#CARLOS WON RAH

[odeliba]

CARLOS WON THE NETFLIX SLAM FUCK YEAHHHH

[dear-ao3]

welcome to singapore. formula one’s original night race and what is usually (key and operative word here being USUALLY) the most bonkers race of the whole year. 

its hot, its steamy, and a whole lot happened. its october 17th 2024, and i am a whole month late so lets hop to it. 

you might be wondering why this is kind of late. well there was a lot that happened and i needed to make sure i included everything. also this update is split between two because there was an ~ event ~ that happened that needed unfortunately its own separate update. that is coming soon. first we do have to get through singapore. 

and what makes singapore so special? well as i said its formula 1’s original night race. its also really hot. this is usually the hottest race of the season (were going to ignore qatar 2023 because that was worse but that was an outlier. also we are not at qatar yet). and its just usually kind of insane??? for example: 

well no examples actually cause it wont insert. you have to watch the compilation here

so to recap just Quickly cause trust me we really Do Not have the time. singapore has been home to:

-crashgate (2008 where renault had piquet jr purposefully crash so alonso could win and this got exposed because piquet jr got fired the following season and exposed the whole thing. at the same race massa left the pitlane with his fuel hose still attached to the car and as a result lost the race and this cost him the championship and hes now suing over it cause if crashgate hadnt happened he might have won)

-giant lizards on track

-daniel ricciardo being asked if the sweat he is sweating is real sweat and him saying “its real sweat, im a high performance athlete, athletes sweat, kikiki rah! sweat sweat! woo woo!!”

-sebastian vettel won the singapore gp an unholy amount of times and also had the coolest helmets here, (one of them lit up) he also caused a lot of problems here. he is referred to as the lion of singapore because he has the most poles, most wins and most laps led at the circuit

-im about 95% sure that this is where max verstappen, a known geography nerd, pretended to not know what the monaco flag looked like just to talk to charles?

-whole lot of ice baths, sometimes even together and sometimes with sex noises

-also to note: max verstappen has never won here

and we gotta talk briefly about last year:

last year notably this was the single race that a red bull did Not win. carlos won by quite literally the sheer power of friendship and audacity and ignoring the ferrari strategy. he qualified on pole after max got knocked out of q2 by LIAM LAWSON (who was SUBBING for daniel ricciardo who still had a broken hand) (remember this was max’s most dominant era) and it came down to the end, someone crashed towards the end i don't remember who, but there was a late safety car and the running order was carlos, lando, george and lewis. both mercs pitted for new tires, carlos and lando stayed out on their old tires. (remember new tires means car goes faster) 

and what ended up happening was that carlos slowed down just enough to get lando into the DRS zone to give him just a little extra speed to stay in front of the two mercedes cars who were trying to pass lando and then carlos. theres a real famous radio of carlos’s race engineer saying “you have lando .8 (seconds) behind with DRS” and carlos saying “yeah its on purpose” 

let me remind you all that they were not on the same team. there were no team orders for lando to stay behind carlos, he could have tried to pass, but he didn't. somehow there was enough besties energy between them for lando to understand exactly what carlos was doing and they did in fact pull it off. carlos won the race, lando came in second, george crashed into the barrier on the last lap and lewis came in third.

george actually has crashed on the last lap all three times that carlos has won.

but yea. singapore is usually insane. usually a disaster. usually someone crashes at least once. and theres usually a safety car or a red flag or two or several. 

and this year there were some changes:

they changed the layout of the track slightly, getting rid of one of the corners i think and adding a 4th DRS zone for extra speedy

but we are not quite there yet. first we gotta get through the days leading up to the race.

starting with mick and esteban who played paddle together and as usual they managed to look like a married couple

somebody had george do an event at a puma store and he got very very excited about it and kept waving at people in the most unhinged way possible 

lando announced that he is officially having a section of a grandstand in silverstone be designated for lando fans …. tbh not sure what the purpose of this is but it definitely happened. and i think it sold out. 

everyone went off and played paddle together. well, everyone except for george. 

george played paddle with his team at a different time, and got absolutely soaked by the rain.

this is interesting because the last time george was photographed in the pouring rain after…. idk brazil?? last year??? he got pneumonia. and still drove the car and finished out the season. but he was coughing everywhere. and generally not vibing. and told the fia that they should fix the calendar to make it more conducive for general driver health (as in don't have a double header when the two races are on exact opposite points on the globe) and the fia responded by making the last 6 races back to back triple headers. 

lando and daniel had the return of their individual jpg accounts on instagram. i might have put this on last weeks post. that was wrong. sorry. things get jumbled and i don't have a good system for this lol.

charles and pierre had fun with their dogs. i cant find the pictures. trust me that it happened. 

charles also did an unboxing of a pack of driver cards for a fan. and its a very grainy and baffling video. mostly because he explicitly calls max verstappen hot. as in he pulls out max’s card and says “ooooo we are getting to the hot ones!!!” 

and of course i cant find the link.

anyway this was a massive improvement from 2019 when, upon being asked if he thought max was “pretty” by seb (seb actually said british but charles misheard and thought hs said pretty) he blue screened for several minutes and was like “uhhhh i don't-i don't know”

max and daniel and lando all flew to singapore together. this will become relevant later on.

so singapore is Not alex albon’s home race (he races under the thai flag, but hes half thai half british) but he sorta counts singapore as a home race and he had a cool helmet:

also with cool helmets were lando, oscar, and zhou

oscar’s even looked a bit like seb’s from 2013 which made many people feel things as this was Seb’s Track

but in the wise words of one lando norris “if you're blinded its probably oscar, if you're like damn….whos that? then its probably me”

mclaren decided to do special suits for this weekend. they looked like cheese sticks.

petronas (which is apparently an oil company) celebrated 50 years and so mercedes did a special livery for it. 

vcarb also did a special livery. it was….well i’ll just show you.

yes. that is a denim livery. no i have no idea either. 

one team definitely did not have a special livery and that was red bull. 

red bull came out and said that they would not be running any other special liveries for the year because they added too much weight to the car, and their car is already not really working that well. 

well they actually phrased it in a far more perplexing way than that: ​​

and if you're thinking that hm. that’s worded a little weirdly. also note that this was posted the same day that their head of brand communications and etc went to moto gp. 

then, even more interestingly, they said: 

“we traced the development history and it turned out that the first mistake we made was with an underbody upgrade in 2023 barcelona. that was also the race that checo started having problems, but we didn't take it so seriously because max kept winning.”

now. that's fucking wild. (i think redbull said newey was not involved in that update but i cant remember)

its also fucking wild bECAUSE there is a clip from drive to survive. and if you're unfamiliar with drive to survive, its the netflix show about formula 1 (mostly grounded in facts but they spin the drama to create narratives and they also leave stuff out, still a good show tho). and i believe it was in the season about the 2021 season (?) which i think is season 4 (?) there is a scene where the various team principals are having some sort of meeting to talk about porpoising. which is when the car bounces up and down and it was a safety risk and blah blah etc. this was the first year of the cost cap (meaning no unlimited funds to fix the issue), and the mercedes car had this problem really badly. 

i think that the context of this conversation is that toto is saying that teams should either share how theyve solved the problem (cause some teams had, this was a problem that affected almost everyone, something with the regulations) or they should be allowed to use more money to fix it even if it meant going above the cap cause it was a safety issue. im not sure. its something along those lines. 

anyway. this was Peak christian horner and toto wolff insanity. max and lewis were battling for the lead all year and christian took this opportunity to essentially yell at toto and it resulted in quite possibly one of the most stand out moments of drive to survive, which is the infamous change your fucking car clip:

and yeah even though this was for a different season, its still fucking hilarious cause guess what? toto was right. they did need to change their fucking car and checo Had said that the car was fucked And they ignored it. look whos laughing now red bull. its definitely not you.

and last but absolutely most definitely not least: mercedes posted the best pr of the season. 

no i am not joking. 

what could possibly be the best pr of the year??

lewis and george dressing eachother, obviously. 

and if theres one video you watch on this post i sincerely hope that it is this one:

i don't know whos idea this video was, but it is everything. its wonderful. theres a mother version where theyre picking the clothes. theres another version where lewis does a legitimate heel click. ankle showing, the fact that you can tell theres about 50 people watching them based on how many people start laughing. its an artistic masterpiece. hats off to you mercedes pr team (just this once).

moving into the weekend itself.

and kevin magnussen spoke words about his race ban. here’s what he had to say: “you get punished and then you come back. and you're all ready to fuck shit up now! its funny how that works” please remember this for later. 

also there were a lot of jokes about what he was doing on his week off when he got banned, but turned out that he was visiting sick children at the ronald mcdonald house in copenhagen

ollie bearman was allowed to take over the ferrari social media accounts. not sure Why they allowed this but it was hilarious. he did the instagram and the twitter and then he was also a track side reporter for a while

he mostly used his new social media powers to post insane pictures of kimi, who might i remind you, is in no way affiliated with ferrari.

franco, daniel, yuki and alex all did a fan forum together and clearly no one from either teams social media team was there for some reason because they ended up with a weird video of them all being baffled by using a 360 go pro video as pretty much the only content from that and during this video alex made fun of yuki for being short and daniel brought back the “ki ki ki!” chant that he (and max) love so much.

it was sweetcorn, zhou’s cat’s, birthday this week and stake posted more photoshopped pictures of sweetcorn in the garage 

oscar flamed lando for wearing a hoodie in jeans in singapore when it was 38C and humid as hell 

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george flamed lando for this same thing later in the week on his instagram story. he filmed the sun, then panned to lewis who was standing under a giant umbrella to block the sun, saying “super sunny, sunglasses on, looking cool.” then he panned to lando in a long sleeve shirt and a vest, jeans and a hat, with his arms crossed like he was shivering. “ready for winter season already…”

valtteri bottas posted another f1 track guide, where he cycles around the track and explains all the turns

a bunch of drivers all got asked to sign pictures of their younger selves a la that one trend. it was entertaining. 

and someone figured out that williams photoshopped franco’s face over the photos of logan that they use for announcing driver points and etc. u know, all the promotional ones that they take at the beginning of the year? they also spelled his name wrong (again). 

and pierre and yuki caused some problems in little go kart? scooter? things??

“saph.” 

yes, dearest reader??

