born on april 6, 2001 in brighton east, a suburb of melbourne not far from albert park circuit, as the son of chris and nicole and to-be oldest brother to 3 younger sisters. a love for all things automotive ran deep in the piastri family: both of his grandfathers were mechanics and his father had also co-founded his own vehicle diagnostics software company, hp tuners, aka oscar's sponsor throughout his racing career. thanks to his father's business, oscar's family was objectively well-off and managed to contribute a fairly substantial amount of support toward his junior career, but they also weren't swimming in cash by multi-millionaire motorsport standards either.

(L-R) edie, mae, hattie, and oscar, from nicole's twitter — each sibling is ~2 years apart (source)

while most drivers on the current grid were introduced to motorsport through go-karting, usually at or before the age of 7, oscar's path to single-seaters differed slightly. he first developed an interest in racing via remote-controlled cars at the age of 6, when his father brought him a monster truck as a souvenir back from a business trip in america. oscar began racing them that same year, eventually moving to safer electric track vehicles and even winning the second class of the national titles in 2010, at the age of 9. he was so small then that he often needed to stand on a milk crate to see the cars on track, and the next-youngest competitor at the time was twice his age. (source)

oscar on the podium at age 8 (nov 16, 2009)

oscar with his father chris, who often competed alongside him in a separate class (dec 21, 2010)

by 2011, oscar and his father were seriously considering his potential of pursuing rc racing as a viable career path, but things changed when he was introduced to karting via a friend's daughter in the rc community and his aspirations slowly shifted toward racing from inside a car. oscar was an unsurprisingly sporty and competitive child growing up; he'd played some cricket and aussie rules football and knew that all he wanted to do was race professionally, full-stop, at the time thinking along the lines of australian racing categories like v8 supercars. he was still competing in remote car racing as late as 2013, but he began karting seriously within australia in 2014, placing respectably in the junior categories of several regional karting series against relatively senior and more-experienced racers, and even going to france for a one-off event where he finished on the podium of the iame international junior x30 final. this outing affirmed his potential to his father and motivated the two of them to split time between australia and europe in 2015 as they juggled his karting future; plans for two more european events that year fell through, including the cik-fia world championship at the kfj level (which logan sargeant would go on to win), but at this point they were officially looking to take his career to the next level and commit fully to european karting in 2016.

this is when ricky flynn (and the hypothetical idea of lando norris!!!) comes in. before we get into rfm and karting professionally in europe, it's important to note that the defining aspect of landoscar's junior careers is that their pathways never once intersected. in fact, they don't even seem to have met properly before oscar entered the f1 grid as alpine reserve, although they'd spoken over social media and oscar was familiar with several people around lando's life—for example, maxf, logan, guanyu, and even lando's older brother oliver, who had also raced for rfm.

in short, you could say that landoscar's biggest hindrance was their parallel excellence. oscar was good enough to catch up and even surpass everyone else at lando's level, but lando remained untouchable throughout the years. oscar is only 1.5 years younger than him, but their f1 careers are offset by 4 years (2019 vs. 2023 debut) because of exactly two things: oscar's 2022 gap year in alpine and his two attempts at formula renault eurocup. on the other hand, lando sped through all of his junior categories in blistering fashion, falling short of the championship only once: the year he placed 2nd in f2 behind george russell. this is significant because many talk about the clinical nature of oscar's rapid single-seater ascension and three b2b2b victories (still very impressive, especially given his limited karting career!), but all of that speaks equally to the illustrious nature of lando's junior success and the sheer magnitude of faith placed in him as mclaren's "golden boy" coming up the ranks. to put things into further perspective, lando was teammates with maxf and jehan daruvala at rfm until 2014, jehan competing in the same class and max one below, yet by the time oscar was racing max and jehan—in f3 in 2020 and f2 in 2021, respectively—lando was already into his 2nd and 3rd years of f1. here's a chart that hopefully makes a bit more sense:

majorly simplified timeline showing lando, guanyu, maxf, logan, and oscar's junior careers + the karting classes they primarily competed in each calendar year. maxf did not complete his 2nd f3 season and many of them contested multiple/different formula renault series, but this is just a rough overview of their feeder series experience. 

2. moving to europe, rfm, regional formulae (2016-2019)

back in australia, oscar was a member of the oakleigh go-kart racing club and being actively mentored by james sera, a multi-time australian karting champion and fa kart dealer who worked with young karting talents alongside his cousin david. in late-2015, he presumably helped oscar and his father reach out to ricky flynn, who ran ricky flynn motorsport (rfm) and whose team was at the time enjoying exorbitant success in the karting scene; lando had won the world championship at the kf level the year prior, and logan would soon clinch the kfj title in 2015, results which further drew oscar's interest toward the team. ricky flynn agreed to take oscar on and have him and his dad move out to europe, and by november 2015 oscar announced on social media that he would be joining rfm the next year. in january of 2016, he and his father moved to hertford, uk, so that oscar could begin a 100-day karting program and travel extensively around europe to attend races. this is where he met logan sargeant, who was in his final year on the team but competing a class above, now at the ok (previously kf) level. oscar himself was only competing in the okj class.

not oscar-related, but as you can see guanyu, logan, and maxf were already acquainted before oscar and logan met, since the three of them and lando had been in rfm together as of 2014 — (may 11, 2014) & (feb 6, 2015)

oscar and logan in 2016

in an interview published on june 7, 2023, oscar reflected on leaving australia and committing to his racing dream, saying:

"i think if there was a turning point, it was probably when i started finishing towards the front in australia, and i started winning a couple of races here and there and finishing in the top three of championships and stuff, and then went to europe and fully committed to going down that route. [...] there's obviously a very big commitment at that point when you move halfway across the world without family and stuff. so i knew at that point that i really wanted to become a professional because, firstly, that's what i want to do anyway, but, secondly, now i'm sacrificing seeing my family, and stuff like that to be able to do this — which was a sacrifice i was more than willing to make."

like the majority of oscar's karting career, his time with ricky flynn can primarily be summarized as decent. none of his performances were particularly stellar, and in november 2016 he placed 6th in the fia world championship final behind the likes of victor martins and théo pourchaire (he mainly competed against guys like them, dennis hauger, caio collet, etc… once again logan was a class above and lando/maxf had already graduated to single-seaters), but he showed promising racing foundations and a great capacity for improvement, especially given that he'd moved to europe the same year and was still adjusting to life and racing on the opposite hemisphere. about 6 months into his new karting venture, oscar had settled in reasonably well and his father decided he would return to australia to continue on with his life, so they made the joint decision that oscar was to begin boarding at haileybury's uk campus and continue racing in europe entirely on his own. uk and australian school years are misaligned, so my personal understanding is he moved to europe after finishing year 9 in australia, attempted online school/took a few months off (he says he did online coursework here, but mentioned here that he was out of school, so it sounds like it must have been a very half-hearted effort…), came back to australia over the uk summer to do some more karting, then began boarding in september 2016 as a year 10 student. he spent ~4 years there and eventually received his a-levels in 2020, except his final year was disrupted by covid and he never sat his exams. (blog post mentioning his a-levels + btg transcript excerpt about his exams; his website says he attended haileybury from 2016-19, but i think this mainly encapsulates his boarding period, as he was still doing remote work in april 2020.)

oscar in f4 with his gcse revision guide, 📸 sebastiaan rozendaal (may 20, 2018)

2016 is also when oscar began his well-documented super-liking of several of lando's social media profiles. i think understanding oscar's time in rfm and his extremely british single-seater origins helps better paint his history with lando and maxf; my personal understanding of pre-mclaren landoscar is that while oscar never formally met lando or maxf during his karting days, he knew of them quite well through rfm and thus followed them on instagram/twitter after moving to the uk. of course, oscar has a fairly active social media presence in general, so young oscar quietly liked instagram posts and tweets from many different people, but i do feel compelled to note that in the early days he liked lando, maxf, and logan's posts with seriously impressive frequency compared to anyone else on the grid (or anyone in general, really); after creating his twitter account in may 2016, some of the very first tweets oscar liked were from maxf, and he also liked a multitude of mundane lando tweets from 2016 until… today, while on the other hand he didn't start liking george's tweets—another similarly-aged young british talent—until late 2017. (he does have some fun george-admiring moments though, but that can wait for another time!) outside of rfm, other people oscar was familiar with during his early racing years were british f4 teammate ayrton simmons, to-be series champion jamie caroline, and old australian karting friend christian pancione, who appears to still be one of his best mates (if not his best) as of today. fun fact is that christian raced for the carrera cup as a support event to the australian gp in 2023; here's oscar allegedly checking the quali live timing at lunch during his own media day. 

