#NEW MAGIC SCHOOL BUS SHOW ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[megasceptile001]

beat the hyperfixation allegations challenge (hard mode)

[dear-ao3]

please let this be a normal race weekend 🫣

with f1? NO WAY ‼️

today is march 9, 2024 and welcome aboard the magic school bus f1 ride, saudi arabia edition. we’ve got lots to cover, as you probably can imagine.

starting once again, as always, with red bull. which continues to be. as the kids would say. a shit show.

let’s review:

-horner gets accused of Something involving “inappropriate workplace behavior” with a female employee

-these accusations get leaked to the press

-results in an internal investigation

-everyone ever tells horner to resign but he’s adamant he didn’t do anything wrong and doesn’t

-the internal investigation clears horner of all charges

-someone leaks a google drive to the press and various other people that allegedly has evidence against horner in it

-no one publishes said drive because they will get sued

-helmut marko reveals that max has exit clauses in his contract, one of which is that max can leave if the car isn’t performing and supposedly there is another that says he can leave if helmut marko leaves

-jos verstappen reportedly says that max will not be staying with red bull if horner doesn’t leave

-jos was also seen talking to toto wolff in the paddock in bahrain last weekend and when asked about max going to mercedes, toto said “anything is possible”

and now, onto this weeks drama:

-max dismissed rumors that he would be going to mercedes next year, saying that he has no intention of leaving because he likes red bull and everything that they have done for him

-he was asked if he would stay if helmut left red bull, and he said that things would have to get very silly for helmut to leave but he would see

-not too many days later, low and behold, one helmut marko said that there was a good chance he could be suspended from the team amid all the controversies

-at the same time it was also announced that the female employee who made by he accusations against horner was also suspended on full pay

-max came out and said that if helmut leaves he cannot continue with red bull

-but then hemut said that he was confirmed staying

so. it’s a shit show as per the absolute usual.

now, since horner and everyone else at red bull is kind of saying as little as humanly possible about this, the media have turned to the other drivers to speak to to get some good juicy headlines.

the problem with this is that the other drivers really don’t know what’s going on at all. they know just about as much as the rest of us, which is basically nothing. that and, clearly none of them want to be interrogated about this.

the responses all fall into basically the same two categories: calling for more transparency and this isn’t really my issue but it shouldn’t be happening.

now though, this is not nearly enough of a juicy headline for the media. so some outlets decided to paraphrase, cut and splice or just plain make up what the drivers responses have been. (which i dont think a lot of people have realized is what is going on. there of course have been some people who have wholly supported horner (like checo) but most of them seem to be like. theres better things to be asking me about but of course this shouldn't be happening)

it’s happened to a good chunk of people, seemingly just to stir the pot and make people look bad.

take lando, for example.

one news source (i do not remember which one) quoted him as saying this:

but it would seem that that news source actually has no proof of him saying that and would further seem that they cut and splinted together what he actually said (below) to make him look bad:

a similar thing happened to charles leclerc who was asked something about the situation in french, something along the lines of "how will ferrari benefit from the red bull situation" and he kind of just ignored it and started rambling about the car (supposedly, i dont actually speak french) but he was paraphrased or translated badly (or both) to make it seem like he was in support of horner.

thats just a few examples, but they were not the only ones to have this happen to them. there were drivers though, like lewis and george, who were fully calling for more transparency.

in all, it seems like most of them are equally as confused as we are and dont want to dig themselves into a mess that they know nothing about. though, it is good at some of them are calling for more transparency. a lot of people are pissed at peoples responses and i really think that they really have far more important things that actually pertain to them to be thinking about, also no one knows what the fuck happened, and when you add that to the media misquoting people and creating drama, its never a good combination.

now, someone who missed all of this media day nonsense was none other than carlos sainz. he missed media day because he didn’t feel well, came to the track the next day and did practice 1 and 2, was supposed to come the following day for practice 3 and qualifying, but was diagnosed with appendicitis and had to have emergency surgery.

now, surprisingly, this isn’t even the first time a driver has had appendicitis during a race weekend. in monza 2022 alex albon got diagnosed with appendicitis and neck de vries replaced him and ended up scoring the first williams points of the season which resulted in him getting signed to alpha tauri for the following year where he did not slay and ultimately got replaced by daniel who liam lawson then was subbed in for after he broke his hand and well, very long story short alex almost nearly died of complications, a lot of people got fired and a lot of people got hired. pretty much everything can be traced back to alex albon's appendix, somehow. and alex, predictably, was nothing short of supportive of carlos on twitter:

carlos himself is fine and doing significantly better, according to himself via instagram. and i don’t know if we have talked about this previously but carlos’s f1 nickname is smooth operator, like the song, because he will sing the song when he does well over team radio.

and in a ferrari pr video a while ago, carlos and charles told eachother their full names:

carlos found it incredibly funny that perceval is part of charles name and said it sounds like it should be a lord name. lord perceval.

