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dear-ao3 · 6 months ago

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and welcome back to imola. or sorry. the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrariwe are more than a quarter of the way done with the calendar and jumping straight into a double header weekend. today is may 19, 2024 and lets get into it.

before we even start. can we talk about the fact that i managed to get this out on THE DAY OF THE RACE. this never happens. im so fucking proud of myself. idk how i did it. but i did. this makes up for the fact that china and miami were both posted like a week late lol. and i even handwrote all of my notes instead of fumbling them into my notes app with a million spelling errors. and i managed to watch all three practices, qualifying, race and post race. but anyway. you are all here for the good stuff. and good stuff abounded:

first, some stuff that happened during the off week:

-xavi stepped down as charles leclercs race engineer. he will still be at ferrari just not as his engineer. the engineer is the person in their ear during the race giving them instructions. xavi is famous for saying the infamous "we are checking" to charles. it is truly the end of an era.

-there are rampant rumors that there will be a grand prix in chicago, Illinois, USA, starting in 2026. it was confirmed, then disproven. and if you are european and mad about the growing amount of gps in the states purely because you think the us has too many, might i direct your attention to this handy map that i made:

the us gps (plus canada) are in yellow and purple. the European (and middle eastern) ones are in red and blue.

to put this further in perspective:

lets say i live in new york city (which i do) and lets say i want to go to a race (which i also do). what are my options?

Montreal, 6 hour drive, 600 kilometers

Chicago, 13 hour drive, 1272 kilometers

Miami, 19.5 hour drive, 2068 kilometers

Austin, 26 hour drive, 2805 kilometers

Las Vegas, 38 hour drive, 4065 kilometers

just for shits, i looked up the distance between new york city and silverstone, england. 5488 kilometers. for comparison, there are 274 kilometers (2.5 hours distance) between monza and imola, the two Italian gps.

i rest my case!

now, if youre mad about the number of gps in the us cause you would rather there be more in other countries because you want to see other cultures represented and not just hating on the us, then youre justified. it would be cool to get some more in some other countries. give us more in south america, bring back some tracks like Malaysia or even portugal. but im tired of seeing just the too many in the us argument when no one clearly knows how Big the us is.

-sir lewis hamilton went to the met gala. he slayed.

he was wearing burberry and the outfit was honoring the first black gardener in the uk, john ystumllyn. the flowers on his jacket and his flower earrings represent the gardening, the thorn necklace the adversity he faced and overcame through the slave trade. and there was an excerpt from an alex Wharton poem on the inside of his jacket about ystumllyn that read "I hope the sun pours light upon our skin. And we melt into each other, into everything. Maybe the trees will speak, as they sometimes do. Whispers from the shade — Run, run away."

so in short, he was absolutely on theme and he slayed.

and of course. what did the internet think of it.

there were two trains of thought.

the first being: why is he posing like his pregnant (to show off his jewelry clearly ffs)

the second being:

which is correct.

(he also posted a my space esque selfie. which doesnt Quite count as a thirst trap selfie but it was truly something) (and i absolutely SCOURED THE INTERNET FOR IT and came up empty. this post would have been up a few hours ago actually but i was still scouring)

and he also helped the broncos (the american football team, he owns stake in them) reveal their season schedule. this has absolutely nothing do do with f1 remotely, but i am still including it because its a hilarious video

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-lando norris posted a birthday shoutout for martin garrix. which sounds innocent enough. until you see what it actually was:

the first was the original post. the second was what he changed it to. there was some speculation that he initially meant to post this on his private story and then accidentally made it public because it was taken down literally within two minutes. i dont have an explanation but it sure is Something.

(also while we are talking about lando, shoutout to that person on twitter who called me a norris dickrider. i think i was supposed to be insulted. i printed it out and hung it in my living room)

-oscar went wakeboarding. this is not really the interesting part (though why do they keep putting him in wet suits ???) the interesting part was that his mom flamed him on twitter for not knowing how to use a dryer:

-pierre gasly went to target.

this in itself is not really interesting, but as an american myself i am baffled. he went to target in what i can assume is miami and bought caramel pecan brittle quest bars and chocolate muscle milk.

for all of you non americans. quest bars are like literally blocks of chalk. like someone took several cups of protein powder and then maybe a half cup of water and mixed it together into a big hard brick of protein and coated it in kinda shitty chocolate. and muscle milk is like chocolate milk with protein in it, so its kinda thicker and tastes worse. in short, its the frat boy choice of protein (and as someone who dates a frat boy i say this with confidence)

also he decided to wear a yellow camouflage shirt??? im sorry i know hes french but this is just so frat boy coded

-george won the lorenzo bandini award. which is awarded to a driver or team that shows "commendable performance" and is pretty prestigious. he went to collect the award in a 1924 Mercedes Targa Florio:

-logan did lap of legends. what is lap of legends? you might be asking. well williams posted very little about it which is probably why you might be confused.

so basically logan was racing in his car on the track against 6 famous ex williams drivers (mario andretti, nigel mansell, alain prost, damon hill, jaques villenuve, and jenson button) (cause remember williams used to be a really really good team before everything went to shit a few years ago) though the power of ai. so logan was in his car and racing virtual cars. jaques, alain, and nigel actually all came to silverstone to watch it, jenson was one of the hosts and they even got crofty to announce it. overall a big ass deal, especially for logan who has as we know not been having the best season so far.

but williams only made one single instagram post about it. which is wildly insulting. and they did something even worse, actually that overshadowed the whole damn thing. but we will get to that shortly.

if you want to watch it, its here

-charles posted another video of leo. hes cute idk. not much else to report about that. people did compare leos smirk to baby charles's menace smirk.

