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dear-ao3 · 4 months ago

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good morning, good evening, and good day. welcome back. outs our second race of the triple header and we are in austria at red bull ring. its a sprint weekend. and everyones haters are in absolute shambles. shit is heating the hell up at the front of the grid. today is july 2, 2024 and lets get right on in

first of all. rude of them to throw a sprint smack in the middle of a triple header weekend. i already have enough things to write about. im going to try not to speed run it and do a proper update though cause oh god this weekend needs it. but regardless.

we start with everyones favorite poor little meow meow, logan sargeant.

now, i didnt include this bit on the last update. but logan aparently did say at the barcelona race that he was going to score points in barcelona next year. which is Intriguing. because as we know, hes not really performing.

admittedly yes hes been dealt a bad hand of cars this season (if you remember all the problems williams had at the beginning with the overheating and the steering wheel and then alex albon raced his car and then he was in alex's chassis that wasnt totally speced to him and then he had old parts and wasnt given the updates and kevin magnussen crashed into him and he finally, finally got the same parts but they didnt work As Well as alex's and yeah. bad time for him overall.) alex albon said in some interview, actually, that logan is actually doing a good job, which is nice to hear especially because the press have been absolutely destroying him. reguardless. we have some logan news.

first and foremost. there are rumors afoot that he is going to go to indycar next year. which is another racing series. specifically that hes going to race with prema in indycar. (i dont know a lot about indycar at all other than that its racing)

now. this all became all the more interesting when logan announced the launch of his own app at the beginning of the week.

now. few things to note here.

the app is called LS2 (two being his f1 number)

its in the williams colors

as someone pointed out on twitter (@ mo_vroom), the app is run by fan capital which is a subsidiary of williams/dorilton. meaning the company (not his brand) is tied to williams

this raises several questions.

first, if logan is moving to indycar he wouldn't be keeping his f1 number, so why did he center the whole branding around specifically LS2 if hes leaving f1? second, the app is in williams colors and is tied to a williams brand. austria is race 11/24. were nearly half done with the season. why go through all the trouble of creating an app for a driver that is centered around his f1 and team branding if hes in fact leaving f1 at the end of the season????

all good questions and unfortunately i have no answers for you. logan did say thought that he is exploring options in and outside of f1 at the moment though

but, we do have contract news.

pierre gasley has re signed with alpine on a multi year deal.

and to the surprise of no one, lance stroll has also re signed with aston martin.

so, there is now one more seat open at alpine for jack doohan and mick schumacher and maybe even carlos sainz to fight out. aparently flavio briatore (who we talked about last week) is interested in carlos. but carlos said during the press conference that the middle of a triple header is a bad time to make a contract decision, especially when it seems like he really doesnt know where hes going. aparently, netflix had a whole extra crew in the paddock on top of the drive to survive crew because they were told that there was going to be na announcement that carlos was going to williams. this obviously did not happen and many people were aparently confused. this is reportedly because flavio is at alpine now and he must have said Something to make carlos reconsider.

theres also rumors about the alpine engine supplier. they might break away from renault. pierre has stayed neutral on it.

the max to mercedes rumors are also back and they are back with an absolute vengeance, mostly because jos verstappen has been talking to the press again.

aparently, jos was going to drive an older red bull, the RB8 at the legends parade event thing in spielberg but he withdrew because according to him (jos) "i heard from several sources that christian horner did everything he could to not let me drive. then i thought: say it to my face. i find it very disappointing." in a separate interview he also said "im completely finished with horner, its like a kindergarten here."

jos then came out and told the press "there is so much going on, so i dont want to say too much about it."

the press then clarified "so a switch to mercedes is not out of the question?"

"correct" said jos.

max is terribly not impressed with all of this. "its not fun," he said. "not for myself, not for my father, not for Christian and not for the team. you dont want these things to happen."

christian also put in his two cents on the Mercedes rumors saying that "the driver who has created all the movement in the market (lewis) had all the information about the engines and 2026 regulations and chose to leave mercedes." meaning max would be insane to go there.

christian also said, "if toto wants to have a verstappen in the car next year, then jos might be available"

toto, unsurprisingly, also had things to say. "horner said that he will stay. lets see, he leave him with this idea...we'll see if the w15 will be a car that can convince max. i think its max who wins the races and not red bull. the rb20 is solid, but perez isn't doing well. its max who makes all the difference."

max though has squashed the rumors of him going to mercedes saying that "we're working on next years car and the thing is that when you are very focused on that, it means that you are driving for that team."

so it seems that max is staying at red bull, but tensions are still high. remember this later :)

kimi still seems likely for mercedes, though lots of people think thats insane because just cause max came into f1 young and succeeded doesnt mean that everyone will. i think ive talked about this tho

and then we also had helmut marko once again being insane and self contradicting in the press.

