#but then it’s melbourne so… landoscar…

[beabnormal24]

Oh sweetheart, we know.

[lqvesoph]

THIS WAS SUCH A GOOD RACE

[landograndprix]

╰┈➤ ❝ desire • l.n c.l ❞ ix

part eight - part ten

➪ Charles hasn't paid much attention to you after your daughter was born but a certain Brit does.

➪ nothing in your life ever seems to go normal and it takes everything in you to not break down.

➪ mom!reader x dad!Charles x lando

➪ get y'all pitchforks ready, we're going to war

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milliexoxo posted to their story

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y/nusername

📍 Melbourne, Australia

liked by milliexoxo, landonorris and 599,999 others

y/nusername week 3. 🇦🇺

view all 1,156 comments

milliexoxo great now I need a koala

↳ charliecharlie you already have one and her name is Zoë 🐨

milliexoxo zoë is a little monkey 🙊

yukisan thanks for the picture at the airport, you're the sweetest 😭

chilisainz praying for you bestie, hoping they don't put you with Danica again 🙏

↳ bott_ass one of these days y/n will loose her marbles

chilisainz and something tells me it's not going to be pretty

julieeeexo I need that hat for my daughter, where'd you get it from?

charlesgirlies zoë is getting so big 😭

charles_leclerc ma petite Zoë ❤️ (my little zoë)

↳ leclerc_16 something tells me she's a daddy's girl 🥰

norry4 girl open your eyes, she's mommy's girl through and through

norrizz did we all forget that moment at the airport where zoë didn't stop crying until lando picked her up? 😂 she's one of us, a lando girlie

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y/nusername

📍 Japan

liked by charles_leclerc, milliexoxo and 423,324 others

y/nusername week 4. 🇯🇵

view all 1,534 comments

landoscar favorite gp! ���

hamilt44n I hope you're doing okay bestie <3

lancestrollie thank god they didn't fire you 😅

↳ rizz-nolando why would they fire her? There have been people on the track who said more unhinged things..

lancestrollie yeah but she's a woman..😅

rizz-nolando the only woman they should fire is Danica lmao

carlandooo where's zoë? 🥺

↳ norrizz probably with her dad? Y'all are aware y/n is a person of her own right and not just zoë's mom, Charles ex, lando's gf etc etc 🙄

carlandooo wait..lando and y/n are dating? Did they confirm it???

norrizz no but it's obvious isn't it?

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Desire taglist; @fangirl-dot-com @sainzluvrr @writingworlds @chezmardybum @lewisvinga @xjval @fanficweasley @rockyhayzkid @aundercover @thecubanator2 @minchedchilli @crimeshowjunkie @alisoncasey21 @eeviepepi08 @shamelesspotatos @sleepybrokenmelle @leireggsworld @janeholt3 @iamahalicinationn @dessxoxsworld @kapsylia @22yuki @dark-night-sky-99 @sheslikeacurse @nerdreader

Everything taglist; @thomaslefteyebrow @hopefulinlove @smoothopz @softboystarkey @honethatty12 @cixrosie @parkersmjs @ireadthensuetheauthors @celestialams @be-your-coffee-pot @heli991113 @kodzuvk @reality-is-a-con @80sloverry @bibissparkles @myescapefromthislife @lanando4 @elliegrey2803 @ravisinghs-wife @harrysdimple05 @minkyungseokie @pretty-little-bunny382728 @thatgirlthatreadswattpad @severewobblerlightdragon @cherry-piee @namgification @mycenterfold @devineendevers

Lando taglist: @beatricemiruna @simp-for-fictional-people @landossainz @christianpulisic10 @bored-brunette2 @i83andrew

[cretaceos]

landoscar is so “you know how to ball, i know aristotle” cause oscar is always getting the historical/nerdy questions right while lando struggles with them.

oscar knows important achievements he did and surprisingly he knows lando’s too (like he knew his first podium).

oscar passed his driving test first time, while lando didn’t because he got theory test wrong. oscar just knows cities they go and lando didn’t know what grand prix were in asia, and also lando looks at him everytime they’re ending a video ‘cause he just doesn’t seem to know the next race. (this is so cute btw)

oscar knows which drivers have won in melbourne before, he knows aussie people on the sport, he knows years where these people won, he knows when mclaren won in australia.

on the other hand, lando knows about games, e-sports, and he likes golf, football, tennis. they even played padel together but lando said oscar is bad at it (which again, there is serious allegations proofing that). he likes motogp, knows how to play guitar and drums, even tried motorcycle racing before going karting.

lando said him and history is a no, and oscar said he thinks golf is boring, lando ranked horror movies very low, oscar said consuming true crime content is a green flag. somehow they end up having this opposite sides.

idk i just love this dynamics so much. :(

[mecachrome]

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

0. introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

oscar and logan in 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

then, of course, lockdown happened.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

oscar with mia sharizman

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

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

of his own f2 campaign, oscar said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[inchidentally]

hiii inch!

as the resident landoscar scholar/essayist in the community, i'm curious about your take on their debriefs! ps. i love them both equally so i'm not trying to favor one over the other, just genuinely curious about your thoughts on it :)

it definitely could just be them having different styles of communicating and/or explaining things but i've noticed that whenever lando wins, he always shares his gratitude/appreciation for the team and oscar (even when oscar didn't directly 'help' him) and oscar will give lando credit for winning but then just talk about how bad he did in the race

yet whenever oscar wins, not only does lando hype him up, but he doesn't talk about himself in the debrief & oscar (at least not to my knowledge) has yet to thank/acknowledge lando for contributing to his win (& strangely enough has always thanked sponsors instead??)

so yeah, i hope this isn't too ramble-y & i hope you have a great day! <33

your timing is insane anon bc while scholar and essayist are wayyyy too nice ways to describe me being overly consumed w a hyperfixation, I was actually noticing things similar to your ask in comments sections and had written something that I wasn't sure about posting ! but I think it's worth it simply bc there is such a huge misfire with interpreting Oscar going on - totally not saying you are, anon and you were very clear in what you've said and I rly appreciate you wanting to know my take <3

- first thing to dispel is “Lando thanked Oscar for his first win/for helping make his first win happen” - he didn't! he thanked him for showing what the car was capable of with overtakes. I know I know! reality isn’t as bromancey but the sweetness of it was Lando giving Oscar’s drive a little shout out, but it was not him thanking Oscar for helping with his win. that's why they all chuckled when he stated the reason. and the sweetness remains <3<3 gotta clear that up bc there is no lingering double standard going on there. it’s the same as Oscar praising Lando’s drives. (also, apropos of this ask and ppl seeing Oscar as deficient - contrast that with how Oscar did very deliberately thank Lando for welcoming him to the team!)

- the other thing to dispel is the recency bias of thinking Lando praises and mentions Oscar this much on a regular basis/Oscar doesn’t mention Lando at all (anon, I know you’re not saying that btw). now! reality is that Lando's POV =/= his stans' POV. so from his perspective, as of recently he feels a need to assert himself to the media as a team player and to acknowledge Oscar more and make it known that he acknowledges Oscar helping him in similar ways. I’m not even going to dip a little toe into the reasons why, all that matters is that this is what Lando sees as something he needs to do and say right now especially. plenty of team orders instances and races have gone by where Lando doesn’t mention or acknowledge Oscar or Oscar’s help and plenty of times where Oscar has been the one to bring up and praise Lando where Lando hasn’t etc etc.

to the point where !! last season we had people concerned that Oscar was so Lando-centric and mentioned him so much and was such a great team player with team orders and being happy and supportive for Lando’s successes even when his own race was misery or the result was gutting or he just lost out on a podium - but that Lando wasn’t bringing Oscar up at all or acknowledging Oscar’s races. the turntables etc! literally had the flip situation! (even extending to this season in Melbourne where Lando got so wrapped up in his Quadrant filming and podium he kind of forgot it was Oscar’s literal hometown race salfsafjlah in the post race press conf a journalist brought it up and he was like ‘oh’ - like, Oscar was not upset about that he just wanted a podium!)

and guess what - in both cases it was never a problem for either Lando or Oscar!

seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how much what teammates like Lando and Oscar say to the media and fans is for the media and fans and NOT how they actually communicate to each other as people. Charles and Carlos openly admit they’ll bite chunks out of each other at times in media but then they see each other in person, immediately hug and are totally fine. PR is PR. it’s either not reality or at best it’s a publicly-framed version of it. which leads to…

- Lando and Oscar don’t do the PR or the bromance thing. instead they giggle and side-eye their way through having to do scripted stuff and media interviews, and thankfully their occasional shared-brain thing and contrasting personalities are fun enough for most fans to enjoy. and literally the fact that they beam into each other’s faces Like That and it’s incredibly endearing. which is exactly how they handle these post race videos - trust me, they are not sitting there in media talking the same way they do in their little closed off world of just their drivers rooms and no one else. or even when cameras are off and they’re just around the team or other drivers. equally, they aren’t viewing how they talk about each other to media and fans as relevant. it’s solely how they talk to each other.