and what on earth does this have to do with carlos’s appendix? well, this was his instagram story post surgery:

and then he also posted this:

which is him recreating a picture of his dad having his appendix out in 1985. man came out of emergency surgery high as hell off anesthesia and was like. ive got an idea. remember that one photo of you dad?

yeah. even in the midst of appendicitis, carlos sainz continues to be nothing short of iconic. carlos also was in the paddock for the race today, having quite literally had surgery basically 24 hours ago. although, he did aparently discharge himself from the hospital against doctors orders to be there and showed up still wearing a medical bracelet and the bandage from his iv. hes hopeful that he will be able to be back in the car for the australian gp in 2 weeks, though he has admitted that it will be fairly close on recovery time. people all over the internet are torn between outraged that carlos would refuse to give himself rest when hes Clearly being given the time to (and all the videos of him walking around the paddock were insane, hes clearly in pain and it looked like he could barely move) and impressed that he showed up to be a strategist for ferrari, watch all his friends race and also take the time to give ollie some advice (as ollie is driving his car)

now, while yes it is terrible that this happened to carlos and we do wish him a speedy recovery, we do get to see ollie bearmans f1 debut.

who is ollie bearman? well i’m glad you asked.

ollie barman is an 18 year old british f2 driver. he is the ferrari and haas reserve driver and notably this year has 6 scheduled practice sessions with haas. his name was already being thrown around as someone who could be getting a contract for f1 next year (likely at haas), but he was unexpectedly given this opportunity to show what he can do in an f1 car.

he was already in jeddah for the f2 race, and had qualified on pole position and had done the f2 sprint race when he got the call on friday morning that he needed to replace carlos (as carlos didnt actually go to the hospital until friday morning and that was when they figured out what was happening). so with a grand total of a 1 hour practice session (that was cut slightly short dude to a crash by zhou) under his belt, he was set to make his f1 debut. in a ferrari. which is positively bonkers.

now, qualifying and practice was not overly incredibly interesting (except for when charles ran over not one but two plastic bags and said "this track is just like mario kart theres plastic bags everywhere" and oscar kissed a few walls and hamilton almost smacked directly into logan sargeant during practice and zhou guanyu crashed at the end of practice three so he couldn't qualify and nico hulkenberg lost all power in his car in q2 of qualifying) so were going to mostly skip over all of that and jump right into the race cause that was where the good stuff was. here was the qualifying start order:

pole: max verstappen p2: charles leclerc p3: checo perez p4: fernando alonso p5: oscar piastri p6: lando norris p7: george russell p8: lewis hamilton p9: yuki tsunoda p10: lance stroll p11: ollie bearman p12: alex albon p13: kevin magnussen p14: daniel ricciardo p15: nico hulkenberg p16: valtteri bottas p17: esteban ocon p18: pierre gasly p19: logan sargeant p20: zhou guanyu

and so. it was lights out and away we go in jeddah, a very fast street circuit.

well, lando tried to go early. he jumped the start slightly (meaning he started before the lights went totally out) but ultimately he didnt receive a penalty for it. it did mean that he had a slower start though, which would later cost him.

also it was hilarious that he did jump the start because when he was asked in an interview the day before what his plan for starting the race was he said, very jokingly "jump the start"

immediately there were problems. as there usually are. and the problems were for our favorite little meow meows, alpine.

on the formation lap pierre gasley said over radio that he had a gear box issue (aparently the car couldn't shift past 6th gear) and ultimately he had to retire the car during the first lap. it was the first dnf of the season the grid was down to 19.

and on the 19 drivers went, around the track again and again before lance stroll crashed into a wall on lap 7. he was fine, but evidently the aston martin pit wall didnt quite understand that he was literally in the wall:

lance: "hit the wall" engineer: "ok can you bring it back lance?" lance: "no im in the fucking wall."

now this had an interesting affect on the tire strategy. see, this race is generally a one stop. meaning they box for tires one time. and lance's crash brought a safety car and a yellow flag onto the track. which shaves down the time lost during a pit stop because the cars are not going as fast.

so, even though it was very early on in the race, everyone pitted to change their tires so that they wouldn't have to later. predictably, there was a decent amount of traffic coming out of the pitlane and checo cut fernando off pretty spectacularly, almost causing an accident. this got him a 5 second time penalty.

everyone except for lando, lewis, nico and zhou.

now hamilton was not pleased that he was staying out. and lando wasnt overly pleased with it either. under the safety car he ended up in p1 ahead of max and was told to not stress the tires but try to keep his position for as long as he could. (which was kind of impossible because he had none other than max verstappen behind him, hungry for yet another victory). it was speculated that he might have been told this so that oscar could get as close to the front as possible with lando holding max up for a little.