first, he said that liam lawson is going to sign with vcarb "soon" which we've heard several times now. aparently the shareholders have said that "this is a junior team and we have to act accordingly." marko also said that "The aim was for him [daniel] to be considered for Red Bull Racing with exceptional performances. This seat now belongs to sergio perez, so this plan is no longer valid. we will soon have to put a young driver there [at Racing Bulls]. That would be Liam Lawson.”

the bit about daniel is interesting because it sparked some speculation that daniel might night even be finishing the season at vcarb. will buxton said as much during the race weekend. this weekend was daniels 250th race start. but also, helmut is not to be trusted, as we know. and as evidenced by what he also said below

then he later came out and said that liam would join audi as daniel would be staying at vcarb until 2025. daniel has also said that he has no other options for 2025 other than vcarb

meanwhile, zhou has said that if there is not an open seat for him in 25, he is happy to become a reserve driver because “I think to be a reserve driver would be interesting if they can promise a seat is available for the coming seasons."

i think that that about does it for the contract talk.

so here are the open seats as they stand:

red bull: 0 ferrari: 0 mclaren: 0 mercedes: 1 aston: 0 alpine: 1 sauber: 1 williams: 1 vcarb: 1 haas: 2

moving on. the shenanigans of the week

the first two are actually from last week cause im decently sure i forgot about them. if not i apologize you had to read this twice.

so, last week:

the schumacher family was blackmailed by some criminals saying that they would release sensitive information if they did not pay the criminals 50 million euros . michael schumacher as you may or may not know was involved in a skiing accident in 2013 (14?) and is still alive but the family have chosen to keep any further information about his condition to themselves and out of the spotlight (which is respectable) and for the most part people have respected this, until now. the criminals were aparently caught and arrested.

and second some fans started a petition that leo leclerc (charles dog) is not receiving proper care from charles and his girlfriend alexandra. frankly, idk what the purpose of this was. i think people were concerned that he was only being used for pr reasons? aparently alexandra responded and was annoyed about the whole thing.

but back to this week

first up we have mark webber. who the hell is mark webber? he is an ex formula 1 driver, he was on the grid from 2002 - 2013 and raced for minardi, jaguar, williams (where he was nico rosberg's teammate and was the one to start calling him britney (98% sure) and red bull (where he was terrorized by young sebastian vettel winning his world championships). hes a self proclaimed "proud heterosexual," world endurance championship winner, and oscar pastry's manager.

so george russell posted this video on his instagram

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its of him, his girlfriend carmen and his trainer aleix working out. and low and behold, who commented on this but mark webber:

first, yes, that is his real account handle and yes, he did call carmen a bride. carmen and george have been dating for i think five years, but they are not engaged. so at first everyone was like. hello. mark webber? are you announcing george's engagement????

but no. turns out bride means girl/girlfriend or something along those lines in australian slang (im not australian and i cant find the actual definition anywhere so either correct me or just take my word for it) (actually update on this, i asked my tumblr following what the hell he meant and y'all said that bride just means bride in australian. so idk what the hell mark was talking about, what the hell sir)

this is not the first time mark webber has left cryptic comments on people's instagrams though. just earlier this month he left this one on jenson button's instagram:

whatever that means.

anyway, speaking of george (discussion of food and dieting and that stuff ahead if you dont want to read it skip to the next colored heading) i believe it was last race that george's race engineer told him that he had gotten heavier and george in response aparently made his diet a little more strict. drivers as you may or not know, have to stay at a certain weight in order to compete. george is tall, and taller drivers always suffer due to this because they are taller so naturally they weigh more. george was already on a stricter diet to begin with and hes already incredibly slim. this is also not the first time that stuff like this has happened at mercedes. in 2015/2016 nico rosberg did all kinds of crazy stuff in order to cut weight in order to beat lewis hamilton (cut the paint from his helmet, cut his socks, took bits off of his seat, stopped cycling to loose some muscle in his legs etc etc) though im decently sure he was the one to initiate that (?) and bottas also aparently faced similar things from the team itself when he was at merc and now george is as well. which is not great. at all. (all of the drivers have a trainer and then at least one additional person who does their nutrition and meals and stuff so they are still supervised in what theyre doing and get weighed pre and post race but still its not a great comment to make and it clearly had effects)

oscar piastri's mom nicole was back at it again on twitter

kevin magnussen and nico hulkenberg watched the euros together

mercedes posted more throwback pics of nico rosberg and toto talked about the time mercedes put their logo on the red bull bull at the red bull ring

logan and alex were menaces in the paddock with a ping pong ball

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someone from williams, fred vasseur and another person from williams (?) all raced to the track on either practice day or media day i think it was practice day and went too fast through a police speed trap and had to meet with police about it. james vowels talked about it in his usual unserious manner

and i cant find the source but aparently lewis called sebastian to ask him about his old race engineer, ricciardo, who lewis is aparently considering to make his race engineer when he moves to ferrari next year.

