#and also thoughts specifically about daniil but we knew that

[falindankovsky]

oc asks: betrayal, desire, hide, nightmare - for falin!

Yay!! Please imagine a clapping seal here!! Also vague disclaimer of I’m very tired as I write these so if they suck it’s because I need to take a nap lol. These are also gonna be fairly longish answers as well since I love to ramble on and on.

betrayal: Has your OC ever been betrayed by someone they thought they could trust? Has your OC ever betrayed someone who trusted them? (Brief mention of abuse for this one nothing graphic but I do mention it briefly.)

Well the answer to who’s betrayed him is rather simple it’s his father Falin was a victim of abuse (emotional/psychological and Verbal.) I leave the situation of where his mother is ambiguous but she knew of how his father was treating him. The betrayal still runs deep he feels sick everytime he has to think about either, he gets very hostile around any male authority figures and very uncomfortable around any female authority figures. He has a alot of things linked to his childhood if that isn’t apparent we don’t have time to go into all of it.

As for if he himself ever betrays anyone Falin has a martyr syndrome occurring so he’s more willing to sacrifice himself then others so as a rule I don’t think he’s the type to betray others except for in hyper specific situations where he was to betray someone in order to help someone he cares for. Some examples of that one being. he can sell out a friend who’s involved in illegal activities in order to ensure Willows safety which definitely will led to said friend being killed. He also has the choice similar to Daniil to pocket the money Lara gives to buy food for the shelter he can pocket it then give it to Clara later on so that’s another tally on his optional betrayal list. Most of his betrayals are just kinda optional in nature?? Since look he believes everyone hates him because he mispronounced a word one time, I simply can not see him knowingly betraying anyone unless absolutely necessary for someone he cares about otherwise the guilt would tear him apart. As there’s no form of absolution he can find in the action.

desire: What's one thing your OC wants more than anything in the world? Are they open with that desire? Why or why not? What would they do to fulfill it?

He desires to escape his father’s shadow to escape being the inquisitors perfect daughter. Multiple people when first meeting him immediately mention his father, they don’t mention Falin’s own career he’s a rather successful psychologist as well yet he’s still only viewed under his father’s legacy. Even when he proudly introduces himself as Falin or passively aggressively corrects his surname is actually Dankovsky now thank you very much!! If you have to mention his link to someone else’s achievements let’s talk about his husbands Thanatica!! In the end his biggest desire is to be seen as himself not as the woman he was expected to be, he’s sick of living in that woman’s shadow….why does she always loom over his shoulder.

hide: What does your OC hide? Why do they hide it?

I’d have to say his possible link to the pest would count as something he needs to hide for the obvious reasons (that’s not exactly something you want people finding out.) he’d be one of the people who’s blood you have to test for the one quest in the bachelor route, which would led to a very awkward exchange revolving around that subject that also ends in Falin getting told that even if he is infected or has any link to the plague Daniil will still stand by his side with pride, his vows are a oath he lives by just like the  Hippocratic oath!! but for now maybe he should just rest a little hmmm?? And perhaps don’t expect any kisses in the meantime either.

He also has to hide the various attempts on his life that occur courtesy of a certain bar owner. It’s fairly obvious why Falin chooses to hide this one as one can imagine what would occur should he tell a certain someone about said the attempts on his life and he doesn’t want to feel guilty about that outcome (even if it is justified in the end.)

nightmare: What does your OC have nightmares about? How do they deal with their nightmares? Do they tell people, or keep it to themself?

Well post canon he most certainly does!! But I feel like most of the healers are going to have those!! Most of his nightmares would hinge off who he failed and those nightmares will slowly begin to warp into who he will fail, it warps into nightmares about his loved ones catching the pest because he failed them!! Pre-canon I think he’d have the occasional random nightmare that are very abstract and nonsensical but it still startles him enough that he doesn’t go back to sleep that night. But he has the comfort of the body laying next to him at least….a minor comfort after the horrors his subconscious subjected him to maybe in the morning he can dissect the meaning of the dream and discuss it over breakfast.