-max participated in the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring iRacing event. this is kinda funny cause it was the exact same weekend as the imola race. did he do this on purpose? did he accidentally double book himself? idk. either way its kinda funny. and evidently max also thought it was kinda funny that people took issue with the fact that he was doing two races in the same weekend (given that he might not be as focused on the f1 race and crasher something):

" I am professional enough to see what can and cannot be done. I'm not someone who thinks anyway: if I hadn't done that yesterday, this wouldn't have happened today. Look, if you don't go to bed and don't sleep, it won't be good for your race on Sunday. But the last few races I have also gamed afterwards, there was just no focus on that then. It doesn't matter all that much."

max was also asked if he had to ask red bull permission to participate in the race and he said no:

"I decide that myself. You can't decide what people do on their Saturday night. It's my free time. I am professional enough to see what can and cannot be done."

-valtteri bottas. idk how to describe it but stake is really having him pop his pussy. stake in general has just kinda been off the fucking rails this week.

but enough of that. lets get to the good stuff.

silly season

now Technically no one Else has singed (else being the key word here). there are rumors that zhou and logan are both talking to haas. (gunther had already been interested in logan on account of the fact that hes american) and it looks like kevin is not going to keep his seat.

there is the fact that aparently valtteri had a meeting with james vowels in the williams hospitality. i say aparently because he was seen leaving the williams hospitality on practice day and the official reason that was given was that to was because valtteri had run out of coffee and was taking some from williams. which is just so stinking funny no matter which way you spin it. but there are rumors that both williams and alpine want to sign him.

and lewis hamilton said that he would support kimi antonelli taking his seat. "honestly i have no idea what toto's plans are, but i think for me, hiring a young person would be, if it were my job, i would probably hire kimi."

and i am pretty sure that carlos needs to give audi/stake and answer by monaco. which is next week.

and mercedes lost their chief aerodynamicist, jack vino, to ferrari. (im pretty sure he went to ferrari)

the real news here is alex albon

you might be wondering. hold on. didnt alex already sign with williams? yes. he did. this was announced at the 2024 williams car launch by james vowels (the team principal). his exact quote about being at williams past 2025 was:

“Let’s see. Time will tell. But my focus is on 2024. Let’s keep it like that. The real focus is on making sure that we make progress for 2025. That’s really where I’m at. I realistically want to be with the team — if the team are where I want them to be, it will be a long-term contract. We’re going to go all the way or nothing. That’s my idea of it, I guess.”

he said "I realistically want to be with the team — if the team are where I want them to be, it will be a long-term contract."

now, im no expert in f1 cars by a long shot but lets look at williams's stats for the 2024 season so far:

bahrain: alex p15, logan p20. alex made it to q2 of qualifying. during the race his car showed an error message saying that it was too hot and logan had steering wheel problems saudi arabia: alex p11, logan p15, alex made it through to q2 of qualifying australia: alex p11 after crashing his own car during practice and having to race in logans cause williams didnt have a spare chassis, alex made it through to q2 of qualifying, japan: alex dnf, logan p17, neither had confidence in the car and were racing in each others cars still, alex made it through to q2 of qualifying china: alex p12, logan p17, alex got into q2 of qualifying for the race, but not the sprint miami: alex p18, logan dnf, logan did very well in the sprint race and placed above alex, but still no one got points. Williams finally got a spare chassis.

that doesnt seem like very good stats. they've gotten no points. the car is a disaster.

and yet! alex albon signed an EXTENSION at williams.

why on earth did he do this?

well i have some speculations. lets belly flop right into the deep end, shall we?

