#nothing can match up to brocedes

[topnotchquark]

Yes thank you I will proceed to shoot myself in the head right this moment.

GUYS... GUYSSSSDFAGHDSKJ there's a guestbook on nico's website... there's a lot of messages in german... one in french... some in english AND GUESS WHO WAS IN THERE??????fiUGADKJSL

[neptunescore]

hi pooks! can you write for brocedes with the random word hotel 🙈 lysm mwah mwah congrats on 600!!

Prompt word: Hotel | Pairing: Brocedes

The scene in front of him is breathtakingly beautiful.

A cacophony of blues, pinks and reds that intertwine and blur into each other, casting hues of gold into the sea as it begins it’s slow embrace of the sun.

Nico could stay here forever — watch the honeyed sunlight melt into deep waters till there's nothing left, and then wait right there as a new day passes and the cycle starts all over again — endless.

He shifts a little; his back sore from the uncomfortably-shaped balcony chair he's seated on, he knows Lewis is going to be cross with him later, is probably going to lecture him about self-care and what not, but the world champion is too tired to care about anything right now — let alone Lewis’ weird protectiveness over his health.

Nico sighs, he missed Lewis.

For all his infatuation with the sight before him, the blonde haired man would give it up in an instant if it meant having Lewis by his side again — the slow dance of blues and pinks and reds may take his breath away; but the soft golden-brown of Lewis’ skin, the infinite black of Lewis’ eyes, that— that left him with no air at all.

He’d been cooped up in this hotel room for a week now, lazily shifting between the bed and the balcony — an occasional trip outside sometimes; walking down streets shaded by never-ending trees, sitting on benches wrapped in leafy vines as he licked drops of melted ice-cream off his fingers.

Nico never wanted to leave. Wanted to spend the rest of his life like this. Didn’t even want to think about the plane ticket he’d placed in the bedside drawer.

A quiet ruffling draws the man out of his thoughts, blue eyes moving upwards as he tries to find the perpetrator of the noise.

There are two birds a few metres in front of him, brown feathers brushing against white ones, their wings stretched out and tense while loose talons tear against the clouds surrounding them. There is something wrong with the white one, it’s left wing crooked and bent, yet—

Oh. Nico’s eyes crinkle, lips curling softly. What a wonder it is, he thinks — watching where the brown sparrow had placed itself. To live. Right below the lower left side of it’s counterpart’s body. To love. Holding up the extra weight that the other could not.

“Man, what are you doing?”

The retired driver looks behind him, musings of wings and feathers vanishing immediately as a pout falls on his lips, “I missed you.”

“Nico-” A chuckle, I was gone for ten minutes.”

Nico sniffs haughtily, “ten minutes too long,” he frowns.

“Babe! I literally asked you if you wanted to come with me!”

“Yes. Well-”

“Oh shut up and come inside before the food gets cold. And don’t think I haven’t noticed how you’re sitting on that chair again.”

Nico rolls his eyes, pulling himself up and arching his back as he steps inside — groaning in pleasure as he feels a few satisfactory pops, “I want a hug.”

“Oh my god, you are so clingy.”

Yet there are arms wrapping around him instantly, blanketing him in a cocoon of warmth and love that he lets himself melt into.

“You okay, babe?” Lewis asks quietly. And Nico can feel the sincerity, the care; he can already feel the tears forming, can’t really believe that he has this now — will have this forever. Maybe.

“You won’t leave me when we go back home, will you? When the season starts? I won’t be on the grid anymore.”

“Oh Nico. I’m not going to leave you ever,” Lewis murmurs into his hair, “I know I can’t change the past few years, but that's never going to happen again, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.” A nod, beaded braids brushing against the skin of his face, “Never again.”

Dark lips graze against his closed eyes. Nico’s grip on Lewis’ sweater tightens, a sudden lightness in his chest.