so, to conclude, oscar's early lando focus basically traces back to the motorsport path he took at the behest and guidance of his early rfm connections in the uk. the thing is that despite growing up in australia and vaguely admiring several aussie drivers in f1 as a child (read: mark webber and eventually daniel ricciardo), oscar has never had a specific driver he consistently mentions when pressed for his racing "idol," likely since his personality inherently resists idolatry and he instead views successful people more as actionable benchmarks or reference points for self-improvement rather than as unattainable paragons of accomplishment. as a kid forced to grow up almost entirely on his own, the majority of his racing aspirations were molded independently in the uk—he completed his karting career in the uk, boarded at haileybury for 4 years (fun fact: other drivers to attend include jehan, callum ilott, and clément novalak; callum was a few years above oscar and finished school in 2017, but the two would later become quite talkative over social media anyway), raced in british f4, became a brdc member, contested eurocup under a british license and therefore had the british flag raised and british national anthem played during his wins, stayed in the uk even at alpine since the factory is based in enstone, etc. oscar basically moved to the uk from australia without having really met anyone significant in the racing scene (other than jack doohan, or more importantly jack's father mick, but jack is younger and did an extra year of karting) and pretty much didn't have anyone specific to "look up to" at the time. oscar's first acknowledgement of lando's online existence was in december 2015, when he liked one of lando's instagram posts prior to moving to england, so it can be assumed that lando basically functioned as his most accessible reference point in the junior ladder as a 14 year old dipping his toes into the european racing scene for the first time. that is my highly subjective analysis of the situation!

select quotes re: oscar's inconsistent responses to his motorsport "hero" (or his favorite driver / a driver he looks up to in general):

(f1fs; mar 9, 2022) "i started watching f1 in… 2009 was the first season i properly watched. so when brawn came in, obviously mark was the only aussie on the grid at that point, so i was kind of naturally going for him. then joined by daniel, so obviously going to support the aussies, but i think watching lewis has been nothing short of spectacular, and a very good role model. [...] i think when i was first watching, i supported mark, but, you know, and i hope he takes no offense to this—vettel was winning everything at that point. so i was supporting mark, but vettel was doing most of the winning. i think now that i understand more about racing though, i would say [the driver i look up to the most is] lewis, mainly. the way he goes about things on and off the track is quite exceptional."

(mcl youtube; mar 29, 2023) sporting idols mentioned: ayrton senna, alain prost, michael jordan (see also ultimate athletes list)

(p1; aug 10, 2023) "i would say i never had like one specific idol. when i was growing up watching mark webber was at red bull, and obviously being australian, red bull being very quick at the time, i kind of naturally followed him. i mean—even like some of the guys in the junior ranks above me. like lando was always kind of two, three years above me, winning… most things on his way up. so i guess kind of him in some ways?"

(eff won; dec 4, 2023) "i don’t really have like one specific [idol]. i think what lewis has been able to do in terms of getting to seven world championships was incredibly impressive. i think what max is doing now is also very impressive…" 

the first lando post oscar liked on instagram (dec 21, 2015)

the first maxf posts oscar liked; instagram (feb 26, 2016) & twitter (may 9, 2016)

anyway, back to british f4! despite his initially unconventional foray into motorsport, oscar's journey progressed in a much more orderly fashion once he stepped up to single-seaters. his actual debut was in f4 uae, which he ran 3 rounds of between 2016 and 2017 (another fun fact: this is where he briefly acquainted himself with mclaren indycar driver david malukas, who would later recall him being very intelligent and whom zak brown allegedly spoke to oscar about before appointing to their indy team). after cutting his teeth on actual car-racing for the first time, oscar decided against moving up to the ok class as he felt confident in his ability to be competitive in single-seaters. his first full season was therefore the 2017 british f4 championship, during which oscar signed with arden while logan went to reigning champions carlin (lando had won with them in 2015, then maxf in 2016). oscar made his way to the top step 6 times in the season and placed just barely above logan for 2nd in the championship, finishing behind the considerably more experienced jamie caroline. arden was also founded and is currently owned by red bull team principal christian horner, so it was during oscar's time there that christian took note of and interest in his talent; oscar reportedly did a few runs in the red bull simulator but was passed over for joining the academy, which christian later voiced regret on. (source)

maxf, logan (center), and oscar (to max's right) on a day maxf was visiting the 2017 british f4 grid (april 11, 2017)

linus lundqvist, oscar, and logan on the podium at snetterton (jul 30, 2017)

jamie and oscar, who were… er, mathematically in the main championship fight. for some reason they made them take these photos (sep 30, 2017)

after a successful f4 outing with arden, oscar returned to the team for his first season of formula renault eurocup in 2018, a renault series that ran in its specific configuration until 2020 before merging with the parallel regional series frec to become what is today known as freca. this season proved to be less competitive for oscar, as arden was relatively inexperienced in this series and oscar's three teammates were afflicted with what can colloquially be referred to as a "skill issue," making it difficult to collectively develop the car throughout the season. (blog interview) the series was thus returning driver maxf's to lose, who at the time was racing for reigning champs r-ace with teammates that included oscar's fellow rookies logan and victor martins.

despite the unideal environment, oscar managed to prove his worth by placing a respectable 8th in the series, scoring 110 points as a rookie driver and capping the season off with 3 podiums and a top-finish of 2nd place—a jarring contrast to his teammates' joint total of 12 points. this result attracted the attention of r-ace and granted him a seat with them for the 2019 season, at which point maxf and logan both graduated to f3. thankfully that wasn't too much of a concern for oscar since he'd always intended to do two seasons of eurocup, and now he finally had a chance to win the first serious championship of his racing career with an established racing outfit.

oscar, max, and yifei ye on the hockenheim r2 podium (sep 23, 2018) [full gifset]

oscar's second season of eurocup is when he truly started proving himself as a driver, or at least to the people whose names, money, and opinions mattered around the paddock. his main competition in 2019 was again victor, who was now racing for mp and had been made a member of the renault sport academy back in 2018 after a strong performance in french f4. despite a close title fight, oscar managed to hold him off for the championship in the final race of the season, kicking off what would soon become an impressive string of consecutive single-seater series titles. even sweeter was the fact that all eurocup champions were awarded a renault sport academy spot that could be left or taken as they pleased, and of course—while the finances weren't nearly as impressive as alpine would later proclaim in their baseless smear campaign—oscar's connections in the racing world were limited as an australian driver almost exclusively managed by his father, so he gladly accepted the offer for the many venues of support renault presented to him.

see also: bby oscar briefly mentioning lando after winning eurocup in 2019 (@ 1:10)

oscar being lifted by his team (r-ace) after placing 4th in the abu dhabi finale and winning the title by 7.5 points

3. renault sport academy, lockdown, f3 (2020)

many things happened in 2020. one: oscar became an official member of the renault sport academy, joining the likes of max (who'd been picked up on merit after winning british f4 in 2017), guanyu, christian lundgaard, caio collett, and fellow new recruit hadrien david (victor had been strategically demoted after oscar's win because renault is a notoriously unserious organization, but again this is not the post). two: by the time oscar was ready for f3, moving up the ladder proved to be exorbitantly expensive, and he realized he needed better funds and managerial support to sort his career out. he'd been offered a spot in prema's f3 team by team-owner rené rosin at the end of his eurocup season, who'd named him for the post-season test before the championship was over and stressed that the spot was his no matter where he finished. (source) prema is unquestionably one of the top—if not frequently the top—teams one can drive for in most junior series (though there is also somewhat of a self-selection bias; if you ask oscar he is not a significant beneficiary of prematax!), having absolutely demolished the f3 competition that same year and achieved a clean sweep of the drivers' standings with rob shwartzman, marcus armstrong, and jehan at 1-2-3 consecutively. oscar completed post-season testing with them in spain alongside to-be teammates logan and fred vesti in october (source), before confirming on jan 26, 2020 that he would be joining them for the f3 season as a renault junior.

so, where does mark webber come in here? apparently mark's trainer from red bull and wec had also been oscar's trainer since 2016 (i'm pretty sure this is australian physiologist simon sostaric), and it was through their joint connection that oscar was introduced to mark. according to mclaren's 2023 season preview, "the pair hit it off, and webber took his countryman under his wing," signing oscar to jam sports management, aka the management agency he runs with his wife ann. mark's support would become a major factor in helping oscar progress through the feeder ranks and establish himself in f1, mainly because he had actual connections and could help oscar network with sponsors and negotiate his way during future signings. of course, more on this later.