As for how he deals with them I think I answered a similar question and I said he just wouldn’t deal with it nor would he allow comfort for them since there’s no way the people around him wouldn’t be aware he’s having these nightmares. Suppose depending on the nightmare maybe he’d allow physical comfort?? Just so he knew the person he just dreamt died a horrible death is intend both alive and safe.

[meirimerens]

hi, i know you headcanon some pathologic characters to be homosexual, like Daniil, Artemy, Yulia, Stakh... what do you think their relationship with their sexuality were throughout their lives? also, i remember in one of your older answers you mentioned Daniil coming out to his mother... how exactly did that happen in your vision?

hello darling this reply has made tumblr give me that "there was an error processing your post" over 15 times now for no good reason. it's like it was too big at first but this is the same length and if you read this it means it sent. anyways.

i had posted something kiiinda similar here (below the cut) including bi characters (eva + the twins) but i had forgor to include stakh + by god i can repeat myself/elaborate (i love. repeating myself <3 for real honestly especially on this) so ooh baby here we

Dankovsky (longest because i'm writing about him so the thoughts are many) knew at a young age (like 11-12) he didn't like girls and instead did boys so he had to come to terms with it in some way Pretty Quickly. to me he was raised christian eastern orthodox, which like all christian denominations comes with its fair share of religious-specific homophobia, he wasn't particularly like. Thrilled per se. + the familial/ancestral culture comes with its own set of expectations around masculinity which homosexuality inherently challenges and the fact that he was already more into cello than like war as a kid made his father raise an eyebrow on him right. so from ages like 11-16, dankovsky was like Well i'm going to have to pretend i don't see it and hope the sky doesn't fall on my head. at around 17 it became evident that was IT really that truly what he was and there was nothing he could possibly do to not make it be this way. it came with a sort of like. acceptance that it just was going to be how it was, but he was already starting to think how he could push the Acting on It part long enough for him to maybe become busy with something else. i think as he grew up he shed the concept of "sin" as he actualized himself atheist so no "hate the sin love the sinner" for him, but you can't really pull the religious guilt out of a man raised religious ykwim. eventually as he accepted that He Was, and that by god it wasn't even a bad thing to be/started Embracing it as one more of his Transgressions (when it. not really is, a transgression comes with a degree of consciousness and will to violate a law or code, the fact that he's gay is just. how it is. that's him forever and that'd be him regardless of context etc), he started assimilating gay codes for himself (the red tie…) to be like. Yes. ykwim. he still had not met a gay person in his life so it truly felt like Him Against the World, but he started being more comfortable with the fact that he was gay. however, it still didn't stop him from started a whole… "i'm not in a relationship rn bc i'm focusing on my studies" mindset. at uni, he truly like. came into his own internally while still trying to maintain a certain ambiguousness outwardly. andrei saw right through that and, even if he's like not gay but bi, he was the first dude daniil met who was also (Loudly) into dudes. dankovsky owes andrei the first like. actual coming out to Someone else than his mommy when andrei would bait him into hanging out with other gay and bi men, dankovsky would sit in a corner not fuckin wit anyone just Soaking In The Homosexuality In The Air, and when andrei went "u got a problem with that? you homophobic?🤨" dankovsky had to go like "i don't have a problem with it at all… when it's other people" [implied: i might deal with it not too well when it's me myself]. and from that point on he was like ah fuck me [not literally] why do i bother being insecure about it. from ages 20+ he was still very much in his Married To My Work Era + as he founded Thanatica he tried to lay low to not get investigated and being very loudly homosexual was not the best way to "not make waves" so even as he settled in himself with the fact that Well he's gay and he's gonna be gay forever so he better live with it, he still stayed closeted for his safety. i think from ages 18 to current game-day 28, not getting laid pardon the frankness led to him developing like an internally Fucking Crazy relationship with love and eroticism and he might have kept himself from entering relationships because he needed someone who Understood He'd Want To Eat Him. (love wins!)