Liv!!! Finally done with this for you, and honestly, I just had to do fluff bc I have read way too much angst abt them😔✋🏽. I hope this matched ur expectations, meri jaan💗 ALSO, in the time it took me to write this, I gained a 100 (A HUNDRED😵‍💫🤭) more followers!! So the happiness just keeps going<3

I have also just given up on finding aesthetically matching pics of the drivers😭 (I scoured pinterest for an hour bfr ending up on nico's YouTube vids and taking ss's from there🙂🔫)

ANWAY, FEEL FREE TO DROP BY WHENEVER POOKS (this goes to all of you)🫶🏼😘

Divider creds to @cafekitsune as always♡

Rules and details☆°•~

[promiscuousasexual]

lmao lee this was a literal shower thought i had in the middle of the night and since (to my knowledge anyway) you're my only mutual that's both a rosquez girlie (gn) and an este-stan so i knew you would understand

now let me be clear that brocedes is definitely the f1 equivalent of rosquez in terms of lore that makes you go 'what the actual FUCK'

but the actual 'hero worship → competing against each otheer → matching each other's freak → rivals because of matching each other's freak' rosquez dynamic? that's ferneste to a fucking t

LMFAOO HANNAH you are literally my favorite person ever i think you are also my only mutual who is an este-stan and a marc/rosquez girlie (gn)

you are literally so right though like i can’t believe i’ve never thought about it before. in terms of structure and relationship dynamics, this is spot on like you’re 100% correct. the whole never meet your heroes thing is so relevant in both situations akshdge that’s actually so insane😭now i want to them all in a room together just to see what happens

but obviously, as you said, nothing can compare to what actually went down. like that was INSANE. fernando and esteban are still talking and chatting and taking photos together. you will NEVER see that w rosquez, when you go back to old races post-2015, if these two shook hands after a race, you had about 192837 slo-mo replays of it and it would show up on every “previously” cut scene they made.

i’m p sure i saw someone else say this but at least i find brocedes easier to explain?? like it’s heartbreaking and AWFUL but childhood friends who fell out because they became sports rivals is something that i feel like most people would expect (even if there’s definitely more behind the scenes and it is so HEARTWRENCHING) but i can never being to explain what happened w rosquez cause even reading about it i was like “what the fuck” and i learn new things about it everyday. valentino i will show up to your house w a gun just you wait

[serve-cunt]

HIIII ZOE ITS MY IRRITATING ASS AGAIN (this is my main blog, I have tennis and f1 sideblogs but don't know how to make the ask come from there, I haven't been on tumblr in FOREVER..)

anyway my little curious gremlin ass has YET MORE QUESTIONS

ALSO I COMPLETELY FORGOT CHALLENGERS WAS COMING OUT, IM SO DAMN EXCITED FOR THAT FUCK YEAH, we LOVE zendaya she's gonna serve (pls laugh) cunt

okay so i think picking out my favourite players will be easier if I relate them back to f1 drivers, makes em seem more familiar, so if I do like a checklist of sorts of driver types, can you match them up to players you think fit the vibe?????

e.g. is there a former champion (lewis/fernando coded) who's looking for a comeback? is there a young talent who's had bad luck but is on the rise (lando) is there a calm, level headed one that everyone thinks will go far (oscar) is there a charming elegant one that social media is obsessed with (charles my babygirl). im assuming djokovic is the max verstappen adjacent, fairly young dude who's smoking everyone, yeah?

just like ugh I LOVE f1 so dearly and i think sporting parallels will help SO much

question: is it a big money sport like f1? Obviously anyone can pick up a racket and hit a ball, but is it very expensive and exclusive to make it into the big leagues? you mentioned smth in the fic about oscar adding up the whole cost of going pro, would that be a huge problem for poorer families?

are there any player pairings with vaguely homosexual vibes? again with the damn f1 parallels but adjacent to max/charles, carlos/lando, even lewis/nico if I dare mention brocedes, because I just absolutely live for speculation of silly little goofy athletes' relationships with each other

here's where I get REAL shallow but fuckin sue me, WHICH ARE THE PRETTY ONES I CAN SIMP OVER. i am bi so that doubles the market, but basically which are the ones that i can watch edits of and get all giggly and blush over, in your opinion and in the general tennis community's opinion.

whats andy murray's deal? Is he retired? Is he like the sebastian vettel of tennis?

how dramatic is it compared to f1? we all know that f1 is gossip girl on wheels... is tennis gossip girl running around a court or is it less drama-fueled?

not a question but I'm so excited to see which f1 drivers turn up to Wimbledon this year like, CROSSOVER EPISODE YEAAAA

is djokovic the max-esque guy where it's like "okay I don't mind you, you're cool, but god DAMNIT, stop being so good, let my other favourite little meow meows have a CHANCE for once"

how worldwide is it? are players mostly European/Aussie like f1 or is it more widespread?