so with the safety car ending the standings were:

p1: lando norris p2: max verstappen p3: lewis hamilton p4: checo perez p5: charles leclerc p6: oscar piastri p7: fernando alonso p8: nico hulkenberg p9: george russell p10: zhou guanyu p11: yuki tsunoda p12: ollie bearman p13: kevin magnussen p14: alex albon p15: esteban ocon p16: valtteri bottas p17: logan sargeant p18: daniel ricciardo

and off our 18 drivers went.

lando managed to stay more than a second in front of max for quite a few laps, which was good because it prevented max from getting drs and passing everyone by 20 seconds.

down in the mid field on lap 11 kevin magnussen cut off alex alboon while fighting for p11 and damaged alex's front wing. 2 laps later kevin magnussen said that he thought he might have floor damage, regardless, he stayed out.

and then he was given a 10 second time penalty for causing a collision with alex albon. not a good day to be kevin magnussen.

also on lap 13 max passed lando, retaking the lead of the race.

and on lap 14 one ollie bearman passed zhou guanyu, taking 10th position and putting himself into the points for his first ever f1 race (and lets remind everyone that he had barely 2 hours in the car prior to the race)

leclerc was able to overtake hamilton on lap 15, as leclerc had fresher tires. this began the start of an intense battle between oscar and lewis hamilton for 5th position. on lap 18 oscar tried to pass him, but ended up going wide into the runoff area and had to give the position back (otherwise he would have gotten a penalty). the fight between oscar and hamilton though revealed that mclaren had kind of shit drs (drag reduction system. basically when you are within 1 second of the car in front of you you can open the back wing of the car and get an extra 20kph per hour. oscar's mclaren was only getting an extra 13 kph with the drs)

meanwhile, perez overtook lando on lap 18, pushing lando down into 3rd position (and still on older tires)

ollie bearman was hot on nico hulkenberg's tail for 9th position, he tried to overtake him multiple times before getting frustrated and saying "mate, he's so slow" over the team radio. he was finally able to complete the overtake on lap 21

then, the 10 second penalties were not over for one kevin magnussen because he overtook yuki while going off the track (again!) and was given yet another 10 second penalty. which would weirdly come in very useful for haas pretty soon.

but first, back up in 5th and 6th oscar and lewis were still fighting it out. hamilton changed the line of his braking on lap 25 (not allowed! because it could cause an accident) and the mclaren pit wall, who were annoyed that oscar had been stuck behind hamilton for so long, reported it up to the stewards. the stewards ultimately didnt do anything with it though, much to their general chagrin and the battle continued.

speaking of mclaren, lando was still barely holding onto p3, with charles leclerc less than a second behind him. and it was lap 26, more than halfway through the race. and he still hadn't changed his tires. in the middle of him trying to defend against charles, his engineer radioed him to say "hey mate, we're probably going to go for something like the germany situation." and lando responded something to the nature of "all good mate just give me a second here i gotta push"

basically british for, buddy shut the hell up im busy.

reguardless, he was still passed by charles on the next lap.

now, lets shift back to the mid field because there was something very, very interesting going on just out of the points. a real fight for the ages was taking place between kevin magnussen and basically everyone else.

magnussen was running in 12th position. zhou was in front of him in 11 (and also still had to pit) and nico was just holding onto 10th, the last points position. but, nico still had to pit. and while there was some space between nico and kevin, it was not nearly enough to keep kevin safe from reentering back into a load of traffic after he pitted.

basically, kevin needed to keep everyone behind him and widen the gap between the back of the grid and nico to keep nico in a point scoring position.

and that is exactly what he did.

kevin already had a 20 second time penalty so he knew he was going to be coming in close to last at this point, it was not about his race, it was all about maximizing the teams outcome. and kevin had, yuki, esteban, alex and logan all just a wee bit behind him (when i say wee bit i mean they were all less than a second off of eachother) with daniel and bottas further back. his work was rightfully cut out for him.

on lap 30 yuki managed to get past kevin, but kevin managed to pass him again, regaining 12th position and keeping nico safe. he had to go a little off the track (again) to do so, but he already had time penalties out the wazoo and probably didnt really care too much. yuki did care though and said "what dangerous driving" over the radio.

but kevin kept at it. as it stood at lap 30 there was a 17 second gap between nico hulkenberg and kevin, and the total time for a pit stop was 23 seconds, so he still had some work to do.

and while he was working on that, lando norris was still running up in 4th position. still yet to pit. on lap 32 his race engineer said "ive got a question for you. at some point we are going to have to go back to plan a and then get back through all these cars. is that possible?" meaning that he was going to need to pit for tires and would he have enough time and speed to get back through everyone to try and retake 4th spot.

lando said "yes, but we should pit as late as possible." in order to give him the most time to build a gap between himself and the rest of the grid to minimize the work that he would have to do after coming out of the pit lane.

by lap 33 kevin magnussen had increased the gap between nico and himself to 21 seconds by barely using any of his electric battery power on the turns and then going flat out on the straights (as the haas had a fuck ton of straight line speed and the track itself was mostly straights). and in the words of martin brundle "magnussen is utterly destroying the race for all these cars" behind him. and he was.