re:coming out to his momma i think she had had her Doubts for a while yknow has had her Doubts. his dad too, but from his dad's perspective it felt deeply Painful (bc when the son is gay it is the father's masculinity that is threatened.. i've spoken about it on the post i've linked in the beginning) whereas his mom didn't have that My Masculinity Threatened. dankovsky knew he was gay since age like 11-12 but only came out at around 14-15, when it became obvious for him and hard to ignore, especially as people begin to have little boyfriends and girlfriends at this age. he told his mom first because he was closest to her and she was like.

she believed him from the beginning because she had had her Doubts. for a while she didn't quite know what to do with this information as it all dawned on her that it likely meant no grandkids, no daughter-in-law to whom she could give her pretty jewelry and so on… but also i think she like. could relate her son's homosexuality to like. fucking Tchaikovsky. who attempted suicide because his marriage to a woman made him so miserable. so she was like… well. that's just how it is isn't it. she's just gonna have to make peace with it whether she likes it or not. i think eventually she came to the conclusion that she spent 9 months building him from her blood and bones and a full day putting him out in the world so it would be stupid to be mad at him for that. + that's god's doing isn't it. she can't be mad at god. and if god's mad at her son he can take it to himself. etc .

Burakh for the longest time um. Didn't know. i think he realized that about himself genuinely age 26 in the 12 days. he's going through an entire coming-of-age/coming-into-place story and i think that includes a realization story lol. i think for the longest time he just thought he didn't love anyone period. up until 20 methinks he was like "well i'm just a late bloomer". then he went to war as a medic and was like "well i'm just so fucked up in the head my mind's full of corpses that's why there's no place for love". then he went home and… lord almighty. for years he thought was just not made for love because he truly. hadn't looked the other way (he's just like me fr fr). he went from not knowing what a closet was to realizing he was in it and the door was ajar to being out and in a man's arm in the span of 12 days. he didn't really have the time to brood about what it meant for his future/himself/his relationship to his people for him to be homosexual because love slapped him across the face and he fell on his ass. as his whole story is about finding his own path and learning to cope with doing things that might not be approved of him and living with choices that are of love regardless it's truly just like. learn to cope FAST. you have way more problems. + as i think the herb brides Know i think he's not given too much grief by his community and doesn't have the religious trauma background of dankovsky. also since his parents are. well dead. he doesn't have to respond to them + his dad textually is like You're gonna have to do something boy. (and that something might displease him but that's out of his hands. and into burakh's).

.

Yulia knew early too like 12-13. she always was a tomboy as a kid and almost just like… naturally blossomed into a masc lesbian. i think from early on she was like. ok well we're coping with that. she already was going against social conventions by being an educated woman a woman in ""typically"" male professions a masculine-dressed woman so at this point the fact that she liked women that was like. well if you don't like it tough luck buddy. she always had a relatively distant (if loving) relationship with her parents so she didn't feel the need to justify herself to them + won't lie they saw it coming. they had it comin… she was not in any relationships for a while because she's kinda like Dry of a person/passionate about things most people just don't see/don't fuck with so while she is charismatic and handsome and knew she could be desired she didn't have any long-term relationship before eva because you truly need a girl who's a lil bit crazy to handle her. and vice versa. so love wins. i think that while she might not have frequented lesbian spaces like bars because her ass does not do well with crowds i think she never felt like she was So Alone like Only Lesbian on Earth. i think she did feel a sense of loneliness about it but it was also mixed with a deep sense of Well I'm Here and I'm One So Someone Like Me Exists.

.