- Oscar is an acts of service guy; Lando is a words of affirmation guy. as Lando fandom has so much discussion around mental health*, it is very worth reminding that mental health inclusivity means learning the different ways that different personalities express affection and friendship! there is not just one way! clearly, Lando is very happy with having a teammate who may not talk much but his fondness of Lando makes up multiple compilation videos and posts about being absolutely whipped when it comes to … almost anything Lando wants or prefers (“nope, I’m gonna keep you happy”). and paying such close attention to Lando talking that he helps fill in the blanks when Lando’s brain struggles in public. and watching closely when Lando looked like he might trip over his own race suit. 

- it’s worth mentioning here that Oscar inspires genuine affection in people who gain absolutely nothing from openly liking him. he maintains friendships from his early karting days, still has a group chat from the boys in his boarding house at school, and has been with Lily for 4 or 5 years now - but all of those people either have private social media or have remained so thoroughly normal that they’re undetectable. Tom Stallard, his race engineer, and Andrea Stella have taken to Oscar like a nephew/son despite Oscar not being a demonstratively emotional person (and how for himself he views extreme emotions on par with negative emotions which is innnnteresting!). bear in mind that Andrea and Tom remain very fond of Carlos and count him as a friend still, so their judgment is very much to be trusted <3 if you look up Oscar’s mum Nicole’s episode on The Red Flags Pod she confirms that he’s truly Just Like That and his family adore him. there’s also this tiny but very telling moment of Oscar sending a journalist gifts for their new baby and the fact that The Fast and the Curious Pod (wholesome nerds HQ) view Oscar as their child. and that Abbi Pulling thinks he’s “too nice to be a racing driver”. it’s healthy to learn how to receive love and affection from people based on how they are naturally and comfortably rather than expecting them to behave in ways that are more socially the norm/seen as "acceptable"! 

*and side note it’s extremely gross and anti-mental health the way certain F1 fans have genuinely decided to interpret Oscar’s personality type as evil or cold or unfeeling. that is so profoundly backward and bigoted boomery thinking. yes it’s fine to joke a bit that Oscar’s a baby-face killer or robotic IF you make it clear it’s not true. but when I get sent links to adult women on tiktok claiming that Oscar’s mother and sister are part of some grand PR scheme orchestrated by McLaren to manipulate and maximize Oscar’s image then we’ve officially left the whole ‘I support mental health’ thing and entered ‘I persecute and suspect people who don’t fit a socially acceptable norm’. because of all the drivers who quite literally do orchestrate and manipulate PR for growing their careers or their impact (which is fine btw!!) sorry, Nicole’s sporadic social media presence is not remotely skillful PR and Oscar’s little sister is a college girl using tiktok to talk about her own interests. and if Oscar was trying to PR his way into whatever gain people imagine an introvert who dislikes being on camera could possibly gain then he’s doing an abominable job! his sponsors are still the ones he’s had since before F1 (including his dad’s company), his social media is as standard and bland with highly irregular sprinklings of personality, and he isn’t branching out into anything outside his racing career. like, sorry to destroy anyone’s insane projections of some grand plan onto a guy who truly is just happy to have his job and hang out with his friends and his girlfriend lasfgljsagfjlagfslagfsaj

so anyway, when Lando and McLaren team and staff members love on Oscar, it’s because it’s real and they clearly feel reciprocation from Oscar despite it not being traditionally emotional or verbal. plenty of teams and teammates can be neutral to fully disinterested in a driver and it's fine for it to be like that. if nobody actually liked Oscar or found him cold or unfeeling, they would make little to no effort to seem like they love him or like him. F1 isn't team sports, the whole public face of it aspect just doesn't exist outside of backmarker teams who need social media engagement to keep sponsors happy.

- Oscar is famously Not ! a public speaking/on camera/PR/media person and you can see in their early 2023 stuff how much Lando helps him (this video esp is painfully cute bc Lando encourages and praises him and Oscar’s so pleased he does a song and dance). ask any longtime Oscar fan and they’ll tell you he’s leaned on the energy of extroverts and PR skilled people his whole racing career. and no, he really does not try to be a meme that's just what happens to awkward introverted ppl who have to be on camera a lot ;__;

- Lando used to be just as uncomfortable as Oscar with this stuff! and he’s said many times he has learned and adapted to be better at public speaking and media work, just as Oscar is learning! Carlos basically socialized and raised Lando from shy, twitchy mumbly little introvert to the person he became around 2021/2022. and we all observed how Lando basically copied Carlos and Daniel’s sense of humor to develop the bromance content we all know and love. and he does the same with Max F on streams as well. I wish I could find it but he said in one of the early winter break 2023 streams how he ‘usually lets other people do most of the talking and he interjects occasionally’.

-re the “thanking the sponsors” thing: to help Oscar get by on camera, especially with spontaneous speaking, Oscar uses little ‘scripts’ he’s worked out and approved of ahead of time so that he doesn’t have to deal with the white noise that hits him when having to speak spontaneously (the famous little ahhhh’s and uhhhhm’s and long delays he has before answering). which is why things like thanking the sponsors has been in rotation lately since it’s something Andrea said (remember him being teased for saying 'we're in Austria' x 50? and repeating the bit about his wisdom teeth? and the refrain of ‘my girlfriend says…’) because he’s just trying to get out something he knows is acceptable and palatable. compare the stiffness of his post race videos with when he’s one on one with an interviewer (the Laura Winter one is great) or filming non-scripted stuff w Lando and you can see the difference between him feeling under pressure vs how he expresses himself when he’s relaxed. 

- it’s genuinely weird and adorable how Oscar doesn’t use gushy language or do PDA with Lily or Lando, but in exactly the same way with both he loves bringing up their little quirks or what they disagree with him about or things they like that he doesn’t etc ??? idk if they’re secretly very similar or what but for some reason Oscar shows his affection for them only occasionally in plain terms, but mostly by bringing them up seemingly for no reason and in extremely mundane ways ?? idk it’s just a very very cute observation I wanted to point out and he doesn’t do that with any other people aslfgsljagfafgl

so yes, those are the Things To Know about Oscar and his relationship with other people and with Lando to explain why he isn’t like Lando, Carlos, or Daniel. and that whether or not Lando or Oscar bring each other up or acknowledge each other in media duties is not something to get stuck on because that’s not something they personally pay attention to in their relationship. we got used to a specific almost identical type of teammate relationship with Lando’s previous two - and even other teammates who are less close all follow a similar pattern of humor and media friendly behavior. but Oscar is weird, Lando is weird and just adapts better, and they’re both very weird together. they can mindread when not under pressure and they obsess over details about each other’s food and choices etc and go off on bizarre tangents about naps and music and they don’t like posting content about their downtime together/purely social hanging out. oh and they openly complain that they want to spend more non-racing time together as if they couldn’t just… do it more ?? yea they’re just like that.

somehow I have more to say but it’s mostly observations so under a cut it goes (but the stuff above is basically the main points I wanted to make!)

a lot of misconceptions have happened both because Lando's grown and changed so much since the start of 2023 and because Oscar's real personality is so slow to be revealed... and tbh it's def yet to be understood fully by a lot of people…

Lando very openly kicked against the idea of being the older/more experienced big brother role widely expected of him when Oscar was announced for Mclaren (to this day he jokingly but semi seriously says he envies Oscar’s “youth”). Lando had spent the previous four years as little brother and gotten very comfortable in that role. around Austin 2023, he realized Oscar was happy to look after himself and didn't need serious help with anything except media/PR/public speaking. this is where Lando found his big brother role and ran with it happily. it’s where the Finish the Lyrics video happened and we saw a major shift in the landoscar dynamic.

take Lando’s initial insecurity trying to figure out the dynamic with a quiet, low energy rookie and contrast that with how someone five years behind in experience to their teammate is NOT as secure of his position** and has much more to prove. yes Oscar has a contract but he knows better than anyone !! that those are not set in stone or immutable. he frequently has said - and his mom has said - Lando's place in F1 is already established as a front-runner. therefore Oscar's job is to push himself and prove himself to that level.

all of which is why you can’t look at Lando and Oscar in media - or even on track - and mistake their closeness in age for being able to judge them similarly. 