(as a note. i found out about this approximately 5 minutes before arriving at work and sent approximately 53 unhinged voice memos of speculations to everyone i could think of during my breaks. i will attempt to recreate the seer unhinged insanity that i achieved there here)

number one: multi year contracts

everyone who has signed a contract so far has signed a multi year contract. charles is at ferrari through 29, lewis through 26, lando is at mclaren until 27, oscar until 26, nico hulkenberg signed at least a two year contract at stake, fernando signed a who knows how long contract at aston. NO ONE HAS SIGNED A ONE YEAR CONTRACT!!!! admittedly there are still a whole lot of seats left, but so far no rookies have been signed (often they get 1 year contracts) and likely wont be until later in the season. but if no one signs a one year contract, then theres relatively little options for movement at the end the year and the chance that you could get dropped.

who has signed a one year contract???? alex albon. at williams.

number two: 2025 contract sillies

so! originally! george, lando and lewis (and mayyyybe oscar??) all had contracts expiring in 2025. lando extended at mclaren until i think 2027, lewis signed with Ferrari for at least through 2026 (oscar also extended to 2026).

this leaves george with the only current contract expiring in 2025.

number three: saph loosing her mind and going off the deep end (im not even sorry)

so currently george is on a one plus one contract which is one year guaranteed and option of resigning for a second year if everything goes well and dandy (in short, essentially). 2025 would be the plus one part of the contract. so he has an out. basically. im pretty sure. he could leave at the end of this year if he wanted to. (will he? idk probably not but just embrace the insanity of this ok)

so. mercedes. they're going downhill hard and fast like a giant snowball in a parable you have to read for an ap english test which is not good cause like yeah they sucked last year a little, but they still came second in the constructors championship IN FRONT OF ferrari. this year right now theyre in fourth in the constructors championship with 62 points (mclaren are in third with 124 and aston martin are fifth with 42) and yeah were barely a quarter into the season but thats kinda bad stats, especially for a previously champion winning team.

SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ALEX ALBON??? well williams is associated with mercedes cause williams uses a mercedes engine blah blah seen it lived it breathed it whatever SO alex COULD go to mercedes for 25 and take georges seat BUT mercedes is deep in their shit arc so he probably doesnt want to do that and lets not forget than george and alex are friends like best friends like sky sports implied that they hooked up one time so you reALLY THINK that george wouldn't give a few wink wink hint hints to alex about the fact that hey man merc kinda fucking sucks dont come here please???? like i know theyre not supposed to but people do stuff theyre not supposed to all the damn time!

OR the OTHER OPTION is that say alex WAS banking on taking george's seat which would become available in 2025 BUT george is on a one plus one and what if hes LEAVING. george would have Definitely told alex this esp if he knew alex was looking at merc as an option and also cause theyre friends and he would have been like hey hey man there wont be a seat for you to take because im leaving this year and your contract is up next year (why would george leave???? dance with a better team (tho tbh idk what team that would be) and more options in the driver market are available this year) so that COULD BE AN OPTION

AND LETS NOT FORGET that red bull wanted first refusal of alex albon for the 2026 season but this was kinda back when it looked like they still might have signed daniel ricciardo which would have probably been on a one year contract only and would have made sense then to want to have options for 2026 BUT NOW it looks like red bull want to keep checo and if alex albon is signing a multi year williams contract then red bull are probably multi year signing checo so there would be no more first refusal for 2026 and thus stupid for alex to hold out for them if they are already filling their second seat. that of course would mean that all the seats at the top teams are taken (provided that george stays at merc through 25 and they sign kimi or whoever for the second seat) for at least a few years cause george will likely sign another merc contract if he stays through 25 cause of the limited driver market, ferrari and mclaren have no open seats until 26 at least, and red bull have at least few years as well. this is all to say that alex would not be able to promote himself to a better team and if he wants to stay on the grid to potentially get back to a better team he needed to tie himself down in the shitbox car like a lady on a railroad track in the olden days.

does that make sense? no probably not. but i rest my case.

tldr: pretty sure alex albon knows something we dont. im watching you buddy. or he just wants a seat on the grid until he can get somewhere better (but i like my theory more)

also though. alex's contract news entirely overshadowed logans lap of legends which was something that Williams did specifically For Logan. and also also, alex signing an extension on top of his current contract doesnt look very good for logan at all.

aside from alex, carlos was asked when there would be news on where he was driving next year and he basically said "when i have it you will know" and that it is still a "long way off" which is. not so great sounding. if youre carlos sainz.

but with all that said. lets get into media day.

normally i dont Explicitly cover media day (i am an adult with two jobs taking college classes on the side ok i need time to sleep believe it or not), but this media day was kinda focused on senna so ill make an exception.

(senna was a Brazilian f1 driver who died at the 1994 imola gp, along with ronald ratzenberger who died in qualifying. i talked about them last week, if you want to read about that weekend in more detail i redirect you to here. it is not. fun story, theres a lot of death)

the senna tribute was organized by sebastian vettel, everyones favorite unproblematic, freshly shaven bloke and probably the only person capable of uniting the entire paddock.

essentially, as i said last time, this is the 30 year anniversary of ayrton senna's and ronald ratzenberger's deaths. in memory, sebastian vettel (4x world champion and previously a red bull, ferrari and aston martin driver who retired in 2022) returned to the paddock to organize a tribute and also drive ayrtons mclaren mp4/8 car in a demo drive around the track.

on media day he also organized a run around the imola circuit (most people ran, some people decided to bike and someone else (*cough* LEWIS *cough*) decided to scooter. they stopped at the curve where senna died for a moment of silence and a speech.