as an aside, here are a few things mark has said about oscar:

"he’s got that white line fever when he puts his helmet on and turns into a different character, which is sensational." (mar 1, 2020)

"one of oscar’s biggest strengths by a mile, compared to everyone he is competing against — and this will be a huge string to his bow when he makes it to f1 — is his composure. he has immense levels of composure. [...] if you are weak mentally you won’t make it. he was on his own from an early age. he did brilliantly with his studies. but the racing disease would not go away, he wants it very much." (sydney morning herald; dec 11, 2021)

"he’s a prost, mate. he’s such a thinker and so calm. at first i thought i needed to inject a bit of urgency in him, but actually no, he’s got his own frequency. that’s just where he is." (the race; oct 7, 2023)

estimates provided by chris piastri on the cost of oscar's junior career, stressing the million-dollar commitments of running a single season of f3 or f2 (source)

anyway, back to the chaotic events of 2020. i think something that's good to keep in mind when discussing oscar's time in the renault sport academy is that he was actually a relatively new recruit, as in he only participated in a single training camp with the other juniors in 2020 and most of them (max, christian, guanyu, the temporary ghost of victor) already knew each other before. oscar essentially met with renault's factory team in early 2020, filmed promotional material with other juniors in january before attending the season opener together in february and then heading to winter training camp later that month, after which he and max left early for f3 pre-season testing in bahrain on march 1—a blessing in disguise, seeing as caio, hadrien, and christian remained behind and would soon be stuck quaranting in a hotel in tenerife—then briefly spent a week at school before returning home for what was meant to be a quick pit stop at the australian gp, which at the time had yet to be canceled.

then, of course, lockdown happened.

simplified breakdown of renault junior stints, notably showcasing the academy's struggles to meaningfully promote any of its juniors

oscar at the 2020 renault season opener alongside then-academy director mia sharizman, then-tp cyril abiteboul, alain prost, f1 drivers esteban ocon and daniel ricciardo, and the other academy juniors: fewtrell, lundgaard, zhou, david (feb 12, 2020)

oscar and maxf behind the scenes of the same event (feb 12, 2020)

stuck in australia for three months, oscar would end up participating in two fia virtual races, one for f2 and another for f1 (jun 7, 2020). a fun landoscar tidbit is that he finished 5th in the virtual gp right behind lando, so they technically had raced each other before 2023, depending on... well, whether you count a 2020 sim race wherein george russell and alex albon lead the pack as a real race. nevertheless, this was a time when drivers were becoming much more active online, seeing as streaming was the best way to keep their images relevant and connect with fans, and despite oscar expressing little interest in streaming on twitch he would still experience a considerable uptick in his online activity and twitter reach that year.

racing resumed on july 4 at the red bull ring in austria; oscar had been granted an exemption to travel to the uk and complete a 2-week quarantine back on may 27, a reassuring indicator to the motorsport world that the f3 season would run after all. now that he no longer had to attend school, having received 2 b's and 1 c for his maths, physics, and computer science a-levels, oscar relocated from hertford to oxford in june to be near the renault facilities, which he visited nearly every day to train at, and began living independently (as in in a flat) for the first time since 2016, rooming with fellow renault junior caio collet.

as i said before, this season is when oscar's online presence and "memeability" began to really conceptualize, enabled primarily by the fact that he was a) finally living outside of a school dormitory, and b) now, of course, signed at prema, a team notorious for its social media visibility, literal family atmosphere, and frequent youtube pandering. according to this f3 article, his twitter followers jumped from 795 at the start of the season to 11.6k by the time he won the championship, an audience built significantly off the self-deprecating string of jokes he used to tweet regarding drs and general reliability issues faced throughout the season.

what i guess i want to touch on here is how oscar's online presence has always been concentrated around the bare fundamentals of his personality: dry humor, candid words, sparing emojis, a few humorous photos detailing the mundane reality of his everyday routines, and at most the occasional inopportune meme or reaction gif (#thepiastri 🤷‍♂️, f2 in baku, jetpack guy, so on). he's bantered frequently with callum on twitter and near-obsessively liked memes, videos, and other updates lando shares with his audience, but he also has seemingly little interest in building up his own "brand" the way lando so smartly has with ln4 and quadrant, and quite frankly seems viscerally incapable of wanting to engage one-to-one with fans or otherwise leveraging the popularity of his material image. basically what i like to say is that oscar enjoys being adjacent to "lad humor" and will happily enable it, but he really has no interest in being the one to initiate it himself!

"there's some things you want to share, some things you don’t. in today's age and sort of having the profile that us drivers do, we kind of just have everything shared,” piastri said. “but (social media) can be used for good, certainly within the profiles that we have. but in some ways, it can be negative, and there's always going to be people out there that don't like you for being you.” piastri tries to write as many of his posts as possible, and he checks those written by his team to be sure they sound authentically him. (the athletic; jun 29, 2023)

along these lines, oscar does enjoy the spotlight, only he seems to prefer it concentrated in a specific lens toward a specific productive end. he's endlessly capable of seeing the objective upside of a situation, joking after he was made a meme in baku following his f2 sr1 collision that he was all for it if it got him popularity. after his eurocup championship he also said: "i think everyone loves a bit of spotlight on them. i think that's just human nature, so a bit of attention's always nice." which is interesting to me!

but back to racing. this season would unexpectedly become two things: maxf's last competitive season in motorsport—especially disappointing considering that he'd gone into the championship expecting to put on a second-season title charge, instead failing to gel with the hitech team to the point that each increasingly poor weekend made him spiral mentally—as well as oscar and logan's last season racing against each other before f1, since logan would later encounter financial difficulties that left him stranded in f3 as oscar catapulted himself to f2 victory. 2020 was obviously a weird season in general because of covid and the gap from pre-season testing, so it also meant that oscar had gone into the season fairly rusty; he managed to win the first race of the season, but on top of his drs rollercoaster he did struggle with middling results in qualifying and was met step-by-step throughout the championship by logan.

maxf's last race in f3 was the barcelona sprint race on august 16, with three rounds left to the end of the season. he dnfed in an unfortunate first-lap incident mere moments after oscar charged his way up from 5th on the grid to the front of the pack, where he would eventually breeze his way to victory and pull himself near-level with logan for the championship lead. i recognize that this is an oscar post and not a maxf post, but i think their time in f3 during an extremely isolated and covid-affected period speaks to both an interesting dynamic between them (the little kid who always lagged a series behind you suddenly beating you on merit) and their respective temperaments toward racing. while at renault, max reportedly lived with jack aitken during the week but would return to his family home on weekends, so it makes sense that he struggled to adapt when covid hit and drivers were collectively forced into very regimented sporting bubbles. mark webber, who worked for channel 4 as a commentator and had access to the f1 paddock, basically couldn't see oscar in person and instead spoke to him over the phone every day on race weekends. maxf said of his decision to quit:

"normally [...] i’m able to stay calm under pressure and i don’t let many things get to me but when you have a bad qualifying result and you see guys up there that you know you’re capable of beating, it definitely takes a dig at you inside and it’s been a lot to process throughout the year." (source)

while then-academy director mia sharizman, who worked closely with the renault juniors, spoke of oscar's inherent propensity for independence and how he adapted well to the pressures of living on his own:

"if you look at oscar piastri, he has been living on his own, [away] from his family who are in melbourne for the past five to six years. because he has been living on his own in boarding school, he learns how to live on his own, and he thrives in that. we have to force him... 'have you spoken to your father?!' it's just things like that, but he thrives in that. that's why he thrived in those weekends racing. he loves being on his own without anybody. on the other hand, we had max fewtrell, for example, who can't – he couldn't survive the 11 weekends racing, because he always needed his family to be around him. so those are the things that suddenly you see and, i think that that we see now, after a few years a driver who is quick, a driver who has the talent, and then the driver who is stable." (source)

2020 is also when lando and oscar spoke to each other on twitter for the first time. yay! after lando went semi-viral for having a meltdown over a hornet on three separate social media platforms, oscar first joked with him about it on august 24 (this was incidentally also the day maxf announced his functional retirement, which oscar liked as well 😭), before referencing the incident again a few weeks later in september.