**the refrain of 'why can't he be a support driver until Lando gets a WDC' is easy to answer: for one thing absolutely NO driver wants that and for another, he very understandably does not assume he has the space or stability to just not try his hardest unless specifically asked by the team. 

without opening a can of worms on my personal opinions, I’ve consulted my family/friends of family who have been F1 obsessed since I was born - and the reality of guys who are seen or who actually are ‘support driver’ (not rly an official term but we all know what it is) is NOT the same as a number 2 driver, and neither of those are even options for Oscar. 

a number 2 is a driver seen as having become relatively disposable compared to the number 1 and who just wants to keep a seat in F1 despite the insult. they will at least tacitly accept that their role is to follow team orders and suck it up while number 1 chases the glory (whether that’s points or podiums). a number 2 has a limited life span either because his skill drops off and he becomes a liability or because he can’t stand it after a while.

a support driver is someone who either brings money/sponsorships/a unique regional fanbase and can occasionally or at least theoretically compete with their teammate. and who for whatever reason is judged as the guy who has to suck it up when the other guy has a better shot at the glory. but if the other guy falls behind or suffers a DNF, the support driver is automatically the number one. and if the support driver has a shitty season or the gap in ability widens between him and his teammate, he retains his seat anyway because of the money/sponsorships/unique regional fanbase he brings. so basically, he’s pretty damn safe.

Oscar does not bring money, sponsorships or a unique regional fanbase. Australia doesn’t need convincing to be invested in F1, Oscar’s sponsorships are peanuts compared to what sponsor-grabber Zak Brown already has and Oscar’s funding ran out before F1 and his career only continued because of Mark Webber taking an interest in him (for more on that, see K’s excellent primer - you can scroll down to the screencap of a sheet with a lot of numbers on it for that particular part). and despite insane conspiracy theories about him, Oscar’s PR and image not only don’t have anywhere near the numbers of many other drivers, he also had to recover from the immensely bad PR following Alpinegate. he had most fans of McLaren, Alpine, Danny Ric and Lando (as the prospective teammate) all hating his guts before he’d even stepped into his first papaya race suit. all he’s had getting him past all of that was his promise from F2 and F3 and then his improvement as a driver.

so that’s being support driver out of the question.

and also referencing Mark Webber, without leaning too cornily into the obvious like… no, Oscar’s not going to be the one F1 driver to be okay with the idea of being a number 2. his own mother said how he viewed potentially having Lando as a teammate as advantageous for a rookie because he wouldn’t be expected to match up immediately. the flipside of that is what he’s had to achieve and become immediately after his rookie year in order to be seen as around Lando’s level. his job is to prove to McLaren and to his race team that he's going to try and bring them the best result on every outing. if mathematically that means team orders in favor of Lando then fine, which he's more than proven he'll do. but without said orders, Oscar's job remains to try and get at the very front - just like it is Lando's. there isn't an option or a reason for Oscar to just... intentionally fail or ease off that responsibility (again, unless ordered to).

so that's a no go for being a number 2 driver.

and some more about Oscar and mental health for those who think it only applies to drivers who talk about it frequently: Oscar has talked about how, when his dad came with him to the UK, initially Oscar felt he had "too much time to think". and about his difficulties in moving all alone to boarding school (“sacrificing” being with his family) on the other side of the world at fourteen. I cannot for the life of me find the post again but he even hired a sports psychologist to help him. he’s always been called mature and competent for his age and he and Lily seemed to just go right into domestic almost-married codependency after about two years together. there’s a whole school of thought about children who leave home early and parentification and boarding school syndrome etc but that’s getting way too speculative for even me to go into. but basically, Oscar leapt into a lot of unknowns without a lot of the usual safety nets drivers have/have had. he's had to be self-reliant in a way that's not common among the extreme privilege of the average F1 driver and for those who have it similar to him, they have a similar outlook and approach***. so to mistake his confidence and determination for cockiness or coldness is as wildly off as people misinterpreting Lando’s genuine honesty for him being a cocky asshole. overall, Oscar’s self-assurance and maturity are why he’s continued and succeeded in such a volatile sport and pipedream career because compared to a lot of other drivers on the grid, he has not had a smooth or assured journey.

***obv in reality, apart from Ocon and Hamilton, we're always talking about very relative disadvantages. but Oscar is absolutely in the class of drivers who have to live far away from a family support system and who financially were not guaranteed career progression.

by contrast, Lando was a totally unique phenom and had big, welcoming hands grab him as a teenager and bring him into the McLaren and F1 fold. pundits and cameras and fans all saw him bringing drinks to Alonso and toddling around being helpful in the garage before his time with the team had even come. by the time he drove his first F1 race he was already everyone's beloved baby and Carlos basically got a crash course in parenting as he took full responsibility for socializing Lando and even having to cope with his teenage mood swings. Lando also had a comparatively gentle learning curve by dint of being so immensely talented and exceeding expectation for his age - but also always having older, more experienced teammates as his nearest competition. I will say he made sure to state he didn't want people to give him bias simply because his teammates had such an advantage of experience - and that he personally judged himself equally against them (to his detriment of confidence sometimes!). but it's only logical that people would factor in the age gaps anyway. by the time he'd entered his third year in F1 he was firmly established, had one of the largest fanbases and McLaren couldn't have made it clearer how badly they wanted to keep him from the clutches of other teams.

again - very much NOT saying that Lando doesn't feel the need or pressure to keep proving himself because he absolutely does, but it's still a VERY unique and unusual first few years in F1 !! 

Oscar had a very different experience of not knowing if he could progress after winning F2, having to hang around in reserve and then show up at McLaren without much fanfare (except the unanimous walls of hate from Danny Ric fans, Alpine fans and McLaren fans) and work from the backmarkers up with the team to prove himself - all while those months before the upgrades were spent with fans united in wanting him to fail and celebrating his difficulties.

so yea, all even more worth bearing in mind when it comes to how Lando takes the approach of speaking about Oscar and the team from a proprietary sense of pride - versus Oscar still focusing on his own races because it’s normal for young drivers early in their careers to be more focused on proving themselves and asserting themselves in order to become established in the way Lando is now. they seem so similar in so many ways but when it comes to their positions in the team and in the sport, it’s well worth remembering that big gap exists and why it makes them different sometimes - but that crucially, they end those post race videos united either in misery or in happiness and pride <3

I AM SO SORRY TO EVERYONE WHO READ THIS FAR GOD I WON’T SHUT UPPPP

[notheroicnotromantic]

la plus belle des malédictions (wip wednesday edition)

the best of all curses 

good morning, happy new year and happy first wip wednesday of 2025 <3

roughly 4,5k of a 30k WIP

sequel to la pire de bénédictions

fluff, domestic landoscar, rookie!lando living his best life with his cute boyfriend, clock the angst set up? 👀 oh SMUT! almost forget about that one 😩

barely edited (sorry)

hope you enjoy <3 “Lando, would it kill you to just do me the favour and go with this, please?”  “Okay, shutting up now,” Lando raises his head in a non-threatening stance. “I’m all yours.” Oscar continues to take them through the park then, until they make it to the Greenwich Observatory. Lando can’t help but smile at Oscar. “We’re watching stars?”

