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lightseoul · 1 day ago

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CHAPTER 2 | ALL OUT OF LUCK

w.c. 3.8k

tags. fem!reader, pro-hero!katsuki, aged-up (26), some cussing, adult themes (not smut lol) (yet) (jk) (unless...), the mission finally starts, so much plot from here on out y'all so buckle up

a/n. i didn't get to include the most important bits that were supposed to be presented in this chapter because i got carried away with the buildup lol. exciting times ahead y'all. i have so much in store for you with this series. don't be a stranger and let's talk!

links. masterlist, ao3 (coming soon)

You can only stare back at the woman peering at you, her face painted with a thick layer of makeup, her hair styled to staged ‘effortless’ perfection, and her body wrapped in an outfit that’s equal parts provocative and refined.

Her image is so flawlessly curated—so much so that you barely notice the apprehension that’s hidden amidst her features, if it weren’t for the fact that that woman is you.

You can barely recognize yourself—and perhaps that’s the point of all this.

Asahi and Moriyama didn’t have to explicitly state it yesterday—they need you to put in every ounce of effort to make sure that you succeed, and that includes doing everything you can to supplement your quirk all the while keeping your real identity lowkey.

Even if it means looking like this.

You’re about to give in to your second thoughts and change out of the black, low-cut tank and beige cardigan you have on when an array of knocks echo from what you think is your front door, and you freeze.

With a cautious glance at your bedroom’s wall clock, you think you’re supposed to feel a wave of relief wash over you when you see that it’s 9:00 PM on the dot, the exact time Bakugou said he’d pick you up, which means no villain or mal intentioned person is at your front porch, but that doesn’t come.

Instead, the sense of dread that’s been stirring in your gut ever since you got swept by Asahi’s men yesterday only magnifies, leaving you a bit cold and…are you shaking?

You don’t get to dwell on that, though, because another round of rapping resonates from your foyer again, which somehow pulls you out of your nervous stupor. You hurriedly run to the door, not even bothering to check through the peephole, opening it with a turn of the knob to see Bakugou.

Wearing a white face mask and decked in a fitting black hoodie, with his ash-blonde hair peeking through the sides of a dark baseball cap.

His fist is frozen mid-air as he stares at you, eyes slightly widened in shock, as if he didn’t believe you’re capable of this thing called punctuality. He promptly brings it down, though, schooling his expression into a neutral one, but not before giving you a quick once-over.

“Hey,” he offers, voice gruff and way lower than you remembered it back in high school.

“Hello,” you counter, looking back at your messy apartment out of habit. “I’m almost done. I just need to grab my purse.”

And, because you genuinely need to know for the sake of what you’re about to do, you ask: “Do I look okay?”

He must’ve not been anticipating that question, because his eyebrows furrow ever so minutely like you just caught him off guard. “Yeah,” he eventually replies after studying the entire length of your body once again.

And, you may have just imagined it, but you swear to god his eyes linger on your chest for a beat longer than necessary before he meets your gaze.

“You clean up…” he pauses, like he’s grasping for the right adjective, before settling with: “…decent.”

At that, you feel yourself deflate a bit. Maybe you wanted a more affirming answer, definitely not because you want that from him, but because you need to look good. However, if there’s anything the rumor mill told you back when you were still teenage students, it’s that Bakugou Katsuki was a man of few words when he was serious, let alone appreciative, so you take his comment in stride.

Besides, in comparison to how you looked yesterday, anything is an improvement, really.

“Thanks,” you respond, and you debate for a second whether or not to say the next thing but ultimately decide on it. “…And you look mildly disguised.”

That seems to ruffle Bakugou’s feathers. “Mildly?”

You shrug, suddenly feeling unsure about your honesty. “I get the hoodie and the cap and the face mask, but there’s no hiding your hulking frame, man.”

And really, there isn’t. How are you supposed to conceal a torso as large as that?

You gesture to his chest and shoulder area for further emphasis. “I don’t think you can pass up as a regular citizen but like as a non-descript athlete, maybe?”

To your dismay, Bakugou merely grunts before shaking his head. “This’ll work.”

Apparently already over your suggestion, he glances past your shoulder as he shifts his weight on his other foot. “Can you grab your purse now? We’ve to get going.”

