#hate in the f1 fanbase

[ezisregrettinglifedecisions]

I saw a post by @bellenotthebeast about the hate drivers are getting at the moment and this is a written version of what I put in the tags of my reblog because I didn't realise I was going to go on a rant when I tapped on the reblog button.

734 words just in case you were wondering.

All of the hate that drivers get for making mistakes is getting absolutely out of hand. It's frankly ridiculous how many people will jump at the chance to nitpick and be rude about another driver and whatever mistake they made minor or not. (This is specifically in relation to comments taken severly out of a very important bit of context and actual driving moments, if there is something serious then yes I think they should be held accountable for their actions, just because they're rich and in a very elite sport should not make them immune from accountability even though it does appear to sometimes.)

The stuff with Lando is actually sickening with how far its gotten. None of them should have to see that. In fact, no one, f1 driver or not, should ever see or hear such horrible things that people are saying to or about them. The death threats???? Hello??? What the actual fuck were people thinking. The drivers are people too the fans of those drivers are people. Get a grip and don't fucking send death threats???? Is that really that hard to have basic human respect for other people???

I see hate so much. Be it in the comments of an edit on tiktok or on a fan page on Instagram. Even the drivers own comment section and the official F1 account. People. What the fuck. Be supportive of people, for goodness sake. Don't be dicks??? Is it so difficult to be nice to people? I can tell that, unfortunately, I'm going to be using that phrase a lot.

I want to see the positives in this sport too. I think with all of the hate, all the good things have been buried under the swathes of hate and pain ignorance in some cases. I want to read or watch a video on how driver A did something so well, even if it's small and insignificant in the overall. I really want to hear about the amazing defending, even if they did get overtaken eventually. I want to hear about them being so fucking happy with their Quali position. I want to hear them screaming down the radio when they get in the points. I want to hear the feedback on the drive, where things may have gone wrong, and even where people think things could have improved. I want to hear about the track and the conditions and how well everyone did and how the people and the fans and their teams are so proud of their achievements during the weekend.

The thing I do not want to see is - ew i hate driver B. EEK no driver C ruined everything. Driver D should crash into the barriers. DO YOU NOT REMEMBER WHEN THERE WERE COMMENTS HOPING DRIVERS WOULD DIE IN A CRASH. What the fuck is wrong with the people saying that???? That is NOT okay. EVER. Have you not seen how outraged Max Fewtrell was when someone said that they hoped Max V crashed and got hurt in his twitch chat room. He was furious. Saying how that wasn't okay and how fucked up it was to say something like that. Listen to Max for fucks sake please.

WE👏 DONT 👏KNOW 👏THEM👏.

They're public figures, and we only know the public side of them, not the side they reserve for behind closed doors. And for the fifth hundred time, we aren't entitled to know anything about them behind closed doors either. We dont have any ground to stand on to demand anything like that. Because who the fuck do you think you are to demand something like that. Seriously, some people need to understand that this ISN'T okay and the way these people are acting will NEVER be okay.

So just enjoy the sport.

Enjoy the drivers.

Enjoy watching their skills on the track.

Enjoy their interviews and their relationships together on and off the track.

Enjoy the side of them that we are allowed to see.

And stop hating unnecessarily.

Please, for the sake of the sport.

For the sake of the newer fans.

And for the sake of the drivers and their physical and mental health. You really need to think before you post. Think about the impacts it could have if something happens. Know that if your words are seen, that could be detrimental and how YOU played a part in something so horrible.

Thank you,

Ez

[chaoticlandworlder]

What is with the practically psychotic hate for Lance Stroll? I'm not even his fan- more indifferent- but the hate he gets is sickening. Like just see the recent 'Never have I ever' vid- so many top comments on youtube, instagram etc. are just spouting shit about him (attacking his looks, calling him window licker wtf etc.) based off the 'Never have I ever stood up someone question' (and of course they conveniently ignore all the other drivers that also said they have because it's trendy to hate on Stroll).

Of course, standing up someone sucks but first of all we have no context at all, and more importantly, it's clear the commenters don't actl give a shit about that because they're only hating on Stroll. This is literally just one instance of the way these F1 'fans' are so quick to seize any opportunity to put down Lance. Honestly, it's so off-putting, pathetic and sad.