(aug 24, 2020) / (sep 10, 2020)

outside of drs tweets and trying desperately to banter with lando norris, oscar's popular tweets at the time included several food-related mishaps and home appliance tragedies. while this isn't actually a lando moment, he was also slandered by the LN4 twitter account a month later on october 17 for reasons that remain a mystery, resulting in this set of interactions:

(oct 17, 2020) / (oct 19, 2020)

bonus: maxf's tweets @ oscar (when you aren't close enough to just text him.......)

but back to f3. similarly to his second season of eurocup, oscar would go on to clinch the title in only the final race of the year, this time even more stressfully—he never got pole that season and won arguably off of consistency, benefiting from errors and unfortunate collisions involving his primary competitors. after a hectic qualifying and string of contentious grid penalties set for the before-last round in monza, he began the feature race 15th on the grid but put on an impressive performance to finish on the podium, buffing his points lead after logan was tapped by clément and put out of the points. he, logan, and fred all dnfed in race 2 (read: the novalak pendulum swung away from oscar's favor to maintain stringent cosmic equilibrium, while logan and fred threw away a points opportunity with a teammate4teammate love tap), and oscar went into mugello with only an 8-point lead over logan and a 24-point lead over pourchaire. this weekend proved equally hectic, as is frequently the case with f3 racing standards, but in short oscar and logan entered the final sprint race level on points, with théo approaching terrifyingly near in their rearview mirrors. logan was unceremoniously taken out of contention on the first lap after contact with zendeli, and oscar managed to squeak his way to 164 points in the championship by placing 7th in the race; théo finished 3rd, with 161 points, two positions away from claiming both the race and the championship title.

a succinct summary of an eventful season! (posted jun 30, 2021)

despite winning the f3 championship in far-from-dominant fashion, oscar's career was now steadily on an upward trend. on october 30 he was rewarded with a private test in the r.s.18 at bahrain alongside christian and guanyu, and a month later confirmed that he would be racing for prema again in f2 (december 1, 2020). as a rookie f3 champion there was a moderate amount of interest in him, but no one really expected him to carry home the f2 title on his first try and so one of the main favorites going into the next season was his second-year teammate and 2019 f3 champion rob shwartzman.

4. f2, alpine reserve duties, #piastrigate (2021-2022)

at the start of 2021, fernando officially took daniel's place at renault and the team rebranded itself as alpine, parting ways with team principal cyril abiteboul and functionally replacing him with new ceo laurent rossi—part of a no-tp management structure, frankly a self-evident infrastructural faux-pas from a million miles away. the renault sport academy was then also renamed to alpine academy; again i know that this is an oscar post so i won't get too into the details of Alpine Being Alpine, but understanding how the academy functioned does help better contextualize the inevitable unfurling of piastrigate.

the main issue, really, would always be laurent rossi, or at least the values laurent rossi had been hired to represent and which he willingly peddled during his controversial tenure at alpine. after rossi's appointment it was reported that "the renamed alpine academy was now being tugged in two directions between director mia sharizman's ideal as a creator of future f1 drivers and alpine's chief executive officer laurent rossi's commercially-led preferences." (source) mia directed the academy from january 2016 until may 2022, and had been the one to restructure its recruitment process by demanding better funding and robust testing programs to cyril:

"when we first restarted the team in 2016, it was, we didn't even have a two-year-old car program at that time. we had to use a 2012 program using the [lotus] e20. [...] then in 2018, i went through it, and i said to cyril abiteboul, "look, let's try and do this." we needed financial resources. i needed a head start with financial resources to kick start the program whereby you entice drivers, and you offer [a place] to the academy drivers. it was more to see how they are... it was more of an evaluation process... that was what the first idea was. then we developed the program to develop the drivers to suit their formual 2 program." (source)

(note: mia also believed that 2020 was a disappointing year for all of his juniors save for oscar's performance in f3, which is a whole other thing. but rossi's greatest shortcoming was that he had singular, insulated vision, and he resisted any external input to the detriment of reactionary business decisions, a fact that alienated alain prost and soon led to his exit from the outfit in 2022. not a good look!!! prost would later call rossi "the best example of the dunning-kruger effect, that of an incapable leader who thinks himself able to overcome his incompetence with his arrogance and lack of humanity toward his troops." 🤌)

so basically, the cracks of mind-boggling incompetence within the team's leadership structure were long evident. on a brighter note, oscar's 2021 f2 season would quickly become his strongest single-seater contest ever (f1 youtube has a good summarizing video of his season, if interested); because of covid, f2 was experimenting with a three-race format this year in which quali set the reverse grid for sr1 and sr1 results then set the reverse grid for sr2, which essentially meant high qualifiers were rewarded for simply maintaining composure in the first sprint and running cleanly in the top 10 in order to secure a favorable grid spot in sr2. oscar adapted well to this format, building off his reputation of smooth, consistent driving on top of slowly improving his qualifying results over the course of the season, finally breaking through with his first feature-race win in monza. 

oscar with mia sharizman

this is also around the time when lando mentioned oscar in official f1 media for the first time, reading off a question about him to daniel in an interview posted in october:

"this one's not even about formula one. it's about oscar piastri. oscar pias-tree! [...] he's been on it this year." — (full video) (oct 1, 2021)

of his own f2 campaign, oscar said:

"i thought that i could challenge for race wins, but i probably wasn't expecting to be so consistently at the front. consistency is something that i’ve had as a trait throughout my career, and i was expecting to be consistent in my results this year — but maybe a bit lower down!" (source)

not only did he end up being consistently at the front, he became virtually unstoppable in the second half of the season. on december 11, oscar clinched the title in abu dhabi with two races to spare, ending the season with 5 consecutive poles and 4 consecutive feature wins, 60.5 points above his previously-favored teammate in the standings. #notbadforashitqualifier!

by now oscar was a hot commodity in the paddock; the only problem was that alpine didn't really care, mainly because rossi had enthusiastically re-signed ocon to a three-year deal in 2021 and held zero intention of actually promoting any of its juniors to one of the race seats, plus the one open spot at alfa romeo had instead gone to guanyu and his considerable financial package (though oscar has always been vocally defensive of guanyu's appointment to his detractors). instead of moving to another series, such as indycar or super formula, oscar recognized that he'd proven everything he needed to prove within the feeder system and opted to remain on the grid as alpine's reserve driver, mainly so that he could embed himself in an f1 team environment and—most crucially—avoid being left "out of sight, out of mind," because once you go to america you usually don't come back.

i'll keep the rest of this post brief since i feel like everyone already knows What Went Down, but a quick highlight for fellow landoscar enjoyers was the 2022 australian gp on april 10, during which oscar accompanied rosanna tennant for the post-race show and awkwardly participated in a chaotic lando & alex interview. as far as i know, this was landoscar's first time interacting on-camera!

o: "i haven't raced either of them, no." l: "not yet!" o: "not yet. hopefully soon." — (full video) (apr 10, 2022)

then silly season started, and everything was thrown into disarray when sebastian vettel announced his imminent retirement and fernando subsequently took his place at aston martin; alpine scrambled to recover from this blindsided move and prematurely promoted oscar to an f1 seat, to which oscar eventually posted The Tweet—claiming he'd never signed a contract with alpine and would not be racing for them in 2023, thus kicking off #piastrigate. or the piasco, or whatever you prefer to call it.

here's a good article that properly summarizes the crb ruling, but tl;dr: mclaren and alpine had come to an agreement back in march to loan oscar to mclaren's stable of reserve drivers after daniel contracted covid; mark webber, who was close to andreas seidl from their time at porsche in wec, quietly negotiated a contract with mclaren for 2023 that oscar would then sign on july 4, which was reportedly initially a reserve deal with an upgrade clause to a full-time drive given a dr buyout; alpine's legal team turned out to be essentially one overworked legal director who mishandled the situation thanks to a lack of organizational support, while a concrete williams deal never actually existed no matter what people continuously allege, and any proprietary right to oscar's services that alpine purported to have for the 2023 season would soon be voided by crb rule on september 2. in other words, they dun goofed.

because tumblr dies when i try to include it in this post, here's a link to a condensed chronological timeline version of this post.

that's it for now. i'm sure you know how the rest goes!!!

[maxarchive]

Fear, faith, friendship: Inside F1’s most precious relationship

[...]

When now-triple world champion Max Verstappen was first promoted to the Red Bull team mid-season in 2016, race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase was tasked with moulding an 18-year-old possessing both supreme talent and a frank demeanour with only a few days' notice.

"I had experience working with multiple drivers before Max, and that was one of the biggest helps in terms of hitting the ground running with him. I think if I would have been a newbie to my role - I won't quite say he would have eaten me alive, but I'm not sure he would have had that respect for a junior engineer."

Their relationship was an immediate success. Verstappen became the youngest race winner in F1 history, finishing first on his debut at the Spanish Grand Prix. But, generally, the first few years of Lambiase and Verstappen's partnership were spent chasing perennial frontrunners Mercedes.