Now, you’ve got half a mind to argue and try to convince him that maybe going for a better disguise is better in the long run but you’re silenced by his domineering gaze. So instead, you nod before rushing back to your bedroom and grabbing the bag you already prepared beforehand, as well as your phone that’s charging on top of your bedside table.

Although it won’t be of much use later, or in the coming few weeks, if everything goes according to plan.

“Ready?” he asks when you return to the doorway with your things in tow.

“Yup,” you retort as you lock the door behind you, and just like that, you’re well on your way to a potential death sentence.

You’re in the elevator going down to the ground floor by the time he speaks up again. “We’re commuting,” he starts, not looking at you but instead scrutinizing the barely hanging on floor buttons. “Can’t risk raising suspicion by driving there.”

“Where are we going, exactly?” you ask just as the elevator dings, signifying your arrival.

The doors burst open, and he steps out. “You’ll see.”

The commute to wherever the hell it is you two are going is quiet.

Bakugou didn’t divulge any further details as you stepped out of your building, wordlessly ordering you with a stern look to just follow. Frankly, you don’t like how you’re being kept in the dark, but you don’t contend. You’re acutely aware that you have a limited number of cards to play with Bakugou, and you have to play them right, if you want to even survive this mission without your partnership falling apart and jeopardizing the entire thing. Wasting a card on stupid information would be downright foolish on your end.

Even the walk to the bus stop is silent, and so is the entire ride. Despite it being quite late into the evening, the vehicle is still somewhat crowded, which you chalk up to it being a Friday night. You find yourself relaxing in your seat as the realization dawns on you—perhaps there was no point in getting too riled up about getting noticed.

And besides, you’re taking extra precautions, too. You’re not sitting next to each other, because he’s trying to stave off attention while you’re straining to catch it. Maybe not of these strangers, but of the people you’re going to meet later on.

Roughly 10 minutes and a short subway ride later, you climb up the underground stairs to a stop you vaguely remember hearing from your coworkers about. You recall how she described an old party district right in the middle of Musutafu, and sure enough, the text on the street signs match the name she recounted during one of your lunch breaks.

“Over here,” Bakugou calls out from a few feet ahead of you. You quickly quit your observing and follow suit, mindful of keeping an appropriate, not at all questionable distance between the two of you.

After what felt like walking five blocks from the subway, you see Bakugou halt and make a left into a poorly lit alleyway. You hesitate for a second, having been on autopilot and going straight for the last how many minutes. You’re able to swiftly gather yourself, though, steering in the same direction.

The moment that you do, it instantly registers to you that you’re not just in the party district anymore. If the dingy signages and the palpable seediness of the alley are any indication, you’re most likely in the red-light district now.

Suddenly, everything feels a bit too real, and you barely catch yourself stumbling back on your feet. This doesn’t go unnoticed by Bakugou, who instinctively moves to reach out for you from where he’s standing. He pauses, though, when you’re able to regain your bearings with a slightly embarrassed smile.

“Sorry,” you offer meekly.

He eyes you with the very same inexplicable expression from before. “You good?”

You’re not about to tell him you’re scared shitless, so you give him a half-hearted nod. Turning to study the exterior of the small building, you take in the lightly peeling paint and the booming music emanating from it. “This the place?”

“Yes,” he answers without missing a beat. “Are you sure you’re good?”

You whip to look back at Bakugou, who, if you didn’t know any better, is now looking apprehensive.

You decide then and there that you have to get your shit together.

Bravery is contagious, but so is fear.

For a second, you contemplate using your quirk on yourself to calm your nerves down, but eventually decide against it. There are much bigger fish to fry tonight, and what’s the point of learning all those damned breathing and grounding techniques if you’re not going to use them?

“I’m ready,” you finally tell him after a moment of both of you standing there. “Let’s go in before we start looking unusual out here.”

If Bakugou notices the unease you’re sure you’re radiating, he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he gives you a curt nod, before turning to open the door.

And when he does, you’re almost instantaneously flooded by the music that was just escaping through the cracks and crevices of the run-down building. You fight the instinct to cover your ears as you step into the large room behind Bakugou, eyes quickly darting all over the place to drink in the scene before you.