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he made all of the drivers custom senna shirts with their own driver numbers on them, and gave them all a lock to put on the fence at the senna statue/memorial site.

(everyone shit on max for not wearing the shirt. aparently he was late cause he got caught up in the media pen or something. i also saw that perhaps he decided to wear the red bull kit to honor ratzenberger who was austrian and red bull is an Austrian team, or some people even speculated he didnt wear the shirt because nelson piquet, his girlfriends father, hated senna for some reason. whatever the reason, it doesnt matter. valtteri was wearing a blue cycle suit and no one gave him shit for it)

the track walk run cycle scoot (as it was named by the f1 instagram account) was certainly....something

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seb also took being back in the paddock as the opportunity to cause problems.

first he arrived in what is either a denim or linen dad shirt with a fresh haircut and shave and a paddock pass that says f1 world champion:

then he hung out in the red bull garage and had max sign the helmet that he had given him

then, he made fun of charles's pants

then he stood right next to logan (which is funny because logan said recently that he feels kinda left out of stuff and then no less than three retired world champions (nico, jenson and seb)came out of the woodwork to cheer him on)

and he (thirst???) posted a photo of lewis

the tribute lap he did in sennas car was done i think on saturday, but im throwing it in here with the rest of the tribute stuff.

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he bowed to the car in true sebastian vettel style

he was left very emotional

i could keep going on about seb, but unfortunately this post is too fucking long already

and we have several people whos home race this is. well kind of. its a home race for ferrari because they are an italian team so the tifosi are going to go crazy go stupid. and its also rb's home race because they are based in italy. none of the drivers are really From Italy though. but! yuki does live very close to the racetrack and helped out the locals last year clean up from the floods that affected the region and canceled the imola gp. pierre lives in i think milan (?).

and then theres oscar:

but onto the racing.

starting with the practice sessions.

very, very surprisingly, i actually watched all three practice sessions this week. and even more surprising, max verstappen was on the back foot. how far on the back foot was he??? well!!

in practice 1 he finished in 5th, and ended up driving across the grass in the middle sector and then later across the gravel on his last lap. he was loosing up to .4 seconds in the middle sector or the track. after the session he called his car a "catastrophe"

in practice 2 he finished 7th. he said that the car was better, but he was struggling with the grip. he went into the gravel again. the car wasnt really responding to his turning the wheel fast enough. there was speculation that he was going to have his set up changed overnight. the announcers said many times "all is not well with max verstappen."

in practice 3 he finished 6th. red bull cancelled their pit stop practice to finish the set up changes. red bull went out early in the session which was unusual for them to test the set up changes. at the beginning he was doing a little better .19 of a second behind charles (who was on soft tires when max was on medium tires). and max did say that the car "cant get worse."

and, red bull was on a redemption weekend. they had just lost in miami to lando and according to one ted kravitz, red bull "will make these comments and then qualify on pole by hand a second then win the race by 20 seconds" see: japan (post australia).

so if max wasnt doing well. and checo by default also wasnt doing well (and crashed in practice 3), who was doing well?

ferrari. mclaren. and yuki tsunoda.

ferrari brought massive upgrades to imola, and at least in the practice sessions they looked like they were doing well. charles went fastest in practice 1 and 2 and fourth in practice 3. carlos was a bit behind charles, the new set up seemingly favoring charles's driving style over his, but he managed to get a handle on the car as well, coming in 3rd in practice 1, 6th in practice 2 and 3rd in practice 3. ferrari was confident in the upgrades. charles was even favored for pole.

one thing was for sure, leo was excited about the success. (unfortunately since this was posted on charles instagram story this is the only version of this video i could find)

mclaren also brought upgrades. oscar now had the complete upgrade package that lando had had in maimi and they also changed the rear wing a little. lando and oscar came 8th and 9th in practice 1 respectively, still testing the set up. oscar came 2nd in practice two and lando came 12th, but didnt get to complete his flying lap. oscar came 1st (and fastest in all three sectors) and lando came 2nd in practice 3. (the mclaren instagram admin was personally thrilled with this result, posting the caption "nobody say its just practice). oscar even had time to insult alpine's driving style: "that's so intelligent...incredible."

and then there was yuki tsunoda. who Positively Slayed. the announcers first discussed that he was staying in his own apartment for the race weekend and "enjoying his own coffee machine." (one of the announcers, karun, said that he stayed at his own apartment before silverstone in 2010 and had to go to tesco on friday of the race weekend to buy cereal cause he didnt have any and it was "confusing"). in practice 1 he came 6th, in practice 2 he came 3rd and in practice 3 he came 13th. he was never very far from the top 5. it was incredible to see.

aside from that. there were problems abound.

danny rics did Okay. not nearly as well as yuki but Okay. according to him "half of it was because of the floor, half of it wasn't because i was a bit rubbish."