[tiraam]

Charles fans: Charles is such a nice person, he would never be disrespectful!

Also Charles fans: lol, he is disrespecting Lando. So funny! He doesn’t rate him at all!

Like do you hear yourselves? You guys literally always blame Lando of being disrespectful (when 99% of the time he isn’t. He could wish for world peace and people would find something to be annoyed about) and praise your own driver but then absolutely turn a blind eye when your favorite does the same.

Like Charles is SUCH a nice and kind person. Why are his fans trying to portray him as something else? Like you honestly believe that he would think that? Honestly kind of shows me that some of his fans don’t really rate Charles himself at all ��

And honestly, the way I’ve seen most Lando fans actually defend Charles on this platform is nice to see but it might also be that I’ve just blocked most of the haters.

[nco05]

All that manifesting an illegal ruling of the RB19 really backfired on your asses, huh...

[itsemg]

I’ve been an F1 fan since 2009 and I have never seen anything equivalent to the online Lando hate right now. Sure in 2021, the Lewis and Max fans went at it, but Lando is getting it nonstop from Max fans, Charles fans, Oscar fans, Checo fans, Ricciardo fans (still), even sometimes George fans. The Lewis fanbase hate toward him seems to have died down a little bit, but the others are just constantly piling on him and it’s really hard to watch.

And the things he gets hated on coming from people who have Seb’s name in their bio as if they have no idea how much he was hated or how much he’d be ill at what is being said in his name now if he saw it.

The internet was a mistake.

[its-avalon-08]

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toxic fanbases

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[janesurlife]

I agree that lando gets unnecessary hate but in what world Sainz and Russell are winning races with no hate. Those two get hate hate for racing their teammates cause both their teammates have the most loud and toxic fanbase in all of f1 twitter. Lando, Carlos and George are literally in the same boat.

[britney-rosberg06]

guys can i be real for a second? Because as a fan of both Logan and Kimi i feel like this needs to be said:

Nobody benefits from giving Logan Kimi’s seat mid year.

No One

No not even Kimi.

If F1 is a business which it is, we’ll think about this in a business sense. Because by kicking Logan out in favor of Kimi just doesn’t make sense

Williams saw the sheer backlash to Australia. Their fans were angry at the mere idea of kicking Logan out in favor of Alex and some are still angry. They would lose a huge portion of their fan base (a fan base that is getting pretty American, may I add, thanks to their American sponsors) by kicking Logan out. No fanbase means no merch sales, no extra cash to burn that we know Williams needs

Secondly, Logan has obligations with Williams through summer break. Huge PR events like Lap of Legends which is sponsored by an American beer and stars Logan and Williams Racing ambassador Jenson Button. If you pull away Logan, the sponsors in Michelob Ultra will be furious as they funded a whole project to center around Logan. And Jenson, who has also spoken very kindly about him in the media will be angry as Logan is known as someone who has his backing/support. So Williams would lose a bit of Jenson’s trust and anger a huge sponsor? Right okay,

Of course there’s James Vowles. Who is struggling to come out from under Toto Wolff’s shadow. How will it look for James if he were to kick out one of his own juniors in favor of someone Toto Wolff is forcing upon him. Like he’s a lapdog who will roll over and do whatever Toto wants? Yeah, that exactly

There’s also the Prema of it all, which a lot of people are forgetting. Kimi is under Prema contract to be racing in F2. There is no reservist for him and there has to be to drivers in F2. Not one. Prema is not going to let one of their drivers—a driver who is getting them a lot of media attention might I add—go on to F1 when he’s only done three f2 races. That’s not how contracts work! Kimi is on contract and that contract states he had to race in f2 and compete in the championship. The whole championship. The championship Prema gets more money/funding/sponsors from the better they do. They can’t do good with only one driver. So no extra money.

Also, Prema has the power to deny Williams as Kimi is their driver and their responsibility. Kimi uses their trainers, engineers, gym, facilities etc, to take him mid season might make Williams or Mercedes or Kimi himself liable for that bill à là Oscar Piastri and Alpine as Kimi failed to fulfill terms of a contract while still benefiting from it.

I’m not saying it’ll work but I’m saying there’s a chance they could.