nico pitted on lap 34. and he came out in 11th, 10 seconds behind zhou (who still had not pitted and would not be a problem for haas especially with kevin still managing to keep everyone behind him)

back up at the front, oscar tried once again to pass hamilton on lap 35, but went wide and had to go into the runoff yet Again, ending up having to give back the place Again. but he did come close to passing him and he did, as crofty said, "finally saw the light at the end of the mercedes rear wing tunnel that hes been staring at"

the next time oscar was ready to overtake him, hamilton pitted for softs. putting oscar in p4.

also boxing for softs was one lando norris on lap 38, and despite the slow stop, he was still able to come out just ahead of hamilton and behind ollie in 8th position.

thus started a civil war between lando and lewis. hamilton was with a few seconds of lando, who was a solid 6 seconds behind ollie. hamilton went fastest lap on lap 39, getting closer to lando, who didnt have a whole lot of straight line speed in the mclaren. lando got a black and white flag (a warning for track limits and general unsafe driving) on lap 41, still trying to keep hamilton behind him. he was trying to get ahead of ollie, and the striking distance to do so would be on lap 46, but in order to do that he would have to keep Hamilton behind him.

in the meantime, zhou had an absolutely awful pit stop, firmly planting him at the back of the grid while nico took p10 for haas. kevin was behind still managing to keep all the others at bay. talk about float like a cadillac sting like a beamer.

on lap 45 ollie's engineer radioed to tell him "norris is fighting with his tires and with hamilton now we can do it" as in stay in p7. and he did.

and to close out the race daniel ricciardo spun out on lap 49, but managed to correct himself to finish the race.

and with that. our remaining 18 drivers took the checkered flag in the following order:

p1: max verstappen p2: checo perez p3: charles leclerc p4: oscar piastri p5: fernando alonso p6: george russell p7: ollie bearman p8: lando norris p9: lewis hamilton p10: nico hulkenberg p11: alex albon p12: kevin magnussen p13: esteban ocon p14: logan sargeant p15: yuki tsunoda p16: daniel ricciardo p17: valtteri bottas p18: zhou guanyu DNF: lance stroll DNF: pierre gasley

so max got his 100th podium, ollie got his first points and f1 debut and all in all it was a good day for f1. unless you were lance or pierre. or yuki, who got a 5 second penalty post race for cutting lando off in the pit lane.

ollie was congratulated by pretty much everyone, by drivers on the cool down lap, by george and lewis right after he got out of the car, by other teams, by drivers in there post race interviews, by carlos on his instagram story. overwhelming support. several said that its only a matter of time before hes on the grid. wonderful to see.

and rightfully so! he had basically one hour of practice in an f1 car, missed out on q3 by literally only .036 of a second and came in p7 beating BOTH lando and lewis. and he has 6 f1 points and is 10th in the standings right now (doesnt matter cause hes not an f1 driver but still!!)

onto a sampling of the media this week!

-george russell cut through the williams garage for funnies and was like "??? oh?? is this the wrong garage"

-williams continues to dunk on oscar being bad at paddle. oscar continues to side eye them. there has been a paddle match proposed to occur between lando and oscar against alex and logan

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-mclaren showed their support of ollie taking carlos's spot for this weekend by saying that oscar would not be the youngest on the grid anymore (true) (they also whipped out the timeline of Fernando alonso's career again and pointed out that when ollie was born fernando was winning a first world championship)

-lando was asked about his winter break again and what he did with daniel in australia. aparently they made eggs. terribly.

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-someone at the fan stage offered to adopt oscar. he said "i am not up for adoption unfortunately, but thank you."

-alex albon called logan sargeant a frat boy. logan agreed.

-the cameras kept cutting to ollies dad in the ferrari garage during the race and he looked, rightfully scared out of his mind:

jack doohan, the alpine test and reserve driver, said during the post race show that he thought that ollies dad was on screen more than max was (jack was correct)

-lando posted support for carlos calling him both "broski" and "matey 🫶"

-oscar posted on his instagram story after the race that he is now an "expert in the mercedes rear wing" after spending so much time staring at it during the race.

