#goddamn phenomal essay inch should be displayed in textbooks if you ask me

[leftneb]

appearantly I had enough thoughts on this that I filled the 30 tag limit with yapping so here is a (hopefully) coherent essay slash ramble session

All this talk about the way Oscar handles PR made me think about the typical ASD/generally ND experience of people misinterpreting you as a person immensely because of you reactions, or lack-of them. And not to ND truth Oscar (or Lando for that matter) because that is NOT my place but I think it's been said by many ND people (myself included) that they relate to Oscar - and specifically the way he does PR, for example:

acting on a script✅️

providing reactions to the outside even when he normally wouldn't because he knows it's expected of him ✅️ (jet incident)

The way I read it is that he's just the type of person to show a lot less than what's going on below the surface, which unfortunately a lot of people read to be a lack of care or thought. And logically I understand how that happens (what people don't see don't know etc.) but being misinterpreted because of that sucks big time.

Oscar has said before (in what I suspect is the same interview you referenced about him moving to the UK) that he has a tendency to overthink, and at least to my ears the whole "extreme emotions are like negative emotions" sounds a whole lot like "I get overwhelmed by my own brain sometimes" (which might be just me projecting but that's basically this entire essay so fuck it we ball.)

I honestly am so glad that, despite his rocky start, Oscar has become one of the most widely beloved drivers on the grid, both driver ability and personality wise. A lot which is IMO also thanks to Lando's PR handholding and general openness to Oscar as a person. And obviously because of the people in the paddock also welcoming him.

the rest of this is like, less related to the main point I wanted to explore and more a general Landoscar overview so under a cut it goes

I think a lot of people gravitate towards Landoscar because of just how much more, like, comfortable it is compared to ex: Lando's other bromances.

I think that that is in a huge part due to Oscar just being Like That. I highly doubt he could do fake PR (like. properly) even if he wanted to. And Lando just accepting that and clearly being (more than!) comfortable with it, as well as appreciating what Oscar DOES give in terms of affection instead of looking for specific signs and getting upset when he doesn't find them (which again speaks to Lando's emotional intelligence btw. Along with how he's so naturally able to adapt to his teammates' energy) is so so sweet and important.

To people who are looking for that sort of relationship, whether it be romantic or not, that amount of natural, unforced chemistry is MASSIVELY comforting to see. I think that appeals to a large part ND or generally introverted/shy/underappreciated people who need to be accepted in order to really develop as people (much to the pattern of Carlos taking Lando under his wing actually.)

And the way Landoscar “do PR” (if you can even call it that lmao) is so so obviously not faked. Again this has been said about 10 million times but they don't do any of that loud over-the-top semi-engineered chemistry you'd see elsewhere, and it makes all their interactions all the more compelling.

I always say that you can put two drivers in a Situation but you can never engineer them having chemistry, but with some teammate relationships it's definitely not 100% natural. EXCEPT for landoscar (obv they do still act different on camera but I think that might actually be to the detriment of their natural dynamic). Like you CANNOT fake the Guess the Lyric video or “osc” or the countless instances of their brains syncing up or just laughing together for no reason other than to laugh together. (In fact when you try to engineer it it fails. It Only happens naturally, which is far more insane.)

And that makes their whole dynamic so much more compelling to me on an emotional level, because all of the things that matter are just real. They couldn't force them to be like that even if they tried. It's just the way they are together, and it's so obviously and unashamedly fond.

I've not been paying attention to F1 for long enough to say something definitive on how their relationship developed over time, but I think even just the way they're handling the whole papaya rules situation is pretty telling. They're so unbearably fond of each other they couldn't (and wouldn't be willing) to fake a rivalry for the sake of a narrative. (Which once again makes me think back to Lando's whole "we're rivals pretending to be besties" comment and just how fucking funny it is because of how obviously untrue it is.)

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