is the meme game good? i LIVE for online hilarity in sports, are there any iconic tennis moments/memes a la "it's near a fish" "smoooth operator" "bwoah" etc etc whatever

really gotta stop talking about f1 in terms of tennis but it's the only other sport I'm really into IM SORRY FORGIVE ME

which are the "sad wet cat" (dearly beloved) players? you mentioned one guy but there's gotta be more than one right??? I always get attached to athletes with those vibes

IM SO SORRY ABOUT THE CONSTANT QUESTIONING BUT YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON I TRUST TO GIVE ME CORRECT INFO RN BECAUSE YOU REALLY SEEM LIKE YOU KNOW YOUR SHIT

finally a HUGE FUCKING THANK YOU???? For putting up with my idiot ass mostly, and your fic is singlehandedly making me wander into the tennis world despite knowing literally nothing and you're helping my understanding SO much, youre about to drag me down this sport's rabbit hole just by existing. tennisblr seems like such a fun adorable place im SO excited to start watching stuff, you're a legend and ilysm <3333

you are literally NEvEr irritating you are the best thing to happen to my inbox every time, sorry i was so slow on this one!! I had a very hard time relating f1 drivers to tennis players lmaoooo so in the end i just skipped that part!! I'm so sorry!!! it's just so hard because the narrative of f1 drivers is so specific and intrinsically tied to TEAM and to their teammates, and to the tragedy of a good car and/or the wonder of a great car ... the betrayal of contract negotiation & silly season etc.... tennis just doesn't really have that!! all the narratives are more player v. self and player v. world, instead of driver v. driver and driver v. fate. if that makes sense??

so yeah. sorry 😭😭 it's also possible that I just don't have enough imagination and somebody can jump in to help with that .... anyway, moving right along to

"is tennis a big money sport"

GOD yes. tennis is soooooo expensive, it takes approx 1 billion dollars to pay for lessons, court time, coaching, travel, accommodation, gear, etc etc. :// You get paid if you win. let me say that again: you get paid if you WIN. there aren't salaries! early in your career, you are HEMORRHAGING money, esp if you have a coach. the travel is fricken expensive all by itself!! and if you're paying a coach as well you're either in debt or you're playing with house money if you catch my drift. (tennis players often come from wealth, much like f1 drivers — they can also be sponsored, sometimes by their country, but usually only if & while they're successful!!)

if you do well, you start to win, maybe you make money, more likely you're breaking even for a while (or even still losing). if you do REALLY well, then you're looking at more prize money and maybe sponsors, so then you can start making some real money out of this. but yeah it's CRAaaaaaazy how much money tennis players pay to play tennis lol!! it is 10000% a problem for getting underprivileged kids into tennis, there's a reason tennis is so white!

"are there any player pairings w vaguely homosexual vibes"

LOLLLL look i never turn down a chance to push the sincaraz agenda but also, carlos alcaraz does that for me!!!!

they're so cute damn

also getting into sinner/berrettini …

but honestly, besides that?? f1 is way better for pairings because we watch them interact with each other off track WAYY more. you barely see tennis players interact with each other! i have been emailing the respective tennis associations about this (jk but I should). MORE GOOFY VIDEOS WITH PLAYERS DOING STUPID GAMES (with each other, crucially)

"which are the hot ones"

ooohh this is suuuper subjective but i am soOOOoo into coco gauff, she's gorg, also iga sviatek in red, also daria kasatkina, also maria sakkari really does it for me, also katie boulter is so cute.

hot damn

on the atp side oBVI jannik, carlitos is so cute but he looks so young i feel like he's less hot and more adorable, caspar ruud looks like ryan gosling as you have pointed out, ben shelton is gorgeous (and cocky in a way that unfortunately does compel me, oops), arthur fils!! beautiful. tennis players are all hot, in my mind??? they're so …. well rounded …. 😏😏😏

"which are the "sad wet cat" players"

andrey rublev my beloved sad cat

muchova (not really a sad wet cat but tragically always broken in some way)

daniil medvedev but if the cat was cunty

"whats andy murray's deal?"

oh my GOD murray!! my love my husband my father my holy ghost!! a tragedy a triumph …. a player in the era of the Big Three (Djokovic, Federer, Nadal) and therefore destined to be remembered as "oh, and andy murray" … or "one of the big four" (the big four is not a thing unless you're talking about andy murray lmao) ... a great player, one of the greatest, a slugger, a workhorse, had one of the cleanest backhands of all time, and the classiest guy in tennis … see: andy murray shutting down sexist reporters on multiple occasions ....