"Max learned some really harsh lessons in the two or three years before 2021. His racecraft really was something that we focused on, making sure we were just picking up points when it wasn't possible to win a race. We were concentrating on building his consistency, needing to be finishing every race, maybe not putting himself in a situation where he can end up in a 50/50 accident with another driver."

[...]

Sometimes, though, tension between driver and race engineer can spill over in the most high-pressure moments.

Now in his ninth season working with Verstappen, having won the championship in each of the past three seasons, Lambiase's voice is a staple of every F1 broadcast and has become recognisable to fans all around the world.

The pair's success does not mean their communications are entirely straightforward.

"I think it is inevitable in any relationship that there are disagreements. The first port of call is acceptance of that. Secondly, you need to have faith in each other that it is for the greater good rather than there being any kind of malicious undertone. That is at the core of the relationship. As an engineer, I need to understand that ultimately Max is in the hot seat, not me. So while we are all working in a pressurised environment, the driver is at a level well beyond that. As an older citizen I would like to think I am mature enough to step back and let him vent when necessary, but to also make him understand why decisions are being made. If I was a yes man, I would have been gone long ago. We have just got that honesty in the relationship between us that we can be blunt and straight-talking when needed."

As well as coping with adrenaline themselves, race engineers must manage the pressure on their racers.

The 2021 campaign was arguably the most intense in F1's 74-year history. After an acrimonious year marked by heavy collisions between the pair on track and serial sparring between their respective team principals in the paddock, Verstappen and rival Lewis Hamilton's title fight came down to the wire at the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

"I wouldn't want to repeat 2021 in a hurry. It was incredibly competitive on and off the track [but] sometimes I think it went beyond the realms of sport. In terms of taking that pressure away from Max, I tried to stress with everybody here that we continued as normal. We treated every race as a single event rather than trying to look too far down the line at what could be."

[...]

In some cases though, the idea of starting afresh following the end of such a deep connection doesn't appeal any more.

"I honestly see Max as a younger brother. We can talk about anything and anyone at any time. We're at the point where we just felt completely relaxed and at ease with each other. Maybe I am speaking out of turn, but I don't think I would have any interest in working with another driver now. Having had the success that we have enjoyed together with Max, working with one of the greatest talents that the sport has ever seen, I don't think it would be fair on another driver, from their perspective or mine, to try and replicate what we have achieved with Max."

In Formula 1, as in all our lives, the magic of the most special relationships will always remain utterly unique.

[eggplantgifs]

Deanna Stellato-Dudek: 2000 Junior World Silver Medalist → 2024 World Champion

At the age of 40, Deanna Stellato-Dudek is the oldest woman to win a World Championships title in figure skating, with her pairs partner Maxime Deschamps for Canada. Deanna Stellato was the 1999 Junior Grand Prix Final Champion and 2000 Junior World Silver Medalist in the women's singles discipline. She retired from competitive skating in 2001, and returned as a pairs skater in 2016.

40 years is the new 20. That's what I'd like to say. [This record is] not something that I ever set out to do when I came back to skating, but I knew that if I were to accomplish my dreams, it would inevitably occur, because I'm the oldest everywhere. But it's something I carry with pride, and I'm very proud of it. I hope a lot of athletes stay around a lot longer. I hope it encourages people to not stop before they reach their potential. And I hope it transcends into other areas, not just in sports, but also in other areas of life [...] [My 15-year-old self] would say, why did we stop? We're still skating, you know, 25 years later? I think my younger self would think I'm crazy, so she wouldn't think much of it at all. And she wanted to win the 2006 Olympics [...]

-- 2024 World Championships Free Skate Press Conference

[i-am-church-the-cat]

Just, imagine for a second

You’re an Australian ex-rugby player living in London circa 2016.

You’re married, just had or are about to have a son, doing some personal training work with motorsport athletes.

You go into your gym one day and see this skinny little blond kid, pushing himself to the max, trying desperately to bulk up a little, but all alone. Your newly honed Dad Instincts are telling you something’s up.

So you go over, ask to spot him, start learning about his life. You’re surprised to hear the squick of a distinctly non-British accent. You suddenly have a tiny American teenage boy with big, eager eyes on your hands and you do the one thing you think will work: you ask him about sports.

That’s not the last time you’ll meet him, in fact you’ll continue to meet him regularly over the course of a year.

You talk about American sports, to start with. NFL, NBA, MLB, MLS. You’re almost surprised by the scope of the kid’s knowledge so you talk about Premier league teams and cricket and Aussie football. He meets you every step of the way.

Finally, you just ask him, what are you doing here all alone, kid?

He’s a racecar driver, he says. Just won the karting junior world championship, trying to make the jump up to formula cars. He’s been living in England for about a year now but he’s lived in Europe since he was 11, been on his own besides from karting coaches, driving coaches, and teaches since he was 12. He says, I’m gonna drive in Formula 1.

And damn. You remember how hard it was for you moving from Australia to the UK, and you were a full grown adult. This kid’s in an entirely new country, working his butt off for something most people can only dream of, and he’s doing it almost entirely on his own.

And you think about your son, so small, still reliant every day on his mom and dad. And you think you can help this kid, and not just guiding him on workouts or diets. You can be a mentor, a role model, a teacher and a friend. You can be a helping hand on this kid’s way of achieving everything he ever dreamed of.

Your professional days are behind you. You’re more than happy to sit back and help the younger generation help.

And now you’re watching, 7 years later, as that little boy in the gym who turned into an older brother for your kids, a helping hand for your wife, a friend for you- you’re watching him become everything he ever wanted to be.

That little boy you found all those years ago has turned into one of the strongest men you know.

[37sommz-archive]

✼. THRU SPACE 'N TIME | PROFILE.

Born in Gold Coast, Australia on December 23, 1999, Michaela Sommers was introduced to the world of motorsports from a early age. Her father, Tobias, and his younger brother, Travis Sommers, were avid Formula racing fans who idolized the likes of Senna, Schumacher, and Lauda. The motorsports bug skipped over Sommers' older sister, Samantha, before biting her at the mere age of six. By her ninth birthday, Michaela was competing in karting championships along the Australian east coast.

Despite her natural aptitude for racing, Michaela recalls facing discrimination for both her race and gender quite early on while karting. Despite the negativity that would swirl around her reputation, the young driver would win her first national championship at the age of twelve with plenty of rumors circling concerning her future in the sport. Sommers would attempt to enter her first international competition, but was barred from entry after her father lost his job in the summer of 2012.

Without much hope, Michaela would step back from racing for nearly six months before eventually deciding to join her uncle who had moved to England after his marriage just years prior. Travis then became Michaela's manager, working endlessly to ensure his niece would be able to continue climbing the karting ladder. Shortly after her move to England, her uncle would connect with Australian F1 driver Mark Webber who would travel to watch her race in a regional competition in 2013. Stunned by her potential, Webber helped the young girl to catch the attention of a racing team competing in the Ginetta Junior Championship alongside future McLaren teammate Lando Norris. Sommers' transition to racing cars would prove successful, securing a junior championship at just 14 years old.

Sommers would continue working through the ranks, receiving extensive media attention and comparisons to Lewis Hamilton as a teenager. Spending one year at the Formula 3 level, Michaela would race for British team Jagonya Ayam in 2015 finishing fifth in the championship and second in the rookie cup, both below Charles Leclerc. Her performance would catch the attention of Italian team Prema Racing who signed her to development for higher formulae alongside Pierre Gasly for the 2016 season.

Despite an average result, ending her rookie season in sixth place, Prema would resign the Australian who would be simultaneously be selected to join the Ferrari driver development program for the 2017 season. That same year, Sommers would wrap up her Formula 2 season in second place, once again behind Charles Leclerc.

Eventually, Michaela would finally secure a Formula 2 championship in 2018 while signing on as a reserve driver for Ferrari. Her official Formula One debut came after Sommers signed on to be Alfa Romeo's second-seat driver for the 2019 season, securing one-point in her debut race before finishing her rookie season in eighth place.

✹.⠀⠀،،⠀THE BASICS.

birth name: michaela jeanette sommers alias: mickey sommers date of birth: december 23, 1999 zodiac sign: capricorn hometown: gold coast, australia ethnicity: australian & xhosa nationality: australian, south african languages: english, italian weight: 121 lbs (55 kg) height: 5'7" (169 cm) dominant hand: left family: tobias sommers, miriam sommers, samantha sommers faceclaim: tinara westbrook

✹.⠀⠀،،⠀THE FORMULA CAREER.