Stakh for a little while was also that "well i'm kinda too fucked up for love" and he was also fighting for his life to be seen as a good student a good protégé a good foster son so romantic love was Far from his mind. i think he realized he was gay around age like 15-16 when it all starts to Dawn on you y'know everything Dawns on you. he was very quickly like. well that's how the cookie crumbles. i think there was a sort of immediate acceptance about the Being Gay factor but more of a restraint about acting on it because he too was like Married to The Student Behavior and didn't want to risk losing his place by isidor's side, especially since he didn't know how isidor would react to him being gay (i know what isidor did to that old man so i know he wouldn't have cared but rubin is not a mind-reader). it was truly like. well i am and i can't do much about it but i'm soo focused rn. as 18-20 came around the corner and his relationship with isidor truly felt like he was fighting for his life trying to be seen as a good student he was like I'm either going to war or becoming a monk. he was fully willing to commit to lifelong monkish celibacy because he's always been. kinda dry. kinda with issues. + i think subconsciously he was trying to not let Desire creep up on him because it would distract him from the menkhu way (nice dichotomy idiot what lies outside of it etc). he went to war [p1 lore which i abide by] and. well when you put a bunch of fit young men together away from the women of course something like this would happen. anyways he comes home having acted on his homosexuality which he is fine with + feels kinda like a weight being lifted off his shoulders but he stil hasn't tasted Desire ykwim. Want. Hunger in the lover sense. but he's like. shrugs. whatever. monk it is. he doesn't become a monk. he clings to being isidor's foster son until his knuckles go white. it ends up being for nothing. grief and anger scythe him right. and in what follows he bonds with someone who's Fucked up and who Knows Hunger and Desire and omg flushed emoji etc. (+ my belief when dankovsky comes to peter's loft to talk about god-knows-what they kinda realize pretty fast He's Just Like Me Fr and dankovsky appreciates his + peter's company kinda like he appreciated Just Sitting There surrounded by gay and bi men even if they barely talk. just knowing you're like. Not Alone. etc)

.

bit long. sorrey.

[dankovskys-beetle-collection]

Thoughts on info we have about Bachelboys Funny Hellweek

So obviously I'm looking forward to the change in gameplay, like most of us. But the change in atmosphere is REALLY what I'm super hyped about. Like, we've gotten new visuals, NPCs, all of that shiz. I'm just hoping for more songs for the soundtrack, and REALLY hoping for music that's reminiscent of classic. Give me back that weird ass electronic ambience synths ice pick you won't no balls.

But looking through the visuals, I noticed Eva has a different outfit than normal (if that is even Eva, but her pose on the piano and hairstyle suggests it).

Which isn't a lot. But it's interesting. I doubt every character is gonna get a complete redesign, but this suggests that the devs are open to changes like this to help the routes feel different atmospherically. It could also be them realizing they got too horny with her old outfit. But regardless I'm using this slight window of possibility to hope for yulia to get her pixie cut back, whether in this route or changeling's. It would also be interesting if they made Aglaya more intimidating for bachelor route, since her animations for Artemy smile a lot. I'd assume that would allude to her being closer with him, and it would fit with Daniils absolute fear of her in the beginning. that's a lot to hope for I know but y'know it would be cool

Another thing that interested me was the inclusion of a screenshot of the kin, specifically of them in shekkhen. This is probably more evidence for the changing narrative between routes like in classic, but it makes me wonder if Daniil has an option to relocate them there earlier on. It could be a situation similar to marble nest.

AND SPEAKING OF MARBLE NEST (which I replayed today to celebrate the gift of knowledge the ice gang bestowed upon us) I was reminded of the reputation being replaced with death and life for Daniil. We knew that he wouldn't have too much of a problem with rep because of classics gameplay and how he was portrayed in 2, but even in 2, towards the end he admits that the townsfolk didn't have the best opinion of him. It could be that the reputation mechanic is taken away altogether because of Daniils lack of familiarity with the town. At day 11 for the Haruspex, he notes that the town won't tell him where the final courier is. This implies that most of the maps functions come from Artemy being in tune with the town. Maybe reputation in certain districts is part of the towns whispers. This could mean that Daniil has a rep mechanic that's completely invisible to the player, if it exists at all. But I still have to wonder if the death reigns here/the living are here thing applies before he knows of the plague. Maybe he doesn't even know specific districts.