-and lastly, ferrari posted this video of charles and carlos earlier in the week where charles manages to be the funniest person:

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and thats all from me. see you all in 'straylia mate

Sorry i tried to scroll past but, i know nothing about f1 other than max verstappen is fast, my dad doesnt like lewis hamilton, fast car goes in a loop and sometimes expodes. Could you give me a crash course in f1 drama? Im very intrigued. Whats the tea as it were?

a terribly loaded question, but i will do my best. i’ve talked about some of the drama before like the red bull second seat and the chronicles of haas but allow me to briefly try my hand at explaining the nightmare that is the upcoming silly season

under the cut we go

silly season is when the drivers go through contract renewals, extensions and switches. usually it’s confined to the first half of the season (march-july) but it has been known to extend all the way to the last race of the season and they like to switch people around at random sometimes. driver contracts are complex, there’s a lot of money involved and basically You Are The Face Of The Team so if you have a shit season then you make the team look bad. but at the same time you could have a shit season because you have a shit car. it’s sticky stuff.

so. there are only twenty seats in formula 1. 10 teams. each team gets two drivers. (there’s also reserve drivers but we’re not going to get into that). who ends up with a contract is largely up to the teams, they can pull the contract out from under people they can also cut you mid season. they’ve done it before.

of the 20 drivers on the grid, 14 of them have contracts expiring at the end of the year. yes. 14. you see how this could get complicated.

so let’s meet the teams.

red bull racing. they came first this year (and last year) in the championship. like aggressively first. like they won the championship by over 350 points. they are definitely the team to beat. but if you end up with a seat at red bull, you do have to deal with max verstappen being your teammate and he won all but three of the races last year. he’s the golden boy. red bull are also notoriously silly when it comes to contracts and famously swap people mid season who aren’t performing.

mercedes. merc is home to 7 time world champion lewis hamilton and they have won the championship a great many times, though not since 2021. they are kind of in their flop arc and their car the last 2 years has been pretty garbage, but they have still made it work because they were able to come in second last year.

ferrari. god help the poor little meow meows with a ferrari contract. ferrari is a notoriously great team and they’re trying to get back to the top again but their strategy every single time has fallen short. to the point where their drivers are the ones doing the strategy in their cars while driving. they came in third last year and have been decently consistent at getting first in qualifying and then getting beat by max verstappen on race day.

mclaren. they’ve definitely worked their way up over recent years. they ended fourth last year and have had some championship wins before but not nearly as many as say merc and ferrari. their team ceo (owner? director?) is a little interesting and their car started out a pile of flaming hot garbage at the beginning of the year but they did manage to get their shit together.

aston martin. they are owned by canadian billionaire lawrence stroll, father of lance stroll (one of the drivers for the team). they’ve undergone several name changes over the recent years (force india, racing point, etc). they positively slayed at the start of the season and then one day they sucked. they finished fifth in the championship.

alpine. the frenchest french team. they’re (i think?) still partially owned by the french government. both of their drivers are french. (their drivers also hate eachother but we’ll get to that. just know they’re in the middle of a modern french civil war). they had the opportunity to have a good rookie driver (oscar piastri) this past year but in a thrilling twitter battle, he publically flamed the shit out of them and went to mclaren instead (and slayed). they're usually solidly middle of the pack. they ended sixth in the championship.

williams. williams has been one of the back of the grid teams for the last many years but they have finally started to get their shit together and don’t quite suck as much as they used to. all of the points this year were scored by only one driver though (except one but we’ll get there). they came in seventh.

alpha tauri. they are the sister team of red bull. so technically redbull owns both teams (meaning they can swap drivers between teams. they like doing this.) they’ve just kind of been There for awhile but they did slay towards the end of the season when one of their drivers led the race for several laps. basically tho, this team is the gateway to redbull. they came in eighth.

alpha romeo. recently renamed to stake f1 team (but sometimes they are going to be called kick sauber. this is a whole other drama post and i’m not getting into it). they’re also just kind of there. generally unproblematic. seems that really great drivers who get ixed out of a contract for a younger driver end up here or young drivers who are in their early years are here before they go to a better team. they ended ninth this year.

haas. oh haas. goofy team. they suck. point blank they suck. they keep loosing sponsors because they suck, they don’t win ever (one time they came first in qualifying last year). they cursed themselves in australia in 2018 by not tightening their tires and its been downhill ever since. they came 10th. their team principle got let go (fired?) who’s to say today.

so those are the teams. it is important to note that:

-there is a cost cap. each team is allowed to spend no more than 135m per year.

-not all cars are equal. some things are standard. they all undergo the same testing. but the cars are all very different. so you can be a good driver but stuck in a shitty car. which makes it impressive if you are doing well in a shitty car.

let’s meet our drivers!!!

starting with the guys who’s contract is not ending in 2024:

max verstappen. 3 time world champion. 26 years old. general beast on the track. he dominated the whole season. he’s currently racing for red bull and has a contract with them through 2028.

lewis hamilton. 7 time world champion. 39 years old. he drives for mercedes. he will not leave mercedes until he retires. he really really wants to win an 8th world championship and is willing to stick it out a few more years as long as merc still believes in him. his contract expires in 2025.

george russell. the other merc driver. 26 years old. hes aggressively british and says thinks like blimey unironically. walking meme. got his merc seat in 2022 right when they entered their flop arc by getting his tractor of a williams to finish second in qualifying in the middle of a rainstorm. his contract expires in 2025.