01. GINETTA JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP (2014). ✼.⠀team: jhr developments ✼.⠀number: #72 ✼.⠀teammates: alex sedgwick, dan zelos, jamie chadwick, senna proctor ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x7) ✼.⠀championship standing: 1st

02. FORMULA THREE (2015). ✼.⠀team: jagonya ayam ✼.⠀number: #54 ✼.⠀teammates: gustavo menezes, ryan tveter ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x1) ✼.⠀championship standing: 5th

03. GP2 SERIES (2016). ✼.⠀team: prema racing ✼.⠀number: #20 ✼.⠀teammates: pierre gasly ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x3) ✼.⠀championship standing: 6th

04. FORMULA TWO (2017). ✼.⠀team: prema racing ✼.⠀number: #2 ✼.⠀teammates: charles leclerc ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x5) ✼.⠀championship standing: 2nd

05. FORMULA TWO (2018). ✼.⠀team: prema racing ✼.⠀number: #3 ✼.⠀teammates: nyck de vries ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x7) ✼.⠀championship standing: 1st

06. FORMULA ONE (2019). ✼.⠀team: alfa romeo racing ✼.⠀number: #37 ✼.⠀teammates: kimi raikkonen ✼.⠀highest race finish: 4th (x1) ✼.⠀championship standing: 7th

07. FORMULA ONE (2020). ✼.⠀team: alfa romeo racing ✼.⠀number: #37 ✼.⠀teammates: kimi raikkonen ✼.⠀highest race finish: 3rd (x2) ✼.⠀championship standing: 7th

08. FORMULA ONE (2021). ✼.⠀team: mclaren ✼.⠀number: #37 ✼.⠀teammates: lando norris ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x1) ✼.⠀championship standing: 4th

09. FORMULA ONE (2022). ✼.⠀team: mclaren ✼.⠀number: #37 ✼.⠀teammates: lando norris ✼.⠀highest race finish: 1st (x2) ✼.⠀championship standing: 4th

10. FORMULA ONE (2023). ✼.⠀team: aston martin ✼.⠀number: #37 ✼.⠀teammates: fernando alonso ✼.⠀highest race finish: 2nd (x7) ✼.⠀championship standing: 3rd

✼. view:⠀navigation page⠀⸻⠀join the taglist⠀⸻⠀request.

[figureskatingcostumes]

Chelsea Liu and Brian Johnson's Beauty and the Beast costumes at the 2015 Junior Grand Prix Torun and 2016 World Junior Championships.

(Sources: ISU and David W. Carmichael)

[disneytva]

Development Art for Disney Television Animation's two attempts of a Haunted Mansion adaptation by Alex Kirwan.

The two attempts had the following creative members:

Joshua Prett and Scott D Peterson ("Phineas and Ferb","Milo Murphy's Law","Hamster And Gretel") as a special for Disney Channel and Disney XD. - First five photos

Shanon Tindle (Laika Studios "Kubo and The Two Strings",Netflix Animation's "We Lost Ollie", Netflix Feature Animation "Ultra-Man") as a mini-series for Disney Channel and Disney XD - Final four photos

The project was sadly passed by the same executive change at leadership at Disney ABC Cable Group at 2016-2017 which axed Disney Junior's The World According To Winnie The Pooh by Cartoon Saloon, Disney XD's Very Important House created by Jenny Goldberg and Jhonen Vásquez, Douglas Furs created by Jesse LeDoux and Matt Olsen and a pitch by Thurop Van Orman however the latter would by revived at Disney TVA development on 2021.

[figureskatingpenguin]

Marin Honda (JPN): Faded | 2023 Japanese Nationals

marin on her last nationals:

"when i touched the ice surface, i was very thankful. since the warm-up, i saw many banners and realized how many people supported me. this gave me the strength to make it to the end.

i started skating when i was two years old, and i've made many experiences both in practice and competitions. the public practice was very hard, and i thought about changing the triple combination to a double. i'm very satisfied with my performance."

although marin was injured, she decided to not withdraw and give her last nationals (and likely her last competition) her very best. to the 2016 junior world champion and perpetual champion of hearts, thank you for everything!

[equallyshaw]

back to you | quinn hughes

✿ word count: 4.3k ✿ warnings: mention of slight body shaming and emotional/mental abuse. ✿ the early timeline is a bit sketch, ignore it pls lol ✿ french is italsized. ✿ masterlist.

cecille miller and quinn hughes met years ago at a toronto prep school for athletes, both bonding over having two other siblings and all three of them being involved in the same sport. cecille had been competing for the last 5 years in figure skating all across the world, in singles by the time they had met. while quinn was on his way two years later for team usa, back home in the states. by the time quinn had left, she was on the verge of cementing a spot on team canada for the 2018 Olympics just a few short years later. the last time they saw one another, cecille had been preparing for worlds in 2016. the olympics was the last time he had seen her - not to mention everybody.

after a coach who had abused her mentally and emotionally for years, over her physical appearance and how she was 'too' soft; she was ready to untie her skates and place them on a desolate shelf in the garage, which was a step up from the garbage can. her gold medal followed suit. after the olympics she enrolled in trinity college in toronto, which is by far the smallest college in the city with a focus on psychology with a minor in writing. hoping to one day bring an emphasis to sports psychology in the world of skating, albeit it in hockey or figure skating, and bring more awareness to how mentally exhausting it can be. and the physical aspect it has on the body. now two years out from graduation, she was on her way to new york to begin a position with the new york knicks. after completing a sports psychology internship with massachuest general hospital; which is considered one of the top hospitals in the country, all the while co-publishing a study on the stress of an athlete. she had reached the ceiling of figure skating, shattered it- and hoped to do the same in her field.

it was another hot and humid evening in the city, this early october. the season had just begun for the nba and cecille had loved and thoroughly enjoyed getting to see it up close and personal. she saw the game in a different light now, and adored seeing it through the eyes of the athletes. even through the ugly and not-so-pretty moments. as the team's junior sports psychologist, she found herself being a shoulder to lean on and vent to more than anything. she found herself becoming a confidant for the rookies and younger ones, as she could relate to the world around them in more ways than one.

as she stood off the back behind the player's bench, she saw one of those said rookies sitting down frustrated and defeatedly. the head and senior teams psychologist look towards her, and gave her a nod. as if to say, 'this is it kid.' she nodded towards the middle-aged man, before walking towards the end of the bench as the time out proceeded. she kneeled in front of him as the players head hung low with a towel on it. he had made a huge error just minutes prior and was benched because of it. although she didn't agree with the coach just pulling him out, she could understand why. her and player spoke in hushed voices for about 45 seconds before the player took off the towel and gave her a small smile. she gave him a small wink before standing up and giving a quick fist bump to another player who then bent over to talk to the younger player. cecille quickly walked back towards the players entrance to the lockerroom and stood across from her boss. he gave her a big smile before looking back at the game.

unbeknownst to her, jack was at the game with a few teammates and had seen the whole thing, along with quinn who was home in vancouver. the eldest watching as the camera panned over to her and the rookie, with the commentators speaking about how the 'golden girl' from toronto canada had come to work with them after 5 years of study. jack caught the tail end of the conversation between the two and couldn't believe she'd shown up in their lives at the oddest moment. cecille + basketball? who'd a thought! jack promised quinn that if given the opportunity, he'd find a way to see her. after all, he wanted to find out all he could on the girl, who his older brother had never stopped thinking of.

✿

jack never ended up getting the opportunity to see the now soft redhead. cecille headed back up to vancouver for a bachelorette party for a childhood friend, who too had moved to the states like cecille. she had just entered the luxury hotel - farmont pacific rim - where the party would be staying at. instead of going to her room right away, she opted for a coffee at the coffee bar and a chocolate muffin. she had had a red eye from dallas, and had gotten into vancouver around 6:47 am. quickly typing away on her phone, responding to an email about a private meeting for a player on the team - she had not realized who had walked up next to her at the bar. she pressed send, before placing her phone down and bringing her iced americano up to her pale lips. god, she was exhausted. her schedule allowed little time for rest and knew this weekend would end up biting her in the ass- but she couldn't pass up a childhood friend's weekend, that girl had been there for so much at this point. through cecilles early career, her peak, retirement, and now post-grad.

cecille sipped some more of her iced drink, before setting it back down. the young man spoke to the barista about what they wanted.

cecille's phone dinged a few times with texts and an email alert, she sighed turning off the ringer. as she did so, she took a not so subtle glance to her right, taking a peek at the man beside her. who now, sat down two seats from her. black hair - newly damp - curled right above their eyebrows, a soft spec now formed on the chin and a freshly stitched finger pushed away the hair. that only a hockey player could have, i might add.

curiosity got the best of her, and she peeked a little longer before a set of hazel eyes looked up at her.

she instantly choked on her own spit, and looked away quickly. that couldn't be who she thought it was right? she sipped some of her drink before covering her eyes with her hands, already knowing it was who it was. "you okay?" he questioned, not realizing it was her. yet. "just peachy." she hummed, feeling her cheeks turn molten, her heartbeat begin to pound and her hands becoming warm. "just fantastic." she mumbled before her phone began to ring from the other side of the coast. her mother.