aston martin brought upgrades. they didnt really work. they said that this was part of a bigger upgrade package that was coming, but they still didnt do very well. considently in the mid field section. and fernando alonso crashed into the wall in practice 3 after loosing the rear on a gravel trap (imola has a lot of gravel traps).

williams had a decently williams day. alex albon had to retire his car in practice 1 because he ran over a curb and shorted out the electricity in the car. like it just stopped working. at the start of practice two both cars has the floors off of them with people working on them for at least half the session.

haas was pretty normal as well. ollie bearman was in kevins car for practice 1 and he finished 15th, hulkenberg 20th. aparently the drive to survive cameras were following him around the paddock (and hes not even in f1 yet!" the announcers regarded him, not for the first time, as a star of the future. nico hulkenberg has never raced in anything at imola before, somehow. and he did about as well as he usually did, which is better than kevin.

stake was also just kinda there, idk. they didnt get talked about much. in practice 1 they had some porpoising (car bouncing). and there was contract talk. the announcers were doubtful that zhou was going to be in f1 past this year.

alpine was, well, alpine. the french civil war was alive and well and the car was pretty mid. pierre went spin a few times.

and the french civil war was alive and well. at least on pierres side. post fp3 on the radio he said: "why! we are always in the same situation"

his engineer said "everyone bunched up there, nobody got a lap"

this was not acceptable for pierre. "yeah," he said "except esteban. except esteban. its always the same. i thought i had priority this weekend."

and mercedes. they also had upgrades. they were Okay. better than some, and slightly better than usual. but still not quite where they wanted to be. aparently these upgrades were upgrades that they had started planning around launch and testing, the real good batch of upgrades are going to come around summer break. they did have a few problems with the ride heights and some porpoising, but that was likely due to the track being bumpy and not the car. according to the announcers they were "better than usual" and ended up ahead of red bull quite a few times, but they usually do well in practice but not qualifying.

speaking of qualifying.

remember how max didnt do well at all in any of the practice sessions and was generally not having a good time? and the announcers were excited that there was finally a five way battle for pole!

yeah. max got pole.

even he was surprised, and he actually sounded excited. and he set a new world record for 8 consecutive poles.

so if max got pole, where did everyone else end up?

im glad you asked.

first, imola is a tight track, its twisty, theres elevation, only one DRS zone. your qualifying position is very important because its hard to overtake here. not quite as bad as monaco, but still not fun.

heading into q1, fernandos car was barely fixed. mclaren was slaying with lando saying his lap was "only average" before going fastest. nico hulkenberg briefly went fastest. pierre even got as high as fifth. and kevin magnussen got massively impeded by oscar piastri (who later got a three place grid penalty for it) and ended up out in q1. also out in q1 was bottas, sargeant (who had his lap time deleted and ended up in 20th), zhou, and fernando alonso who had to abort his lap due to a technical issue.

and kevin, when asked about visiting the stewards to discuss the impeding, said "it was nice to see the stewards again and make sure they are doing alright. it would be weird to go a whole weekend without seeing them."

(and some of you got pissed at me for not talking about kevins almost race ban last week and i didnt talk about it because it hasn't happened. but basically kevin has 10 penalty points on his superliscense for penalties and violations this year, if he gets to 12 he gets a race ban, so hes gotta be careful.)

q2 was a bit more exciting, with lecelrc briefly taking p1 away from max, and yuki tsunoda going third fastest. out in q2, surprisingly, was checo followed by ocon, stroll, albon and gasly.

which meant that for the first time this season, danny rics was in q3, continuing his 100% q3 appearance at imola streak. meanwhile. fred vasseur, ferrari team principal was stressed. andrea stella, mclaren team principal was not. but he never is. and one by one both ferrari and mclaren came up just slightly short. with the final order being max, oscar, lando, charles, carlos, george, yuki, lewis, daniel and nico.

notably!! max ended up on pole for one reason and one reason only. because nico hulkenberg gave him the slipstream. when asked about it, nico said that "he helped me out in q2 and i returned the favor." without this, oscar would have likely been on pole.

and, as oscar piastri said "you cant count out max in a red bull as we've seen."

and boy, was he correct.

everyone lined up for the race

well, except for fernando alonso who was starting from the pit lane.

and even though crofty was not there to say it, the lights went out and away they went.

lap one was fairly uneventful. actually the first chunk of the race was fairly uneventful.

oscar had been given a three place grid penalty for impeding magnussen and started from fifth, behind carlos. and as we saw last week, they do not quite get along on the track. and oscar barely gave carlos room to breathe for the first 24 laps of the race, riding his rear wing until he pitted.

and speaking of pit stops, imola has the longest pit lane of the calendar, you loose about 30 seconds pitting (from entering the pit to exiting it) so it was Ideally a one stop race. meaning tire strategy was important. and boy, did we see some Interesting tire strategies.

beginning with checo, who was the only one starting the race on hard tires, meaning that he planned to go really really long on the hard tires and then swap out for a softer tire towards the end to hopefully make up some positions because he was starting from 11th. it almost worked for him too.