He's not retired !! he's still going, here he is recently losing:

He's actually (possibly) playing at this upcoming Challenger Tour event! as are a number of interesting players. the reason that this is interesting is that Challenger level tournaments are a level below the ATP Tour, so you don't often have this many recognizable (to me, anyway) names playing at this level!

[side note: the movie Challengers — the name is a play on the Challengers tour. they're playing a Challengers match in the movie, but also "challenging" each other for zendaya … you get it]

Anyway this tournament should be interesting … andy murray is getting older but he's not ready to quit!! he's gone on the record saying there are things he's still trying to accomplish before he retires, and he's playing well in practices it's just not translating to matches yet. he's also said if his body tells him to retire he will, but uhh. he's got a literal metal hip so clearly he's not QUITE ready to listen to his body.....

"is he the seb of tennis" HMMMM this is an interesting question, I wouldn't really class him this way — seb is like a silly little sexy fruity goblin (if I'm reading his vibe correctly — I'm late to f1) and andy is a stoic public school kid with a goofy streak … if that makes sense …

"how dramatic is tennis compared to f1?"

ALSO INTERESTING I think that's sort of relative to how much you care about individual players, I think game-play is pretty dramatic at times but nobody's ever in danger of bursting into flame??? so in that sense not as dramatic as vroom vroom sport lmaoo but there is a bit of temper tantrum throwing, and then important wins (see: Alcaraz Wimbledon 2023) are SO dramatic in the best way…

gossip-wise I don't think it's as dramatic as f1!! there's deffo tennis gossip but I think, again, because there aren't teams, the drama is less wrapped up in "betrayal" narratives yknow??? like ferrari ditching sainz for lewis was dramatic in so many different ways, not LEAST because of the betrayal of carlos. I feel like tennis is less set up for that, bc it's every player for themselves

"is djokovic the max-esque guy where it's like "okay I don't mind you, you're cool, but god DAMNIT, stop being so good, let my other favourite little meow meows have a CHANCE for once"

YES EXACTLY i cut in your whole q because that's exactly right!! so so so apt imo .. howEVERRR it was less correct when federer and nadal were still around and at their best, because those three really did make up the Big Three, capital B capital T, and they had such a good dynamic going between the trio — it was less one-note when djokovic had a constant fight on his hands... now djokovic is older and slowing down so we're getting into a sunset period, which is interesting because he's still doing GREATTT (and I wish he would stop, give my meow meows a chance etc) but everyone sees the light at the end of the tunnel re: a djokovic retirement. whereas I think people are looking at the max ascendancy and saying "GULP" bc we all want our favorite boys to win at least one WDC (cough lando cough cough osc)

"how worldwide is it?"

fairrrrly? but yes europeans heavvvvily represented, americans as well to some extent, asia and australia to some extent — not so stark as f1, but def same bougie euro vibes lmao

"is the meme game good?"

again fairrrrrly but def not to the same extent!! less of a "here are the memes everyone knows" and more in the spirit of, like, if you're following a few players & the major tournaments, tennis tumblr/twitter is fun to be on … trying to think of a "classic" tennis meme and I can't which isn't a good sign lmaooo .. jannik puking in a bin and then going on the biggest win streak of his career is a pretty good meme in my mind though ...

CROSSOVER EP YAAHHHHHHHH I CANNOT WAIT WE BETTER GET SO MANY GOOD WIMBLEDON PHOTOS AJHFDLAKSJFHDKLASJFH

sorry again to be so slow !! this was fun to go through as soon as I stopped tearing my hair out trying to make player: driver comparisons but again, maybe I'm just not creative enough ..

xx ily :))))))

[keysmashhhhhhhh]

7 Drivers Theory

I've seen this as a trend on tiktok but nothing really on tumblr and wanted to replicate it but with more in depth description of why i chose each driver for that category.