I'm assuming a lot here, I know. But I just really can't wait for my second favorite boy's gameplay. And my god I'm gonna be terrible at it.

ending off with this Artemy pose. he did that pose a lot in classic and it makes me happy that his idle animation does that now. Now i pray he does the weird unaligned jaw thing his dialogue animations in classic did because oh my god I love him.

me when I'm hated here

[meyerlansky]

from reading the P1 dialogue trees, P1 daniil is often more approachable, pompous but well-meaning, definitely in the haruspex run where he and artemy are basically colleagues for much of the outbreak, but he becomes bitter and vindictive especially after learning his lab has been destroyed, entertains thoughts of suicide, and is swayed by the kains and their schemes. there's still good in him but I feel he undergoes negative character development

that makes sense, and don't get me wrong, i love me some negative character development, but most of the comments i see about p1!daniil are that he's "the most villainous of the healers," which just... does not square with my read of p2!daniil AT ALL. as a Consummate Villain Liker i like to think i know from villains and p2!daniil just ain't it. he cares too much, he's too invested in making sure a town he could just fuckin' leave doesn't completely succumb to a disease with [as far as he knows] a 100% mortality rate.

it also doesn't help that p1!daniil, from what i can tell, is... actively racist. from jump. in a way p2!daniil never matches, not even at his most fed-up and angry. p2!daniil doesn't get backpats for Not Being A Bigoted Asshole, but it IS imo a big difference in how their characterizations play out—every other conversation p1!daniil has with artemy in the haruspex route is "savage" this, "prehistoric" that, whereas p2!daniil is interested in learning the kin's language [i've already publicly lost my shit about the convo with the clerk in marble nest so i won't do a repeat performance of that now :P] and from what i can remember doesn't ever give artemy shit for using the tinctures or talking about the plague in the context of the lines instead of using more western methods/terminology. not to make excuses for him or anything, p2!daniil absolutely says some elitist city-slicker-who's-never-seen-a-cow-in-his-life bullshit, but a. his bitching is nowhere near as racialized as p1!daniil's casual comments, and b. most of his frustration is explicitly aimed at the town leaders, not the townspeople or the kin.

which i think is the other element of p1!daniil that doesn't sync up with p2!daniil for me; p1!daniil gets sucked into the kains' bullshit and never really breaks out of it, but p2!daniil was arguably never sucked in in the first place. everyone else makes a big deal about how he's ingratiated himself to the kains, but he doesn't even mention them in the first few conversations you can have with him, he's shit-talking them to artemy by day 5, and he's pissed with the town leaders for not running things better in the conversation about grace and the mass graves. marble nest drives it home with the georgiy conversation, but he's not as taken in by the kains' ideals or interested in their power beyond what it does for him to be associated with the kains, and specifically what that association does for him to be able to contain the plague. there's a practicality to p2!daniil that i don't get from p1!daniil—artemy's little thought blurb on day 11 is like "dankovsky doesn't know how the world works" but i think p2!daniil is a little less naive than p1!daniil wrt People In Power caring about his work. it extends to aglaya, too, p1!daniil makes a big deal about how he was ~betrayed and ~lied to, and that's why she should die so the polyhedron can live, but p2!daniil knows his head is on her chopping block from the start. i didn't get the sense at all from his dialogue in the shelter that spiting aglaya had anything to do with his desire to save the polyhedron, whereas that's the main reason he gives in p1 in the cathedral. p2!daniil comes pre-disillusioned, i think. he's still ultimately an idealist, but he even distances himself from utopianism a little bit in the day 2 town hall convo. he's less vindictive when things go badly for him than p1!daniil is, and i think that has to do with being less hopeful [and therefore harder to disappoint] in the first place.