fernando and pierre did the exact opposite, starting on soft tires with the hopes of overtaking many people on the opening laps (because remember its hard to overtake on this track), but that epically failed for both of them, mostly because there was no early safety car and before lap 10 both of them had ditched the soft tire. (with the added extra bonus of fernandos brakes lighting on fire after his pit stop! they went out tho)

everyone else was on mediums for the most part.

including alex albon who had a horrendous start to his race. he was starting from 14th, which was fairly average for williams. and he pitted on lap 10, but went extremely slow out of the pit lane and came on the radio to say that "i have a problem, tires aren't on properly"

which is indeed a problem, and also very unsafe.

we have seen this happen before, not really this season but definitely back in australia 2018 when it happened to both haas cars at the opening race of the season and they both had to retire the cars.

alex albon though, was able to somehow get back around the track and back to the pits safely, boxing for another set of tires. but he came out a lap behind everyone. and then he got a 10 second stop and go penalty (which is saved by driving through the pit lane) for an unsafe release (leaving the pit with loose tires), which put him almost two laps down. and! the tires that he had boxed for that had gotten screwed up were his only set of hard tires, meaning he had to do pretty much the whole race on mediums. not a good day for alex albon At All.

and if alex was having a bad first half of the race, yuki was having a fantastic one. after loosing two places at the beginning, he pitted for tires on lap 12. he had been running right behind nico hulkenberg, who pitted on lap 14 and yuki just managed to cut him off at the pit lane exit, overtaking him as he came back onto the track, with the announcers saying "this has unleashed him" and unleashed him it had, this would not be the last we saw of yuki slaying.

checo meanwhile took a little dip into the gravel on lap 15

but it was fairly standard for the first 20 or so laps. max was running out in front in p1, about 4-5 seconds ahead of lando, who was about a second and a half infront of leclerc, who had moved froward to catch lando and no longer had carlos in his drs to protect him from oscar who was between .5 and .7 seconds behind carlos.

it was becoming clear that mclaren was going to be fighting with ferrari for second and not with max for first as they had originally thought.

but then the top 5 all began their pit stops and things started to heat up a little.

lap 23. lando came into the pits. in order for him to get back up into fighting positions he needed to come out of the pits in front of checo who was in 6th. and he didnt. he landed just behind checo in 7th.

as this was happening, max got a black and white flag for track limits. meaning he needed to be careful or else he would be getting a time penalty if he did it again.

lando, meanwhile, was able to overtake checo on lap 24

also on lap 24, oscar pitted and came out in 8th behind stroll and checo. another not ideal position. he had ground to make up if he wanted to undercut sainz.

lap 25. max pitted and came out in 4th. oscar passed stroll for 7th.

so we had leclerc in p1 and sainz in p2. hamilton was in p3, verstappen was in p4, norris was 4 seconds behind him and with the fastest lap time.

hamilton had a dip into the gravel and pitted, coming out in 9th.

lap 26. charles pitted and came out, just like everyone else, behind perez in 6th. oscar them pulled out a fastest lap that was almost a whole second faster than landos fastest lap.

lap 27. charles passed checo for 5th, oscar passed checo for 6th. sainz pitted and came out behind perez, just like everyone else. almost like passing perez was some kind of community service.

and yuki! again! passed logan sargeant and nico hulkenberg in the middle of the pit stop drama.

so by lap 30 the top 5 were looking like this:

p1: verstappen, interval p2: norris, +6.060 p3: lecelrc, +3.490 p4: piastri, +0.968 p5: sainz, +6.500

mclaren were still confident. apparently the tire degradation was high on other cars than it was on theirs. this was good news cause no one was going to pit again.

but, this did mean oscar piastri was going to be stuck looking at the back of a ferrrari again. and he wasnt too happy about that. the race to the end was on.

meanwhile, oblivious to the fight raging ahead, yuki passed zhou for 11th on lap 33.

by lap 35 tho, lando was struggling. "why am i so much slower than the guys behind?" he asked on the radio "theyre using their tires much more than we are," will, his engineer said. "yeah," lando said, "but i have no pace"

and then charles starting flooring it.

meanwhile! perez. he finally pitted on lap 39. and he came out in 11th behind danny rics. by lap 40 he had passed danny and then by lap 41 had also passed hulkenberg for 9th, and also passed yuki for 8th on lap 43.

but, back to lando. he was loosing time against charles. by lap 43 charles was only 1 second behind lando. and the gap between max and lando had grown to 7 seconds. but lando was still fighting. he just had to keep charles out of drs (more than a second away from him) and by lap 48, after doing his personal best fastest lap, the gap was back at over a second. he was safe. for now.

checo was stuck behind hamilton. like 30 seconds behind hamilton. but he had been 30 seconds behind hamilton for a good several laps and hadn't even remotely started to close the gap even a little. despite having new tires, he was seemingly struggling for pace.

also on lap 48, charles decided that the grass needed cutting in one of the chicanes. and he ran over it, increasing the gap between him and lando to 2 seconds. which was bad news for him, but great news for lando.