“this is singapore. surely you have more interesting things to be talking about than weird go karts?” 

why yes i do. my apologies. 

so mclaren was under fire for a potentially illegal rear wing. 

essentially, there was a little tiny part on the back of the mclaren rear wing that flexes, giving them a much smaller version of the full DRS (when you open the rear wing to go faster within 1s of car in front of you) (except they were using this all the time). this came to light during/after the previous race in baku. it seems like they found a loophole and they are exploiting it. which is not unheard of even remotely for any team. its kinda what makes the whole thing interesting.

the fia was not really doing anything about it, and said that everyone was in the regulations, despite alleged complaints from other teams, so max, charles and checo decided to take matters into their own hands.

max said:

“i mean, its quite clear, of course, that its moving at speed. it might be smart, it might be not smart, but at the end of the day, its up to the fia, of course, to decide it its legal or not….of course baku was not the first time it was used. there were other tracks as well. i guess its important to come with a clarification. but that's not only on the rear wing. its the front wing as well. but what is allowed, how much it is allowed to bend, all these kinds of things, right? so we just have to wait and see from our side.” 

charles went a bit further:

“i think fred (vasseur) will go on that matter a bit more into detail, but from what i have been told, it is controversial to say the least. i will leave that here and i will let fred comment on it a bit further” 

that is still slightly tame for charles leclerc. worry not. he said more unhinged things later on, such as “we don't have a mini drs as an upgrade” *laughs* when asked how he felt about the ferrari upgrades.

fred did later comment on the mclaren wing. fred being the team principal of ferrari. he had a very team principal response:

"The front wing we agree is a grey area because you can't design a part of the car with the intention of deformation [flexing]. Intention is difficult to manage," explained Vasseur.

"The rear wing story is completely different because in the article [regulations] there is a maximum deflection. This is not grey. It's black and black. For me, it's clear."

no one went as far as checo though, who straight up told the press:

"It’s clear that it’s out of the regulation. It’s an illegal car. But it seems like, it is allowed. I'm very surprised."

red bull was very quick to play the pr game with this. they issued a statement clarifying his comment, saying that checo’s accent (hes mexican) made it sound like he had said “illegal” when he had actually said “legal” making his statement instead read as “It’s clear that it’s out of the regulation. It’s a legal car.” which. doesnt really make too much sense and is kind of weird for them to even say. but that was the story red bull went with.

call outs aside, mclaren maintained that their rear wing was legal because it passed all the fia tests. this also came after mclaren started leading the championship, so its not Really a surprise that these call outs happen (if anyone was around in 2021 when mercedes and red bull were fighting for the championship they were calling eachother out left right and center every other week for everything under the sun and then even a few things under the moon). oscar expressed this, saying that:

"Obviously in the sport you find every bit of performance that you can without breaking the rules, and that is what we are doing and what you need to do to become a championship-winning car and team.”

he also maintained that the rear wing was legal (and even said he had no idea about the flexing, which is possible), as did zak brown, the ceo. zak also though continued to blame it on “oh well were leading the championship now! obviously people will hate us!!!” as seen here: 

"I think it's inevitable now that we're leading the championship that everyone will be looking at our car and saying, 'not sure I like that', and that's the nature of the game."

and also here

"I think it's great for the championship. We're running at the front, so there are going to be things that are clearly working well on our race car. And to your point, everyone else is going to try to speed up and slow us down at the same time. Welcome to Formula 1."

which you know is true. but we cant be running illegal cars can we now, zak?? 

still, on friday, mclaren released this statement on the whole rear wing debacle:

"Whilst our Baku rear wing complies with the regulations and passes all FIA deflection tests, McLaren have proactively offered to make some minor adjustments to the wing following our conversations with the FIA. We would also expect the FIA to have similar conversations with other teams in relation to the compliance of their rear wings.” 

which is kind of funny cause theyre like oooooh we didn't do it! definitely not! but just in case we did we will make sure we never do it again!!! but also!!!!! hehe we’re going to drag you all down with us XD

the fia then did a little more digging and said this: 

“The FIA is closely monitoring the flexibility of bodywork on all cars and reserves the right to request teams to make modifications at any point during the season…However, if a team successfully passes all deflection tests and adheres to the regulations and technical directives, they are deemed to be in full compliance, and no further action will be taken…The FIA is currently reviewing data and any additional evidence that has emerged from the Baku GP and is considering any mitigating measures for future implementation…This is part of the standard process when scrutineering technical legality, and the FIA retains the authority to introduce regulatory changes during the season if required.”

(hilariously, the rear wing was the only one under fire, as we know fred vasseur was also talking about the mclaren front wing, which was found to be probably mostly legal after baku, so ferrari made their own probably mostly legal version of the front wing to catch up to mclaren)

in other words….we smell something hinky going on here and it may be a rat called mclaren.

later though, the wing was found to be illegal. the fia said that the flap edges were not allowed to bend on the straights.

so after all that. they were still in the wrong. 

in any case. how about a nice dose of contract news. 

starting with logan sargeant 

yes, i mean logan sargeant. the ex williams driver. hes been seen now a few times in the indy car paddock and its heavily rumored that he might be getting a contract in indy car sometime soon because hes supposedly doing a test in november.

but back to f1. 

and very surprisingly, george russell???

so no, george has not signed a contract. mostly because his current contract at mercedes goes through i believe the end of 2025. but there is talk. some quotes came out from bradley lord, who is the mercedes communications chief, about how the team want to sign max for 2026 potentially. supposedly, he said that “we’re aiming to bring max verstappen to mercedes in 2026. that’s no secret” and as u all know they just recently signed kimi antonelli so would they give up their fresh young kimi talent or would they give up george??? well. supposedly bradley Also said this “they’ll [kimi and george] be focused on making their mark next year. but if max doesnt join. we’re certainly keen to continue with the same line up!” 

which a lot of people took to mean that holy shit theyre going to drop george. george who worked his absolute ass off to get into the mercedes seat is going to get dropped for max who will only want to be in f1 for like 2 more years at that point. 

until! mercedes made a statement that said that all statements said by bradley about the team wanting max for 2026 had been “fabricated.” so george lives to see another day. or does he???

im not sure cause chrtisian horner then made a comment that said “george russell is out of a contract at the end of next year, you’d be foolish not to take that into consideration.” which is Intriguring. cause imagine if u will george at red bull. yeah i cant really either. someone would die and it wouldnt be him. 

in any case, mercedes said basically that george is their Guy and they want him at mercedes for awhile blah blah blah. but again, this is formula 1 and that means positively nothing because anything can happen ever. 

case in point: the red bull seat drama. well not the red bull seat drama. the vcarb seat drama. 

as we know by now, there have been rumors pretty much all season that danny rics is going to get replaced by liam lawson. well this week those rumors got ramped up from about a 7/10 to a 234234/10. nothing was confirmed, obviously, but everyone, and i mean everyone, from reporters to drivers to well again, everyone, seemed kind of convinced that this Could be daniels last race. im not quite sure Where this rumor evolved from, but it was pretty intense and pretty rampant. so just keep that in the back of your mind. 

moving forward. max verstappen. he decided to be an icon this week. well. more than usual.

first, when asked about how he felt about ferrari being able to take points off of mclaren, max said “i hope so! for them and myself” which is funny, we love a menace. 

he was also asked if daniel deserves to stay in f1 for next year (because remember there are rumors that this is his last race. i know theres a lot going on here, try to keep up) and max said 

“it doesnt really matter or not if he deserves to be here. a lot of people deserve to be here and some don't deserve to be here that's life also you know in all kinds of sports. that's how it goes.”

he also said this while sitting next to lance. 

but then the real icon shit started. 

at the press conference on media day max was asked, as drivers normally are, about his car. he said: 

“went into qualifying, i knew the car was fucked.” 

the moderator for the panel said “thank you max. lets watch our language going forward.” you know because recently theres been all that talk of the fia wanting the drivers to not curse on the radio and etc etc. we know people have taken issue with this, weve seen it before, but i believe that this was the first time it was said in a press conference. 

max went on to say “if its not in this room, maybe somewhere else, everyone swears. some people a bit more than others. it also depends a bit on what language you speak. of course, abuse is something else. in other sports you don't run around with a mic attached to you. i think a lot of people say a lot of bad things when they are full of adrenaline in other sports. it just doesnt get picked up. so i think it already just starts with not broadcasting it. this will help a but more than putting bans on drivers because, for example, i couldn't even say the f word. and that's not even that crazy. i mean, the car was not working. the car is f’d. and then, excuse my for the language, but come on. like. what are we? five year olds? six year olds? even if a fice year old or a six year old is watching, i mean, they will eventually swear anyway. even if the parents wont, or they will not allow it, when they grow up, they will walk around with their friends and they will be swearing.”

he also Extra later said that “the word [fuck] is ordinarily used in speech as [i] learned it, english not being [my] native language.” which is Exceptionally hilarious. max definitely knows what curse words are he knows that everyone knows this. 

all you know fairly standard and normal shit for this topic of discussion. we have seen it all before.

this was actually shockingly similar to something that sebastian vettel said back in 2018 about swearing on the radios (because seb used to swear kind of a lot on the radios) he said: 

“do you think comparing to football if you have a microphone on a [football player’s] mouth, everything he says is something nice and is a nice message when the guy tackles him and maybe sometimes he fouls him or not?”  

seb has also come under fire for swearing before and some of his other responses have included "I think if you are sensitive you should watch, I don't know, some kids' program. You have the remote control in your hand, so you can choose."

and i cannot find it unfortunately but he did also say at one point that he doesnt think about kids (or his own kids?) while driving the car, in terms of whether or not he is swearing over the radio. 

prior to this press conference, fia president mohammed ben sulyam asked f1 to limit the swears on live tv and said “they say the f word how many times per minute?” (he also compared them to searing like rappers. lewis called him out on that statement for being borderline racist) which is just. sir we have better things to be thinking about. (id also like to remind everyone that not many of the drivers like this guy, i know i talked about it on some other update but at least someone maybe lewis said that they never had confidence in him) in any case, no one thought anything of it.

until This Happened:

and then later, This:

max, and pretty much everyone else, as you could imagine, were highly displeased with this. 

because yeah. three time world champion max emillian verstappen has to do a day of community service for saying that his car is fucked. 

again i repeat: A DAY OF COMMUNITY SERVICE.