Now Kimi himself. He’d be entering in the F1 paddock as a pariah. Being granted an exception is sure to make him unpopular, just like Max was. The spotlight that was on Ollie Bearman in Jeddah? Yeah multiply it by a hundred and you’ll get somewhere close to the attention on Kimi. As previously established, PR-wise Williams would be in hell, who do you think they are going to take it out on? Yeah, the seventeen year old who has no control over the situation. He’ll be traipsed around as the new youngest whoever while also being hated on by a majority of people who think he doesn’t deserve that seat.

Speaking of Ollie Bearman. It’s worth noting that Ollie’s pain level after Jeddah was sky high. He was training for f2 races, not f1. Consistently racing in F1 could wreck Kimi’s body due to the sudden change and would have so many negative and lasting affects.

And when he inevitably doesn’t get points on debut because it’s a williams and it sucks ass, everyone will be screaming and crying about how Kimi is washed or how he sucks and so on and so on. What would that do to a seventeen year old’s confidence?

And when Toto wolff—the only guy presumed to benefit at all from this whole situation he allegedly cooked up gets reveals to have had a huge part in this kid’s life, way bigger than the general audience knows (seriously, he has a picture of baby Kimi in his office) everyone is going to be screaming at him for making a bad/questionable managerial decision that has deeply affected the mental health of a teen boy.

Mercedes as a team is already on the decline, this would be the Shitty PR move to end all Shitty PR moves.

Am i saying Logan is going to be on the grid next year? No. But the idea that it is a smart decision for any of the teams or drivers involved to replace Logan is insane.

[slutforpringles]

LOL not the twitter community notes going after the fake ass misinformation. 💀💀💀

Look, I totally get supporting your favourite driver, and I even understand a lot of people actively root against drivers they don't like - that's sport. But my god can we at least stick to using actual facts in these online driver fanbase wars, instead of posts that are either intentionally misleading or just straight up blatant misinformation, like the one here. The only thing accomplished with posts such as this is creating additional and unnecessary friction between driver fanbases online and the F1 team's social media/communications personnel having even more hate/abuse aimed at them online.

[chaoticlandworlder]

Insta & twitter fans are so toxic?? Like Lewis 100% impeded multiple drivers yesterday (most obviously Alonso and Max) but 'fans' (who prob didn't even watch the fps) are all just hating on Alonso for getting pissed off? While they're all like 'Checo doesn't deserve his seat' when Checo wasn't even impeding Charles? Both Checo and Charles were on fast laps (just that the RB20 had so many issues + was prob on race pace(?) that it seemed slow)

[toffee-and-tandoori]

i’ve been reflecting on that tweet/article about esteban’s switch to williams being blocked by alpine over the course of this hungarian gp weekend and i am truly disgusted and angered at what alpine has been trying to pull with esteban this year. let me explain. and buckle in because it’s gonna be a long one.

[disclaimer i will not be touching on the logan and james vowles of it all in this post but i will say this: i wish him the best in his career and personally i would just let him finish out the season without worrying about his seat being taken at any moment.]

[also i want to use this bit to sincerely thank @macaiv @promiscuousasexual @lafaerie @pinkcarsupremacy @oconist and @starlightiing for their help with source gathering and proofreading - i truly could not have done this without you <3]

first of all, i think it’s important to clear up the misconception that esteban was “fired” by alpine. as the original statement reads, alpine and esteban AGREED to part ways for 2025. let’s also remember there were claims even before alpine launched their 2024 livery that BOTH esteban and pierre were looking for alternatives. and of course, esteban was quick to point out his mercedes ties. i think it’s clear that esteban was not planning to stay with alpine after 2024. but don’t feel like you’re at fault for thinking that esteban was “fired” - that’s exactly what alpine wanted you to think. they have never corrected this assumption because it benefits them.

now let me be clear here and say that esteban was at fault for monaco 2024 - he absolutely shouldn’t have done what he did and accordingly he took responsibility for it. however, the magnitude of vitriol directed at esteban for a lap one error (which can and does happen to any driver) was excessive and disproportionate. first of all let’s remember that in that exact same race, kevin literally crashed out himself, his teammate, AND checo but was completely overlooked by the public. and far more importantly, no one deserves death threats, racism, and xenophobia. it got to the point that he published a statement on instagram asking for the hate to stop and if you know esteban, you know that he does not speak up for himself like that. ever. 