by lap 51 something interesting had happened to lando's tires. they had come back to life. because max was only 4 seconds ahead of him.

and according to GP, max's race engineer, he was experiencing the most loss in turns 2 and 6. max's response was, very helpfully, "yeah my tires aren't working!" which was great news if your name was lando norris!

lap 52. lando was 3 seconds clear of charles. mclaren was officially bringing the fight to red bull. no safety cars, no luck, just pure racing.

weirdly, in the middle of this, george pitted for medium tires. because his tires were dead.

the radios previous to this pit stop were...interesting:

george was asked if he minded pitting. he would loose a position tho to lewis (george was 6 and lewis was 7, checo was 30 seconds behind so they had the window to pit) and george said "yeah I dont mind....but well do a switch at the end or...?"

and his engineer said "negative." they talked about the car some more.

and then george said "why would we box? i really dont get that"

(they wanted to box because they had been concerned about george even finishing the race on the tires that he had because they were so dead)

his engineer said as much "were just concerned on getting these tires till the end, up to you."

george was not pleased with this. "I dont want to confit a position for no reason" he said.

his engineer was silent for awhile. and then he said eventually "box, before we lose the window to perez"

so george pitted. and lost the position to hamilton.

he was asked about this in the post race, but seemed to be over it, saying that "you are never going to be happy with a P6 and a P7. at the end of the day, as a team, we scored an extra point. I lost my position to lewis. but, I am not going to sulk over losing a P6, to be honest."

10 laps to go!!

and things were finally, finally starting to heat up!

lap 53. max was told to mind the track limits because he already had a black and white flag and couldnt afford a 5 second penalty

lap 54. alex albon retired his car. mostly because he was so far behind everyone that it really didnt matter if he finished the race or not. later, everyone would flame williams on instagram for being concerned about logans performance when they themselves couldnt put wheels on a car correctly. alex albon though was weirdly optimistic in his post race interview about the dnf, saying that it was the "best the car has felt set up wise."

max, meanwhile, was only in the lead by a slim 3.5 seconds. insane when you remember that max is used to winning by 20 seconds.

the announcers were starting to speculate, and karun said what everyone was thinking. "could it be two in a row" for lando norris?? no one had done back to back wins after their first gp win since charles leclerc at ferrari in 2019!

lap 56. and max's car refused to turn.

by lap 57 lando had closed the gap to a very small 1.6 seconds. he told his engineer, who was trying to give him advice "im pushing as much as i can mate, thank you." it was was projected that he would be within drs range in 3 laps.

but! horrors! on lap 59 he had a snap of oversteer and lost a few tenths. the gap was 1.4 seconds and it increased to 1.8 seconds on lap 60.

three laps to go!

and landos tires were losing grip. victory was slipping away from him.

lap 62. max was almost out of battery power and he sounded panicked about it. he had 30% and lando had 60%. he could slow to change the battery but that would close the gap to lando which was already only 1.1 seconds. he would have to do it without the extra battery power.

lap 63. the final lap. the gap was down to less than a second, lando was still gaining, he was still going, he was still flying, but he didnt quite manage to pass max.

but he did come close. .7 seconds close.

yes. max had only won by .7 seconds. he had to work for it in ways we havent seen in awhile from him. the days of easy red bull wins seem to be done. the fight that the other teams have been saying that they are taking to red bull since 2022 has finally arrived.

"fuck my life," max said. "i had to work hard for that."

during the post race press conference, max said "im just looking forward to laying in bed, maybe taking some painkillers." and was generally very exhausted due to how hard he was pushing and the bumpy track.

lando said himself during his post race interview "were in the position to fight with ferrari and red bull" and mclaren has "to get used to fighting for 1st and 2nd now" which coming from lando, mr glass half empty, is really something. lando said that he could have gotten max of he had a few more laps. dare i say that we might have a title fight on our hands here.

by comparison, max said in his post race interview that it was "very tricky at the end" the hard tires didnt really work in the car, it was kind of "like driving on ice...so difficult to be consistent." and he even admitted that "ferrari and mclaren have taken a big step forward."

and so, the race finished with

p1: max verstappen p2: lando norris p3: charles leclerc p4: oscar piastri p5: carlos sainz p6: lewis hamilton p7: george russell (and fastest lap) p8: checo perez p9: lance stroll p10: yuki tsunoda p11: nico hulkenberg p12: kevin magnussen p13: daniel ricciardo p14: esteban ocon p15: zhou guanyu p16: pierre gasly p17: logan sargeant p18: valtteri bottas p19: fernando alonso DNF: alex albon

the cooldown room was really something. as in. well. for some reason they showed a clip of sonic the hedgehog before the race highlights? it was probably a sponsor, but max, charles and lando were entertained:

and when they showed the clip of lewis going off into the gravel, everyone had something to say about it:

lando: "someone went off in ahead of you"

max: "yeah who was it?"