for context, there has been exactly 1 driver that i can think of who has actively tried to not swear on the radio and that was mick schumacher. one time he didn't get into q2 or q3 of qualifying and instead of cursing on the radio he said “uhh beep! beep beep beep!” as if censoring his own swear words. he did though make an exception and cursed out nikita mazepin once after he nearly tried to kill him.

and with that, finally, we are at the practice sessions. 

see, i told you that singapore is off the walls. 

in any case. practice 1 and 2. 

franco colapinto accidentally drove through the alpine pit box. he found the whole ordeal hilarious and himself, williams, alpine and even duracell made fun of the event on instagram

checo got ahead of pierre on the outlap. pierre very ominously said over radio “ill remember him.” 

george found a wall. not dissimilarly to how he found the wall last year on the last lap of the race. he also spent a lot of time during practice ranting about the tires and how they were inconsistent. so much so that pirelli had to have a sit down with him and ban him from talking about tires. it didn't really work. also alex albon joined in on the tire bashing in a symbol of friendship.

charles stood with max on the swear ban situation by cursing over his radio during practice

and fernando alonso had something go so drastically wrong with his car that he pressed every button at once he later said that this was inspired by the fact that one time his oven freaked out and he pressed every button at once and it fixed it

zhou managed to go faster than valtteri which was insane and out of the ordinary.

clearly someone new was in charge of the graphics because….

and there was more graphic action. red bull was not doing too hot, as evidenced by This very upsetting and embarrassing graphic

it was also evidenced by the fact that franco decided to race max on his outlap, which max found funny and started laughing about. franco clowned him on instagram for this. love an unhinged little rookie. (weve said it a million times we will say it again: welcome back sebastian vettel) 

max was asked about his community service penalty after the practice sessions. he was asked by the reporter if she could “have a word” about it and max said “no words” and walked away.

post practices we had the start of the ice baths. including alex albon, who managed to flame george russell in an instagram comment by saying that “For once it’s not George topless… 👀”

and checo was joined in the bath by a rubber duck

and of course, we also had the return of the infamous nico hulkenberg and kevin magnussen ice bath

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keep in mind that prior to the ice bath, nico said “singapores fabulous and its one of the highlights of the year. i love the track, the challenge of it, and the physicality of the race. ill also be doing my ice baths with kevin again, so ive brought something special to wear!” 

straight into practice three which i will do a better job covering because….well you will see why. but to start some fans gave will buxton a leo pillow, which will delivered to the ferrari garage and the mechanics put it in charles’s car.

and then, of course, we had the return of everyones favorite little blonde guy: nico rosbeg. 

also like if you need to take a break and grab some water of a snack id recommend doing that now. i know this is a long ass one. my apologies, i unfortunately don't control f1. if i did they would be allowed to swear. 

anyway. practice 3. 

we had crofty and anthony davidson discussing the normal stuff. the ground effects, the set ups, the curbs etc etc. and as they were talking about the heat crofty said: 

“so you will notice that there are not one, not two but three people in the worlds smallest commentary box as we all huddle together, which is not the nicest thing on the planet when we are in singapore because i can feel the heat radiating off of nico rosberg as i speak as he has just bolted from the paddock into the commentary box here! uh nico, glad you're with us. we’re looking at the red bull. did their lack of pace surprise you yesterday?” 

“its a pleasure to be here again. and crofty we shouldn't be complaining, we have the aircon right on us. its pretty awesome.”

“we can feel the warmth coming off of you. you're like a pirelli tire that’s just done a qualifying session.” 

*sighs* “so uh yes um! you were speaking about max verstappen there?” 

welcome back nico rosberg. oh how we have missed you. there is a clip for that scene actually. you too can see nico rosberg being called an omega in heat in real time.

not only did nico have opinions about the air conditioning, he also had opinions about max, saying that “he could loose the world championship” if the car doesn't get sorted out. (there was no grip, hard to drive, etc etc).

he also Instantly started giving mechanical insight (as usual) and anthony even said that he wanted to “pick [nico’s] brain about three wheeling” and nico was more than happy to get picked: 

“yeah so the worst about three wheeling is that obviously as you're going through the corner, your car rolls to the outside, yeah? the first thing that it will pick up is the inside front. worst thing about that is that it disturbs the aerodynamics massively as that tire disconnects from the ground. cause the aerodynamics are developed with the tires connected to the ground and the air flow. and the front tire has a huge impact in terms of flow on the overall aerodynamics. if it comes off the ground suddenly you've got air flow under the tire and it really influences really badly the main reason that you want to stop that and you want to stop that by mechanically going very soft on the front or of course adding some front load aerodynamic and as you can hear, its very very challenging to get those different elements right so that your car performs optimally.” 

so there you have it. just one problem the drivers and the teams were trying to navigate this weekend. 

another thing they were trying to navigate? lizards on track. 

ted was explaining something when crofty went “now hold on two seconds ted, weve got a lizard on track.” 

ted, surprisingly, went “AH! great! we havent had one so far! fantastic!” 

there were many lizards last year. they named it larry apparently. crofty told ted to go talk to larry and make sure he was safe. he also called the present lizard lionel. 

ted had information to report and it was that the lizard looked like it was doing “the floss.” i can only assume he meant the fortnite dance. 

ted also had to report that mercedes was not doing great, but! fred vesti (one of the development drivers for mercedes) had spent all night in the simulator doing work for them and the last time they had had him do that it had panned out quite well. 

nico though had doubts and was like mmm well idk how much he can do because “it can only do as well as the data you put in it and with the wind tunnel information that is just not accurate” 

anthony was a development driver for mercedes back when nico was there, so crofty naturally had to ask: “out of interest, how many late nights did you have making sure that nico rosberg could win the 2016 formula 1 word championship?” 

“loads. he owes it all to me i think.”

“i havent offered you a beer for that yet so that still remains to be done.” 

and while that was happening, fernando was nearly hitting lionel the lizard who was still on the track. 

“we are told the track is clear, but just have a look for the lizard,” his engineer said.

“no it is in the middle of the track,” fernando insisted, correctly. 

the camera zoomed in on the lizard strutting. and boy, was it strutting. the marshalls even impersonated it  

“that is a stride with the purpose of lawrence stroll. so frankly maybe it is lawrence the lizard coming across the track there,” crofty said. ladies and gentlemen, the pinnacle of motorsport.

the session was then red flagged. and crofty speculated if there was a lizard remover to nico rosberg, who wanted nothing to do with it. 

“can i go from lawrence the lizard to lawrence stroll?” he asked, referring to lawrence signing newey, as nico practically leaked to the press a few weeks ago. newey will Not though be helping with the 2025 car, but the 2026 car, which is the one with the new regulations. 

nico tried to ask about the money aspect, or the “insider information” and if he got equity in the team and etc etc. 

crofty found this funny. “its always about money with you isnt it? did you get equity in alpine?” 

unfortunately nico didn't answer because one of the marshalls started chasing the lizard off the track. and it turned into a regular drag race. so much so that the f1 instagram account made fun of it. 

but back to newey. he does in fact have equity in the team because he is a managing partner. 

this intrigued nico. “how much?” 

crofty, *scoffing* “you cant ask me questions like that?” 

“and do you know who did the deal? andy jordan! so how much equity does andy jordan have in the team? because usually its 20 percent!” 

“look i don't know officially but i think its about 2 percent. in the f1 team”  

“that's similar to what patty lowe got at the time when he went to williams, he was taken from mercedes. he also got a certain percentage.” 

“okay. so that would be in the right ballpark there.” 

“2 percent is a lot, by the way. because that team is valued at 1.6 billion and it is only going to go up.” and nico is right, its 32 million. “so that 2 percent is going to be north of 50 million very soon.”

and then crofty made fun of him about the supposed alpine deal that he told everyone about the last time he was commentating: “so you’re thinking, hm maybe i should have responded to that email.” 

nico then provided some insight into whether or not newey is going to make aston a championship winning team. and he said it depends on how it all gels together and how well everyone seems to work together. essentially newey can lead them to the kool aid but he cant force them to drink. 

nico also expressed that he wanted adrian to come on his podcast and explain how he can draw better than a computer because it would be “so so cool” 

crofty said “should we ask him if he wants to go on your podcast? how about adrian newey on the sky f1 podcast with yourself and f1tv’s matt baker?”

nico, disappointedly, “can i- can i not prefer my podcast?” 

“not when you're working for us for the weekend!” 

*mumbling* “okay, sorry….we can talk about it after the weekend” 

“other podcasts are available, but not when you’re working for us mate.” 

and then we started to properly delve into the daniel rumors again. 

according to ted, liam lawson was down in the pit lane, specifically in daniels side of the garage. and he was “hanging around, looking at what daniel’s doing in the car and seemingly getting to know his car crew and uh he has to do that if they decide to put him in for the us grand prix. while daniel, if he can get that car to fourth or third, will be thinking, no i can hang onto this drive.”

though to be fair, this was what liam had been doing all season. 

and red bull seemed to have fixed their issues from yesterday because max was back at the top of the times, and even said that “the car is much better” 

and mclaren, despite not having their illegal rear wing, were right behind red bull.

“I need a new set of gloves for the next stint” george said over the radio.

“so what's happening to george here is that he is sweating his hands off,” nico explained. “and its horrible when you have sweaty gloves cause the glove connects really well to the steering wheel and your hand inside the glove is like going and slipping around and its a horrible feeling. that's also why sometimes you see under the safety car drivers holding their hands up, trying to get some wind in those gloves to cool it down. so that's why he needs new gloves. now back to whoever i was talking about-” 

“i was playing golf this morning,” crofty interrupted. 

“i was making an important point!” 

“i was playing golf,” crofty continued, ignoring nico. “and talk about sweaty gloves i lost my grip after about three holes today. that's why my putting was so bad” 

“crofty. i appreciate your golf so much but i was making an important point.” 

“we’d all forgotten what you were saying.” 

*softly* “i forgot too” 

(there is a clip for this one)  

nico remembered his point a little bit later. it was about the track layout and how he likes this layout better. and the second point was about the geometry of max’s car and how they might have overcorrected the steering of the car and compensated another part of it. i don't know much about this part of cars, but it seemed like he might be correct.

meanwhile, george bonked into the wall. or he had a lockup. they couldn't really tell. but he spun around and went back into the pits. 

this was just an example of how difficult the track is for everyone, turns, big cars and concrete barriers. and a lot of going fast. and a hell of a lot of heat. 