Right in the back of the space is a stage that extends in the center as a runway to the middle of the room. The orange and pink mood lights illuminating the area are relatively dim minus the bulbs lining the set and walkway. And, beneath the elevated platform are what have to be pleather seats littered all over the floor—all of which are occupied by decidedly rambunctious men.

You resist the urge to wrinkle your nose as their boisterous laughter fills your ears, opting to face Bakugou instead.

“Hey,” you call out to him, who stops in his tracks to look at you. You sneak a glance at the people at the bar nearest the two of you, just to make sure they’re not listening in, before you continue. “Are you sure this is the place?”

You don’t have to peek beneath his mask to know he’s now scowling at you.

“What am I, a dumbass? I told you, this is it.” He then shifts away from you, far enough that you barely hear his next words. “…It has to be.”

Well.

That’s not exactly comforting.

Your discomfort only heightens when the already faint lights dim further, and the music switches from a pop song to which you know a bit of the lyrics to a rap that, if you were to base it on the first phrase, is all about having explicit, unprotected sex. The crowd of men cheers in anticipation, and as if on cue, a woman dressed in nothing but a two-piece lingerie emerges from the back of the stage, confirming your speculation of what the place is.

A strip club.

You watch as the woman confidently struts towards the center, and apparently, you’re no better than any of the men here because your gaze slowly roves over her slim and toned body, eyes catching at her cleavage that’s leaving nothing to the imagination. You can’t help it—you look down at your own chest, sinking in disappointment at the contrast before promptly looking up in embarrassment, only to find Bakugou studying you closely.

“It’s a strip club,” you blurt out, flustered at getting caught in the act. His eyes only narrow in a way that tells you what you’re already telling yourself: Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Bakugou doesn’t say anything, much to your relief, only moving to the far corner of the room where there are miraculously two seats unoccupied. You follow him with no further questions asked, plopping in the chair to his right, thankful you’re wearing black trousers so that your skin doesn’t have to go into contact with the sticky furniture.

You take the opportunity to clock the rest of the room, cataloguing the bar at the other end of the area near the entrance where a barista is swiftly taking and making orders all at the same time, while the men seated on the stools struggle to decide whether to look at the man or at the stripper now performing an elaborate dance around the pole. Amidst the decorated wall adjacent to the bar is a door with a restroom sign on it, and you squint just enough to see it’s only one stall for everyone. You make a mental note to hold in your pee, at least until you get out of here.

And, because you’re feeling nice, you shift to regard Bakugou with a good-natured smile on your face. “I hope you peed right before leaving your house.”

“What?” he says loud enough for you to hear him over the noise they’re calling music. “I can’t hear you.”

“Shit, right.” You lean in ever so minutely, and Bakugou mirrors you. You try to ignore the new-found proximity. “I said,” you repeat, with a little more volume this time, “I hope you peed right before fetching me. I bet the toilet’s filthy as shit.”

To your delight, not that you’d admit that to him in this lifetime, Bakugou smirks at your little quip after confirming the lone comfort room with his own eyes.

“Don’t worry about me, princess,” he starts, and you stiffen at the nickname, “I’m not the one who has to sit on one.”

You’re about to retort with something along the lines of what if he has to poop out of the blue, or at least try to, because the pet name has you gagged against your better judgment, when a ridiculously tall man clad in all black appears out of nowhere, startling you.

“The f—”

“Dynamight,” the behemoth of a guy cuts you off, eyes trained on the pro-hero beside you and completely ignoring your presence. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Took you long enough to approach me,” Bakugou sneers, oozing with the confidence you can’t find within yourself right now. “I hate sleazy places like this.”

To that, the man only bows his head slightly, face solemn but devoid of remorse. You watch him as his eyes finally drift to you, albeit for only a split second, before looking back at Bakugou. “Follow me, sir.”

The ash blonde does so, perhaps a tiny bit begrudgingly, and you speedily get up along with him. The two men turn to move, and you’re about to take a step closer towards their direction when a long arm shoots up in front of you, keeping you in place.

Any protests die in your throat when you look up and see the guy’s menacing glare.

“If you don’t mind,” he grits through his teeth, “Only Dynamight is needed.”

“She’s with me,” comes Bakugou’s commanding tone. You chance a glance at the pro-hero, whose countenance is so serious you’d be afraid if you were the one he’s talking to.