"hi mum, whats up?" she questioned in a quebec accent, that she picked up years ago from when she'd visited her mom's family there. her mum wanted to check in and see how she was doing, and if she'd gotten to the hotel alright. she confirmed and then turn towards quinn who took the hot coffee from the barista, "and you wouldn't believe who sits next me." she teased in english, as quinn looked towards her. his eyes widened in confirmation, her shade of icy blue eyes and freckle right above her right eyebrow confirmed it. her mother questioned who it was, and she responded with, "remember drama quinn?" (pronounced queen) and her mum laughed. a term laced with adoration and childlike humor, a nickname jack had coined years ago back in the suburbs of toronto. cecille promised to call her when she got back to manhattan, before the two ended the call.

"cecille florence.." he murmured under his breath and she nodded with a small smile, "wha- why are you here? what have you been up to?" he questioned in disbelief sitting down in the high-top chair next to hers. her pale by-nature cheeks turned light blush as she smiled. "im here for a bachelorette party. member livie?" she questioned and he nodded in confirmation, "well she's getting married next summer and she had time off to travel here and i just so happened found time as well." cecille explained with a slight shrug. he nodded, trying to form a question while she sipped her coffee. "oh! i saw you work for the knicks, right? how'd you end up there?" he questioned in genuine curiosity. she nodded, "after spending two years at Massachusetts general - top hospital in the country, i got the opportunity to become a junior sports psychologist for them after they read the study i co oversaw and wrote a journal on. after a brief interview, they offered it to me." she said with a glint in her eye. a familiar one to quinn, and one he saw regularly when she spoke about skating.

"how long did you know you wanted to work in sports psychology?" he questioned with a hint of softness, not knowing why she retired. she shifted in her seat a bit, "it wasn't until after the olympics, and when i came home. i knew i wanted to go to college just wasn't sure in what. took a bit before the winter deadline and everything that i had gone through up to that point, and decided on psychology. in hopes that i help somebody like the little girl in me needed, if that makes sense?" she explained with a slight giggle and to which, quinn nodded. "ofcourse ofcourse..but uh, what exactly was that? if you don't mind me asking." he said trying to gauge her reaction. "i never verbalized it until i retired, but my coach was extremely toxic. him and his assistant, always made sure i felt less than, that i always had an extra pound to lose or that i was too soft for the competition world. and once i won gold, i knew i was done. everything i had worked for paid off, but was it worth all the pain? that's something ill forever think about, but i wanted to pursue a study that would give me the ability to be a positive voice in a sport. at the end of the day." she finished and quinn sat back in marvel and in thought.

"for starters..im sorry you went through that. that should have never happened, and im sorry for never recgonizing it." he began, "but im glad that skaters up and coming could possibly learn from you and lean on you as a possible support system." he said with a small smile and she mirrored it. "thankyou q, what about you? what have you been up to? im sorry, i lost track after olympics. kinda dropped off that face of the earth." she mused with a slight blush. he waved her off, "no you are fine! well after being in michigan for two years, my family all moved over and then i got drafted to the NHL before playing for michigan for two seasons. and then headed off to vancouver. and now which, im the captain of." he said with the same slow - humble tone he'd always had. so unlike his brother, jack.

"thats so exciting q!! im so happy for you, you deserve it all. but yeah, i remember my mom saying something about you guys moving back to the states, a year before the olympics. how did you all adjust?" she inquired before sipping her drink. quinn chuckled, "jack thrived. absolutely thrived, loved it. luke, had a little bit of a harder time before adjusting well, and then me? well, i missed you guys a lot. i missed school, club, and the neighborhood friends i had. but after a while, hockey took all my time." he said shrugging, and that made her smile sadly. "im sorry q. i promise we missed you too." she said placing her left hand on his right, which was resting on the counter. the two of them looked down at it before she pulled it back.

as soon as quinn was about to speak, her phone began to ring. her eyes broke away from his to see livie's name pop up. she quickly accepted and brought her phone to her ear, "ill be there shortly!" she said before hanging up. she locked her phone, took one last sip of the iced drink and then looked over at quinn, who seemed to be hanging on the edge of his seat to speak. "well, it was great seeing you quinn but i must get upstairs to see liv." she said wrapping up her chocolate muffin. quinn nodded apprehensively as she stood up, a solemn look laced his features. "wh-can i see you again?" he questioned, standing up as she was turning towards the elevators. she stopped in her spot, before looking back at him. "id really like that, q." she hummed before smiling widely. "number the same?" he questioned and she nodded, "see you soon." he said with a slight nod and smile.

as she walked out of the elevator, she was met with livie standing in front of her. "oh hi." cecille said throwing her arms around her best friend. "eeee hi!" livie returned the favor, before pulling back. "wait! was that quinn who i saw at the bar with you?" she quickly questioned and cecille nodded, giving livie a opprurtunity to laugh wickedly.

✿

december rolled around when vancouver finally visited new jersey to square off against the hughes duo. and when the infamous ellen hughes found out about quinn seeing cecille in person, she made jack foot the bill as the host to get her ticket so she could sit with the family. so now cecille found herself walking into the arena with a vancouver shirt she found off of etsy, dark washed blue jeans, white sneakers, and a winter jacket on. ellen was waiting outside of the family box the boys had gotten, and as soon as she saw cecille step out of the elevator, she quickly made her way over to the girl.

"mrs hughes!" cecille said in surprise as ellen wrapped her arms around the smaller girl, before letting out some giggles. "its so good to see you my sweet girl! how are mum and dad?" ellen spoke warmly pulling away an arms length. "they're good! they actuallymoving to quebec after new years." she responded with a small smile, "how have you been? mr hughes?" she questioned. "call us ellen and jim sweetie, but we've been good! come on, lets get to our seats and we'll catch up." ellen smiled wrapping an arm around the girl's shoulder and walked them to the box.

the two were in a deep conversation when the boys came out for the anthem and puck drop. "y'know he hasn't stopped talking about you since you guys reconnected." ellen said looking over at the girl, as cecille eyes went back and fourth trying to find quinn. "really?" cecille said turning to meet her eye, and she knew ellen was telling the truth.

"it's great you guys have been catching up, it was rather hard for q to leave toronto. let alone leave us. he really struggled in the beginning, leaving all of you guys and school behind." she began to explain as cecille looked back out to instantly find him, "he loved being there, as did we. but you were the first friend he made out there and leaving you, was the hardest thing he had to do." ellen finished, without saying the words; but they were soulmates. either platonically or not. regardless, it was the type of friendship that leaves an imprint on you and a lasting impression. "and then you disappearing was devastating for him, hun." she added and cecille could feel the tear forming in her eyes.

leave it to ellen for always telling the truth, and being 100% honest. she had always loved that about her, but this? god, she could just about die at this moment.

"oh, wow." cecille said breathlessly, still in shock.

"you didn't know?" ellen questioned softly, and cecille shook her head no.

that's why he was so gungho on taking her out to dinner after the game, ellen thought.

"well im sure he'll tell you at some point." ellen said trying to diffuse the situation a bit as she gave cecille a small shoulder squeeze, before turning towards the ice.

cecille felt hands at her shoulders, and turned to look up to see jimmy. jimmy sat down, and the two now caught up with each other.

✿

after the canucks came out on top, cecille found herself sitting off to the side of the family box; deep in her thoughts. her foot shook as she crossed her leg over the other, looking out onto the now deserted ice. truth be told, her thoughts had been eating away at her for the entirety of the game. she felt hands for the second tonight on her shoulders, jerking her out of her thoughts. cecille jumped in her seat, before turning around to jack who had the wickedest grin on his face. "jesus fuck, jack." she said bringing a hand to her chest before smiling. jack opened his arms wide for the smaller girl and as soon as they hugged he spun her around. "goldie! how have you been?" he asked setting her down, and she softly smiled. "I've been pretty good!" she said modestly, and jack shook his head. "you work for the fucking knicks, that's fucking awesome!" he said not sparing niceties, to which she only laughed. "alright jacky, let me hug her." luke said walking over and cecilles eyes widened at how tall he was. he bent over and gave her a tight hug, before pulling away.