“you know when you used to train when you were driving?” crofty asked nico. “and youd go on the treadmill and youd do uphill walking at a really fast pace and then youd play seven hands of poker while you were doing that?”

“you remember that?” 

*unintelligible crofty noises* 

nico continued. “well that was because i had to stop cycling to loose the leg muscle! cause that was another kilo!” (yes that is true. weve talked about it before. nico stopped cycling to lose leg muscle to drop his weight so that he could go faster to beat lewis in 2016, this was pre driver weight requirements when most of them all had EDs). 

“but i was so impressed, by not just your uphill walking pace because it was pretty fast, but also the mental pressure you were putting yourself under to play seven hands of poker. when it came to races like this were mental fatigue can set in because of the conditions, is that what you were training for at that moment?” 

(the conditions being the insane heat)

“the poker got me to win at this track,” nico laughed. but then he went to explain the conditions in the car. “the race time is usually very long here, 80% humidity, its, you're in a sauna in the car. we lose up to eight pounds in body weight in the car in two hours. could you imagine losing 8 pounds from sweating in two hours? i mean its really like, its torture in the car.”

“but its also, having to concentrate for two hours when sometimes you struggle for two minutes.” 

“yeah and then the sweat starts dripping in your eyes and your head is pounding from the heat. the concentration in the end can be very difficult yeah.” 

this was part of the reason why they took out those corners, to reduce the race time a little. 

and don't worry, if you thought that we were going to go a whole session with nico not talking about lewis even once, well this is not that session. 

lewis had just done a flying lap, going third fastest when nico said “horrible, horrible lap for lewis. not in terms of, i don't know if in terms of driving but in terms of lap time just so far off george (who was p1), horribly far off.” 

anthony tried to point out that it depends on the driver and if they screw up a corner here or there. nico was not having it. 

“but for lewis its the whole lap. hes lost just consistently though the whole lap.”

unfortunately, that was all we would get though because max was back out on soft tires and we were about to get the question answered which was: did red bull fix max’s car??

well. nico rosberg was about to take us through the lap.

“okay here we go so now you’ve got drs of course you've got to bring it back up before braking, eighty- fifty meters braking you've got to hit that inside curb perfectly and stay in the white line there. roll into this corner, straighten your steering wheel so you can get that traction down flat and now all the way left so you're a little bit straight with a smaller angle there. deep braking, fifth gear, really carrying the speed all the way to the wall there on the left hand side. now its important to drive in a veeeery smooth way through this corner here, minimum steering, then to the right, straight line the braking again, deepen eighty meters, ooo he missed that inside by like 30 centimeters but nailed the outside. deep braking here. nailed the inside there, again straight steering wheel! put the traction down and then quickly back to the right to have a big, big angle turning in there carrying the speed. a little bit of understeer mid corner then got a snap. now here is difficult, yeah? you’ve gotta brake so deep just carry that speed in, car looked very very settled there. and here is just like, i don't know, magically finding your way through there. now, Softly to go right to open up this corner, misses the apex there by 30 centimeters. bit of traction, you can see the rear starting to overheat so you get a bit of a loose rear. braking deep there, again, missed the apex by like ten centimeters. okay, using the tracking you can see the rear moving around a little bit more around now. now again using minimum steering input, now nail this braking there, around, again, it will be around seventy meters. oh the others are using that curb, he maybe missed it or i don't know, looked pretty good. and now its just like Massive attack through here, again, missed the apex…oooo lost time there. he couldn't commit as much as he wanted to and actually four tenths off russell so this is a bit of a big setback for them actually because we expect leclerc and norris to be faster than russell.” 

despite all of that. max still managed to go p3. with a 1:30.5. on softs. george was doing 1:30.125 on softs. he was in p1. then lando went fastest again a 1:29.646. (pole last year was a 1:30.9). (max ended up finishing the session p4. that was where he finished practice 3 last year too, but last year he qualified 11th)

lando also continued to hit all the curbs, as he does because its his style and the car likes it. the red bull clearly doesnt like doing that. 

meanwhile, george accidentally drove onto the escape road. not sure how he managed that. 

“uh lets focus on driving instead of focusing on (unintelligible) because honestly im not feeling much also because the feeling is shit. we are very slow,” charles said, much to everyones general shock. “i just have no grip”

also baffling, at least to nico rosberg was that checo was “fifteenth in a red bull. and no mistake on the lap.” he speculated that checo could be running something different to max but whos to say.

meanwhile they were changed the front wing slightly on charles’s car to try and fix…something.

and franco was going 4 tenths faster than alex in the low speed corners. which was again, intriguing. 

but, it was time for our beloved nico rosberg to leave. but not before he said who he thought was looking good. 

“there is only one person looking good. lando, who is in a league of his own, who os driving phenomenally. the way that he is driving his car puts it on rails and then the other surprise this morning has been george russell, who has extracted the maximum from his mercedes. so i would mention those two and that's it theres no one else.” 

and then he went off to interview toto. which was Very Interesting indeed

mostly because he was hounding toto about why lewis’s set up was so bad but toto was generally ignoring him.

because if you will remember, lewis said that he didn't think he would even get into q3 with his car in the state he was, and he said that his set up was not as good as george russells. lewis finished the session in p7, george in p2. and if anyone could get to the bottom of it, it was nico rosberg. unfortunately, toto wasn't giving much away. 

nico also praised franco after the fp3 session, saying that “colapinto's super impressive, straight from the get go always within two tenths from albon. and we know albon is super quick.” which he says is very impressive because “you know in formula 2 you see speed, but you don't see this kind of speed”

also he was wearing this

“alright,” crofty said, several hours later. “enough of this practice. lets get into qualifying here in singapore.”

yeah. we’re only at qualifying. in all fairness i Did tell you this was going to be a lot. 

and the track was not in great condition. which was wonderful.

charles was struggling and got fined for having his tire pressure adjusted in the pit box, lewis’s rear of his car was “sliding a lot,” max was not in p1, lance was somewhere near the bottom of the times and lando immediately went fastest. 

so all in all a pretty normal q1. that was, until alex albon briefly went p1 and george decided to bash the tires (after being told not to!)

“ive got no fucking grip mate!” he cursed loudly and over his radio. breaking two rules at the same time. smh george. 

as the times came in, daniel found himself pushed to 16th. 

“daniel gets pushed down to 16th in what could be his last qualifying,” crofty said, ominously and addressing the rumors that this was in fact daniels last race. the camera crew then decided to rub it in by cutting to a shot of liam lawson in the garage. 

in his interview, daniel said that he had “not much to say” about his qualifying over all and about his mindset tomorrow: “well ill get community service if i swear” man was potentially going out at the end of the weekend and Still feared the FIA enough to not say fuck on camera. cheers mate.

in any case, the end of q1 saw us waving goodbye to daniel, lance (who has only managed to make it out of q1 one time at singapore before), pierre, bottas and zhou. better luck next time!

and the start of q2 saw someone taking george’s side in the Great Tire War. laurent mekies. the vcarb team principal. he said that the tires do feel different today compared to yesterday, but apparently this has been an ongoing problem all season.

unsurprisingly, alex albon was also joining the war on tires on the side of george russell. “what are we doing with the tires? nothing! absolutely nothing!”

also on the surprise list was nico hulkenberg briefly going p1. 

he was though replaced with lewis, who had somehow managed to make his mercedes work for him. 

i don't remember which announcer said this but, someone did say this about that: “mercedes is now the pace setter when before it looked like the steering wheels were screwed into the rear wheels.” 

though that might not have been entirely true because george was still complaining about grip.

max seemed to have made the tires work for him though because he managed to go fastest with a 1:29.680, a whole 3 tenths faster than lewis. it was starting to look like a classic Max Pole Lap, that was until oscar went faster than him

so there were four drivers in the 1:29 realm: oscar, max, charles and lewis. and there were five drivers out at the end of q2: alex, franco, checo, kevin and esteban

alex was not happy with this. he spluttered very incoherently over his radio as james vowels attempted to comfort him. 

all in all though it was setting up to be a very exciting q3

we had lando whos had 4 poles this yea, max who hasnt had pole since imola, lewis who hasnt had pole since hungary 2023 (potentially i might have heard that wrong) and ferando alonso who hasnt had pole in over 4000 days!

“i wouldnt want to bet my mortgage on whos winning pole,” said martin brundle.

but martin brundle also said during q3 that “we just saw kimi antonelli who will be out there next year getting hot and sweaty and a little bit scared.” 

everyone was kind of distracted by that. maybe it was why carlos sainz crashed.

(no it wasn't. but imagine….)

he also managed to crash in the same spot as lance did last year. but he didn't know why: “don't know if it was cold tires, dirty air, i don’t know. big snap.” 

this was absolutely not fine and dandy for max because he got his lap time deleted. and it was a provisional pole lap time. 

“why did my lap get deleted?” max still asked. “I crossed the line before it was red.” 

max did indeed cross the line before it was red, but there were double yellow flags, which mean that all lap times get deleted. so lando also lost his “stonking lap”

so we only had two times on the board. oscar with a 1:30.037 and nico with a 1:30.848.

everyone had one more shot to get out there.

which means its time to learn a weird fact about lando! did you know that his first job was making iphone stickers? 

i didn't but there was a graphic on the broadcast that said so.

in any case, max was told on the outlap to try and pass cars so he would make it to the line in time. 

george was told “don't let verstappen through”

max got through.

despite that, lando still went fastest. and he got pole. 

max continued his pole-less streak at singapore, but he did manage a p2

and charles leclerc, down at ferrari, managed to get his lap time deleted and ended up behind nico, fernano and yuki. somehow. 

lando was pleased with his pole, sort of. as much as lando can be pleased about anything. “it was tough,” he said. “good enough for pole.” 

max was also seemingly thrilled with second “im happy to be on the front row, I’ll take second, I’m happy with that.” insane words coming from max. if u had told us this last year we would have been shocked.

and in p3 we had…..sir lewis hamilton. but unfortunately nico rosberg was not interviewing :/ still, lewis said “qualifying has been a disaster for me all year long” which is true. he said that they changed pretty much everything on the car, but despite that didn't think that he could keep up with the mclarens. he also indirectly called them cheaters.

the most interesting part of qualifying though was after, in the press conference. 

as you might remember, the drivers in p1, p2 and p3 all have a little press conference on the big white couch with the reporters. its usually a little silly at least. 

and there was the usual. lewis told everyone “ive not been up here for awhile” cause he hadnt and im sure lando said things too but what was most interesting was max. 

now lets remember that max got a day of community service for cursing in the press conference the previous day. he also earlier said that he had “no words” about his penalty. 

so it was really no surprise that he spoke as little as humanly possible. as an act of protest to the fia and their penalty. 