“But, sir—”

“It’s the two of us or we’re leaving,” Bakugou demands.

The two engage in a stare down which you witness for what feels like a few minutes before the man finally looks away, frustration etched across his intimidating features. He glares at you once more, as if you’re the one who’s insisting on being Bakugou’s plus one, and you’re about to be convinced that he’s mentally chanting a spell to make you disappear when he gestures for you to follow him with a flick of a head.

You gradually release the breath you didn’t know you were holding as you shadow them as they enter one of the doors on the wall perpendicular to where you were just stationed. It leads to a staircase that swerves in the middle, and you lock eyes with Bakugou as he makes the turn ahead of you. Neither of you says a word, opting to keep on trailing the man, even as you land on the second floor, which looks more and more like a prostitution den.

Once again, your conjecture is confirmed as you walk down the hallway and past several sets of doors on both sides, from which emanate a cacophony of sensual moans and groans. You wonder what Bakugou’s thinking right now, although you can’t get a read on him as you can only observe his backside.

Finally, after what seems like a tortuous eternity, the man stops right in front of the door at the end of the hallway, and you pause right behind him.

He looks back at Bakugou and you with what you’re pretty sure is caution, before knocking on the door twice, and then another two times but in rapid succession.

“Come in,” is what the muffled voice on the other side says.

And so you do.

You’re not entirely sure what you were expecting, because you’ve never actually been in a service room before, but you at least anticipated a bed on which certain…activities can be done.

But what you’re met with instead seems to be a refurbished lounge room with floor-to-ceiling brick walls, black and red quilted couches, and a bar at the far side all lit up with moody orange lighting.

And smack dab in the middle of it—sprawled so languidly all over the furniture—are three individuals.

Three individuals who immediately look at Bakugou.

It’s them, alright. You don’t need your extensive training in reading people to know that these are the ones you came all the way here for.

You quickly take note of their appearances. The seemingly old man who has to be in his late 50s is seated—quite relaxed—in one of the scarlet solo chairs. He’s slim, bordering on frail, but the glint in his eye as he peers at Bakugou tells you that it’d be unwise to rule him out as one of your main threats.

Juxtaposing his age which is further revealed by his shoulder-length salt and pepper hair is the young woman plastered on the couch adjacent to his.

Or maybe ‘woman’ is a bit too generous…

It’s not obvious at first glance, but you immediately notice how some of her body parts appear to be outright robotic in the literal sense. Perhaps it’s her long, pin-straight, jet-black hair that softens her entire look, but there’s no mistaking what seems to be an artificial left eye, a metallic right arm, and angled, silver lips. She’s wearing long pants so there’s no telling which other parts of her are made up of what you think is steel, but the ones visible to you already tell you enough.

And then there’s the third and last man, who, in comparison to the other two, is remarkably…plain.

There isn’t an air of age-induced wisdom around him, nor is there anything peculiar about his body. He looks like just about any other 40-year-old-ish Japanese man you know, with short black hair, an unassuming face, and semi-formal clothes that are quite loose on his not-buff but not exactly thin body either.

But to your surprise, it’s him that the hilariously huge guy from earlier directly reports to.

“Pro-hero Dynamight, sir, as you requested. And…” the ‘escort’ trails off, and for a split second, you feel kind of sorry you’re here and making things complicated for him. “…he brought company.”

“Finally,” the plain-looking man pipes up from his seat, and even his voice is generic. “And here we thought you were never going to come meet us.”

Placing what suspiciously looks like a glass of whiskey on the table in front of him, the man shifts to fully regard Bakugou. “I see that you’ve deciphered the messages we’ve been sending you?”

“No shit,” comes Bakugou’s blunt response, and for a beat, you seriously consider using your quirk on him to make him calm the fuck down.

You decide against it.

To your chagrin, he drones on. “Y’all gotta do better. That was barely even a code.”

At that, the old male barks out a laugh while the plain-looking man only chuckles. “Of course, we expect nothing less from the #2 pro-hero. But…” the latter trails off, eyes finally landing on you. You quickly put on the most endearing smile you can muster, suddenly regretting not touching up your makeup upon sitting earlier. Thankfully, though, he smiles back, before redirecting his focus back on Bakugou.