max was late to the press conference by quite a lot (15 minutes) and was aparently sprinting through the paddock to get there

logan was aparently called the "slowest driver" by an interviewer and said in response "thank you very much"

logans bad parking job from last week was also debunked. it was not logan who parked the car badly, it was alex and logan took the blame for it because david coulthard assumed that logan had done it.

and charles was talking about who he would form a band with in f1 (he said himself on the piano, lewis singing and lando on the guitar). when asked what the band should be called, carlos said "just an inchident"

alex albon continues to be insane on the team torque podcast, saying this week that if he had a tattoo it would be random like a duck making eggs or something. logan seemed concerned about him.

and lando is aparently still sick. he was kinda sick last week and it hasn't gotten better. he said that it is not hindering his ability to drive, he just doesnt feel great. i think he might ave actually said that it makes him drive better?

and with that. we're into sprint qualifying.

for the sake of the fact that the rest of this weekend is bonkers insane and i have a lot to cover, were going to keep the whole sprint brief. sorry. also not sorry.

so i didnt watch the practice session. sorry, i was at work. aparently max had a car problem, thought this theme isn't new cause he complains all weekend as of late and then pulls out a pole and a win.

this is also the shortest time length track on the calendar (meaning lap time not lap distance) which makes qualifying difficult due to traffic. despite this. everyone still wanted to step right on each others toes during qualifying.

and no one was more upset about this than ted kravitz, the pit lane commentator.

"the session starts! i'm all excited!" ted exclaimed over the radio. "ive geared myself up! im standing in my styrian wood bird watching hut at the end of the pit lane waiting to count them out. we've got a green light right in front of me. and then nothing! what am i gonna do? my julie andrews impression? give you a round of the hills they are alive with the sound of music? *singing* ah ah ah ah! anyway. well. nothing to do."

the cars did eventually come out.

mclaren had brought an upgrade to their front wing and suspension, which was unsual to do first in a triple header and second in a sprint, but they were confident. vcarb also had a "hodgepodge" of new and old parts on their car as they tried to sort out their upgrade problems from last week in spain.

two interesting things happened in q1. first, logan sargeant got out of q1 which is fantastic news and the second time hes done this during a sprint qualifying. alex albon, his teammate did not get out of q1. for the second time this season, logan out qualified alex.

second, yuki had an insane spin and then save right at the end of the session

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logan ended up out in q2 in p15. and both alpines got through to q3 yet again.

q3 was between both red bulls, mercs, ferraris, mclarens and alpines all battling for the top 10 spots. naturally the best way to go about this was to wait in the pit lane until the absolute last second to get out of the pit lane and hope that you have no problems and set one really flying very fast lap.

well at 3.5 minutes to go and still no cars out george russell said what everyone was saying: 'lets get cracking mate, everyones gonna send it out."

pretty immediately the mercs came out at the 3 minute mark, everyone else followed.

now. you have to do one whole lap (your our lap) before you can start your flying timed lap. as long as you finish your out lap before the end of the session, you can start your flying lap. ideal time for an out lap was one minute 30 seconds. and it was very tight for some people.

too tight for charles leclerc. heading out of the pits he had an engine problem and had to pull to the side, allowing checo and i believe the two alpines to go to the side as he tried to literally restart the car. he got it restarted but did not get to the line in time to start his flying lap. so he did not get to set a time and would start in 10th.

"what the hell happened guys?" charles asked over radio.

"we fixed (took?) the anti stall" the team said.

"uh, thank you but the anti stall kinda stopped the engine. the engine switched off, i dont know if you noticed. there was no engine. the ignition went to off. i had to redo the whole thing."

so charles was not pleased and it was seemingly yet another ferrari goof. it couldnt possibly get worse for them, could it? idk stay tuned.

the main thing we saw in qualifying though was that checo was pretty consistently half a second off of max's pace. which isn't fantastic. especially considering hes re signed a contract with them.

and so they lined up for the sprint the next day:

max on pole followed by lando and oscar. then george, carlos, lewis, checo, esteban, pierre, and charles rounded out the top ten. then we had kevin, lance, fernando, yuki, logan, daniel, nico, valtteri, zhou and alex started from the pit lane due to set up changes.

there was an aborted start at the beginning, meaning they did an extra formation lap and the race was reduced by one lap. this was due to photographers behind the barriers at turn 1 aparently.

right off the line the mclarens were fighting. well. sorta. not like fighting fighting like spain 2016 fighting, but definitely racing eachother. they kept swapping spots 2 and 3 back and forth and even were racing side by side at a few points.