-

 2026 MIGHT BECOME THE MOST INTERESTING SEASON IN F1 YET – AND HERE’S WHY

In 2025 we saw McLaren’s Oscar Piastri take his first WDC title, while the Constructor’s Championship went to Ferrari. Just the year before Max Verstappen was able to achieve his 4th WDC title while McLaren received their first team championship in 26 years. That’s four different winners in the categories just in the last two years…

That comes down to one simple thing: the margins between the top contending cars are smaller than ever. Naturally, that means there’s a good chance the same will go for the 2026 season, even though there will be different regulations.

Not only that, but we’ve had some of the most promising rookies of the last years join the grid in 2025. There’s Ferrari reserve driver Oliver Bearman, who drove into the point’s multiple times with HAAS, as well as Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the 8th place finisher of the last season and - who could forget 21-year-old Lando Norris. Finishing 6th in his first season with McLaren, managing a first race win at the final race of the season. 

Of course, there is the argument Norris’ would have achieved his first career win earlier, if the team hadn’t swapped him with Piastri back in Silverstone, but the team decided to prioritize the Australian’s championship bid – a gamble that paid off. 

It’s clear however, that McLaren has two strong drivers in their line-up and if Lando Norris has been doing his homework over winter break, there’s a real chance he’ll be a threat to his teammate this year!

-

January 2026, London, UK 

Lando Norris is shaking in his place by the door, excitedly waiting for his boyfriend to arrive. They’ve been dating for barely more than four weeks, but it somehow feels like he’s always had this. The comfortableness when they’re close, the sweet touches, the way the older will take care of him.

Most days, Lando wonders if he’ll ever stop swooning over every one of Oscar’s small gestures. He hasn’t said it out loud to the other yet, the fact that this is his first serious relationship. It scares him a little, still. Making it obvious how inexperienced he is, compared to his partner. And since their relationship is so new, they weren’t able to spend the holidays together.

Oscar had made his way back to Monaco to get his things, and flown out to Melbourne afterwards, while Lando had taken the drive up to Bristol. Shutting himself away in the Norris’ family home and eating his weight in gingerbread and chocolate. Here’s to hoping Jon will let him smile away the extra pounds on the scale once they return to Woking in a couple of days. 

(The chance of that happening is close to zero, but Lando won’t stop believing until he sees the disappointed frown on the older Brit’s face.)

Now, the younger is waiting for Oscar to arrive in London – Lando wishes desperately he could have picked him up at the airport, but Oscar had pointed out (in this very dry and adorable way of his), that they’re not trying to come out right now. It’s fair, but it made Lando a little sad all the same. Aren’t drivers allowed to be friends; he wondered as he was getting into bed last night. Luckily, any grievance washes away by the perspective of holding Oscar in just a few minutes.

The last few days had been spent trying to clean every single surface in his flat to perfection, rearranging pieces of furniture and trying to do some grocery shopping. Lando even went to the fancy Australian shop on the other side of the city, getting some Tim-Tams, he knows Oscar will be craving in no time. Yeah, Lando’s going to be the best boyfriend ever. 

His phone chimes with a notification, startling Lando bad enough to flinch. It’s Oscar, telling him he’s almost there, and Lando feels the way his legs turn to jelly. It’s fucking ridiculous getting so nervous, he knows Oscar loves him. Well, he’s stuck trying to believe it, but he’s been getting better in recent times. Swear on his life.

The doorbell rings next, and Lando jumps into the air, opening the apartment door in the next breath – and there he is. Lando’s lovely, beautiful boyfriend. Just as stunning as he was, the last time they had seen each other. Oscar’s hair is a little flat, and his eyes are tired, knowing the Australian, he barely managed to sleep on the aeroplane at all. It’s still the best view, Lando’s ever seen. 

“Hi,” he breathes, and then there’s an equally as big of a smile spreading on Oscar’s lips.  In the next second, Oscar opens his arms wide, as he’s stepping through the door. Lando can’t do anything but leap into the other’s hold. 

Oscar probably didn’t expect quite such an enthusiastic greeting, the way they both go off balance a little, but Oscar manages to steady them as he’s gripping Lando underneath his thighs. “That excited to see, me?” 

“Shut up, muppet,” Lando grins, looking down on Oscar (something he doesn’t do often, admittedly) from his place, locking his arms around the older’s neck. “Don’t worry, baby, I’m just as happy to finally have you, where you belong again,” Oscar sighs, before they meet in a soft kiss. It’s not intense or particularly sexual, despite the fact that Lando’s been suffering blue balls for weeks (getting off via telephone sex turns out to be quite difficult when they’re both in houses filled with their respective family members), but it’s still amazing.

They’re trading gentle kisses, as Oscar kicks down the door behind him (oops) and carries Lando to the couch in the middle of the room. He plops the younger down on the cushions, pushing him back to lie down as he traps Lando underneath himself. 

There are hands running through Lando’s curls, tightly pulling on the strands as Oscar pulls him into another kiss. It’s messier now, more desperate. A clash of tongues, that ends in Lando losing the fight for dominance as Oscar starts exploring his mouth. Content, Lando sighs into the kiss as Oscar separates from him and starts to press kisses onto his neck. Just as Oscar’s pulling down the collar of Lando’s hoodie, they get interrupted by the loud rumble of a stomach. 

Giggling, Lando pushes Oscar away, “Hungry?”

“Yeah,” Oscar scratches the back of his head, “I don’t think airplane food is getting better anytime soon.” 

“Good thing I planned ahead then. There’s lasagna from the place across the street waiting in the kitchen for you,” the Brit points towards the door to their right side and Oscar’s up in the next second. Holding out his hand for Lando take, “Up you go, princess.” Lando feels a little dumb about it, how much that nickname makes him tingle inside. Though Lando supposes everything Oscar does, makes him blissful. 

He hopes this feeling – this pure happiness – will last forever. That they’ll always find it themselves to love each other, laugh with each other, return to each other’s arms at night. No matter what happens. Maybe, he’s naïve for believing in something like that. 

Oscar interwinds their fingers on the short walk to the kitchen and it makes butterflies dance inside Lando’s stomach. “Osc,” he pushes his free hand into his boyfriend’s side, “You know I love you, right?” It’s enough of a cheesy statement, for Oscar to turn around and press a peck to Lando’s lips before he busies himself with heating up his dinner in the microwave.

The low buzzing of the kitchen appliance is filling the room, as Oscar carefully strokes his thumb across Lando’s cheek, “Baby, you know I love you even more, right?” Yeah, Lando starts blushing at the statement immediately, listen, he’s just a guy. A baby, really. 

“I don’t think that’s an argument you want to start, babe,” Lando replies, before dragging Oscar closer to himself, grazing the soft knuckles of the other’s hands with his mouth. 

At that, Oscar shakes his head, but he seems amused rather than annoyed as he pulls the younger into a tight hug, swaying them from one side to the other. The microwave starts beeping and they pull away, but not before Oscar makes a point by pressing one more kiss onto the tip of Lando’s nose. 

After Oscar is finished eating, they migrate back to the couch – there’s a new season of Squid Game, they’ve been meaning to watch together, after all. Lando doesn’t know when Oscar’s weird obsession with Korean Dramas inflicted him too, but he’s watched way too many over Christmas. He felt a closer to his boyfriend, doing so. Even if that might seem stupid. 

It doesn’t take long for Oscar to drift off though, clearly exhausted, so Lando suggests heading to bed. The older is close to falling asleep on his feet, as Lando pushes him into the bedroom. They get ready for bed in silent company, slipping into the sheets together. Oscar wastes no time pulling Lando into himself, manhandling him until Lando’s on top of him, pressing his face into Oscar’s soft neck. In a matter of minutes, they fall asleep like this, pressed close to each other. Home, Lando’s brain provides. 

No surprises, it ends up being the best night of sleep Lando has had in ages. 

When Lando wakes on the next morning, the first thing he feels are soft touches. Goosebumps spread all over his skin, as his boyfriends’ hands are running up his sides, drawing patterns of everything and nothing onto him. “Osc what’you’doin’”, he mumbles into the pecks, his face is smashed in to. Huh, seems like Lando scootched down a little during the night. He’s quite surprised, they managed to cling onto each other throughout the entire night. 