The driver who made you fall in love with F1

seb - it will always be seb for me. as a kid i only saw f1 casually (like if i was at a friends house, staying with my gran or saw it on the tv in the pub) but he was always there and always winning. something about him always seemed magic to 7 year old me. and when i started getting into f1 properly (during the ferrari seb years) he just continued to be my favorite, i'd gravitate towards watching for his name on the screen and something about the seb podiums always felt that bit more special to me. the "you just wait sunshine, you just wait" radio is ingrained in my brain forever <3

The driver that would make you laugh in any situation

lando - hes just giggly and funny and his sense of humour matches mine so well. he seems like a genuinely decent person and i feel like we would get on well in real life

The driver you miss the most

senna - i think to have watched the greatness that is lewis makes me that bit sadder that i wasn't alive when senna was winning. michael shumacher is a little different because obviously he was on the grid in the early 2010s so he always seemed real but senna has this mythical quality to me because i never saw him race, thus making me miss him that much more.

Your comfort driver

charles - something about his persaverance despite all the things that have happened in his life comforts me. he tries so hard and he is rewarded but also he has faced so much loss and pain (and ferrari stratagy) but he's always smiling and kind and respectful, something i think is conforting to see.

The driver you support no matter what

lewis - as a kid, lewis was the only f1 driver i knew a lot about. my gran is a massive lewis fan, and he was always nominated for the SPOTY (a british sports award ceremony) so he was the most present of the all the f1 drivers during the years where i didn't watch f1 a lot. his commitment to lgbtq+ rights and fighting discrimination within f1 is so admirable (especially in a sport than can be so toxic like f1) and he seems like such a kind person. i will always support him because i truely beleive he is one of the greatest of all time.

The driver you always talk about

nico rosberg - something about this man just collects in my brain and refuses to let me go. his story is FASCINATING from his begining in karting, the brocedes of it all and his retirement. his entire career feels like one big mystery that i just cant help but talk about. even my friends who know nothing about f1 have heard me explain the events of the 2016 far more times than i can remember.

The driver you're always proud of

alex - he is just one of those drivers i'm always looking for when the race is on. he's had such an up and down route through f1. from thinking he didn't have a seat, all the drama within his family, to joining red bull, getting kicked out and eventually turning williams into a more competitive team. truely resiliance that is so note worthy yet i feel like within the world of f1 alex is not talked about enough, especially considering the progress williams has made over the last year.

[formula-what]

Brocedes time line for a very patient anon

Lewis quotes in orange, Nico quotes in pink, everyone else is blue.

okay first some background knowledge:

Nico is rich as fuck. only child, born in Germany, brought up in Monaco. son of world champion Keke Rosberg

Lewis was born on a council estate in Stevenage and his dad had to work multiple jobs for him to start karting

Honestly I think the difference in their backgrounds is one of the things that pushed them together, they were both isolated from the rest of the kids, but I’m keeping this purely facts rather than speculation.

2000

They’re both 15 years old and are karting teammates for MBB (Mercedes Benz McLaren) in Formula A

Robert Kubica: “there was always competition. But they didn’t fight. It was friendly competition. There was always laughing afterwards.” // “they would even have races to eat pizza”

They often shared hotel rooms at the races which was a “scene of many wrestling matches between them”

Dino Chiesa (their karting boss) – “many times I was called by reception about some problem in the room. It might be noise, or they might have broken something. They would never sleep so they were always tired the next morning”

“they both liked ice cream so much, particularly vanilla. During the night they wanted to eat ice cream always, so I had to go out everywhere to find some and keep them happy”

Lewis would often persuade Nico to buy him sweets

They would have competitions over LITERALLY EVERYTHING

Lewis: “we always had great competition whether on the racetrack or computer games or playing football”

“probably the first bit of competition we had was when Nico used to ride a unicycle everywhere so I thought, ‘I’ve got to learn how to ride this unicycle. Ive got to be better than him.’ I spent all my time outside the go-kart learning to ride this unicycle”

Apparently it only took Lewis 2 hours to teach himself how to do it

In maybe 2013 ish (when they were still friends) Lewis reflected with– “I have never laughed so much than when we were racing together. Nico was kicking everyone’s butt at that time. We had so great races together and built a great relationship”

“we were just arriving and enjoying go-karts and eating pizzas every weekend, fighting all the time and just having fun, whereas now it’s all business.”

many times they would talk about what they would do when they got to f1, made plans hoping to be teammates and become world champions together.