this was fun to watch of course but as the announcers said "mclaren must hake sure they do not loose time fighting eachother" because they had to still get past max before he blew past everyone.

fortunately, max was only half a second ahead and the mclarens had drs.

lando managed to pass max on lap 5, but then max passed him back and while max was passing lando, oscar also managed to pass lando and take second. and oscar managed to stay within DRS range of max until lap 12.

and while that fight was happening, we also had a battle between the two alpines. they were not even fighting for points, they were down in 11 and 12 and going absolutely toe to toe. so much so that our friends the announcers said that "i hope we dont see any confetti made out of carbon fibre between these two." alas. we did not. yet.

back up at the front, oscar was being hard on his tires and lando was gaining on him. he wanted to make a lunge on him. but he already had two strikes for track limits and had to be careful so he didnt get a penalty. oscar stayed in the front and in the words of our friends the announcers "piastri seems to have found his mojo again."

back in the back, alex albon had somehow ended up in 18th and ahead of both sabers despite the fact that he had started in the pit lane. he had not managed to get ahead of logan though, who was in 17th.

and also, fernando alonso, who got shoved off the track by nico hulkenberg and ended in 16th, had not managed to find pace in the car once since he had resigned with the team. aston Martin was absolutely nowhere.

so the race ended. max, oscar, lando, george, carlos, lewis, charles, checo, kevin, lance, esteban, pierre, sui, nico, daniel, fernando, logan, alex, valtteri and zhou.

checo ended up finishing 18 seconds behind max. mclaren were five seconds behind max.

"that was spicy, but good," max said.

"a good race between us...can definitely give them a fight tomorrow" lando said

martin brundle also said to "give that boy a honey lemon drink or whatever" about lando when he got out of the car cause he looked a little more dead than usual

"will definitely take the points, its a good haul between us compared to the other teams." oscar said, ever the shade monster. he was of course talking about red bull, who only took 9 points between max and checo, whereas mclaren managed to take 13.

george also said in his own post interview that "norris and verstappen always get their elbows out. i'll sit back and watch."

i know were zooming but i promise you it will all be worth it. lets talk about real qualifying now. and again, we're speeding.

as we know, its a short track. i dont think if i said this already, but there are also a fuckton of gravel traps. meaning that if you go off the track you go into the gravel. this is to enforce track limits and also make things spicy.

there were also many many zooms on jos verstappen. hm.

q1 showed some disappointments. like when lewis put on a fresh set of soft tires and only managed to go 6th fastest when martin brundle rightfully pointed out that "on fresh tires lewis should be electric on this track....[this is] worrying on fresh tires."

another disappointment was checo down in 12th and just barely scraping through to q2, "on brand spanking new soft tires." again, worrying!!! especially with mclaren slowly closing on red bull in the championship.

and to no one's surprise, williams. they had changed around the set up of the car a little, but ultimately didnt have the pace because alex and logan were both out in q1.

"we did a good job with the car, we just dont have the pace," alex said.

"we know our limitation and this just isn't it, its such a shame man" logan said.

q2 also brought out more disappointments, like aston martin who managed to get both cars out in q2. "what is going on at satin martin?" martin wondered. "theyre the 8th fastest team, ahead of sauber and williams." yes. haas and alpine are both faster than aston.

and the french civil war continued because esteban got through to q3. pierre did not

and daniel missed out on q3 by .01 seconds

q3 started off pretty boring. but let's check in with the pit lane.

"ted! what had you got for us down in the pit lane?"

"I've got no cars."

eventually the cars did come out, and they didnt all wait until the last possible second this time.

continuing with our trend of disappointments, charles decided to take a trip into the grass for funzies. "i think i broke everything under the car," he said.

also oscar had his fastest lap time deleted for track limits. mclaren tried to appeal it because oscar didnt gain an advantage from it. but the appeal was rejected. had his lap not been deleted he would have started 3rd.

to no one's surprise, max was back on pole position. lando was four tenths behind him.

"been awhile since we've been on pole" max said jokingly in his interview. I think it's been 2 races since hes been on pole, lol.

"max is in a league of his own...ill take [second]" lando said in his post race interview. "i'll do a better job than i did this morning."

and george rounded out the top three. he was thrilled. "3 races in a row where we are in the top 3 with me and lewis," george said. though he didn't try to oversell the team, who still has a lot of ground to make up "our race will be behind us," he said. meaning that he would have work to do to keep people behind him.

and during all of this, yuki said a slur over the radio. it was r*****. the stewards took note of it and he recieved a 40,000 euro fine for it. however, upon it being explained to yuki what the word meant, he was apologetic and felt bad, saying that english is not his first language (its not, and hes also not fluent in english, he just speaks it, which is different. this is also not the first time that this has happened with yuki i think there was an instance when he called christian a motherfucker awhile ago cause he didnt know what it meant) and he offered to issue a public apology. this reduced his fine to 20,000 euros if he didnt do it again this season. this is not the first time that a driver has said a slur over the radio but i think that this was the first time they were held accountable for it.