we'll see what they do with p2 bachelor route, but me personally, i don't want them to go the route they seem to have gone with his p1 ending, where his decision to save the polyhedron seems like it's partially, but significantly, motivated by spite towards the people he's been working for nearly two weeks to save. i would like to see the endings go into his grief over thanatica's destruction, which seemed the biggest motivating factor in his fixation on the polyhedron to me—with thanatica and all his research destroyed, all he has to materially support the idea that death can be defeated is the successful use of the polyhedron, the cathedral, and the crucible as vessels for people's souls after the death of the body. i've made the comparison before, but as much as peter frames the polyhedron as his daughter, i think thanatica is that for daniil, and it absolutely makes logical sense to me that he'd fixate on the polyhedron as an expression of thanatica's ideals after being told that the research he's worked on for YEARS was destroyed as soon as he wasn't around tokeep it safe. so i'd like to see the endings of bachelor route grapple with the same kinds of past/future questions artemy's endings do, but for daniil the polyhedron's survival is keeping a tight grip on the past even if it's not the healthiest thing, and letting it be destroyed and letting the town survive instead [a town that he should have absolutley no attachment to, except that he's poured eleven days of effort into saving it] representing moving forward after a heavy loss. i'm not holding my breath, but i think it would fit p2!daniil better than "the polyhedron lives, an entire town of people die, daniil fucks back off to the capital," a la p1, would.

[that's my thinking for a bachelor that DOESN'T get the doll reveal, at least. a daniil who knows he's a character in a game, who finds out all his achievements are backstory and none of them belong to him, who finds out the people writing his story don't even like him and want him to fail for their amusement.......... that's a daniil i can see getting spiteful.]

[game-set-canet]

Talk to me about anything Stefanos Tsitsipas. What makes you love him so much, what makes him such a great athlete? Anything that comes to your mind, no matter how small, I'm curious 🎾🎾

omg, I love this so so much 😍 how much time do we have?! because it's gonna be a LONG answer 🙈 

What makes me love him so much? I really don’t know, it’s the same as it was with Jorge Lorenzo: I saw him, and I immediately knew that he gonna be my favourite.

It all started with the fact that I thought his name “Tsitsipas” sounded cute and funny and that was the reason why I decided to watch a match of him.

I think the first thing someone notices about him is his hair and since I’ve a thing for men with long hair it wasn’t a big surprise that I thought that he was very handsome. Talking about the Iook: I think his hair is one of the things I love the most about him; it always looks so soft, so beautiful and I probably would sell my soul to be allowed to run my fingers through this hair. I should probably also make special mention of his half-pony hairstyle bc this hairstyle (especially Laver Cup 2019) is probably one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen (I won't mention it specifically, but he has the best ass on the ATP Tour and his thighs are really distracting during close-ups). Annnndddd he has the sweetest smile ever!

But I love the fact that it seems like Stef is always at peace with himself, that he doesn't pretend, but is himself in Interviews, in his vlogs (which are truly AMAZING! if you have time, pls visit his YouTube-Account and watch some of his videos, they’re so so good!). He is someone who thinks a lot: about himself, about others, about society and he is someone who stands by his opinion and doesn't hide behind it and even if I don't agree with some of his statements (some of his comments about Daniil Medvedev, for example), I love people who openly express their thoughts and don't just say what others or journalists and fans would like to hear. He likes to post and quote sayings and although some make fun of his "philosophical side" I truly adore it, I love his quotes and his – sometimes – quite senseless Twitter posts, they make me laugh. He also got a quite special sense of humour. i also love the fact that he has a passion for photography and filming in addition to tennis.

I think I like him because he is being himself, even though he is criticised for it. Because he does his thing, even though many laugh at him or even insult him. That's a quality I admire in people and wish that one day I could do the same.

He is also a family man with a close relationship with his parents and his siblings. He isn’t afraid of getting emotional in public; tears in the eyes or crying he isn’t afraid of showing emotions.

And as an athlete? Well, his movement on court is very elegant and his one-handed backhand is so beautiful it belongs in the Louvre. he plays very cleverly, very precisely, he’s good on the line and on the net. It’s just so so beautiful to watch him play.

I think it’s an endless list why I love Stef and I think some of those reasons are things other people might not understand or laugh about it but for me Stef means a lot. Maybe it’s the same as it is with Jorge. it’s because he is different from the others. Because he behaves differently than the others, thinks differently than the others and is just so unique that you can hardly compare him to anyone else. and he is an idiot. 💗

thank you so much for listening to my stef-ramblings 😂🤗 feel hugged!! 💕💕

sleepover weekend!