lando norris. mclaren driver. 24 years old. he has notably never won a race in his five years of formula one (mostly because right when his car finally was good enough max verstappen was 20 seconds ahead of anyone) but he is regarded as Very Good. he has only ever driven for mclaren. and even though there is another year left on his contract there is mass speculation that he will not renew his contract with mclaren after it expires and he may move up to one of the top teams (red bull, merc, ferrari) (tho i think he doesnt hate himself quite enough to go to ferrari). his contract expires in 2025.

oscar piastri. the other mclaren driver. 22 years old. this was his rookie season and he positively slayed. like people compared his rookie season to lewis hamiltons rookie season. he also had the positively funniest start to his rookie year because alpine announced that he would be driving for them (he had been their reserve driver and in the alpine academy) and he posted a tweet that basically said yeah thats false i never singed anything with you and im going to race with mclaren instead (he dodged a bullet) and then alpine tried and failed to sue him for $4m USD. he signed a contract extension with mclaren this year and his contract expires in 2026.

lance stroll. aston martin driver and son of the aston martin owner. hes doing ok, tho there was conspiracy that he wanted to quit and have a tennis career awhile ago. but basically since his dad owns the team it seems that hes guaranteed a seat for as long as he wants one.

so now. moving onto the good shit. the people who have contracts expiring in 2024. hold onto your hats people.

charles leclerc. (everyones favorite slutty little soup can). 26 years old. he is currently at ferrari and he has been since 2019. notably, he was given the longest contract in the history of ferrari after a stellar rookie season at sauber (renamed to alpha romeo, renamed to stake f1) where he got the tractor of a car consistently into the points. having the longest contract in the history of ferrari was a flex at the time, but now its likely how he will introduce himself at therapy sessions. ferrari have fucked this man left right and center up the ass with a plastic lunchroom spork. hes talented, he can drive, and he can drive well. but the strategy that ferrari has absolutely sucks. either something is wrong with the car (see him blowing out his gear box on the formation lap in monaco, his car completely crapping out and spinning into the barrier in brazil before the race even started) or they fuck up his pit stops or put him on the wrong tires and honestly its just frustrating. but will he leave??? likely not. you'd have to pry ferrari out of his cold dead hands and at this rate that might be where this is headed though there has been some minor speculation of him going to another team like merc or red bull, but merc doesnt have any open seats and red bull is a whole other dumpster fire of drama. ferrari are going to have to pay him a boatload of money to make him stay.

carlos sainz. the smooth operator. 29 years old. ferrari driver. previously carlos was at toro rosso (renamed to alpha tauri), renault (renamed to alpine), and mclaren before signing with ferrari. he has been at ferrari since 2021 and has voiced that he would like to stay with them for however long he can. there is speculation that lando might replace him at ferrari (but landos contract is not up until 2025) and there is also some speculation that alex albon might replace him. while charles is clearly the golden boy at ferrari, carlos is slightly slower but also definitely consistent. he was THE ONLY non red bull driver to win a race this past year, in Singapore after max verstappedn was knocked out of qualifying by alpha tauri reserve driver liam lawson (more on him later) and because he basically came up with his own strategy in the car while he was driving.

sergio perez. aka checo. red bull driver. 33 years old. and oh boy here's where we open the can of worms. checo was previously at racing point (renamed aston martin) and it was very near the end of the 2020 (?) season and he was out of a contract. he had a bonkers race where he was knocked to the back of the grid and then overtook everyone and somehow ended up winning (there is more to that story but just trust me) and christian horner, red bull team principle, mr ginger spice and definite disney villain called him and said congrats sir you have a seat at red bull! well. fast forward. hes been causing problems. problems as in crashing a lot, generally not doing great and pissing the crap out of red bull. it is basically guaranteed at this point that he will not be getting a contract extension. there was actually talk this year of him losing his seat mid season to one of the alpha tauri drivers, because remember, red bull owns both teams and they can switch them whenever they want to (and they have!) but ultimately this did not happen. even though checo has a seat at red bull until the end of 2024, its mass speculated that he is going to get switched with an alpha tauri driver, probably daniel ricciardo (more on him shortly) mid season because there is a speculated clause in daniels contract that says that if checo isn't performing well in the first few races daniel is getting his seat.