so. the moment we've been waiting for. the race.

but first! a brief look into the recent past! it's relevant i swear!

lets look at the 2019 Austrian gp.

it was the final few laps of the race. charles leclerc was in his maiden year at ferrari and was hunting down his first race win, it seemed very possible,

it was lap 68. charles leclerc was leading the race and max verstappen attempted to pass him in turn 3. somehow charles was able to maintain the lead.

on lap 69 charles was not as lucky. he did not defend the inside line and max took advantage of that. he forced charles wide, almost shoving him off the track and they both banged wheels. fortunately there was no damage. unfortunately max was able to take the lead from charles and won the race. charles would not get his first f1 win until 4 races later in belgium.

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ultimately, max did not think that he had been at fault or done anything wrong at all in this incident. (remember, this was still in the years of mercedes dominance, max had no championship titles yet but was getting slowly closer and closer towards the top of the pack)

after the race max said:

-“It’s hard racing otherwise we have to stay home. If those things are not allowed in racing, what is the point of being in F1? "

-"I don’t think we should get a penalty for that. I never opened [the steering wheel] but the problem is that in that corner there is a crest, so when you then go a bit deeper at such a tight angle you just understeer because of that crest."

-"The car on the outside he has to wait a bit because we went quite deep. I never opened the steering wheel. I was in front. He just had to cut back on me but he tried to go around the outside which is not possible."

charles was not in agreement with any of this.

-“I’ll let the stewards decide but for me, it was pretty clear in the car. I don’t know how it looked like from the outside.”

-he was also asked if he thought what max did was fair and he said “I don’t know. I was on the outside, like the lap before, the lap before was completely fine, he left the space for a car width on the exit of the corner but he didn’t on the other lap so we touched and I had to go wide, and then obviously I didn’t have any chance to pass back so it’s a shame.”

the key thing here is leaving space. it comes up a lot. you are supposed to leave a cars width of space so that you dont force people off the track and/or they have room to pass.

max did not get a penalty.

this is also what caused charles and later max to unfollow eachother on instagram. they have not followed eachother back.

so with that in mind. lets also take a brief look at the 2021 abu dhabi gp.

this race was insane for many reasons, not all of which i will get into. but what you need to know is that it was the last race of the season and the title fight between max and lewis came down to this last race. lewis was fighting for a record breaking 8th world champion title. and max was fighting for his first. heading into the weekend they both had exactly 369.5 points.

and boy, was it an insane race.

max was on pole position, lewis started p2.

lewis immediately took the lead from max, but max attempted to regain the lead in turns 6 and 7. he braked late into the chicane and under the braking moved from the inside of the track to the outside of the track to overtake lewis. lewis got forced off slightly and said as much over the radio. he came back on track further in front of max than he had been before. red bull argued that lewis needed to give the position to max, saying that lewis left the track and gained an advantage. this did not happen as the stewards ruled there was no further action necessary. hamilton pushed ahead, still in p1, to extend his lead. max did not get a penalty.

max pitted on lap 13 and lewis pitted on lap 14. checo perez had pitted a few laps before and was out in front when lewis and max rejoined the circuit, with max still a considerable distance behind lewis. checo was told to hold up lewis as much as possible to give max time to catch up. by lap 20 max was only 1.3 seconds behind lewis (instead of the 11 that he had started at), though max was still unable to pass and lewis extended his lead again.

there were a series of crashes and retirements a few laps later, kimi raikkonen crashed into the barriers, george russell retired due to gear box issues and and antonio giovinazzi also retired due to gearbox issues. that caused a virtual safety car. red bull brought max in for fresh tires and did not lose track position. lewis was not brought in for fresh tires. the gap between max and lewis reduced from 17 seconds to 11 seconds.

then the chaos ensued.

a safety car came out on lap 53 due to nicholas latifi's crash. hamilton stayed out. max pitted for soft tires. checo retired under the safety car.

there were notably, five lapped cars (lando norris, fernando alonso, esteban ocon, charles leclerc and sebastian vettel) between lewis in first and max in second. there were other lapped cars further back in the pack. sometimes when this happens during a safety car, the lapped cars are allowed to overtake the safety car and go back to the back of the line to resume their order. they were initially told not to do this. then, the stewards said that only the five lapped cars between hamilton and verstappen could overtake the safety car. the rest of the cars had to stay lapped.

the safety car came in just as vettel unlapped himself for the final lap of the race.

this is where we get the very angry toto throwing his headphones picture from.

on the final lap of the race, max passed lewis at turn 5. lewis tried to overtake him again but ultimately failed.