[bluemoon21-blog]

#F1 Russia preview

Russia preview

One year on from his infamous collision with Sebastian Vettel, can Russia’s Daniil Kvyat turn his home fortunes around this weekend? It’s just one of several talking points in Sochi, where Mercedes arrive optimistic that Bahrain testing has helped them unlock the secrets needed to jump back ahead of Ferrari…

Has Bahrain test handed Mercedes the advantage?

Lewis Hamilton was adamant that the post-race test in Bahrain would be crucial in helping Mercedes to get the best out of Pirelli’s 2017 tyres – and with compounds and temperatures in Russia expected to favour Ferrari, those two days of testing couldn’t have come at a better time for the Silver Arrows.

The good news for the team and their fans is that they seemed to make progress. “We came with a specific goal, so it was positive to get on top of that,” was Hamilton’s assessment. “Our focus was on advancing our understanding of the tyres and also the rear of the car so that we can improve our long runs – particularly during the race and on the supersoft compound.”

Team mate Valtteri Bottas was equally enthused, as he and Hamilton ensured Mercedes topped both days in Sakhir. “[Testing] was very good,” the Finn reflected. “We did some interesting tests to try and improve both the tyre life and the race pace – we were focusing all-day on the long-run pace, which was a bit of a problem for us on Sunday [in Bahrain] compared to Ferrari…”

Both men are now hopeful that Mercedes’ apparent advantage over single-lap runs can be translated across a race distance too – which could prove decisive in the round four of what is shaping up to a very tight 2017 FIA Formula One World Championship… WATCH: RE-LIVE LAST YEAR’S RACE IN SOCHI

Redemption for Kvyat?

Russia’s home hero came unstuck last year in Sochi, unceremoniously punting Vettel out of the race after double contact at the start. That proved the precursor to Red Bull promoting Max Verstappen and placing Kvyat back at Toro Rosso, with Kvyat admitting he was struggling to find his mojo. One year on though, the Russian cuts a very different figure.

“The first thing that comes to my mind when I think about Russia is Sebastian… As in Sebastian Vettel,” he joked. “I like to torpedo Sebastian, it’s my hobby…Okay, c’mon, you all know I’m joking! Let’s get serious now… Maybe the first word that comes to mind should be ‘braking’ into Turn 1!”

Kvyat’s upbeat mood is reflected in his form – he has made Q3 on two occasions this year (in Bahrain he started 11th), and has scored two points.

The attention now turns to Russia, where he cracked the top five in 2015, but has otherwise struggled to make an impression. “Hopefully in my home Grand Prix we can fight for more points, because that’s what we need and we have a car that can do it.”

Raikkonen desperate for signs of improvement

Kimi Raikkonen is getting impatient for a decent result – even a podium would do, after he’s had to watch team mate Sebastian Vettel take two wins and a second for Ferrari from the opening three races.

Thus far the Finn’s complaints have centred around understeer and engine response, as he’s struggled to get the SF70H working as well as his team mate. It shouldn’t be forgotten that Raikkonen turned the tide against Vettel in the latter half of 2016 of course – but thus far the four-time champion has decisively had the upper hand.

Inevitably Raikkonen is under increasing pressure – indeed Ferrari CEO Sergio Marchionne has openly talked about the need for him to up his game.

“We’re supposed to get it right straight away, and obviously, we haven’t,” Raikkonen admitted in Shanghai. “There are a lot of reasons for that, but it didn’t help in the last race, not driving the first day. When you’re going through some issues, you want to get track time.

“It’s just the small things now. In the big picture we are pretty much where we want to be – it’s just that we need to fine-tune a few things.”

The good news for Raikkonen is that he has previous at Sochi – he was on the podium here last year, and could have been again in 2015 but for a last-lap collision with Bottas.

Force India in the midst of best ever run

Finishing with both cars in the points in all three races thus far this season is one reason for force India to be happy. Another is that they are fourth in the world championship for constructors. A third, that they’ve achieved all of that with a less than fully optimised VJM10.