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now. this is quite possibly one of the best cases of malicious compliance that i have seen. because yeah, he is answering the questions, just with as few words as possible. technically the fia cant get him on this cause he is talking. and he took the time to tell the reporters that this was not aimed at them, but at the fia. 

and, if you will note, he said that he wanted to be asked questions outside of the press conference room. which he did in fact entertain. this was actually not allowed.

they started out in the hallway and then some official was like uhhh cant do that here! and max was like well! cmon everyone! we will do it on the go!!! 

and they did!!!!

surely, you must be thinking, surely if the lead up was this insane then the race was off the walls right???

….

right!!!!!

yeah….

it was somehow boring????

im not sure how they managed to make singapore boring (especially after the lead up) but it was just like. there. it happened. 

ill still talk about it though because i am nothing if not thorough. 

the race. 

important to note that, heading into this race, there are still 8 contenders for the drivers championship . max, lando, charles, carlos, lewis, george, oscar and checo. none of them are officially Out of the running Yet because theoretically they could still score enough points to beat max. though, lando does have the best shot. he only needs to score 8.4 points per weekend more than max to come out ahead of max at the end. 

at the start max has 313 points, lando had 254 and charles had 235.

and. yuki has never finished a race here. lando has never been able to hold p1 from pole at the start. and the track was really, really freaking warm. as in it was 37C / 98.6F. and they were about to drive for two hours in a hot cockpit. 

also to note. lewis was starting on softs. which was weird. because they degrade really fast as we know in the heat and they definitely had plenty of heat. probably more than necessary actually.

in any case. lights out. away they went. 

and lando managed to hold onto the lead! max was right behind him in drs range, but he was ahead for the whole first lap. a first for him. and by lap 3 max was out of drs range. 

someone was unhappy about this and it was george russell. he was still in fourth stuck behind lewis on the softs. “he needs to increase the pace a bit, the guys at the font are getting away,” he said. lewis didn't really pick up the pace though. he really couldn't on the tires. and max and lando were already 3.7 seconds ahead of lewis. 

meanwhile franco had an absolutely insane start and managed to somehow divebomb alex albon and not only did he divebomb alex albon, he managed to gain three places. 

alex though was not pleased. “franco just dive bombed me!” he said over the radio. “what is he doing?” 

unsurprisingly, charles was back in ferrari hell. he was in 8th position and on lap 7 radioed in to say “i took a carbon part on my left side.” 

lando was still having a good time though, out in the front. he was told to increase the gap to max to 5 seconds. this was after other teams apparently complained that he wasn't managing the pace well. 

martin brundle was impressed by this. “just put 5 seconds on the red bull, will ya? it’s incredible!”

the tire drama of course continued, hards were apparently worse than mediums according to kevin. 

“i’m sliding around like hell,” he said on lap 11

and george was still stuck behind lewis who was over 6 seconds behind max and had not managed to make up any positions. 

also stuck behind someone was checo. he was stuck behind franco somewhere down around 10th? maybe? and he had been since pretty much the start. 

“hes very good, very difficult to pass colapinto” checo said on lap 16. lets remember that checo has 275 races under his belt. franco has like 3. so he was having a good day.

alex albon was not. he dnf’d on lap 18 because his car was overheating.

lewis finally got rid of his soft tires, so george could finally attempt to show some pace. by lap 23 he had managed to wrestle his car into 11th, but he bashed the strategy because they had stopped so early. “we will be in trouble later.” and by lap 28 he said “im already struggling with this tire.” 

and charles was still in ferrari hell. “good job on the brakes,” his engineer told him. “yeah but they feel completely different now,” charles said. he was stuck behind alonso and hulkenberg down in like 7th or 8th or something. exactly where he had been since the start. “ah this is so frustrating!” charles said. “how many laps are we going to do this?” 

lando was still enjoying himself though. he had gotten a 20 second lead on max.

lewis was really not enjoying himself. he continued to complain about stopping early and then almost bottled it passing and getting re passed by yuki. “something is definitely wrong with the car,” he said.

“this is working out horribly for charles leclerc,” martin said, as charles was still stuck behind a haas on lap28

thankfully for everyone, he managed to pass the haas on the next lap and took p4.

lando had front wing damage because he had locked up. he could have gotten a new front wing on his pit stop, but it takes 12 seconds to do that and despite their gap, mclaren didn't want to risk it.

george was really starting to feel the heat. “I need a bit of encouragement mate,” he said on lap 33. which is something that he really only says when hes a few minutes from actively passing out.

“usually by this time theres another 40 laps to go….but now we might get home in time for a cup of cocoa!” crofty said. because usually there is at least a safety car or a red flag or an accident. but there was nothing. and there continued to be nothing. meaning that the drivers were not getting a break. and it was hot as balls and or tits. 

down at vcarb, daniel was in 12th and yuki was in 13th. yuki was gaining on him and after some deliberation from the team, they had daniel let him past. 

“we’re expecting an announcement in the next few days” for liam to replace daniel, the announcers said. though there was still nothing confirmed. 

meanwhile charles was on fresh tires and he was storming up through the ranks. he went past carlos and waved at him and then he put in fastest lap after fastest lap, his eyes on the podium.

“it’s like a sauna in here,” george said, still struggling. 

lando was also struggling. he boinked the wall again. 

and checo was struggling with his tires “i don't have traction mate, its bouncing like a kangaroo.” he was in 10th. 

kevin got a puncture. he was brought in for softs to potentially set a fastest lap. 

“i have understeer and i have oversteer” george said on lap 52. on lap 53 he said “just kissed the wall. thinking all fine, rear right.” 

again i remind you this is a long and hard race. previously the longest singapore had gone without a safety car was lap 36. 

everyone was getting tired, even charles’s engineer who told him accidentally that george was in p1 instead of lando. charles said, very eloquently: “i don't care about norris”

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lando had though started to lap people, which was dangerous. he clipped a few more walls briefly. “hes having a few adventures in his most dominant play in f1 so far” martin said. 

meanwhile charles had finally closed the gap to george and was trying to pass. it was tire whisperer on tire whisperer violence. but george managed to stay in front.

k mags went into the pits on lap 60. he retired his car.

daniel also went into the pits on lap 60. on what might have been his last ever f1 race.

“don't go out like this danny rics, on a three stop,” crofty all but begged. 

but he didn't. they put softs on his car and said go forth and get the fastest lap. which was currently held by lando. 

and so daniel, in true daniel fashion, said (probably) “fuck em all” and stuck his pedal to the goddamn metal and went so fast that he not only got the fastest lap, but he also got the track record fastest lap. with a 1:34.486

and when the checkered flag came out lando won, and daniel got the fastest lap. 

max’s race engineer came on during the cool down lap to tell him the car modes and where he finished (second) but he also said “your old pal daniel picked up a fastest lap” 

and max said “thank you, daniel.” 

because you see. daniel took the fastest lap from lando. since he didn't finish in the points, he didn't get the extra point for fastest lap. but he did take the extra point away from lando. 

so this means. that given the number of races left. if lando finishes one place ahead of max in every single remaining race, he will still lose the championship by one point. the point that daniel took from him.

in 2018 daniel ricciardo left red bull because max started getting preferential treatment (among other things). it was a shock move, but he did it because he didn't want to be a number 2 driver, he wanted to win a world championship. so he went to renault. it was a disaster. he went to mclaren. it was a worse disaster. he lost his mclaren contract. he admitted that he got bad advice to leave red bull and that he should have never left. he came back to vcarb mid 2023 to try and get back into the red bull seat, back next to max. but he didn't. and in his potential, final act of his f1 career, he still managed to make a move that benefitted max. after all this time, he was still the second red bull driver after all. 

and he was voted driver of the day. 

lando won, followed by max, oscar, george, charles, lewis, carlos, fernando, nico, checo, franco, yuki, esteban, lance, guanyu, valtteri, pierre and daniel.

david coulthard did the post race interviews. 

oscar said it was “warm” and that they had a “great result…good strategy.”

max was not really bothered about lando closing the gap to him in the championship and was excited for some time off. 

lando said it was an “amazing race, a few too many close calls….similar to qatar last year….little dizzy at the moment.” to which david coulthard dumped water on him.

speaking of drivers being dizzy. george (and franco) took a while to get out of their cars. and george ended up leaning on the tires after too.

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george and lewis were actually withdrawn from media duties post race because of “borderline heatstroke” according to toto. some people thought that that might have been a pr move so that lewis did not have to talk about the awful strategy they put him on. in any case, they were given time to not be dying, which was good. 

this was not really surprising given that this was george's post race radio: "Yeah, good points, considering where we were on Friday. Damage limitation. I need a carry(?) into the bath, I am toasty. I can't describe how hot it is guys."

i was going to show you all the george russell pics of him after he got out of the car, where he looks like hes simultaneously going to fall over and also kill someone. but it crashed the post 3 times. so if you want to see it you need to google it yourself.

meanwhile. in the cool down room. lando max and oscar were watching the race highlights. max said that he thought lando was going to lap him. 

they replayed one of the scenes where lando was boinking walls. lando said, very eloquently and against the rules: “i thought i was going to shit myself” 

and oscar, ever the jokester, turned to him and said “so now without using swear words how did you feel in that moment?” and made a little microphone out of his hand. 

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oscar continued to make fun of the swear ban later on with this caption on instagram: “Without swearing, that was blinking warm. Good race, nice podium”

and later on charles said that he was not going to swear because he didn't want to join max in community service: "Yes! Then i have to work with Max and I don't want it!"

and max said relatively nothing in the press conference again, but he held his own mini one in a room afterwards. 

and franco responded to checo complimenting his driving during the race, saying that "Checo's great, I love him so much. I used to watch him when I was a kid back in Argentina. I woke up very early to watch his races and now fighting and racing against him is very nice."

nico rosberg said this a few days later about lando's race:

“There’s three moments here. And that’s so strange. I can’t remember myself, or Max Verstappen, or Lewis, when leading so comfortably with thirty seconds making three major mistakes like that. That was a bit strange. I know Singapore is so hard concentration [wise]. Physically it’s so, so tough. But it was… I don’t know what it’s down to that there’s so many little… But we know that from Lando that he tends to make those little errors all the time everywhere. We’ve seen that from him.”

so does he have what it takes to be a WDC? idk...

meanwhile. daniel. 

he took a long time getting out of his car, clearly savoring the moment.

when asked about the fastest lap he said that if the point proved useful maybe max would get him a good christmas gift (max later said that he could ask for anything he wanted). but he was generally quite emotional as he was speaking about the whole thing in his interview.