max won his first championship title. lewis came second.

there are a lot of back and forth radios in this race between toto, lewis, max, christian and race control. both teams were literally trying to do everything to get their driver through to the lead, especially towards the end.

toto was understandably pissed about the lapped car call (if that had not happened lewis would have won) and tried to get race control to reinstate the order that was originally behind the safety car. in response, toto was told by race director michael masi (who called for the safety car unlapping) "toto, its called a motor race, ok? we went car racing."

there were a lot of protests from mercedes about the safety car procedure (all of the lapped cars should have been able to unlap or none of the cars should have unlapped is what they called for, basically because thats what's in the rules) and all of that which is interesting but unfortunately not relevant for what we are talking about. if you want to read about then, they are here. ultimately, mercedes was not successful in getting the result of the race turned over. many if not all of the drivers were in support of hamilton and thought that the safety car decision was ridiculous. michael masi ended up being forced to step down as race director and several changes were made to the rules because of this race. but ultimately, nothing was overturned and max won. this was the end of the mercedes era of dominance as the next year was the introduction of the cost cap and their car was absolutely shit.

now. with all of that said. lets get into the 2024 austrian gp

as im sure you might have already speculated. it was really something.

but it did not start out that way.

(as a very irrelevant aside i want you all to know that i am waiting to board a train right now and it is massively fucking delayed because of course it is so ive whipped out my laptop and my handwritten notes and hunkered down in the train station to bang this thing out. a bitch (me) is committed)

so. Importantly. this race can be won or lost in the pit lane. it's a 20-21 second pit normally, and drops to 10 with a safety car. remember this. its a surprise tool we will need later.

so right out of the gate in lap one charles and oscar had contact, causing charles to loose most of his front wing. charles had to pit and it was a stupidly long time he spent in the pit box (12.8 seconds). logan sargeant also pitted for some reason, i never figured out quite why. but charles came out in 18th and logan came out in 20th. upsetting on all accounts. this absolutely fucked charles's race as he was almost 40 seconds off the lead before lap 10

while that was happening, the mercs were fighting. well. sorta. george was running in 3rd and lewis was running in 4th. on lap 3 lewis passed george but then george passed him back. lewis complained over the radio that george was holding him up. they did not swap drivers.

then we had lando, pretty immediately, get fastest lap. he was 2 seconds behind max and hungry for redemption after the sprint race.

alex albon managed to pass charles leclerc. yes. alex albon in a williams, the second slowest car on the grid, managed to pass charles leclerc in a ferrari. it would appear the monaco curse is getting revenge on the fact that it didnt strike in monaco. martin brundle was beside himself. "this is not representative of the ferrari," he said.

anyway. we had both of the haas drivers pit on lap 11 to get out of a drs train that had been forming (remember its a short track, sometimes you have to pit to get out of traffic). immediately after exiting the pit lane, kevin started fighting with nico, who was right in front of him. they managed to pass eachtohter 2x in a lap. kevin was pretty instantly told to save his tires over the radio. he retaliated asking if nico had also been asked to save his tires or if it was just him. he was told that both of them were told this. "fuck that" kevin said.

by lap 17 max was in lapping distance of charles. charles came in to pit. this was his second pit stop already.

fernando shoved zhou off the track on lap 21, shoving his front wheel into zhou's back wheel. he later got a 10 second penalty for this. "what the fuck is he doing there?" zhou asked over radio. albon and ocon managed to get past zhou for 13th and 14th position.

lewis pitted on lap 22. he was right in front of oscar who snitched on him on radio. "i think hamilton crossed the white line on entry," oscar said. and he was right. lewis got a 5 second penalty for this.

carlos and george pitted on lap 23. lando and max pitted on lap 24. leaving oscar in the lead, but he still needed to pit.

lando argued over the radio that max nearly drove into him in the pit lane. "he launched right into me....i couldnt turn into the box." the stewards ruled that this needed no further investigation.

oscar pitted on lap 26.

so by lap 27 after everyone had done at lest one pit we had this order:

max, lando, george, carlos, lewis, oscar, nico, checo, kevin, daniel, fernando, alex, pierre, zhou, yuki, lance, valtteri, charles and logan

toto decided that this would be a good time to come on the radio.

"lewis theres everything to play here, everything to play."

whatever that meant.

ferrari were very delusional optimistic. and by that i meant that they told charles over the radio that all was not lost and he would get into the fight for points eventually. he was still in 18th. and he made another pit stop (his third!) on lap 34.

"he's not going to get into the points like this!" martin said, making fun of ferrari

"he's on plan z martin said," also making fun of ferrari

while charles was getting his hopes and dreams crushed for the millionth time, we also had the french civil war heating up once again.

there was a proper drs train forming from 10th to 13th spot. we had daniel, fernando, esteban and pierre all running very close to eachother. pierre, at the back of the train, was not pleased with estebans driving.