and how did alpine respond to the hate directed at their driver after monaco? three blue heart emojis. no statement condemning the hate. no statement extending their support for esteban. just three blue heart emojis. oh and the formal announcement of esteban leaving the team, propelling a new wave of hate. convenient timing for alpine, don’t you think?

to fully dissect how the false narrative about how “esteban is a horrible teammate” and is “always hyperfocused on beating and crashing into them” and how “no one on the grid likes him” is a product of racism (due to his algerian heritage), classism (due to his family’s working class status), and f1 media needing a “villain” to editorialize the spectacle of f1, i would need a whole other post. not to mention that esteban has been paired with very accomplished drivers throughout his whole career and has performed roughly equal to all of them; unfortunately for him almost all of esteban’s teammates are drivers who are the primary representative of their country and therefore have very large and very nationalistic fanbases, which has typically amplified the hate. but i’ll say this. of the clashes with his previous teammates, esteban was to blame for two of them in the past seven years [baku 2017 and monaco 2024]; checo was recognized to be responsible for three [belgium 2017, hungary 2017, and singapore 2018]; fernando was recognized to be responsible for one [brazil 2022] ; pierre was recognized to be responsible for one[australia 2023, a racing incident but esteban is known to have vouched for pierre in the stewards meeting so he could avoid a race ban]. individuals on the grid who are said to currently have a “strong dislike” for esteban have had kind words for him in recent years: fernando and max. esteban also is clearly friendly with a number of the drivers: lance, mick, jack, oscar, nico, kevin, lewis, fernando, max, charles, guanyu.

this narrative began in 2018 and has only grown with the explosion in f1’s popularity in large part due to “drive to survive”, a highly-editorialized show that has capitalized on this perception of esteban in their most recent season. and although esteban has been affiliated with lotus/renault/alpine since 2010 (literally since he was 14 years old - about half of his life), they have never once tried to publicly show support for their driver in response to hate. their social media pages have been filled pure hatred directed at esteban for years yet they have never said a thing. almost all of alpine’s team principals and executives have never truly given esteban the respect he deserves: rossi, szafnauer, famin. yet esteban has largely stayed silent through it all. 

but when esteban finally chose to prioritize himself over the team he has been loyal to for over a decade, alpine chose to weaponize the narrative they allowed to take root.

those may remember a claim that james vowles was not considering esteban for a williams seat because of his “history of aggressive behavior against his teammates”. there was never a direct quote from james saying this but we do have video of him defending esteban after monaco. 

but now this tweet/article suggests that both james vowles and esteban were interested in a move to williams that was blocked by alpine because they were concerned that esteban could help williams in the constructors. it was initially assumed that alpine wanted this move to happen because they wanted to get rid of esteban so badly. so why didn’t they correct this assumption? why did they release the formal announcement of esteban leaving the team when the hate reached heights not previously seen before? because they knew it would weaken esteban’s position in the driver’s market. and even still, esteban has been actively sought out by haas and audi in addition to williams. he has been praised by many team principals of past and present: james vowles, fred vasseur, toto wolff, eddie jordan. esteban remains a well-respected driver in the paddock...much to alpine’s chagrin. 

i truly believe that alpine tried to take advantage of esteban’s reputation (a reputation that they have never tried to mitigate) to try to fuck over his market value...and failed. they effectively attempted to sabotage esteban's future in f1. it is truly deplorable of them to do this, especially with the driver who’s been with the project for 14 years and is their first (and so far only) victor in their current iteration. and if you think that it would be truly horrendous of a team to do that to one of their drivers, remember that alpine has done this to fernando, to oscar, and to kevin. not to mention the disrespect they showed to jolyon and to alain.

the bwt alpine f1 team has truly lost all of my respect with what they’ve done this year. and they barely had any of it in the first place.

[valyrfia]

Why do so many F1 fans hate on Charles Leclerc? I, myself, am an "old time" so to say fan of the sport and while I appreciate the generations past, there is no denying his astounding talent and connection to the car. And yet when I started to get back into watching recently, I have seen nothing but distasteful jabs at his ability and his fans, along the lines of "he's just a model" and "only girls in love with him like him". Why is that, I really do not understand - not even as a fan of his, I'm just asking as an objective observer of motorsport

Thanks for your ask anon! I think there's two facets of it. There's the fact that Charles has a lot of expectations that haven't been fulfilled yet due to a variety of reasons and media that may already be skewed away from him doubling down on that, and quite frankly, there's a misogyny aspect due to the composition of his fanbase.