“I see you brought precious cargo. Is there any reason why she’s here with us?”

“We want in your organization,” Bakugou replies without hesitation. “The both of us.”

And when none of them say anything in response, Bakugou presses.

“You need me, right? I heard you’re planning an attack. I want to join.”

“Yes,” the old man finally speaks up, not even denying it yet his voice is riddled with misplaced humor. “We do, in fact, need you. But what use do we have of this girl?”

“She’s got a useful quirk,” Bakugou supplies, before turning to look at you and then back at them. “Luck. She boosts the success rate of anyone she works with.”

“Luck?” the old geezer says back so incredulously, you feel your eye twitch in annoyance. If he only knew what you were fully capable of. He can’t, though, if you want to get out of this entire situation alive. “I don’t think we’ll need that as long as we have you, boy.”

“Well, tough luck,” spews Bakugou, a little bit too sarcastically for your comfort. “Because, as I’ve told your little lackey here,” he gestures to the definitely not little guy from earlier, “It’s both of us or I’m out.”

“The both of you, huh?” muses the plain-looking man who’s seeming to be more and more like the leader of the group by the second.

Once again, silence envelopes the room when none of them utter a single word, with you and Bakugou watching in anxious (you) and impatient (him) anticipation. You observe their facial expressions as they have a wordless exchange, and judging by how the ancient and the robotic girl are looking at the ordinary man, you guess your hunch about him is right.

Eventually, they appear to reach an agreement, and the leader adjusts just enough to look at the both of you directly.

You brace yourself with bated breath.

He flashes you a modest smile.

“It’s a deal, then.”

˖⁺‧₊ as always, reblogs, replies, and tags are appreciated <3 feel free to drop an ask, too—i'd love to chat with you. have a nice day!

tagging. @bunnysaursushii @yawnzzzzzzzz @cholios @kashee-h @iluv-ace @lotuslovers @elarakive @sugurusmoon @napbatata @k0z3me @h0ngh0ngh0ng @honeyoru @yoongiwithglasses | @junehasnotbeenfound @sugalarity @haechansbbg @sikuthealien @reiniella3 @ita606 @xoxoblueyy @mutsu422 @eyesforbkg @kalulakunundrum @venus-xxoo @lemuhr @pinkpantheris @ashers-playpen @bakugouswh0r3 @certaindreampost @3ve88 @tsumuus @4acoffee @anonymity-222 @lousypotatoes | @matchat3a @harryzcherry @h0nestly-though @cc1306 @gold24fish @bakukags @zennypiee @wannabewolf @kameko-ko @lovra974 @arc6021 @kooromin @surprisemodafakas @ilovedenk-i @st4ntwic3 @j1tterbugaboo @call-memissbrightside @arael-asuka @bakugosgothhoe

#btw just a friendly reminder to pls be nice esp when asking to be included in the tag list!#maintaining it is quite taxing and it doesn't help when people are not exactly kind about it and/or disappear entirely after requesting :')#depending on how high-maintenance it gets i might scrap it tho #anw pls enjoy this chapter! i worked hard on this <3 #bakugou x reader #bakugou x y/n #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou imagines #mha imagines #bnha imagines #mha scenarios #bnha scenarios #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bakugou x you #bakugou imagine #bakugou fluff #bakugo x reader #bakugo x y/n

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mecachrome · 10 months ago

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pre-mclaren oscar piastri primer (ft. maxf, landoscar)

0. introduction

for a few months now i've been wanting to make both an oscar primer and a timeline of pre-mclaren landoscar moments, but i couldn't figure out which one to prioritize… then after some deliberation i finally realized i could just combine the two things together! so. here is an oscar-centric timeline that is mainly about his racing background, moving to the uk, and how he became acquainted with other members of the rfm pack—aka lando, maxf, and logan. i don't know whether any of this information is useful or even vaguely interesting, but i mostly just wrote it for myself and thought i'd share what i had in case anyone else wanted to check it out. please feel free to comment or shoot me an ask if anything here is egregiously incorrect; i've checked and linked as many sources as i could but it's of course possible that some errors remain :)

1. background, rc racing, early karting days (2007-2015)

oscar piastri was born on april 6, 2001 in brighton east, a suburb of melbourne not far from albert park circuit, as the son of chris and nicole and to-be oldest brother to 3 younger sisters. a love for all things automotive ran deep in the piastri family: both of his grandfathers were mechanics and his father had also co-founded his own vehicle diagnostics software company, hp tuners, aka oscar's sponsor throughout his racing career. thanks to his father's business, oscar's family was objectively well-off and managed to contribute a fairly substantial amount of support toward his junior career, but they also weren't swimming in cash by multi-millionaire motorsport standards either.