daniel ricciardo. 34 years old. alpha tauri driver. man oh man what a guy. outside of being the prankster of the paddock, he has one of the most batshit careers of anyone currently on the grid. he started out at red bull and was showing real talent and skill and was on track to win things (and was!) and was there until the end of 2018 when max verstappen (his teammate) started getting preferential treatment and also red bull started having a lot of problems with their engines (which were being outsourced from Renault (now alpine) and another team on the grid) and well very very long story short he made the surprise move of the century and decided to sign with Renault (which makes no sense they're the one with the engine problems) and was there for 2 years before moving again to mclaren where he was reportedly not treated very well and had a hard time driving the car so they mutually ended his contract with them early and he basically retired at the end of the 2022 season and became a red bull reserve driver. then halfway through the 2023 season alpha tauri ixed one of their drivers, nyck de vries, because he wasnt doing well and promoted daniel back up to a full time driver at alpha tauri (which we know is only a step down from red bull) but then he broke his hand in a crash in zanvort (?) and then he was replaced for a few races by formula 2 driver liam lawson (who we will also talk about) and then he came back to finish out the season in alpha tauri after he was cleared. daniel has admitted openly that he never should have left red bull and he was given bad advice to do so. hes towards the end of his career at this point and its well known that he Really Really wants to finish out his career at red bull again. he and max have already been teammates before and they do work well together and daniel is great driver (see his comeback in texas (or maybe it was brazil?) this year). so. Pretty Sure that daniels going to get either an extension at alpha tauri or go up to red bull. thats what we all want. get this man in a red bull we need him there biblically.

liam lawson. now technically liam is not actually a formula 1 driver. hes a formula 2 driver, but he was daniels replacement for five races and there has been some speculation and some confirmed news about him so hes getting included. when he was racing for f1 he was at alpha tauri. hes 21 and looks like he belongs in the movie grease. no one was expecting him to slay in formula 1 and he positively knocked everyones socks off. the scene: Singapore. which, if you'll recall, is the one race that a not red bull driver won. this was largely because liam lawson slayed the absolute game in qualifying. the qualifying part of racing determines what order the cars start in on the grid for the race and theres three parts, the first two parts the bottom 5 drivers each time get knocked out and then the top 10 complete for the last 10 spots. liam lawson knocked BOTH max verstappen and checo perez out of qualifying in the second round by going very slightly faster than them, effectively fucking up red bulls race and allowing carlos to win. and he also scored points in that race, which no one was expecting. now thats all fine and dandy, but here's the speculation: hemlut marko (im pretty sure) (who is somehow decently involved in the decision making at red bull though i couldn't tell you how) said that he thinks that liam lawson will be in an f1 seat no later than 2025. meaning that he will probably get offered a contract this year. and hes already raced for alpha tauri. red bull have sunk a good amount of money into him. they clearly want him. so if he gets offered an alpha tauri seat in 2025, that means theres a good chance danny rics is going to red bull. do you SEE how the plot here is THICKENED

yuki tsunoda. age 23. currently at alpha tauri. and fun fact, the only alpha tauri driver to race there the whole year. he had three separate team mates. he is slaying and hes often slept on. he has a bit of a temper and likes to shout on the radio and also hates working out (they had to force him to move to italy or something to work out, long story) but hes been kinda killing it. he led several laps in the abu dhabi race this year and hes decently consistent. people think theres possibility that he could get moved up to red bull on account of the fact that he is younger than daniel and clearly has more years in him,, but there is also possibility that he might not because red bull like to make stupid decisions. and if he doesnt get moved up to rebel, will he stay with alpha tauri? we don't know.

alex albon. age 27. currently a williams driver. alex albon is another one with a batshit career. he started out his rookie year in 2019 at alpha tauri then got moved up to red bull halfway through the year when red bull decided that pierre gasley wasnt doing a good enough job (more on him later) and stayed with red bull for a solid year and a half until he lost his seat in 2021 to checo. he has been with williams for the last two years and is basically carrying the team. like. williams as a team scored 28 points this year. and alex albon scored 27 of those 28 points. and as we know, williams is still kind of in their shit arc (though they are doing much better. they didnt score any points for a solid 2 (?) years. so this is an improvement.) and if you can get a shit car to perform you catch the eye of bigger teams. now, alex has already been a red bull driver. and he was on the cusp of podiuming two separate times when lewis hamilton ran into him. this (among a few other things) basically killed his chances at getting resigned at red bull because he wasnt ""performing"" and red bull are bitches who love to win. but some people think that red bull should give him another shot. like daniel, hes already been max's teammate and he can definitely drive. but theres also talk he might go to ferrari because ferrari think that he might compliment charles's driving style (or something). but going to ferrari at this point is kind of suicide. so.

logan sergeant. age 23. the only american on the grid. the other williams driver. he just finished his rookie year. he scored a grand total of one single point this season, in texas, and it was because charles leclerc and lewis hamilton both got disqualified because the floor of their car had more wear (by literally less than millimeters) than it was allowed to, bumping him up from 12th to 10th. he has never done better than alex albon. he was also the very last driver to get a contract for 2024, with williams waiting until i think december of 2023 to announce his contract extension. clearly, hes on thin ice. but people have also said that he needs time to get used to formula 1 (other people have pointed out that oscar piastri slayed his rookie season this year and this statement about needing time is largely false). where logan ends up next year though will largely depend on how well the 2024 season goes for him.