"he's gotta pass fernando faster, we're loosing time now," pierre said on lap 34.

perhaps this was relayed to esteban, perhaps it was not. either way, both of the alpines managed to pass fernando on lap 36. it was a clumsy pass because pierre, as he was going around fernando was also trying to get past esteban.

in any case. fernando was impressed. or perhaps feeling sarcastic.

"wow!" he said, over the radio.

pierre was less than impressed. "what the fuck what was that? why did he just run me off the track?" pierre said about esteban

fernando then pitted and served his time penalty.

and in the middle of all that, checo got a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

by lap 40 max was complaining about the tires. "i dont know what's happening but the tires are suddenly very bad" he said. this would continue for awhile, but remember its a short track. so unless he wanted to come out in the middle of a ton of traffic and lapped cars, he was going to have to deal with his shitty tires.

a few more people had pitted, putting esteban into 8th and pierre into 9th. on lap 41, pierre finally managed to get past esteban in some very very classic, french on french violence.

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"a little bit unnecessary," martin said. "but great fun for us."

"what's bruno going to do?" ted said, still being insane. (bruno is the alpine team principal. "sack ocon again?"

pierre was entirely unbothered

alex albon was under investigation for....something. not sure what cause i forgot to write it down. but he got a 5 second penalty for whatever it was! probably crossing the white line or pit lane speeding,

meanwhile, max verstappen was wondering very loudly why he had not pitted yet on lap 45.

"i cant hold this for much longer, mate, behind" max said on lap 48. he was referring to the two lapped haas cars behind him, which were 8th and 9th.

in the meantime, other people had already started to come into the pits, including pierre, george and carlos. george took the fastest lap on lap 49, really getting some good use out of his new tires.

"tires are shit man," max said on lap 51. and maybe they were tired of hearing him complain because they brought him into the pits.

lando, who was still in second in case you forgot, also pitted.

remember when i said that the race would be won or lost in the pit lane?

max had a lead on lando of i think about 7-8 seconds at this point.

max had a slow stop. one of his rear tires got stuck coming off. he was in the pit box for 6.5 seconds.

lando was in the box for 2.9 seconds.

"ooooooooooh my god," max said as he pulled back onto the track. the gap between him and lando was now under 2 seconds. and there were no lapped cars between them.

around the world, everyone sat up a little straighter. shit was about to get far more interesting.

so it was lap 53. and here was our order.

max, lando, lewis, george, carlos, oscar, nico, kevin, daniel, checo, pierre, esteban, alex, lance, yuki, fernando, valtteri, charles, zhou and logan

lando took the fastest lap on lap 54.

lewis pitted and served his 5 second penalty.

lando had DRS on max. he was .7 behind and lets remember that there are not one not two but three DRS zones on the track. it was time to go racing.

and racing they went. at points they were driving through the traffic of the lapped cars, but they were still going for it.

max was beside himself on the radio. aparently his car was acting up. "its like theres something wrong with the car man," he said.

15 laps to go.

max and lando were still battling.

you might be asking, where the hell is checo in all of this??? why is he not trying to help max??? well that would be because he was stuck further down the order, battling with kevin magnussen in a haas. yes he was battling a HAAS.

max's race engineer tried to give him suggestions for engine modes and gears. max said no.

lando was .4 behind on lap 58.

on lap 59 lando was given a black and white flag for track limits. meaning that if he went off the track one more time he would get a penalty. a 5 second penalty. lando's best option was to get around max now and hope he could build a 5 second gap so that he could still maintain his lead.

on lap 60 lando managed to pass max, but he went off the track so max went back through to the front. this could have been landos final track limits strike. he could get a 5 second penalty now. and he likely would.

lando was .5 behind. he was noted for track limits. he was on track to get that 5 second penalty.

10 laps to go.

lando was running out of time to pass max.

he tried to pass him on lap 63. max went off the track trying to hold the position.

lando thought that that meant he should get the position because max had left the track and gained an advantage. max was not of the same mindset. "he forced me off again!" max said. "thats not how we overtake!"

is anyone else starting to smell abu dhabi 2021? no? well maybe you will in a second because on lap 64 max and lando had contact. max didnt leave a car length of space and moved while braking, sliding to the outside of the track. lando got shoved off and both cars ended up with a puncture.

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are we smelling abu dhabi 2021 now??? what about austria 2019???

people were insanely divided over this. who was at fault? was it max? he moved under the braking which is against the rules! was it lando? why did he go for that line and not take some curb? did max even see him? was it just a racing incident?

in the post race show, jolyon palmer had some interesting insight into the incident.