Focusing on the expectations aspect first, as I'm sure you'll probably know better than I will since I've only been watching F1 for a year or so, Charles came into Ferrari with an incredible weight to him already. Not only did he totally crush competition in junior categories but he was the youngest Ferrari driver in the 21st century (later to be usurped by none other than Ollie Bearman at the 2024 Jeddah GP) and he had quite frankly an incredible first season. He would have won Bahrain 2019 if not for the engine issue and he won Monza. This understandably gave Charles's name a gravitas and expectation unlike any non-WDC. I mean, his nickname is literally il predestinato, there is an expectation that Charles will bring the championship home to Ferrari.

Now, unfortunately, that hasn't happened yet. This has been due to a multitude of reasons, but mainly Mattia Binotto's terrible management, the effects of it we're still feeling years later.

An aspect of Mattia's management that people discuss less however, but I'm certain contributes to some groups having a strong dislike of Charles, is Mattia's complete inability to manage a strong driver line up. Ferrari has had an incredible line up, with Charles and Seb for Charles's first two years, and Charles and Carlos for the next three. A lot of the general population who dislike Charles are Seb supporters, feeling as if Seb was pushed out by this young upstart who hasn't even managed to bring the WDC and WCC home as promised. This is entirely due to Mattia losing control of the narrative. DTS encouraged this viewpoint, but media doubled down on it. Mattia also failed to manage each driver's expectations.

Similar is Mattia's signing and then subsequent management of Carlos. My dislike of the Carlos camp is well-documented, but Carlos is by no means a bad driver, in fact I think he's probably in the top six drivers currently on the grid. The issue is, he's not Charles. He doesn't have Charles's raw talent, nor any sort of similar mythos that the tifosi revere about Charles. Carlos on paper, is an excellent n2 to Charles's n1, and I think if Mattia had been honest about that in signing Carlos, I would like him a lot more. Instead, Mattia promised that Charles and Carlos were to be treated as equals, resulting in bizarre strategy calls like Silverstone 2022 where they sacrifice the race of their driver fighting for the WDC in order to gift the other driver a win, or having a championship car in early 2022 only to undevelop it because Carlos complained that he wasn't comfortable. It's frankly bad management, when Checo wasn't comfortable with the RB19 Red Bull didn't change their development direction, because the focus was on getting Max the championship. Ferrari needed Mattia to make a similar decision in 2022, but he instead chose to try and pander to all sides instead of enforcing a potentially difficult decision like a team principal sometimes needs to.

I've said that Sainz media is responsible for much of the traditional media smear campaign against Charles, whether that's them using links with Spanish media, or paying off various outlets, and now I'm putting that down to Mattia not managing Carlos's expectations correctly a couple of years ago, and now relationships have broken down to a point that they're pretty much irreperable, even if Fred is managing everyone's expectations correctly. Mattia's bad management from the car development perspective gives Sainz media an angle to smear Charles as well. 2022 was Charles's championship to lose, and he lost quite badly. It becomes quite easy for journalists to take the line of "oh well, is Charles REALLY a generational talent or is he all hype?", and then compare Charles and Carlos in frankly incomparable situations to make it seem like, at first glance, Carlos comes out on top (key example of this would be Bahrain 2024, where Charles had an insane brake imbalance and still managed to finish p4, but Carlos's camp were quick to point out that Carlos's brakes had cooling issues, which if you know anything about the sport you know that's comparing a mouse to an elephant, but a lot of people chose to ran with Charles and Carlos having the same issue, resulting in people applauding Carlos for a podium in a car that's undergoing normal race stress and decrying Charles for managing to finish P4 in a car that should've been undriveable).

The second aspect moves away from traditional media and to word-of-mouth and online perspective of Charles, although often the first point about Charles not yet living up to his il predestinato name is sometimes used as evidence. Charles's fanbase is female (at least outside of the countries of Italy and Monaco), and disproportionately so compared to other driver fanbases. And look, sure he's a conventionally attractive guy, we're not going to deny objective facts. But those who dislike Charles like to use the fact that he has an active female fanbase, along with the fact that he's conventionally very attractive, in order to mock Charles and his hype. "Leclerc is mid and people only like him because he's hot and women don't understand wheel knowledge" seems to be the current argument of MANY a Charles hater.