“Nico would say ‘when I’m in formula one’ and for me it was always ‘if I ever get to formula one’. Because obviously Nico’s dad was a formula 1 driver- he knew he was going to make it.”

F1

Nico joined f1 in 2006 with williams, Lewis 2007 with McLaren. And man I WISH I knew what went down with this two when Lewis nearly one his rookie season (missing out by one point to mr fernando alonso) and then WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP in his SECOND SEASON (again by one point thank you mr alonso)

2008 Australia

Nicos gets his first podium, and ofc Lewis is there (he won it) and they are jumping around in the cool down room. Just, two kids who are literally living the one thing they have spent their whole lives dreaming about together. Lewis won the championship that year and oh wow I can only imagine their celebrations together.

2013

They’re teammates in Mercedes!!!

Nico: “every other day there are moments or things that pop up and I can smirk and thing, ‘that’s exactly the same as it was 15 years ago’”

2013 Malaysian Grand Prix gets an honourable mention. This is the race with red bulls good old multi 21 but merc also had their own team orders, stopping nico from fighting for his first merc podium, but Lewis disagreed with it so it didn’t really spark that much tension between them- more the team.

2014

the start of the turbo-hybrid era so y’all know this was good in terms of performance.

2014 Bahrain Grand Prix

They were both fighting for the win and had a collision which prompted a “mock fight” in parc ferme after the race (which I really hope there’s a video of).

Turns out, Nico won because he had used engine modes banned by Mercedes to get a power advantage in the closing laps. which kinda pissed Lewis off

2014 Spanish Grand Prix

Lewis’ fourth win in a row and took lead in the championship. They were fighting till literally the last second and Lewis crossed the line 0.6 seconds ahead of Nico, who says he could have passed him with one more lap.

Lewis defended using the same banned engine modes that Nico had used in Bahrain. Yeah.

2014 Monaco Grand Prix

This is IT. This is peak petty bitch. This is the one people still cry about.

It’s the end of Q3, both of them are out on a lap, Nico ahead of lewis. Nico’s already on provisional pole but Lewis is pretty close.

And then,, Nico just,, parks his car?? He says he made a mistake but the guy doesn’t even crash he straight up just,, rolls to a stop into a slip road. So the yellow flags come out forcing Lewis to abort a lap that was in the makings of pole.

The stewards say it was a-okay but Lewis was convinced it was intentional (and let’s be honest, yeah it probably was) and he even claimed that merc’s data proved it. (low key surprised he didn’t just tweet out the telemetry but I guess he got a stern telling off from mclaren last time)

But *this* is when Lewis tells the world that they aren’t friends anymore. An iconic interview.

Nico then wins the race too, ending Lewis’s four win streak and putting Nico in the lead of the championship.

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix

Lewis has an engine failure in quali meaning he starts from the pit lane, but he does good to make his way up the pack but THEN there’s a safety car which puts him ahead of Nico but on a different strategy.

Nico asks if Lewis can let him past as he needs to pit again before the end of the race, which will give him the place back anyways. Lewis straight up refuses, he’s on a role here. He started from last, and Nico started from pole, why should he slow down to let his title rival through.

Mercedes strongly suggest that his blocking fucked up Nicos race but Niki Lauda is on Lewis’ side so he doesn’t get punished (We stan a supportive father figure) even though he did blatantly refuse to be a team player.

And guys, this is the last race before the summer break so you know Nico was left seething for four weeks.

2014 Belgian Grand Prix

Second lap, Nico attempts a clumsy move and there’s contact, giving Hamilton a puncture and knocking him out of the race.

There’s a lot of controversy but basically it turns out he crashed with him intentionally, not backing out of the corner to “prove a point”. Nico ended up finishing second but was punished by the team, forced to apologise, and even booed on the podium.

2014 Abu Dhabi

For some reason it ran for double points?? The first time in History??? But idk???

Lewis had a perfect start and went on to win it and take the title, Nico had a problem and was told to retire the car but he kept going anyway and finished 14th. Nico went into the cool down room to congratulate Lewis on the championship win, which. cute.