"who allowed you to get so tall?!" she said laughing with jack, "oh believe me, im pissed!" jack said pushing luke's shoulder. luke could only laugh, before turning around at hearing quinn's name.

"sorry about the game guys, you guys played wonderful." she said as they looked towards her, but they waved her off. "we all know why he was on his a - game tonight, don't we moose?" jack spoke turning towards luke, who took a second to register his comments but then profusely nodded. quinn quickly scanned the room of friends and family for the golden girl, and as soon as his eyes landed on her short self - a smile appeared on his face.

he made his way over and stopped in between his brothers, who were conversing with her. "q!" cecille said with a wide smile, "congrats on the win." but quinn couldn't hear her over the fact that she was wearing a vancouver canuck shirt. "quinnie." jack said under his breathe, alerting the eldest one. "oh yeah, thanks!" quinn said a bit flustered before looking up at cecille. "ofcourse! i was uh just telling the boys that i was actually on my way out for the evening. i have to be at the practice gym early tomorrow." she said a bit sad. quinn nodded not registering her words fully, "you sure you don't want to come to dinner with us?" luke asked and she gave him a small frown. "i wish i could, but i cannot. besides, i gotta get back to feed my cat her meds." she said with a slight shrug, "what if you and i go grab something quick?" quinn suggested quickly, and cecille knew she could not pass this up. "something quick, alright?" she confirmed and quinn nodded.

✿

the night ended rather too quickly for quinn, and without explaining his full feelings for the girl. leaving her rather confused and ponderd on where they stood. as the seasons winded down for the both of them, cecille got a text from jack asking if she wanted to visit the lake house for memorial day weekend. cecille accepted the invitation and was now just getting out of the uber.

"cecille!" she heard ellen's unmistakable voice from the front door, as she thanked the driver for the ride. "so good to have you with us!" ellen said jogging down the driveway to give her a hug. "who all is here?" cecille asked, as the two turned to walk up. "a lot of the boys friends from the program, college and their teams. you remember the tckachuk boys?" ellen questioned and cecille laughed whole heartedly, "how could i forget them? they're very hard to forget." she mused as jimmy opened the front door. "hi!" cecille beamed, giving jimmy a quick hug before he took her suitcase and carry on bag.

"i think the boys are all outside on the deck coo-" ellen was cut off by who walked in through the back door, and cecille turned to see who walked in. "cecille?" quinn asked as his eyebrows furrowed in confusion before he looked back at jack who was in the middle of telling a very animated story. "let me guess." quinn stated causing cecille to laugh, as she realized what jack had done. he invited her without quinn knowing, as a surprise.

"when is he not up to something?" she teased as he set down his drink before pulling her in for a hug.

they pulled apart, and turned away from one another as ellen walked up. "dad and i are gonna run to the store to grab some things, ok? please text us if you want anything, cecille!" ellen said walking past them with her purse. cecille nodded giving them both a small wave, before turning back towards quinn.

"you two get out here!" jack yelled, as she popped his head through the sliding door. quinn rolled his eyes, before jack shut the door.

quinn sighed turning back towards cecille with a smile, "would you wanna i don't know, hang out later? just the two of us?" he asked a bit nervously, and cecille nodded. "i could take you out on the boat?" he clarified and she smiled, "that'd be really nice q."

✿

later on in the evening nearing 11 o'clock, after hours of stolen glances and private smiles, the two found themselves out on the boat. cecille stood up at the front of the boat, as quinn watched on from the drivers seat. the night sky clear of fog and any clouds, allowed for the stars to be out in full force tonight. cecille turned a bit back towards quinn and smiled, in which he mirrored.

"watcha thinking about?" he questioned as she walked back towards him and sat down on the couch across from the drivers seat. truth be told, ellen's words from 5 months ago had been circulating all night. and now, they were even worse. she shook her head, bringing her knee to rest her chin on. quinn watched her body begin to tense, something he'd always been able to do back in their early teen years. "you can tell me anything, cille." he offered softly and she nodded in acknowledgment. as she toyed with how she wanted to approach the subject, she sighed.

"when i came to the game, your mom was very honest and open about you and your...feelings." she paused turning her lips inward as she bit the inside of her cheeks. "how..honest?" he asked full of anxiety before she could finish. cecille looked up and met his gaze, "forget i said anything." she said standing up and walking to the back end of the boat, with her arms crossed. "no, don't do that cecille. just tell me, please." he pleaded following her. she shook her head, as he turned her around to face him. "cille, what did my mom say?" he asked placing hands on both sides of her face and making her look up at him. "she spoke of how-how difficult it was for you to leave, and that it was even harder watching me disappear from the world. trust me! i didn't want to disappear but i had to, i wanted to close that chapter of pain and trauma and in turn, i shut you and everybody else completely." she began as tears began to form in her eyes. quinn shook his head as he wiped his thumb softly against her cheek, as he sniffled. she shook her head, "it was hard for me as well, watching you leave and then life got in the way. but i had planned and hoped to reconnect after the olympics but things just didn't work out as i had planned. i didn't feel like myself and didn't want to put myself through any unnecessary pain." she explained, before sniffling.

he shook his head, "i would have never said or done anything to make you feel any less than cille - i promise....but my mom is such a blabber mouth my god." he said pausing to chuckle, and in turn made her giggle.

on the verge of tears, he spoke, "my god, it was so hard to leave you. you were right behind my family, i almost didn't go because i didn't want to leave them. but i knew i was supposed to leave, and through it all- through everything I've always kept the belief that we'd meet again, somewhere in life we'd come together again. i always knew i'd come back to you, cille." he said through tears of his own now.

cecille felt herself on the verge of tears as she pulled him in for a kiss, one they'd thought about for years at that point, and how it would feel.

it felt even sweeter than originally anticipated.

quinn lifted her up and twirled her around, before breaking the kiss. the two looked at one another before quinn broke out into laughter, and it was contagious.

"i just know jacks about to have a field day." he said and that made cecille laugh loudly as well.

she knew it to be true.

im sorry it was so long lol

but i hope you enjoyed!!!

please like and reblog if you liked (:

[vivwritesfics]

please do a max and carlos love triangle i don’t care what the plot or theme is please i just need one 🙏

again, i'm so sorry this took so long

2016. Max Verstappen was just eighteen. It was his second year in Formula One, second year in the Red Bull junior team. Just the year before he'd broken so many records, giving the world a glimpse of what was to come.

2016. Carlos had spent years working his way up to F1 and he was finally there. He had two solid seasons with Toro Rosso, driving alongside Daniil Kvyat and Max across his career. He was twenty one, turning twenty two soon, and he knew his time with Red Bull was coming to a close.

2016. She was so determined to win the GP2 championship, and the only thing standing in her way was Pierre Gasly. She was the reserve driver for Ferrari, and got to attend all the F1 races she could.

That was where she met Carlos and Max. They watched as she walked across the track in her Ferrari racing overalls. It was one of the rare weekends where she got to drive a few laps for Ferrari during free practice.

They both wanted her, and but they'd never get a chance to speak to her. Not until the next year anyway.

In 2017 Carlos was still driving for Toro Rosso. It was going to be his last season with the team, whether he knew it or not.

With only two seasons with Toro Rosso under his belt, Max was promoted to Red Bull, to drive alongside Daniel Ricciardo.

Carlos and Max had been best friends during their Toro Rosso days together. But that had all ended.

It was such a stupid reason too. They rarely got to see her, only on those few weekends where she ended up driving for Ferrari, whether that was in free practice or an actual race.

But they'd invited her out to the club where they could, in the countries they could all legally drink in. Barely knowing the boys she'd accepted it, used it as an excuse to get to know the boys better.

On one night out she'd ended up kissing Max. But it was nothing. She moved on with her life without giving it another thought. Max didn't move on or forget it, but he didn't bring it up or mention it again.

On the next time they were in the club, she kissed Carlos. He was smug about it for weeks. Both of the boys were into her, and she maybe didn't realise it, but Carlos bragged. It was why Max swung for him once, why the relationship between them went sour.

In 2017, she was promoted to Sauber. A chance to show the world of Formula One what she could do. She was at the back of the grid, racing closer to Carlos than Max.

Of course, she still didn't notice the tension between the boys. The three of them were close now, actual work colleagues.

Things got tensed between the tree of them. Y/N didn't know why, of course, but it was undeniable. When Carlos was promoted to Ferrari and she to Mercedes, their fights on track became more frequent.

She didn't know they thought about their individual nights with her almost constantly. Well, not until they had her in the club between them, the three of them grinding up against each other as she and Max sloppily kissed and Carlos attached his lips to her neck.