#Idk if george has 'won the garage' to the extent that it was said Jenson had

[yesterdayiwrote]

I was reading @manykinsmen's lovely post about the parallels between Jenson and Nico and it reminded me of how there's also so many parallels between Jenson and George as Lewis' teammate.

They're both 'the new guy' coming on to a team where Lewis is settled. They're both stereotypically 'affable brits', and they both show up just as the team is hitting a rough patch.

There was a Sky bit back in 2021 where they asked Jenson (and Nico I believe) what advice they would give George about being Lewis' teammate, and the answer was basically "Integrate yourself with the garage because if they like you, you'll reap the benefits".

And in a similar fashion to what happened with Jenson, it has felt that George has done the courteous smiling and nodding through the pain of the team struggles and put on the positive face, whereas Lewis has, like last time, struggled to hide his disappointment and at times lashed out and said things that he probably should have kept to himself or at least behind closed doors. It feels like a carbon copy, even down to the new guy winning in the points stakes in year 1 and Lewis winning right back again in Year 2.

The only difference is now, Lewis is a better teammate and hasn't lashed out at his teammate in petty mindgames (although I think there's a fair argument that there's other people still fulfilling that role as surrogate even if he himself isn't engaging in it personally, but that's a different story). Although that being said, Lewis and Jenson were never really fractious, they always put a good face on whatever was going on behind closed doors and were genuinely pretty outwardly civil.

And the funniest thing is that although we don't know how this season will go, both George and Jenson's time as Lewis' teammate is going to end in the same way too. Lewis walking away from a team he considered family to take a punt on something new.