“Finally, I thought you’d never wake up,” Oscar teases, slipping one hand into the younger’s curls, scratching along his scalp. Lando mewls into the touch, a bit like a cat, before the words hit him. “That’s rich coming from you, Mr. Piastri,” he complains. 

“You’re going to want to take that sass back in a second, love,” the Australian grins as he slips his other hand down, down and down, until he’s in Lando’s shorts. Softly tracing the shape of his cheeks, before starting to circle around his hole with a finger. “Don’t start something you won’t finish,” Lando admonishes, which makes his boyfriend chuckle. “Oh, I’m planning on both of us finishing.”

Lando’s dick is growing hard against Oscar’s thigh almost immediately – listen, he’s young and in his prime – and he sighs into the soft cotton of the other’s t-shirt. They continue like this, sleep-riddled, lazy touches until Lando grows restless. He needs more, and he needs it now. “Osc,” Lando groans, “Please.”

“Of course, baby,” Oscar replies, moving his hands to drag Lando upwards. Now, that they’re face-to-face, he starts pressing a sweet kiss into Lando’s cheek before their lips meet. It’s a messy dance of tongues, that ends with Lando letting go and sucking into the sensitive skin of Oscar’s throat. Oscar reaches over, searching the nightstand for the lube, as Lando begins to (tamely, really) bite into the skin he’s been licking over. 

Gently, oh so careful hands, Oscar starts to prep him, shyly pressing one then two then three fingers into him, stretching his walls. Lando’s been desperately craving this, finally feeling full again – though his boyfriend’s fingers are only a sour replacement for his cock. “’M ready,” he sighs into Oscar, still hiding his face into his neck. 

“I just don’t want to hurt you, baby.”

“I know you’d never,” Lando raises his head then, so he can look Oscar in his pretty, chocolate brown eyes. “You’re so careful with me, always. I promise you; I can take it now.” A soft smile spreads across pink lips, “Okay, how do you want me?”

“Like this? Wanna b’ on top but don’ wanna move,” Lando sighs, and Oscar snorts, “Pillow princess.”

“Hey,” he hits Oscar in the chest, “Stop being mean to me.” Pouting properly, Lando watches as Oscar rolls his eyes, more fond than annoyed. “You know I’m ridiculously in love with you, Lando.”

“Yeah, but hearing it more often oesn’t hurt, you know?”

Lando’s about to complain a little more, but his words get stuck in his throat when he feels Oscar’s slick cock pushing into his hole. Content, he sighs and smushes his face back into Oscar’s pecks. Despite his earlier demands, Lando ends up raising his hips in tandem with his boyfriend’s thrusts.

It’s not entirely coordinated, lazy with sleep-heavy limbs. Somehow, it’s still some of the best sex, Lando’s ever had. No time at all passes, until they both reach their climax. Oscar groaning as he tightens his hold on Lando’s waist, while Lando cries out.

They spent some more time panting against each other, but the stickiness in Lando’s short turns disgusting pretty quick, so he makes Oscar carry him to the shower. If there’s time for round two, no one has to be any wiser.

A little later, they’re both silently munching on their breakfast (yes, it’s still considered that even if it’s almost 12pm now) – non-Jon approved cereal for Lando, porridge for Oscar (goody-two-shoes) – when Oscar starts to smile at Lando, a mischievous tint to it. Lando, confused, raises an eyebrow at the other’s antics. “What?”

“Will you let me take you on a date today?” The question makes Lando blush, profusely. “What kind of question is that mate,” he tries to play it off. It makes Oscar laugh, leaning over the breakfast bar to press a kiss to top of his head. “Back to being your mate now, am I?” 

“Well, if that date isn’t impressive, you never know,” the Brit teases, before kissing his boyfriend’s cheek. “Kidding, of course.” If he spams the 2025 ROOKIES group chat in excitement while they’re getting ready, well Oscar’s never going to find out. Lando’s got enough blackmail material on Kimi and Ollie respectively. 

Together, they head out and hop into Lando’s McLaren (Artura, orange, yes, he’s got one now), Oscar insists on driving, since Lando doesn’t know where they’re going. (“No, baby, if you put in the address in google maps, it’s going to ruin the surprise, too.”) At least that means, that Lando is in charge of the ‘road trip’ playlist, much to Oscar’s dismay. (“Harassing me with your music pre-race isn’t enough for you now?”) 

The entire way to wherever his boyfriend is taking them, Lando is busy imaging, being allowed to cuddle close to Oscar at Christmas Markets, to take his hand in public and intertwine it with Lando’s own. He knows they’re far away from ever doing something like that, Lando isn’t interested in losing the seat he just obtained. But dreaming hasn’t hurt anyone, ever. So, he has a hard time feeling bad about it. 

“Will you finally tell me where we’re going?” Lando needles Oscar, as the older is searching for parking space. They’re in White City now, a district of the city the younger doesn’t spend a lot of time in necessarily. Once they finally park Lando’s car, Oscar comes around to open up the door for him. It’s cute, but it also makes Lando roll his eyes. He’s not some damsel, besides why is it okay for Oscar to be cute in public, but Lando can’t even pick up his boyfriend from the airport? 

Lando knows he’s being unreasonable. Sometimes he can’t help it though, those ugly demons inside of him rearing their heads again. If he’s actually going to challenge for a title this year, he knows he’s going to have to toughen up. Jon and Nico had been ecstatic, when he agreed to start seeing the sport psychologist they’d been buggering him about. 

His first appointment will be at the end of the month, and every day Lando thinks about skipping out after all. Turns out encouraging others to take care of their mental health and doing it yourself are two very separate things. 

In the next moment they’re rounding a corner and then, they’re in front of a Westfield. No way did they drive all this way to go into a damn shopping centre. One that’s going to be insanely crowded, post-holidays, too. “Oscar, did you just bring me to a Westfield?” 

The other snorts, “Kind of I guess, but we’re not here for shopping. Even though I know you’ve been dying to get some new hoodies.” Lando supposes it’s a fair statement; he’s been meaning to get himself more comfortable hoodies, to keep warm in for cold races. But he’s also got boyfriend privileges now, doesn’t he? Why bother spending his money on new clothes when he can just steal stuff from Oscar’s suitcase.

Oscar continues to lead the way until they stop in front of a Puttshak, and Lando feels his stomach flutter at. “Wait are you taking me Mini golfing? But you hate golf!” Thinking about spending his day doing something he loves with the man he loves is making Lando giddy. 

“I don’t hate it. Completely. Besides, this one’s got like funny lights and stuff, it’s not as boring as regular golf,” Oscar shrugs, but Lando appreciates the gesture all the same. He leans in close to Oscar, whispering into his ear, “Want me to suck you off in the bathrooms?”

Turning red, Oscar pushes Lando away, “Behave or else I’ll turn around and just drive back to the flat.” 

“No!” Lando starts pouting, probably looking ridiculous as he tilts his head and opens up his eyes wide. He’s trying to look cute but judging from Oscar’s gaze he doesn’t quite manage it. “Okay, Jesus. I’ll go inside with you but only if you stop the Powerpuff Girls Impression.”

They head inside then, getting some golf clubs and balls. The next hours are filled with some of the most fun, Lando has had in months. They play two rounds, slipping in between the colourful LED courses. In between their session they sit down to eat, and Oscar insists on covering their bill. (“It’s still a date, baby.” “How, when I’m not even allowed to kiss you?”) Lando gets some cheesy chips while Oscar orders a plate of nachos, both go for sodas with their meals, too. 

Jon and Kim will have their heads on Monday, but Lando can’t be bothered to care about it. (Right now, he’ll regret it in approximately 72 hours.)

Just like he did in the first round, Lando absolutely wipes the floor with his boyfriend. “Okay, I’m done losing now,” Oscar grumbles as they return their clubs at the entrance. “Never expected you to be such a sore loser, Osc,” Lando pokes his side, which results in Oscar shoving his hand away. It’s a harsh motion, and the younger can tell Oscar feels bad about it at once. “Sorry, ticklish”

Somehow Lando never noticed that before. Weird. 