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and he did say “maybe the fairytale ending didn't happen. if this is it…im at peace with it.”

and he got an honor walk from the vcarb garage 

max spoke highly of him in his interview

"Daniel and I go a long time way back. We have always had a great relationship, great friendship. We've always had a lot of respect for each other as well. He's just a great guy, you know? I get on well, it just clicks, there is no fake person, we just get along and easy going. He will for sure be remembered as a very fast driver, I think everyone knows that, but also as a great guy in the paddock."

i think every reporter tried to give him a send off

they showed him a highlight reel of his career. and nico rosberg asked him if he regretted "leaving max in red bull."

daniel also spoke highly of max, saying that "He's always been very appreciative of our friendship and supportive. Even after Japan this year I was getting quite a lot of stick, and he [Max] was one of the only guys who sent me a text and said 'mate keep your head up. We know what you're capable of, don't listen to the noise.' So I respect and appreciate him a lot."

and he was the last to leave the paddock, after 1am, still smiling and waving at everyone.

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so with that roller coaster. lets buckle up and head to texas. yee fucking haw.

the 2024 formula 1 silly season and drama master post, part 2 (part 1 here)

Hello and welcome to ah fucking fuck auto caps fuck fuck fuck how do i turn off auto caps AHA there we go okay. take 2

hello and welcome to the great and very insane formula 1 2024 season drama post, part 2. if you are new here or are just looking for part one (which contains the previous 16 (?) races, the off season, pre season testing and everything else, that can be found HERE. (a word to the wise: open it in a browser, not the app, and preferably on a computer to avoid crashing. its fucking long). 

what the hell is formula 1? car go fast. fastest cars in the world zoom around tracks at top speeds of over 300kph, piloted by the top 20 drivers in the world. it might not sound dramatic, but oh man. you will Not be disappointed. this post focuses on the drama, the insanity, the sheer what the hell how is this a serious sport. no legitimately. we've just about seen it all this year. grindr, dogs, watersports, ice cream brands, its all here.

the point of this post? to educate, to catalog the insane drama, and to just have a good time. people like to gatekeep this sport, there is also a lot happening. i try to make it easy to understand. again, probably best to start at the beginning of the post because it does a pretty good job of explaining things, which i began way back in january, and can be found HERE (again, shes long, be careful)

and, as usual, if you do not want to see this post EVER AGAIN, block the tag #saph explains silly season 2024

and a second caution, i assume this post will be getting long as well. including this one we have minimum 9 updates left!

anyway, those of you who have been following along the whole time, welcome back! i know we got a little delayed. and i know we’re on a new post, so lets just briefly take a second for me to explain what the fuck happened. first i had an anatomy test, second i work 2 jobs with fuck ass hours, third tumblr decided to stop letting me look at any of my drafts, fourth tumblr support ghosted me about the drafts issue and the post was half saving half not so i just decided fuck it, were going with post 2, electric boogaloo, and fifth, i decided to start typing this instead in a google docs so. many changes. if you're new here i am usually more on top of this.

but here we are. were back on street circuits. we’re in baku, azerbaijan, for the start of the last third of the season. 8 races remain, world championship titles are still within grasp of multiple people. the drama is dramaing. and today is september 22, 2024 and lets fucking go. 

first and foremost, on account of the fact that this post is late (again, see above), were going to have to do a bit of a speed run. if you're new here, i promise that this is not representative of my normal dedication to the update post. and for those asking, yeah, ill probably compile it somewhere better than a tumblr post after its all said and done, but we don't have time for that now. 

what we do have time for is the Off Week (and like some of the media stuff). and it was filled with silliness: 

george russell decided to wear what can only be described as slightly ugly yellow short shorts with his taylor swift shirt that he got at the eras tour. this was baffling for several reasons, the main reason being that i don't think the internet knew that he was capable of wearing a graphic t shirt

fernando alonso got his aston martin valkyrie finally. in case you are unfamiliar, a valkyrie i think is the worlds fastest street legal car. he posted tweets about this that made it seem like he wanted to fuck the car. hilariously, the car broke down an hour later.

we also had the very thrilling conclusion to grill the grid. oscar won and he somehow managed to look more pleased about his grill the grid win than his first race victory. 

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nico rosberg went to the green awards and he wore a fantastically insane teal blue suit. yes i know hes not a current driver. but you all like hearing about him so ask and you shall receive. unfornunately i cant find a picture of it though

and also not a current driver is mick schumacher, but my roommate asked me to include that he was seen on his girlfriends instagram being bad at golf. like. exceptionally bad at golf. like he hit a tree 20 feet in front of him.

also playing golf was lando norris. except he managed to look like try bolton from high school musical 2.

he also talked about the world driver championship with his friend max fewtrell while they were playing golf. unfortunately i lost this link in the sea of technical difficulties, but the gist of it was that he was saying that there is still hope for him to beat max in the championship (hes about 60 points behind right now). lando doesnt usually talk about the championship because he doesnt want news outlets to paint him as “desperate” so this was interesting

charles leclerc had an insane off week. first he rear ended someone in monaco. then he spoke at a yacht conference. he was not scheduled to speak at said yacht conference, he was there doing something else and they were like hey you're cool people know you, heres a microphone. he alsp ended up on a weather channel while promoting a karting event he was doing for the jules bianchi foundation (his god father, the one who died during the f1 race in japan 2014). he also changed his instagram pop and re centered it because some random tiktoker told him it matched his aesthetic better.

oscar piastri posted a photo of himself sitting in the cockpit of a plane and then promptly deleted it. because he posted it on 9/11. for anyone who doesnt know what that is, that was when some terrorists hijacked commercial planes and few them into the world trade centers in nyc and the pentagon in washington dc

max verstappen also posted a plane pic with himself and lando norris, but he did not delete it.

we also had the return of daniel ricciardo’s jpg instagram account, which is kinda like a finsta for photos that hes taken. i think lando started this a few years ago. 

heading into the race week we certainly got a weird ass batch of pr. including but not limited to:

lewis hamilton was back on top and slaying in the fit game. as was yuki. 

lewis hamilton also exposed george russell as listening to katy perry pre race. katy perry and taylor swift (this was after he claimed that he liked listening to old school rap music.) though, lewis then started singing wrecking ball???? confusing vibes all around

george was not off the hook yet tho because some intern definitely make him say skidibidi toilet or whatever the thing is idk, i might be gen z but im not insufferable, okay? actually george in baku was just all kinds of unhinged

george and alex also got up to something, what it is no one knows but it is clearly something

max pulled up to the paddock de aged about 10 years. picture one is of him in baku in 2015 (i believe he was 17) and picture 2 is this year. no i am not kidding. 

and franco walked into the paddock telling everyone about argentinian mate (which is a drink, not a friend)

and max shoved a microphone out of the way so everyone could gossip

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then of course, we had some slightly more relevant drama

haas announced that ollie would be replacing kevin at baku. in case you forgot, kevin magnussen received a total of 12 penalty points over the season so far, which means he gets one race ban. how did he get the points? well he was mostly wreaking havoc on everyone else so that his teammate, nico hulkenberg, could drag his car into the points. lets all remember the time in saudi arabia where he managed to get 20 seconds of penalties by basically driving like a mad man just to make sure that nico could keep his position after he pit stopped. anyway, nico was kind of pissed about the race ban situation and said “maybe the guidelines for F1 penalties need to be reviewed as the stewards ‘want to get involved’ no matter the contact.”

in any case though, k mags was out. and ollie was in. we’ve seen ollie before. notably he subbed in for carlos sainz at the saudi arabia gp when carlos had appendicitis. he managed to get points as well. since then, he has been announced as a haas driver for 2025 and is now subbing in for k mags (haas, later in the week called him a super sub. clearly no gen z person read that over.) he can do this because ferrari has a haas engine so they share reserve drivers.

adrian newey finally got employed. i know! i can hardly believe it either! but he did! and youll never guess where! 

ferrari? no that would be too obvious. 

mercedes? nah

williams? no too much of a shit show

aston martin? ding ding ding! just the right amount of shit show! 

that is right. newey is going to aston for 2025. 

apparently he was offered a “good package” according to himself, which i assume means pay and also the fact that lawrence stroll made him a shareholder? stakeholder? whatever its called. in the team itself. basically he has a lot of power. 

he said that he always wanted to work with fernando and lewis. and he couldn't do both. and aston had a better package than ferrari. 

fernando looked positively evil during all the announcement pictures. and called the team "definitely the team of the future" and for those of you who don't know, fernando is positively evil. hes just been stuck in a shit box and we havent seen very much of him, but man does he know how to evilly slut it up. so that will be fun to see.

by contrast, people said that lance was not excited enough. and well. lance 1. has resting bitch face and 2. never really looks excited about anything. also he lives in a world where take your child to work day somehow became his job. (his dad owns the team).

lewis hamilton was asked what he thought about adrian not going to ferrari, and here's what he had to say:

"i feel like, while I have mentioned before that it would be an honor to work with adrian, i have been privileged to work with two championship winning teams that didnt have adrian."

mclaren announced pato o ward would do FP1 in mexico. who is pato o ward? hes one of mclaren’s indycar drivers and one of the f1 reserve drivers. he is incredibly charming and definitely runs his own social media as seen here:

mclaren Also claim they figured out who their number 2 driver is and they claim its oscar. i say they claim because the statements were a lot more complex than that. essentially, according to andrea stella, the priority is to the team first, then lando and then oscar. so they didn't outright say that oscar is the number 2 driver and i am willing to bet real money that this is because mr mark webber, oscars manager, has something in oscars contract that prevents him from being a number 2 driver. this is of course because mark webber was one of the most infamous number 2 drivers in f1 history to none other than menace war criminal sebastian vettel, who in their time as teammates, managed to win 4 back to back world champions. or, top to bottom if you're mrs darbus from high school musical. 