Ultimately, it boils down to thinking that his fanbase don't truly understand the sport, because we're majority women and CAN'T be in the sport because we enjoy it we MUST just be here for the hot man. Which is both untrue and fundamentally misogynistic. While Charles himself can't experience misogyny as a man, his fanbase of women certainly can and certainly does. Our voices are trivialised and counted out, and that in turn has an impact on Charles's public image, since people think that a majority of his fans don't have any actual knowledge of the sport (when in my experience, this is perhaps the furthest from the truth).

[dizzyduck44]

Content creators are cutting off their noses to spite their face

Tonight as I lie in bed, I’m reading. (Lucy Worsley’s “Jane Austen at Home” if you must know). For the last few years bed time has normally been YouTube videos or instagram scrolling. More often than not F1 related.

As a Lewis and Lando fan I accepted long ago finding Lewis friendly content was hard, but there was at least lots of Lando content out there.

During the “Dando” years of McLaren there was good content if you could ignore the Daniel crazies (fans who’s god like bias goes beyond reason or reality). However now, with his second Aussie teammate on the bounce (this one people really want to believe is the driver he will be in 5 years, now), the Max fans trying to process their disbelief, the Lewis fans looking for anyone to retaliate at (because apparently it’s an eye for an eye), George fans who mock Lando because George does it (they skip the point they are actually friends and Lando gives as good as he gets) and recently Ferrari fans (I can only assume overtaking Charles and being closer to a title that he is 🤷‍♀️), Lando hating seems to have become a global sport.

And content creators, some who fall into one of the above categories (P1, Tommo), some jumping on the bandwagon (WTF1, CameronF1, FormulaBone). Some who apparently have beef with Lando for god knows what reason (Aldas) are playing up to this.

Literally there is one F1 content channel I would go out of my way to watch, Josh Revell and even he has had a pop (albeit half his content is comically admitting how wrong he was, Sir Lancelot aside).

Even The Race who, whilst their news report are generally unbiased, their race reviews have become hyperbolic personal opinions based on who they dislike.

I know I won’t be alone with this, Sergio, Logan and Carlos have been getting it all season. But I’ve actually found myself unsubscribing and ignoring people’s content because of their sudden Lando pile on. If I don’t engage, they won’t make money off me.

And if others are doing the same, I can’t help but feel they are willingly pissing off one of the largest fan bases in F1 and hitting themselves in the bank balance for it. I struggle to see the logic.

Because here is the thing. This will pass. And those casual viewers will drift away. What are they going to do from December to February with no F1 and subs down? They will find a new punching bag but the Lando fans won’t be coming back.

There really are the big 5 in F1, the drivers who bring the fanbases, sell the merch, inspire the crazies; Lewis, Max, Lando, Charles and I would say Checo. (I think Lando took Daniel’s spot 😬). If you have pissed off the fans of 4 of those drivers already I really hope you have a back up career available.

I’d rather read than tolerate or support most of the BS being put out recently. Because if your issue is someone grew up and at the first chance at a championship they refuse to be an arse, I can safely say I wouldn’t make time for you in real life. I sure as hell don’t have to online.

[ryo-hirakawa]

now i normally am super open to new fans of endurance (literally why i made the wec discord server) but yknow ppl say sometimes fanbases ruin a driver for you. lord. i'm so over mick fans coming in and thinking mick is too good for wec or smth. hating on nico lp and matty vaxxy for having to be "carried", but also hating on charlie for being given the last stint in the 36 over mick (i also feel like a lot of hate charlie gets from them stems from the fact charlie is regarded as the strongest alpine driver and these fans disagree). like if you start watching wec because your fave from f1 is here now then great! i have friends who like mick and thanks to wec they got to know his teammates and now they like them all! i just wish that vocal portion of the mick fanbase felt the same instead of trying to pit drivers against one another

[vicsy]

Many people won't care about me writing about this but I must get this out.