“So, what are we doing next?” 

“You don’t think you’ll actually get that out of me, do you, baby?” Oscar laughs as he sits down in the driver’s seat once more, Lando getting comfortable in his place as passenger princess. At least he can blast some good music.

It takes them a little more than an hour to get to the next place, it’s always bad in London but they get suck in a traffic jam due to – you guessed it – constructions. His boyfriend keeps surprising Lando because their next stop is Greenwich Park, of all places. “Babe, do you think I’ve never been to this park before, or?” Lando can’t help but ask as they leave the car.

“Lando, would it kill you to just do me the favour and go with this, please?” 

“Okay, shutting up now,” Lando raises his head in a non-threatening stance. “I’m all yours.” Oscar continues to take them through the park then, until they make it to the Greenwich Observatory. Lando can’t help but smile at Oscar. “We’re watching stars?”

“Well, I figured you’d like it since you like astrology and stars. And stuff, but if it’s boring, we can do something else,” Oscar tries to act nonchalant about it but it’s pretty obvious how nervous the older’s actually feeling. It’s kind of cute, in all honesty. “Shut up, muppet. It’s perfect.”

They do the whole shebang, Lando insists on it. Starting by taking silly pictures of each other at the Prime Meridian Line, before they head inside the building. Lando sends a particularly funny one to his group chat with Kimi and Ollie and talks Oscar into sending one of his to his friends as well. 

After that, they take a look through the Annie Maunder Astrographic Telescope, and Lando feels honoured at being able to use a piece of history like that. He’ll never get tired of watching the sky. Then, they head to the ‘Earth from Space’ exhibition that has some of the coolest pictures, Lando’s ever seen, displayed. Like the most distant picture taken of earth, ever. How cool is that? Is Lando a nerd for celebrating shit like that? Maybe, but Oscar looks just as excited about everything. 

The sun has set, once they’re done and, on their walk, back through the park to the car. “Best date ever,” Lando sighs as he stretches out his limbs. “Best boyfriend ever too,” he grins up at Oscar, who smiles back. “Well, I do love to please. I’m just happy you had a good time today; I was seriously worried you were going to hate it.”

“Osc,” the Brit turns serious then, feeling like he owes it to Oscar, to make it clear how much this means to him. He still feels bad about how he had acted at the end of the last season. Ignoring him and running from Oscar, stewing in his hurt instead of just hearing his teammate out. “This was the most perfect date, I’ve ever been on, yeah? Genuinely. ‘Sides, you know I’m stupidly in love with you, so you really shouldn’t be surprised about it.” 

“I know,” Oscar breathes, squeezing Lando’s hand in his for a second before letting go again. “Good,” Lando replies, “Also, can I drive now?” It makes his boyfriend break out in laughter, shaking his head as he agrees with Lando’s demand. 

Their weekend is spent mostly by lazing around the flat. Once, they head out on Saturday for a grocery run before locking themselves back inside again. They also binge through the second season of Squid Game and Lando successfully bullies Oscar into joining the other 2025 rookies and him for a couple of rounds of CoD and Tarkov. Kimi spends most of the time (he doesn’t screech at them after getting killed off) absolutely clowning Oscar. Lando finds it amusing but puts an end to his friends’ torments, once he can tell things are actually getting to the Australian. 

It's a weird talent of the Italian, poking at other people until they snap. Lando loves him, wholeheartedly, but sometimes he wonders how Ollie can put up with him. Those two had spent their holidays together, spamming Lando with a tooth-rooting amount of cute and kissy selfies. He tried not to be jealous about it, back then, but as he was cuddling into his bed at night, he ended up wishing for Oscar more times than not. Well, there’s hope next year will be different. 

On one of those days, lounging on the couch, Lando asks Oscar about it. “Do you think we’ll still be together Christmas next year?”

Oscar turns to him, a grumpy frown on his face, “Of course. I don’t want to spend a Christmas without you ever again, baby. You’re stuck with me for life.” Maybe it’s cheesy, but Lando’s heart warms at the statement all the same. Lando misses some of the third episode of their series then, as he slips onto the ground and frees Oscar from his joggers. 

The days pass to quickly, and it’s time to get back to work in no time at all. Monday morning, they get ready in silent solidarity, before heading out to Woking in separate cars. It’s to keep up appearances, of course. Lando’s fairly sure Kim, Jon, and Nico all know what’s going on, they had front seats to the last season after all, but it’s not like they’ll crash through the door with the news.

Things are still too fresh for that. 

Lando feels a little stupid, when he walks into the MTC and it feels like home, but he really feels like he might make this team his own. Has been doing so for the past year, and he’s finally starting to believe that they like having him here. That they see him capable enough to do great things, win a championship with them. There’s nothing he wishes for more desperately. Winning a constructor’s championship with his boyfriend. At one point maybe even achieving a driver championship to call his own? Call Lando greedy, but he wants it all. 

His teammate – and boyfriend – had arrived a little earlier than Lando, already in a meeting with what Lando assumes to be Webber and his race engineer, Tom, probably Zak and Andrea, too. Nico, Will and Jon are waiting for the Brit in his own office, and something feels like reuniting with family about that too. Being out of his rookie seasons seems to have made Lando a little nostalgic, or wistful, maybe. 

Excited, he swings the door open, “Guess who’s back!” 

Nico, sitting on Lando’s desk chair, rolls his eyes at the younger’s antics, while Jon snorts and Will simply looks at him. “Welcome back, little rookie,” his trainer grins, before ruffling through Lando’s curls. “Hey, rude! I’ve spent way too much time on my hair this morning.”

“I don’t think he qualifies as a rookie anymore, anyways,” Nico provides from his place, before getting up to greet Lando with a warm hug. Will’s next, simply bumping his fist with Lando’s, “Good to have you back with us, mate.”

Lando looks at them all, the three most important people in his career. The men he’d trust with his fucking life, and does so, every day. It could be rose-tinted glasses or just the high of ending the last season with his first win, but something tells Lando the 2026 season is going to be a good one. 

[dirmy-tatiana]

Anyone wants to write a Landoscar fanfic where Lando asks Oscar to join him for a stream (probably playing CoD or iRacing) and they have so much fun and Oscar continues to join Lando for streams and then they fall in love during those streams and then Lando goes to Bali for New Years Eve and then decides to go to Melbourne to see Oscar and spends time with Oscar and then they get together

[scenetocause]

no one asked for this but i was in the kitchen makin instant ramen and poleaxed by the thought of landoscar puppy play post-melbourne in the style of a fic i thought was gemjam's but now can't find where mark webber gave his then-protegee mitch evans a collar to help with homesickness anyway whatever have some fuckin words

edit: fuck's sake cassian obviously it was a collar and a kiss by zeraparker

mild warning for hopelessly undernegotiated kink

"Don't you ever get homesick?" Oscar could count the number of people he'd less like to be having this conversation with than Lando Norris on one hand and one of them's the bored immigration officer who had to tell him he'd not got his passport stamped right in Doha.

Lando snaps his gum, looking up to the ceiling like he's actually thinking about it. "No? Not really. I was sick of fucking Bali over Christmas, jesus and I don't want to go back to Dubai but like, home is everywhere innit?"

"No." Oscar closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. Obviously Lando doesn't experience this, he could literally drive to his parents' house on half a tank of fuel, straight out of the MTC car park. Straight from Oscar's flat, where for some reason he's letting Lando crash as though him seeing the post-Australia comedown is a good idea.

"Hmm." Hearing Lando think is always disturbing. "Well, what can I do about it?"

Oscar has to open his eyes again in disbelief. 'What do you mean do about it?"

Seeing Lando cocking his head on one side, like a dog, makes something painful sear across Oscar's temples. "You're sad, I want to fix it. Max always-"

"Don't tell me about that." He can't hear about Max Fewtrell right now. The guy haunting the garage all weekend was enough. Oscar doesn't need a reminder he's not Lando's first anything, needs to keep the thoughts about breaking up with his girlfriend so they can properly be a thing to himself.

"Well." Lando is literally sitting on his hands. "Then you have to tell me about it yourself."