lando was asked about this and he said that yes, the team does support him. though he would not expect oscar to give up a win for him and that it is more complex behind the scenes. i suppose we will see if there are any papaya rules coming out this weekend….

and oscar said "i think the main point is its not purely just going to be me pulling over for lando every single race, because thats how none of us, including lando, wont want to go racing, if we feel that someone has done a much better job on a weekend, whichever way it is, we want that person to be rewarded."

max verstappen commented on the mclaren situation as well. which was funny mostly because red bull has one of the most defined number 1 and number 2 drivers of any team. he said "you look at it form oscar's perspective, he is closer to lando than lando to me. they have to deal with that."

and allow me to put on a tin foil hat as we are about to talk about the future of the red bull seat. because all i have to offer here is a baseball hat and a red bull can. 

a long time ago we talked about the red bull cans. the ones that red bull makes to promote f1. at the end of last season red bull put max and checo on the red bull can. this season at the start it was just max on the red bull can. well. now checo has reappeared on the cans too. and i will tell you what i think this means. it means that checo is not getting swapped this season, which was a possibility for awhile. 

but! there is more! 

daniel ricciardo made an instagram post this week. and it was very interesting. but most interestingly he was wearing a red bull hat.

which he does occasionally, no big deal really. he did race for the for several years, he technically does currently. BUT then he showed up TO THE PADDOCK wearing the red bull hat.

which is Big Interesting. usually you show up in a statement outfit or wearing the team kit. and daniel is not a red bull racing driver. he is a visa cashapp racing bulls driver. they might be owned by red bull but they are Not the same team. so why the red bull hat. in the paddock. well, the rumor is that hes taking checos seat for 2025. and the rumor is that this will be announced before mexico. so checo can have a proper send off. 

and with that. the baku lore. 

theres a lot that has happened at baku. as i said its a street circuit. and i think its the fastest street circuit. but over the years theres been some notable events. 

such as the great kimi raikkonen radio for gloves and steering wheel:

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they gave mini kimi this week gloves and steering wheel in honor of that

the max and daniel crash in 2018 when they were running p1 and p2 respectfully

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and of course. how could we forget. charles’s infamous “i am stupid” radio.

speaking of charles, he crashed again in fp1. not quite in the same spot, but nearly. he took a picture with the marshalls. 

then in fp2 he rage quit, basically saying that the car sucks. 

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but he was back and better than ever in practice three because he managed to top the time charts. welcome back fuck ass ferrari.

some other teams definitely experienced the lows but not really the highs of baku during practice. like lance stroll who came on the radio to say “this is not a car” (good thing they have adrian newey now, right? 

franco colapinto also cut his ear before practice on the neck strengthener stretcher thing that they all use and the team wanted to give him stitches but he was like no no no i need to be in the car in about 5 minutes im not doing that. so he jammed on his helmet and jumped in the car. he also crashed and when he went to the medical center he took off his helmet and there was blood everywhere and they were like no no no you cannot race! and he was like no! this is not from the crash! and then explained it and they let him do qualifying. 

also im pretty sure? ollie bearman crashed? in practice? but frankly i don't have time to google it so whos to say. 

but alas. qualifying. 

i know i know this is kind of a shitty update. i promise ill go all out in singapore. i PROMISE. 

so as i said. its a street circuit. high speed. 90 degree corners. and also windy as hell. we also had the dynamic duo of karun and harry in the commentary box. 

max led the first practice, george led the second and i think charles led the third. or some order like that. 

slipstream here is almost essential (slipstream: going behind another car to reduce the wind drag so you can go faster) 

charles has the last three pole positions (first in qualifying) here in baku, but he has never won. by comparison, red bull have never had pole here but they have won. 

and franco has never been to baku before. 

i think that's all the exposition that we need here. 

q1 started with max complaining about his car. “the car is jumping around like crazy on the rear axle” he said. despite this he was sitting in p3. 

the mid field battle though….the mid field battle was heating the hell up. mostly because none other than franco colapinto, who if you will remember, has never been to baku before, had split the two ferraris. he was in third for the moment, .109 seconds behind carlos sainz and .159 seconds ahead of charles leclerc. we still had a lot of qualifying left to go, so this was probably not going to stay, but it was still insane. he was pushing insanely hard, nearly kissing the walls. clearly he had learned from his crash in practice. 

the two mclarens waited until the very end of q1 to do their final flying push lap, and oscar made it through, but tragedy struck for lando. 

lando was in the middle of his last flying lap, time was ticking down, and there was a Very Brief yellow flag on the track. now, according to rules, you cannot complete your flying lap if there is a yellow flag. so lando pitted and was stuck down in 17th and out of qualifying. this would be the first time that he was out in q1 since vegas last year (which if i remember correctly was also not his fault) 

now though, of course nothing is ever that cut and dry. people thought that there had been a mis showing of a flag. yellow flag means that a car is stopped on track, white flag means that a car is going slowly on the track. and people thought that there had been a yellow flag shown when it was actually supposed to be a white flag (if there had been a white flag then lando would have been able to keep doing his flying lap) lando himself said that he had no idea what people were talking about because there is a light on the steering wheel that lights up when flags are called and he had a big yellow light. so it was clearly a yellow flag. 

if you're concerned about lando being able to pull it out of the bag, id like to point you in the direction of the mexican gp last year where lando qualified 17th and finished 5th. on a track that was hard to overtake on. he can be absolutely insane when he wants to be. worry not gentle reader. 

in any case. also out in q1 was daniel ricciardo, valtteri bottas, zhou guanyu and esteban ocon.

and notably, williams, who was on fucking fire this weekend as we already saw, finished q1 with alex albon in second (ahead of oscar) and franco colapinto in 8th. pierre gasly had somehow managed to also get into 4th. and nico hulkenberg was in 7th with ollie bearman in 13th. i told you the mid field battle was heating the hell up. 

q2. everyone zoomed straight out of the gate. they didn't want to get lando norris’d. but, speaking of that, if lando managed to get no points in the race and charles managed to win, charles would overtake lando in the drivers championship. mark webber himself told this to charles, who was absolutely baffled. 

in any case, charles was kinda suffering right now and that was because he was not getting slipstream from carlos to make his lap faster. meanwhile, carlos seemed to be actively trying to give charles the slipstream because he came on radio to say “he keeps missing the tow” 

and amazingly, franco colapinto was 4 tenths AHEAD of alex albon. alex albon who had not been unqualified by his teammate once since the start of 2023. ex red bull driver alex albon. that alex albon. 

max topped the times in q2, followed immediately by charles. insanely, fernando alonso managed to drag the aston martin to fifth. and franco was right behind him in 6th. by comparison alex albon was in 10th. 

and from q2 we lost ollie bearman, yuki tsunoda (who has never qualified lower than 8th in baku), pierre gasly, nico hulkenberg and lance stroll. so yes, ollie bearman managed to outqualify nico hulkenberg. this is ollies second ever f1 race. 

steaming on forward to q3. 

we had, for review, in q3 the following: 

both ferraris, both red bulls, both mercedes, both WILLIAMS (has not happened since vegas 2023), plus fernando alonso and oscar piastri. 

right out the gate it was wild. 

“red bull! theyve re found their mojo! or have they!” karun said. red bull were in 5th and 6th and not entirely sucking for the moment. 

everyone did one flyer and then came out at the end for a second flyer. 

here were the standings: 

charles, carlos, oscar, george, checo, max, lewis, alex, franco, fernando

and everyone was making it to the line and all was going smooth until-

wait a second what is that

could it be! alex albon! with the air box fan still on his car! surely not!!!

oh but it was! and harry and karun were like oh wow so unfortunate for williams tisk tisk

meanwhile ted jumped on the radio to Loudly announce to everyone that this was insane and if i have time here i will put the rant he ranted cause it was Fantastic.

and what do you know i have time

so we had 3 minutes left qualifying and everyone was pulling out of the pits for their last flyer when oscar hopped on the radio to say

"the williams still has the air box fan in"

"oh what an error! disaster for williams!" karun and harry said. they speculated if the marshalls could get it or if the session needed to be red flagged. but alex threw the fan off the car.

and then they asked "ted have you ever seen that before?" and ted did not hold back:

"ITS A MASSIVE YELLOW FAN HOW COULD YOU MISS IT???!!! HOW COULD THE MECHANICS MISS IT???? I CANT BELIVE THEY WOULD MAKE SUCH A MISTAKE DOWN AT WILLIAMS! SUCH AN EXPERIENCED BUNCH OF GUYS AND GIRLS! WHAT IS GOING ON AT WILLIAMS OPERATIONALLY? HOW COULD YOU SEND A CAR OUT LIKE THAT?"

alex, obviously, got fined for an unsafe release 5k euros. he also had to throw the fan off to the side and got slightly covered in dry ice. he did not get to the a second flying lap. 

franco did tho!

and here were out qualifying results: 

p1: charles p2: oscar p3: carlos p4: checo p5: george p6: max p7: lewis p8: fernando p9: franco p10: alex  p11: ollie p12: yuki p13: pierre p14: nico p15: lance p16: daniel  p17: lando p18: valtteri p19: zhou p20: esteban 

oh ho ho but we werent done yet. because pierre gasly got disqualified from qualifying. for failing fuel flow regulations. and lewis was going to have to start from the pit lane for changing his power unit. 

everyone, and by everyone i mean oscar max and checo, pretty much said that charles was going to get pole no matter what, they knew this coming in and the best they were trying for was second

onto the race. 

notably, this is considered a checo track. this was one of the three races that max did not win last year. because checo won it. its a track that he does well on, evidenced by the fact that he qualified above max in qualifying. so people were expecting big things from him.

and so, we head into lap 1.

charles managed to hang onto the lead. checo passed carlos straight out of the gate for third and max managed to pass george to take fifth. lando had managed to get ahead of nico and up into 13th. notably, franco held onto 8th and ollie was able to hold onto tenth. 

someone who was not doing well was lance stroll, who came on the radio saying that he had a puncture. this was from contact with yuki. lance had to pit for fresh tires and was pretty immediately thrown to the back of the grid. 

by lap 2 lando had managed to get past daniel and was in 12th, he was trying to get past yuki next, which he managed by lap 3. yuki also lost a  spot to nico. 

also slaying in the mclaren was oscar, who took fastest lap. then charles took fastest lap.

and lewis hamilton, who had started from the pit lane, was up to 16th. already. somehow. though he was displeased with the tires, sayig that “this tire is pretty bad” over the radio. 

yuki meanwhile was clearly having a problem because he had started going very very slowly. thought the pit wall said that he had no problems. this would later turn out to be false but we will indulge them for the time being. 

franco was STILL ahead of alex albon on lap 6. STILL. 

lando on lap 8 managed to push his way into points positions, overtaking ollie bearman for 10th. though this was where things were about to slow down for him because in front of him were alex, franco and fernando, who were all very close together and would be hard to get past. 

george was back in bad luck hell as a plastic bag entered his airbox. will he ever catch a break. 

on lap 11 nico hulkenberg finally caught up with ollie bearman and passed him for 11th. 

and max’s car was not working. to potentially no one’s surprise. “i have zero bite in the car” he said. and this was probably true because checo was a whole 6.5 seconds ahead of him. insane gap. 

several pit stops later that i will not detail out because we simply do not have the time, alex albon ended up in 4th and lando ended up in fifth. and oscar was about to get undercut by checo. 