I got into Formula 1 at the beginning of 2022. It coincided with the world as I knew it collapsing in on itself with record speed. I don't hide the fact that I am from Russia and I know most people would know what my country started in February that year. You watch your entire life plans getting crumpled like a piece of paper and thrown into the trash; the borders closing, companies leaving, the world turning back on you for the sole fact that you were born here. You watch yourself slowly inched into isolation.

And at the worst time in my entire life I managed to find this little gateway. It started with Lando, funnily enough, because I didn't know my way around the F1, so I picked someone with a Star Wars name. Irony is not dead. It wasn't long before I imprinted on Daniel like a fucking baby duckling.

Even through the mess that was his career in 2022, he brought me (and many others) so much joy. I was slowly navigating the world of racing and trying to make sense of it all. Daniel was there. The narratives were there. He is the reason I discovered the fanbase, the fandom, the reason I met so many people I get to call lifelong friends now. And I can't imagine my life without them anymore. At my lowest I found a community that made my life bearable and fun and bright; a community that made me want to create and write again. Daniel was the reason I broadened my horizons and became a Fernando fan, Lance fan, a fan of so many other drivers that I still have the joy to support even when Daniel won't be there, behind the wheel or barking in the garage.

You'd think that it's stupid to hang your entire life balance on one millionaire who drives cars in circles and won't ever know you exist. But to me Daniel became that balance when everything else was just plainly uncertain. I watched the news of the world events unfolding and that pit of dread was never ending. It was like having a rug pulled from underneath your feet every single day. Those first 2-3 months of the war felt the worst. Not like it changed but you get the idea. But I still had this little F1 world and this smiling weirdo to brighten my day.

The friends that I found, the happiness that I managed to scrap in the times of great uncertainty, all of this was tied to Daniel. He was, in a way, a lifeline that led me to a hobby that I've grown to love. It hurt me back, multiple times, but it also saved my sanity on so many occasions.

I know, in my heart, Daniel will bounce back. Who knows, maybe he'll be back one day, in 2026, or doing something related to F1. Or maybe he chooses to stay away forever. Me, personally? Of course I'd like to see him race. And I hate change. The change of it all hurts as much as the fact that Daniel never got a proper goodbye. I do hope he knows, somehow, how much he is loved.

And I'll forever cherish the fact that I got to see him live in Baku, that I stood in front row an listened to him explain his terrible pizza choices. I heard him say well done, Baku first hand. I'm glad I got there in time to get a signed card. I'll always have the warmest feelings towards Daniel. If not for him, my life would be emptier today.

oh, and, never forget – fuck 'em all.

[race-week]

The "innocent until proven guilty" thing wouldn't have even worked with Bianca because everyone already knew she was guilty. The evidence was right there in her twitter likes. Whether people considered her "guilty" or not really just tended to depend on their views on autistic people and if we're worthy of respect or if something we have no control over should be used to attack others.

There was also, in my opinion, no real "victim" (in the sense of an actual human being, not these people trying to act like teams/huge corporations are entitled to respect, being potentially being physically or psychologically harmed by Susie) surrounding those rumors. It sucked to see Susie, who in the end did nothing wrong, have her name and reputation smeared, but she was cleared of any wrongdoing. And most of the speculation around that, at least on Tumblr, seemed to be joking about spreading team-related information, not directly attacking Susie or hoping that someone actually had been severely hurt by something she did.

I've had to unfollow and block people both on here and on Reddit for literally hoping this Christian situation is related to sexual assault (there was one particularly gross comment hoping a prominent woman working for RBR was involved so she would quit and work for a rival team instead). People are again acting like these are "DTS characters" instead of real people just trying to do their jobs. Sexual assault has long-lasting impacts - your biggest concern, even if that is what you expect, shouldn't be "omg I hope this person leaves this team I hate for this team I love." It should be about the victim's healing and wellbeing. And frankly I think it's gross that this fanbase has stooped so low and started dehumanizing even the regular, non-famous people who work in this sport to the point they have to be reminded of that. These are real people just trying to do their jobs. Maybe fictionized media is best for some people if they can't separate their feelings from wishing actual heinous crimes and tragedies on the real people involved. There's a difference between sports-related entertainment in regards to who wins and who loses, who comes out ahead, who makes mistakes, etc. and this weird sense of wanting to see actual real life suffering that some f1 fans seem to have.

Very well said anon, I have nothing to add.