Thing is, this is too much. It's not the kind of thing he should share with Lando. Lando who he just got team-ordered for, Lando who he needs to match the tyre management of, Lando who will sit there and smile angelically and get his fucking way on anything they ever diverge on about feedback.

Oscar's clenching his jaw so hard he can almost feel the ache where they took his wisdom teeth, though. Another thing he didn't know he'd really miss this much.

"You can't fucking laugh at me." Why's he said that, for fuck's sake? Lando laughs at everything, would probably do it at a funeral in his weird, stressed-out way when he doesn't know how to socially behave.

"Ok." Lando's eyes are very big and he's looked up from his phone. "I can order TimTams on Uber Eats?"

That's actually quite sweet. But not what Oscar needs right now.

"Just - stay here." Lando's fucking weird, he's probably into some of this shit himself. If not something freakier, lying around his Monaco flat in a gimp mask, suffocating himself or god-knows-what shit.

It doesn't take long to find the box. Oscar's consciously never accumulated too much stuff in this flat, like he might have to move out of it any time. Like everything might have to go in a suitcase because the contract review board said it's over, kiddo, go back down under and pretend you understand your dad's business enough to pay him back.

It's not got very much in. Oscar doesn't like to wear too much, when he's like this. Just a t-shirt and shorts or his boxers. He doesn't think he's ready for Lando to see him shirtless, like this, make his eyes crinkle up in glee at how much of Oscar he can touch.

It'd be better if Lando did it, if someone put it on for him but that's too complicated to ask for, so Oscar does it himself, mostly. Puts the soft shorts on, an old Prema shirt that's a little too tight to wear outdoors but feels comfy, soft, reassuring on his skin.

The ears are easy but the collar. He can't do that, himself. Can't give himself the ball, the well-chewed, if pristinely laundered, beanie toy. Whines, unhappily, about it.

"Osc-" obviously, Lando heard him. The sounds of him chaotically standing up, nearly falling over Oscar's rug and stumbling towards his bedroom door, are already clattering through the flat. "Can I come in?"

He just whines again, an animal thing. Oscar needs permission, like this, doesn't give it.

"Ok you better not be dying because I never finished the first aid-" Lando stops in the doorway. "Oh."

Oscar sinks to the floor, his knees bending beneath him, shoving the box at Lando before he folds down on his knees and elbows, looking up at the guy he's supposed to do anything to beat.

"Good..." Lando moves his mouth around for a moment, licks his lips. "Puppy?"

He doesn't have a tail to wag, although he has thought about one of the plugs, sometimes. Objectively, the bit of Oscar's brain that's still somewhat functioning says wiggling his arse must make him look ridiculous, especially when he paws at the box and whines again.

Lando crouches down, touches the ears. "Do you want to go out?"

Oscar cringes back, shaking his head violently. God, imagine the headlines.

"Ok." Lando does his head-cock thing again, then sticks his hands into the box. "Do you want your collar?"

It's pretty shameful, the way Oscar crawls forward so easily, smushes his face against Lando's knee and maybe he should have asked about this properly but Lando goes easily, scritching behind Oscar's ear. "Oh you're such a good boy, look at you."

Lando fumbles the collar for a second, not getting the buckle right the first time and it's nearly uncomfortable enough Oscar stands up, right back out of it but then it goes and it's snug and tight and good, Lando's hand in his hair.

"Are these your toys?" Lando shifts to kneeling, lets Oscar get his head right in his lap, nuzzling against Lando's stomach through the pouch of his hoodie. He doesn't need to answer that one, it's pretty obvious.

"Well, I don't think Oscar would want you breaking his stuff, so I'm going to leave the ball here." The third person is a jolt, like a nod to camera but it feels right. Oscar is elsewhere, can worry about that later.

"Come on then, good dog." Lando stands up, with the beanie toy in hand. It's a koala, a stupid joke. "Come and play, then."

It's not a comfortable flat to get through on your hands and knees, hard wooden floor jarring him in a way that'll probably bruise a bit, tomorrow. Lando's walking easily, waggling the beanie like he thinks he needs to keep Oscar interested.

Not Oscar. Puppy. It feels good.

Lando pushes the coffee table away, scraping on the floor in a way Oscar's landlord will probably have an opinion about when he comes to pay the deposit back. But puppies don't worry about that kind of thing, so Oscar just crawls over to where Lando's sitting, legs spread and outstretched, on the rug.

"Come on," Lando holds out the beanie, waving it by Oscar's mouth. "You want this, yeah?"

Oscar growls, nips at it. It's not the toy he wants, really, just the -

Ah, perfect. Lando pulls Oscar forward by the toy, right on top of him as he leans back. Oscar can paw him like his, Lando laughing delightedly and twisting away.

It's - he's seen the video, McLaren posted it for some national day or something last year - the same way Lando plays with his family's dog. Silly, rolling around the floor, letting Oscar half-hump him while Lando's shrieking and trying to get out of his grip, only to dive back in, wrestling with Oscar.

The rug scoots across the floor under them and they nearly crash into the telly, Oscar ending up on his back, against the sofa, Lando tickling his tummy but the toy in Oscar's mouth, triumphant.

"Are you submitting? Are you letting me lead the pack?" It's a bit on the nose but yeah, maybe. Oscar kicks out a leg, half-heartedly, to show he isn't always going to be ok with that.

"What a good boy." That, he is always ok with. More than human-Oscar would like to admit.

Lando lies down next to him, face a bit flushed and eyes bright from playing. "Always wanted a dog. You can even come to all the races."

[hotmessmaxpress]

Hi!! Original Ln4 hater asker here (does that make sense? 😔) and I also used to be SUCH a landoscar girlie a massive mclaren fan in general. Like I was so disappointed when lando didn’t get his first win at Singapore last year and I was actively rooting for him to win at least once throughout the season but then when he got his first win in Miami i was actually so over it, like I remember being IRRITATED. Idk what did it for me but I just woke up a hater one day and the trump thing + flaunting his Starbucks in one of his Melbourne videos during a boycott were definitely the final nails in the coffin. (In hindsight, after writing that, it was probably the Starbucks at the Australian GP that made me start to dislike him)

- ☁️

I lost it, but at one point I did a breakdown of the amount of money his dad spent on his career. No matter what lando says, his way to f1 has been bought. lando pretends (to the point of actively lying about his dad’s finances) like he earned his drive, but his dad paid $12,000,000 for it and is still a major “sponsor” of mclaren.

he’s the best example of how these men are all spoiled, out of touch rich kids. everyone makes fun of lance, but at least his dad was honest about buying his way in f1 and at least lance doesn’t act like he’s entitled to win just because his dad has money.

he grew up as a millionaire. he has no concept of what it means to boycott something because you have empathy for other people. to boycott something would mean to deny himself something he wants, and I don’t think he’s capable of that.

[oscarpiastriwdc]

the little landoscar in standing at your door gave me life and the fact that in your mind its canon that lando is a misdiagnosed carrier as well and oscar is too blind with fondness to notice he got him pregnant is just way too funny to me—it’s so them. also oscar’s mum taking one like at lando and going “buy a pregnancy test” takes me out. would love if you actually wrote a little story about it but in the end it’s totally up to you hihi.

also love the single dad charles idea, it’s so hilarious

A tiny snippet of unknowingly pregnant Lando spending the holidays with Oscar's family:

Lando has met Oscar's family before, at races and random McLaren events, but spending the holidays with Oscar's family in Australia is different. Bigger.

It's been an exhausting season. The last two months are a painful blur of jet lag and physical exhaustion and muscle aches and getting unprecedentedly weepy every time he or Oscar are on the podium. Oscar's dad picks them up from the airport, claps Lando on the shoulder and wraps his son in a bear hug that makes Lando coo and Oscar blush. He falls asleep in the backseat of the pickup truck, lulled into a drowsy state by the motion of the vehicle and Oscar's gentle voice telling his dad about the final race.

When they arrive at the house it's just past noon in Melbourne but it's the middle of the night in Monaco; Lando doesn't even manage to greet the rest of Oscar's family before he's out cold.