lando: "someone went through the gravel. and I was like, please be max!"

max: "ah, it was lewis"

charles: "ah I thought it was you lando"

lando: "no i thought it was max"

max: "no you were hoping it was me."

they were properly silly. and it continued on the podium when lando tried and nearly succeeded to chase max off the stage with the champage.

speaking of the podium, we are now 3/4 lando podiums that haven't shown his full champage pop. but at least we have the mclaren instagram page:

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heading into the post race show, there was a lot of talk about max. mostly about how red bull might have hit a ceiling in terms of development. but remember!!! adrian newey has been taken out of the meetings now at red bull and is not working on the f1 car at all anymore....could be correlated. especially because max was not consistently the fastest car. we all saw where checo ended and where he qualified. max winning came down to his skill, and not really the car itself.

and zak brown said in the post race interview "i think we actually made max sweat a little...bring on monaco, we're ready to go." (zak brown also did tell lando that he should have shaved his beard and then he would have gone faster)

aside from max, yuki was pleased at his result and said that he feels like he has matured as a driver. and we got yoints!!! incredible day!!!

carlos on the other hand was anything but pleased. his energy and his body language were terribly off. like yes, he had a bad race, yes he was fighting with oscar again, but in the words of john mulaney, Something Hinky Is Going On. first. he didnt look once at the camera. second he read laura winter's notes as soon as he picked up the microphone, to see what she was going to ask him. which is odd. and based on his body languge, probably he didnt want to answer any contract questions. he also interrupted her a lot to jump straight into his answers.

he said that the race was "vowed tricky for me on the personal side" and a "far from ideal race" and he was "disappointed." upon being asked if it was a set up related issue he said "not related to set up, it is related to other things in f1 that we cannot comment about."

so, maybe something contract related was going on with carlos. or maybe even hes starting to get shut out of ferrari meetings, as is normal when a driver isn't renewed because they cant share future info with them.

oscar was not nearly as disappointed as carlos. he polite catted left right and center all over his interview. "i think as a team we finished in the two most painful positions, 2nd and 4th" he said. but he wasnt disappointed. he was very pleased with his start, but said that "it would have been good if we could have had a bit of fun at the end of the race."

and lewis was Slightly more confident in the mercedes. Slightly. Very Slightly. he said that "we dont have the pace at the moment but we are slowly ekking." which is progress.

and charles!! he had life in his eyes!! he was optimistic!! he didnt think they were far off the race pace!! and he was excited for monaco, his home race!!!

most importantly, we've had some changes in the drivers championship standings. leclerc is now up into second, ahead of checo. and lando is up into 4th, ahead of carlos. with oscar directly behind carlos.

and the constructors championship currently stands at:

redbull: 268 ferrari: 212 mclaren: 154 mercedes: 79 aston martin: 44 rb: 20 haas: 7 alpine: 1 williams: 0 stake 0

what else happened in imola??? a lot. but the best bits:

-max was running on the track in the rain holding a pizza. i dont know how or even why. i have no context. but he was evil laughing.

-lando and oscar did a tour of their driver rooms. lando called oscar a "freaking muppet" for hoarding all the hangers and was drinking his ""morning coffee"" at 2 in the afternoon. they also made up a handshake.

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-lando crashed max's post race instagram discussion and they booked a paddel match for next week instead of talking about qualifying:

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-logan said that new york pizza is better than italian pizza. he is correct.

-esteban ocon told sebastian vettel that he had "lost some neck"

-valtteri taught zhou how to do asmr, with some success. they also called the car pookie

-lewis hamilton tried to fix his car himself:

-george russell went around the garage and asked merc people what their favorite pizza toppings were. as usual, he was very British about it

-leo got a closeup:

-lando posted this instagram post:

max had an interesting comment:

-a fan flipped off max when he was driving, so he flipped them off back. the next time he came around, they were clapping for him. (the same fan also clapped for lando and gave oscar a thumbs down)

-zak brown got champage dumped on him and stole lewis's look. he also was wearing a ferrari cap ala fred wearing the mclaren cap in miami

-the red bull account compared george, max, lando and charles to one direction?? i cant find the source but i know it happened

-george also said during the fan stage that he would pay for lewis and max to go on a romantic date. i have no idea why.

-also on a fan stage, danny rics said we could all call him daniel "richardoe" (the italian version of his name)

-and lastly, rounding out what ive managed to find, carlos posted a video of charles and leo on his instagram story. leo pooped in the middle of the paddock. and it was very funny.

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and theres more. theres always more. but i am one person. and this is all i got.

so so long, farewell. and since this is a double header week, i will see you all next weekend in monaco, where we will see if monaco will finally love charles back. thank you for reading and watch me continue to loose my sanity. i love you all.

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 #not a tag #from saph #saph explains silly season 2024 #formula 1 #f1 #imola gp 2024 #AAAAA #i cant believe this is on time #all the mistakes are mine sorry the post wont let me edit it anymore after i post it cause its too long #deal with it!!

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