��mojo seems to be back for checo perez” harry said, correctly. 

mojo was back for him indeed. and now he was right behind lando. 

and if you will recall, according to mclaren themselves, priority at mclaren is the team first, then oscar, then lando. but oscar was ahead of lando. so what did mclaren do? 

they asked lando do hold up perez, but not compromise his own race. 

remever a long time ago when i said mclaren wouldn't have any internal drama this season? man how i was wrong.

lando managed to hold up perez for around a lap or two before he got past. this was crucial because this was during when oscar was in the pits. 

thanks to lando and the power of the papaya rules teamwork, oscar ended up coming out in 4th, only .706s ahead of checo. 

mclaren are working together everyone! mclaren are working together!

meanwhile, turns out that yuki did indeed have problems because he retired on lap 17 with a hole in his sidepod from the contact with lance on lap 1. this was now two races in a row where he had had to retire for reasons out of his control. 

several more people pitted. and eventually charles was back out in front, oscar was in p2. until he wasn't. no, he didn't dnf. he overtook charles! he was in p1! he popped out of nowhere! nowhere being 2 car lengths back and just flooring it to spring around charles like a little silly slinky! karun called it a “good, fair and robust defense,” which sounds like its descibing notes in wine. but this was not wine. this was the baku gp. and we were only half done. 

ollie bearman was defending against lewis hamilton, holding on tightly to 14th place. 

charles was still behind oscar and he could not get past, despite the fact that he was still very much in spitting distance. “they are pushing like crazy or they have more grip than us” he said. 

carlos got past both lando and alex albon and was up into 4th

this brought max up behind lando. max was on 11 lap old tires and lando was on 24 lap old tires. but lando still defended like hell and managed to hold onto sixth. max was 0.632 seconds behind lando on lap 25 when he said that “my brakes are not working.” this was hardly a surprise. max has hated the car since china.

also experiencing technical difficulties was sir lewis hamilton. he was stuck down in 14th and was first told to do “everything you can do to get the surface temp down” of the tires. he said “im trying” then several laps later on lap 29 he came on the radio to say “are you seeing how i have to drive this thing?” “yes,” bono, his engineer said. “quite effective though.” 

max was still half a second behind lando. mclaren faked a pit stop call over the radio to get max to pit. he did not. 

but, george russell did manage to pass him. which was “not good for max’s world champion aspirations.”

this was also when ted very bafflingly said that “if i had a sofa in the pit lane i would be jumping up and down on it” im not sure what that was in response to. 

meanwhile, ollie was still holding off sir lewis hamilton. and charles was trying to get oscar to pit again by lying over the radio. it was not working. 

lando did a pit stop finally and came out a whole 15 second behind max. he was hoping to catch max by the end of the race. but it might be tight. lets go last lap lando. 

“lando, imagine andrea on your shoulder saying ‘zero wheel spin’ in every exit,” lando’s race engineer said. if you're confused, everyone else was too. 

10 laps to go and here were the order of affairs:

oscar

+.449s charles +1.865s checo +2.989s carlos +16.530s george  +1.909s max +11.535s lando +9.715s fernando +2.589s alex +2.451s nico +4.667s franco +1.590s lewis +1.261s ollie +1.791s pierre +9.205s daniel +23.919s esteban  +.789s lance +3.862s valtteri +3.631s guanyu 

lando was determined. he took fastest lap on lap 43 and was 8.8s behind max

at this point, the leaders were starting to lap the cars in the back. “the back markers are starting to come up,” checo’s engineer said to him. “its going to get messy.”

“hold onto your hats and if you don't have one go get one and hold onto it” harry said. harry would turn out to be correct. 

we had the top 3 all running very close to eachother, that was oscar, charles and checo and “welcome to the party carlos sainz!” who was now 1.2 seconds behind checo in the four way battle for the lead.

definitely not leading was lance stroll, who retired on lap 47 with a brake problem. 

oscar managed to pull ahead of charles by 1.5 seconds, finally knocking him out of DRS range. so now it was a three way battle for second. and charles had “no rear tires. no rear tires at all.” 

and, just like i said he would, lando managed to pass max on lap 49. he was closing the gap slowly in the championship. 

“verstappen’s day goes from bad to worse,” harry said. because lando still had fastest lap, so he would score 3 more points than max. which is important if lando wants to beat max in the championship (though i think hes still like 60 points behind)

meanwhile! franco managed to pass nico hulkenberg for 10th! he was in the points!!!! at his second race!!! 

but this was short lived because there was a crash! a big smackeroo! between carlos and checo!! checo was mad, carlos didn't know what happened. 

what happened was that carlos was trying to pass checo but checo did not move over. it was deemed an equal fault accident. both of them were utterly confused at what happened and apparently spent 20 minutes in the medical center being utterly lost and aparently saying that sometimes this sport sucks. and! contrary to what several people said! checo did not bang on carlos’s helmet after the crash. 

the crash actually caused chef's dad to have a heart attack. he is stable now.

and well. this clip of george from the post qualifying interviews definitely didnt age well:

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but! since we were a matter of a few laps from the end, this meant that the rest of the race was finished under a virtual safety car. 

which meant 

OSCAR PIASTRI WINS THE AZERBAIJAN GP

and george inherited p3! 

and on his own merit too! no safety cars, no team orders, no weird shit! 

“yes!” he whispered over the radio. 

he almost fell getting out of the car, then gave us all the “one moment” hand gesture before properly celebrating. 

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he also got driver of the day! 

(this was marginally better than george russell, who said over the radio “i cant get any rubber (to pick up on his tires) all im getting is leaves”)

gunther steiner also hosted the post race interviews. which was interesting. 

george said that the most difficult part of the race was “driving full gas into a wall of carbon fiber on the penultimate lap…the vsc should have come out sooner” 

charles bashed ferrari because they didn't do any high fuel runs in practice. 

oscar was entirely pleased. “i managed to overtake and hold onto it for the next 35 laps..one of the better races of my career.” and honestly, oscar winning a race straight after mclaren basically announcing that he was their number 2 driver is nothing short of hilarious.

and! mclaren was now leading the constructors championship by 20 points! for the first time in ten years!!!!

the top three had a moment outside of the car that was filled with baffled: 

and oscar's engineer tom got to stand on the podium with him. he usually takes a selfie with oscar after each race he podiums at, but he was too excited to so george took this picture for them

(george also aparently demomished oscar in a game of uno on the plane, immediately humbling him)

george also shielded himself from the champagne on the podium

the cooldown room reacted to the crash in a very straight forward manner:

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and very quickly cause its midnight and the singapore gp starts in 8 hours, the post race, speed ran: 

-mark webber told off laura winter for thinking that oscar didn't have good tire management

-alex albon was “super happy, that's a lot of points for us” (williams finished in 7th and 8th). he cut his own interview short when ollie bearman arrived, saying “I can go, im happy to go” and then waving comically. 

-williams was so pleased with this result they blasted everyone with champagne. and they overtook alpine in the constructors championship! this was also their best race finish all season

-(and a quick note, if youre going to really blame logan for being that shit of a driver here, please remember that the car he was driving was several rounds of upgrades behind alex's pretty much the entire time he was driving it)

-ollie became the first driver to ever score points in his first two races for two different constructors because the double dnf pushed him up to 10th place. he said that there was not much difference between the haas and the ferrari, the ferrari was just red

-franco continued to charm everyone and flirt with the reporters. 

-they interviewed george and lewis and the camera had to be adjusted for george's height. it was comical and resulted in my favorite edit so far of the season (sound on)

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-lando looked pleased and happy for once. he said about holding off checo that “i didn't hold him up i just had to cool my tires a little.” he was delighted to be leading the constructors for the first time in ten years and he defended alex albon saying “i struggled to get past alex for a while, which is common, alex doesnt make mistakes.” he also ratted on max for going to fast during the VSC and said “i didn't complain, facts were stated.” and to sum it all up he said that “im executing things well, i’m very quick…i’m not going to be the happiest guy, but i am never the happiest guy….car is performing well everywhere…some red cars behind us seem to be our biggest competitors right now” 

-by comparison george insulted all of pirelli. the tire people. “pretty infuriating that it (the pace) changes this so much….its black magic, people who make the tires don't understand the tires…..for 20 laps we had a car not worthy of points and for 20 laps we had a car fighting for victory and the only difference is the tires.” 

-lewis was notably upset after the race and walked through the paddock with his helmet on, not wanting to talk to anyone. but he did talk to franco and ollie and congratulate them on a job well done defending against him and racing against him. franco even fangirled over this on his instagram. 

-charles was clearly upset with ferrari. he was so upset he posted a thirst trap.

-and oscar. oscar was very happy this afternoon. and his mom was there! she doesnt usually come cause it scares her, but nicole was there today! 

-mclaren celebrated with a hell of a lot of champagne. both oscar’s wina and lando’s insane recovery, and the fact that they were leading the championship. red bull have been dethroned, at least for now. 

-there was so much champagne that lando took off his socks to spray it. all seems well at mclaren. 

-at least one thing is for sure, oscar had a better time here this weekend than last year when he got food poisoning and only ate four pieces of toast

and with that. we head into singapore. quite literally as it is starting in a few hours. again, i apologixe about this post. its a little sad, but the next one will be better. pinkly promise. 

see you all soon!!!