Lando wakes up a few hours later to an empty bed, disoriented by his surroundings. It's still light outside, and the sun streaming through the window highlights Piastri family photos on the wall. He grins at one of Oscar and his sisters at the zoo, posing like flamingos.

He follows the sound of voices downstairs where he's met with Oscar sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter talking to his mom who's posted at the stovetop.

"Oh hi Lando, dear! How did you sleep?"

"Hi Nicole." Lando steps around the counter into Oscar's mom's open arms pulling him into a hug. "That mattress is amazing."

"How was the flight? I bet you're feeling hungry."

Oscar snorts, makes room at the counter for Lando to join him. "Mum, you don't need to baby us."

"Yes I do, I don't care how fast you drive those cars, while you're under my roof you're still my baby. Oscar told me you don't like fish but you do like chicken tenders, so I made sure to pick some up at the grocery store. I'll pop some in the oven, how's that?"

"That sounds good, thank you."

"Of course, dear." Oscar's mom sets to preheating the oven, removing the frozen chicken tenders from the freezer, and arranging them on a tray while she asks Lando about Quadrant and his parents and plans for the rest of the holidays. The chicken tenders go in the oven and, soon, the kitchen is filled with the scent.

Lando's stomach turns. He must make a face because Oscar turns to look at him.

"Everything okay?"

"Yeah, just jet lag."

Oscar's mom glances at them before removing the tray from the oven. Lando catches another whiff of the chicken and gags the way he only ever does when faced with fish. Oscar rubs a hand up and down Lando's back, soothing him.

The tenders get plated and slid across the counter. Lando picks one up, aware of the way Oscar's mom scrutinizes him, and nibbles a bite out. He has to force himself not to spit the food out.

"Have you been having unprotected sex?"

At that question, Lando does spit out his food while Oscar turns bright red.

"Mum!"

Oscar's mom tuts. "Calm down, Oscar. I'm going to run to the pharmacy, I'll be back in half an hour. Your sisters should be around if you need anything." With that, she promptly exits the kitchen, fetches her purse, and heads out the front door.

"What was that all about, Osc?"

"How am I supposed to know?"

"Well she's your mum, isn't she?"

Oscar and Lando bicker for a minute before they're distracted again, resulting in an impromptu make-out session on Oscar's parent's couch. They break apart and shuffle to opposite sides of the couch when Oscar hears the front door opening and pushes himself off Lando.

Oscar's mom marches in and sets a box down on the coffee table. Lando leans in to inspect. It's a pregnancy test.

"There's no way Oscar's pregnant, he never tops–"

Oscar throws his hand over Lando's mouth. "Please don't talk about this in front of my mum. And I don't think it's for me."

"Is it for one of your sisters?"

The room is silent while Oscar and his mom stare at Lando with mirrored, unblinking expressions. A minute later, Lando connects the dots.

"Oh. Oh shit."

[inchidentally]

I love love love your landoscar (and carlando and dando) deep dives and analysis and in one of them you mentioned how Carlos acts very differently with Charles than he does with Lando and that charlos is its own different topic so I was wondering about your thoughts on their dynamic👀 Would love to read them but no pressure of course!

(these asks are literally from last year and I am soso soooo sorry for taking so long <3<3)

god anon I love all three too even if the multishipping thing is wayyy too uncommon for me to do it out here publicly on my blog anymore!

truly - and this is fully rpf projecting switched off - the Charles/Carlos and Carlos/Lando dynamics are so different and it was so sweet during the Melbourne 2024 celebrations watching Carlos switching between the two aslfhsalfh. bc Carlos literally helped raise Lando from the kid Lando's closest friends and even Zak described as a loner and intensely shy, to someone who could borrow quite a lot from Carlos' persona for himself and even learned a social hobby in golf to integrate him more with other drivers. it's not as 'sweet' per se but even the fact that Lando a while ago was like 'oh I only date Spanish girls' during that golf stream bc Carlos literally helped Lando meet girls (this was before Luisa). straight up he functioned as Lando's F1 and PR social lifeline in a way where Lando was still pretty clingy even up to like late 2022? bc Daniel was another great big alpha personality to do a lot of the heavy lifting like Carlos did but Lando and Daniel are more of a friendship of equals.

but for Carlos, Lando's mostly stayed in that little brother position - even moreso I'd say as Carlos approaches 30 bc his lifestyle now is way more grown-up than Lando's and his approach to his career and racing is vaaaastly different to Lando's. and tbh it's one of many reasons I was glad they didn't stay teammates bc regardless of what fans wanted and PR pushed, that would either not have ended well or it would have had truly excruciating moments (similar to that 'breakup' moment in 2022). I think ultimately they'd always have ended up ok but it's good to not have had to wait and find out how.

I genuinely think it'll only be in retrospect that people learn to appreciate how impressive and cohesive Carlos and Charles' partnership has been bc I only ever see a few people say this. and again, ignoring the whole PR bromance aspect of it, this is in how they have weathered the absolute WORST of everything that could be thrown at a pairing and always come out unified. their fanbases have been at bloody war since day one, the Tifosi have been embroiled in civil war, their own families use multiple platforms to stir up enmity, Ferrari's Borgia-esque culture has directly and indirectly worked to disrupt communication and good will between the two garages. team orders has been Russian roulette every race. the literal racing gods seem to roll the dice when it comes to which of them will be favored and who will be left burning with anger. and even when both suffer equally due to the many forces outside their control, guaranteed everyone but themselves will be trying to somehow pin blame on the other.

a tiny fraction of this amount of drama has been enough to destroy partnerships plenty of times in racing history and even throughout their time as teammates.

AND YET !! every hasty word or outburst is smoothed over within hours or even minutes!

bc the common aortic valve they've mutually decided to share between them has stayed strong, vital and healthy. I cannot wait for their biographies or a docu series bc the amount of obvious communication going on between them fully behind the scenes from absolutely everyone is the only reason they haven't both been locked in a br0cedes degree battle royale. absolutely no one but themselves has wanted them to be harmonious.

and when the most shocking headline probably for a decade happened, they decided the very day after being told (in advance of the public what would turn out to be just a few days) to drive together to Maranello and sign autographs and have photos taken of them in Carlos' car. the rest of us only found out later when the rumors were confirmed that this was a hugely symbolic display of solidarity.

even their intense and fun physicality, when you take the gay chicken aspect of it away, remains in the form of physically finding warmth and steadiness in each other as the only two people who can relate in full detail to the other. they're both your typical super physical European guys with other guys, but even when they're not horsing around there is a comfort and ease in being able to lean close or clap a hand on a shoulder and share closed-eyes embraces.

and that's why Melbourne was a Charles and Carlos affair with little Lando along for it getting his hugs and paternal kisses. when Carlos and Lando looked at each other it was right back to that chummy mischief sparkle in the eye thing they've always had. Lando still inhabits the rosy world of possibility and cresting the height of his career and a vastly different new teammate who is playing a part in that. but when Charles ran over for a private celebration before Carlos had even gotten out of his car - and when they sat together in the cool down room like two bone-weary parents watching TV while Lando buzzed about - and would turn to each other on the podium and lock eyes, it's bc they both get it in exactly the same way. Carlos faces uncertainty but opportunity, Charles faces uncertainty but certain difficulty. all of which was paralleled in Monaco for Charles' win. elation is mixed with grim satisfaction as much as joy.

the relief, the exhaustion, the bitterness of years without the WDC and the long stretches between wins in the back of the throat mixing with the champagne, even their tears of joy this season mixing with the fact that both of them have had tears in their eyes when asked about the end of their partnership - even down to the parallel in each if their wins this year of having a McLaren rugrat scurrying around the edge of drama neither of their pretty young heads has ever experienced even by proximity - both boys already assured by contract and by their performance of steadiness for years to come. the gold of their feelings on podiums hasn't tarnished or worn yet.

as always, the reality of these guys' actual friendships is rarely known until well after retirement. but the fact that Carlos and Charles held something so strong between them that made them reject the much easier option of simply hating each other or just neutrally existing in separate spheres (like so many other partnerships have done) means that mutual respect or mutual agreement or sympathetic personalities - or all three - was their choice, even if it's made their own careers and lives far more complicated and difficult.