fernando alonso. 42 years old. many people like to point out that oscar piastri is actually younger than fernando's racing career. he won tiktok creator of the year (somehow) and is also a 2 time world champion. he retired a few years ago, just to show back up again and slay. during the first half of the season when aston martin had a zoom zoom car he killed it, and then they had problems on top of problems and he didnt do well. except for that one race in brazil where he came in third, beating checo by literally .05 seconds. he hasn't really made any hints about retiring a second time and he is kind of carrying aston Martin right now (he scored 205 points this season, coming in 4th and tying in points with charles leclerc, lance stroll only scored 74 points this year.) and they did have their best year yet this year. (though they are relatively new).

pierre gasley. 27 years old. french. drives for alpine. the french team. previously he raced with toro rosso (now alpha tauri), then got promoted to a red bull driver in 2019, then halfway through the season they decided he wasnt doing a good enough job and he got demoted back down to alpha tauri. then he won a race with alpha tauri just to stick it to red bull. after the great oscar piastri contract twitter war, he was signed as alpines second driver, with Esteban ocon being the other driver (more on him soon). estie bestie and pierre (both french) were childhood friends and now hate each other for unknown reasons and basically feuded on the track for most of the season. french civil war at alpine. he scored 62 points in 2023 and came in 11th. not really sure where he will end up, it is possible that he will stick it out at alpine.

esteban ocon. 27 years old. also french. currently driving for alpine. another one with a silly bonkers career. he started out at force india and had a baller few seasons there but his teammate at the time was checo, and checo didnt really cooperate with him too much and caused some drama that cost estie bestie some places and some points. max verstappen also beat him up in the garage once. thats not really relevant but it did happen. anyway, after the owner of force india was arrested for .... i don't remember what maybe it was embezzlement or bankruptcy or something money related, the team was backed by lawrence stroll and became racing point. but all of that happened mid season and lawrence was basically like look ill back you guys for now but next year my son gets a seat (lance) so one of you two (checo and estie bestie) have to go. and ultimately they let estie bestie go even though he was more consistent because checo had more sponsors and they needed money. so he was out of formula 1 for a few years (but was a merc reserve driver) and then went to Renault, which then became alpine. he did come in 12th though overall this season, just behind pierre. so. will alpine keep both him and pierre and keep the civil war going? whos to say.

nico hulkenberg. 36 years old. haas driver. in his 200+ f1 races he has never been on the podium and he really really wants to be on the podium. unfortunately this will never happen in a haas because haas fucking sucks. and everyone knows it. he is getting towards the end of his career though. though! stake f1 will become the mario Andretti and audi team in 2026 (don't question it) and they have supposedly voiced interest in nico. so we will see if he hangs on that long to end up at audi. for now tough, hes definitely hating it at haas. though, haas are going to have a different team principle next year so maybe that will change things. i have a sneaky feeling through that haas will probably end up with another 2 rookie drivers because everyone else is smart enough to not race for them.

kevin magnussen. 31 years old. haas driver. hes another deeply interesting character. he has had one podium. in his rookie season. in his first race. and none since. kevin started at haas in 2017 and then left at then end of 2020 when he basically got kicked off because the team needed money and they wanted to bring in drivers with more sponsorships. these drivers were mick schumacher and nikita mazepin. so kevin basically was forced to retire after the 2020 season. this went decently well for haas. until russia invaded ukraine right before the start of the 2022 season and, well, nikita was Russian and it was never distinctly proven that his dads company (who was sponsoring the team) wasnt also funding the invasion. so nikita got fired and they were literally like 2 weeks out from the start of the season, down a driver. who are you gonna call? kevin magnussen! and hes been back ever since. but hes clearly getting annoyed with haas. there was one great clip from this year where his car caught on fire and he kind of just stared into to, clearly hoping it would burn for a long time. so the likelihood of him extending his contract is looking slim.

valtteri bottas. 34 years old. currently a driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo, kick sauber, whatever you wanna call it). previously, he was a mercedes driver and notoriously helped lewis hamilton win a great many championships, until he lost his seat to george russell in 2022. there was a rather awkward part of the 2021 season where valtteri knew that he was out of a merc seat the following year and kind of just chose violence. he slayed. then he went to alpha romeo, grew a mullet and made a calendar of his ass. quite the glow up if you ask me. hes also very interested in cycling. honestly though, i have my own personal speculation that hes going to retire at the end of this year.

zhou guanyu. 24 years old. driver for stake f1 (alpha romeo/kick sauber, etc etc). hes doing alright. he just finished his second season, in his first season he was majorly out qualified by valtteri but this past season he managed to out qualify him a good 6 times. which is decently good for the tractor of a car hes driving. its possible that he could get a contract extension, but like logan, its probably going to depend on how the 2024 season goes for him.

and thats all the drivers. theres also a few others i didnt talk about, like some other f2 drivers who want seats and mick schumacher, who is currently a merc reserve driver, all of which could be contenders for f1 seats. but one things for sure. this is going to be the silliest fucking silly season.

feel free to add on and peer review me