What’s more, the team have now scored points in 15 consecutive races, while Sergio Perez has scored in 13 straight – the best runs the team and driver have ever put together.

Deputy team principal Bob Fernley is determined to continue that form and is confident that this will be their last outing struggling aerodynamically before a big upgrade is due in Barcelona. That will include a new floor, which he is confident will address the problem of inconsistent airflow behaviour that has dogged the car since its introduction.

“I said after Bahrain that I was very proud of my team,” Sergio Perez says. “We never gave up and dug deep to recover a great result. It was even more special because we continued our run of races in the points – it’s now 13 consecutive races. When we qualified in P18, I thought it would be hard to do it, but we delivered a perfect race and really deserved that result.

“I have good memories from Sochi and our podium in 2015 shows that anything is possible. I think every driver enjoys Turn Four because it’s an unusual corner that puts high energies through the car. The rest of the lap is similar to a street circuit. Overtaking has never been easy so there’s extra pressure on getting high up the grid in qualifying.”

Fernley says the team have identified the cause of their aero problem. “Andy Green and the team have determined that there’s a correlation issue, between wind tunnel and track. We knew that in Barcelona testing. The effects were identified, and solutions put in place and it’s just a production process and it will hopefully bolt on in Barcelona and we can go toe-to-toe again, as opposed to having to defend.

“But I’m hopeful that we can alleviate the problem this weekend in Sochi, after things we learned in the Bahrain test.”

Light at the end of the tunnel for McLaren?

There is an air of quiet hope within McLaren, following events in the Bahrain test which went some way to assuaging harsh memories of engine and MGU-H failures during the race itself.

However, Honda are bringing what they describe as a reliability update to Russia. This will be an interim version of the counter-measures which were introduced successfully enough in the test to enable Stoffel Vandoorne to complete 81 laps and set the day’s fourth fastest time.

“The past few races for us have been more unpredictable than we had hoped or imagined,” says racing director Eric Boullier. “We haven’t yet managed to put together a trouble-free weekend on either side of the garage, which is the first step in order to be able to work on performance. Honda are working hard to find solutions to the MGU-H issue we have been suffering with, and on the McLaren side it’s important we make sure all of our operational processes and procedures are bulletproof all the way down the line, so that we can at least see the chequered flag with both cars.

“Following the test, we’re working hard on bringing more new parts to Sochi, and chassis-wise we are confident in the development path we are taking and constantly working to find extra performance wherever we can. Both drivers report positively on the feeling inside the car, so it’s important we continue to build on this as the season progresses.”

Alonso says a positive result for the team would be to finish both cars, after all the recent reliability problems.

“I followed the test in Bahrain and I’m pleased that we were able to secure a lot of valuable data from both the car and the power unit, and I know everyone at McLaren-Honda is working hard to put that to good use to aid our progress as quickly as possible. The season is long, but there isn’t much time between races – especially flyaways – for development, so the laps we managed on the final day of the test were a big positive for us and hopefully will be beneficial to us.”

Pirelli go soft

Pirelli are bringing their three softest tyre compounds to Sochi, the P Zero yellow soft, the red supersoft and the purple ultrasoft.

Sochi Autodrom is so smooth that degradation levels are among the lowest seen all season, as it imposes limited demands on tyres. It’s the right front that does the most work here. As the weather is usually mild, thermal degradation is usually pretty contained.

Turns 2 and 13 require the heaviest braking, while the final sector places a high premium on traction and braking, not unlike Abu Dhabi. The most demanding corner meanwhile is Turn 3, the multi-apex left-hander.

With very high full-throttle time, the race sees the highest fuel consumption of the year.

The weekend’s outlook

Conditions are forecast to be sunny all weekend, with temperatures peaking at 21 degrees Celsius on Friday, 22 for Saturday and 23 for raceday on Sunday.

Source: Russia preview – can Kvyat find home race redemption?

from #F1 Russia preview