Lewis claimed his second championship. Which not only was huge because of the inter team rivalry, but also because of the large gap between his first win. This guy had lost out on winning the championship in his ROOKIE season by ONE POINT, and then WON it in his SECOND season, and then there was like a FIVE YEAR gap before he won it again.

2015

Damnnn this car was fiiiinneeeeeee.

They do more laps in testing than any other car AND do it on a single power unit. And then. Australia. They take a one-two THIRTY FOUR seconds ahead of the third place Ferrari.

2015 Chinese Grand Prix

Nico is second in a one-two but claims that Lewis kept backing him up into Seb, trying to compromise his race (and help out his boyfriend).

Lewis gave zero shits: "It's not my job to look after Nico's race, it's my job to manage the car and bring the car home as healthy and as fast as possible. That's what I did."

2015 U.S. Grand Prix

If Lewis wins here he could also claim the title with three races to spare (you have to remember back then the title fight often went up to the last race so this was pretty cool)

Lewis very aggressively forced Rosberg wide at Turn 1 to claim the lead, and then there was some sexy fighting between the Mercs and Redbull all race. Nico led in the closing stages but made a mistake, running deep into a corner and letting Lewis past with only a handful of laps to go.

Nico finished P2 and had not only lost the race but the championship title. Nico was fuming, saying Lewis’ move at the start was “one step too far”.

This is the infamous cap throw in the cool down room. Lewis throws Nico his P2 hat, Nico straight up yeets it back at him. I tear up just thinking about it. They grow up so fast.

2016

Nico had came so close to winning and I guess this was just, the last straw. All or nothing. This year he literally gave it everything he had. Lewis and him stopped speaking, Nico gave up literally the rest of his life and even stopped sleeping in the same bed as his wife and taking care of his kids, instead spending every moment trying to get into Lewis’ head. Honestly, I think he might be the only one that could beat Lewis. Just because he knew him *so well*. He literally threw away like 16 years of friendship. But also it’s like, he had to be world champion. He *had to*. His dad was champion and his whole life he’s been preparing to win it too. Tough luck that he raced in the same era as Mr. Best Driver The Sport Has Ever Seen.

Nico won the last few races of 2015, and the first four races of 2016. Lewis had a couple car problems and Nico had a good lead on him in the championship.

2016 Spanish Grand Prix

Gentlemen. A short view back to the past. Nico had made a switch error on the formation lap causing the car to go into the wrong engine mode. So he was running a lot slower than Lewis, who was fighting to claim back the lead.

Nico closed the door to keep him back, and Lewis lost control on the grass, and spins into Nico and taking them both out of the race in the first lap. This is probably one of the most iconic crashes. I’m pretty sure there’s a clip of this somewhere in black and white with the titanic music over the top.

Niki Lauda blamed this one on Lewis (I guess even a supportive dad has to be critical sometimes) "Lewis is too aggressive. It is stupid, we could've won this race".

2016 Austrian Grand Prix

Nico had been struggling with a brake issue all race but was still on the way to win it. But in the last lap Lewis had caught him up and gone in for the overtake.

Typical Nico not taking any shit, refusing to be the guy that backs out and they collide. Lewis took the win and a damaged Nico dropped to fourth. From first. In the last lap.

Both of them blamed each other and tired dad team boss Toto Wolff threatened team orders in future races.

The stewards blamed Nico for the incident, issuing him two penalty points for failing to allow "racing room" and causing a collision.

2016 Abu Dhabi

In the final laps of the race, Lewis ignored team-orders from his race engineer and the technical director.

He deliberately slowed and backed Nico into the pack hoping they overtake him, and there would be enough of a points difference to win the title.

Nico finished second and won the title by five points.

And then,,, Nico announced a surprise retirement during the FIA prize giving ceremony.

Lewis’ response:

"This is the first time he's won in 18 years, hence why it was not a surprise that he decided to stop.” (We stan a petty king)

“But he's also got a family to focus on and probably wants to have more children. Formula One takes up so much of your time."

“In terms of missing the rivalry, of course because we started karting when we were 13 and we would always talk about being champions. When I joined this team, Nico was there, which was something we spoke about when we were kids. So it's going to be very, very strange, and, for sure, it will be sad to not have him in the team next year."

And now they are kind of on speaking terms but not really, they are both pretty private but I think they are at the ‘awkward small talk when we run into each other at the supermarket’ stage of the break up.