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he is right. the no moving under braking rule was created For Max because max was consistently doing it. and since hes been consistently 20 seconds ahead of everyone its been awhile since we've had to see him drive this defensively.

in any case. max ended up doing a slow lap on basically 3 tires, came into the pits for fresh tires, got a 10 seconds penalty and came back out in 5th. lando also made it back to the pits but ended up retiring because he would have lost too much time.

we had some insane quotes from the both of them after this.

first, max was told over the radio that he had been given a 10 second penalty for the incident. he was not impressed with this.

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after the race, max said many things. including but not limited to:

-"its stuff you dont want to see happening. its as simple as that."

-"yeah, of course we'll talk about it. at the moment i think its not the right point, its better to just let things cool off ideally."

-("you could have let him by. you are leading the championship") "i could also stay hoe. im here to win. not finish p2."

max also though, did not put the blame on lando at all.

christian horner though, did. "lando was due to get a penalty and it felt like he was over ambitious" he also thought the 10 second penalty was harsh for max.

the post race show also speculated why red bull didnt tell max to cool it with lando on the track because lando was set to get a 5 second penalty anyway and wouldn't have been much of a concern.

later, max got 2 penalty points on his super license for the incident.

there was also talk from will buxton about how "what does it say about f1 if max is resorting to gray areas to keep the lead?" however, as jolyon pointed out, max still qualified 4 tenths ahead, won the sprint and had pole in the sprint and the race.

lando also said things after the race that included but were not limited to:

-"i gave a fair, respectful, on the edge battle, but thats not what i got in return"

-"if he says he did nothing wrong then ill loose a lot of respect for that. if he admits to being a bit stupid and running into me and being a bit reckless...then ill have a small amount of respect for him"

-"he was doing things youre not allowed to do and not getting penalized. i expected a though battle against max. i expect aggression and track limits and that kind of thing, but all three times hes doing stuff which can easily cause an incident. it seemed a bit desperate from his side."

hilariously. most this was all said while they were standing within like 3 feet of eachother doing their own interviews.

and, even more hilariously, toto said later on to sky sports germany that lando was going to be flying in max's jet with him after the race.

so, you might be wondering, if lando and max crashed into eachother, who the hell won the race?

well, someone was running in third. and that someone was george russell.

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toto said that while george was under a heavy braking zone, at over 300kph and later george said he almost crashed hearing toto's voice come through his radio.

so on lap 68, here was our new order:

george, oscar, carlos, lewis, max, nico, checo, kevin, daniel, pierre, charles, esteban, lance, yuki, alex, valtteri, zhou, fernando, logan

gorge was also a very safe 3.1 seconds ahead of oscar.

and he won! george russell won the austrian gp! the last time that mercedes had won a race was in 2022 in brazil, which was George's maiden win! (lewis, btw, has not won since 2021)

"it's fallen into his hands, but he made sure he was ready to scoop it up!" martin brundle said.

his post race radio was a tad insane:

"YES! YABADABADO!" he shouted. "its not over till its over!"

and of course the intro pose returned

the cool down room was as chaotic as you might think it was.

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and george, the insane bastard practically manifested this win himself. "i knew lando was pretty fired up after yesterday," he said. "and you have to be there to pick up the pieces."

oscar was also pleased with his podium, as was carlos. they also accidentally told oscar that silverstone was his home race which he quickly denied. this is hilarious because he has made nearly every race his home race, but somehow draws the line at being british.

haas also, very surprisingly, managed to equal their best ever f1 finish, p6 and p8. and in the post race show they were talking about how insane it was how well the two of them, nico and kevin, are working together and how exactly opposite it is to pierre and esteban.

and there was a general consensus that checo was being absolutely no help to max all weekend. he battled a haas pretty much the whole race and ended in 7th.

max, by comparison, did a slow lap on three tires, had a crash, had a 10 second penalty and a slow pit stop, and still managed to finish 17 seconds ahead of him. checo has scored 8 points in the last 3 races. max has scored 81.

does he deserve the contract he got? could we still see a swap? is daniel going to get his shot or is he going to leave vcarb? whos to say.

in any case. we've now had 5 different race winners from 4 different teams only 11 rounds in. the gap between p1 and p2 every race is closing from upwards of 20 seconds to under 5 seconds. and charles is back having the worst luck known to mankind.

we've got ourselves a proper championship fight that is only going to heat up next week in silverstone.

goodbye and good riddance, stay groovy, and ill see you all next week o7

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

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

under the cut we go

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

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

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

so let’s meet the teams.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

let’s meet our drivers!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

feel free to add on and peer review me

#Instagram #Youtube #not a tag #from saph #saph explains silly season 2024 #i posted this from a train i pray and hope that i got everything and that all the links work #im surprised it even posted #im hot spotted to my phone #my comitment to the bit even surprises me #austrian gp 2024

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