(L-R) edie, mae, hattie, and oscar, from nicole's twitter — each sibling is ~2 years apart (source)

while most drivers on the current grid were introduced to motorsport through go-karting, usually at or before the age of 7, oscar's path to single-seaters differed slightly. he first developed an interest in racing via remote-controlled cars at the age of 6, when his father brought him a monster truck as a souvenir back from a business trip in america. oscar began racing them that same year, eventually moving to safer electric track vehicles and even winning the second class of the national titles in 2010, at the age of 9. he was so small then that he often needed to stand on a milk crate to see the cars on track, and the next-youngest competitor at the time was twice his age. (source)

youtube

oscar on the podium at age 8 (nov 16, 2009)

oscar with his father chris, who often competed alongside him in a separate class (dec 21, 2010)

by 2011, oscar and his father were seriously considering his potential of pursuing rc racing as a viable career path, but things changed when he was introduced to karting via a friend's daughter in the rc community and his aspirations slowly shifted toward racing from inside a car. oscar was an unsurprisingly sporty and competitive child growing up; he'd played some cricket and aussie rules football and knew that all he wanted to do was race professionally, full-stop, at the time thinking along the lines of australian racing categories like v8 supercars. he was still competing in remote car racing as late as 2013, but he began karting seriously within australia in 2014, placing respectably in the junior categories of several regional karting series against relatively senior and more-experienced racers, and even going to france for a one-off event where he finished on the podium of the iame international junior x30 final. this outing affirmed his potential to his father and motivated the two of them to split time between australia and europe in 2015 as they juggled his karting future; plans for two more european events that year fell through, including the cik-fia world championship at the kfj level (which logan sargeant would go on to win), but at this point they were officially looking to take his career to the next level and commit fully to european karting in 2016.

this is when ricky flynn (and the hypothetical idea of lando norris!!!) comes in. before we get into rfm and karting professionally in europe, it's important to note that the defining aspect of landoscar's junior careers is that their pathways never once intersected. in fact, they don't even seem to have met properly before oscar entered the f1 grid as alpine reserve, although they'd spoken over social media and oscar was familiar with several people around lando's life—for example, maxf, logan, guanyu, and even lando's older brother oliver, who had also raced for rfm.

in short, you could say that landoscar's biggest hindrance was their parallel excellence. oscar was good enough to catch up and even surpass everyone else at lando's level, but lando remained untouchable throughout the years. oscar is only 1.5 years younger than him, but their f1 careers are offset by 4 years (2019 vs. 2023 debut) because of exactly two things: oscar's 2022 gap year in alpine and his two attempts at formula renault eurocup. on the other hand, lando sped through all of his junior categories in blistering fashion, falling short of the championship only once: the year he placed 2nd in f2 behind george russell. this is significant because many talk about the clinical nature of oscar's rapid single-seater ascension and three b2b2b victories (still very impressive, especially given his limited karting career!), but all of that speaks equally to the illustrious nature of lando's junior success and the sheer magnitude of faith placed in him as mclaren's "golden boy" coming up the ranks. to put things into further perspective, lando was teammates with maxf and jehan daruvala at rfm until 2014, jehan competing in the same class and max one below, yet by the time oscar was racing max and jehan—in f3 in 2020 and f2 in 2021, respectively—lando was already into his 2nd and 3rd years of f1. here's a chart that hopefully makes a bit more sense:

majorly simplified timeline showing lando, guanyu, maxf, logan, and oscar's junior careers + the karting classes they primarily competed in each calendar year. maxf did not complete his 2nd f3 season and many of them contested multiple/different formula renault series, but this is just a rough overview of their feeder series experience.

2. moving to europe, rfm, regional formulae (2016-2019)

back in australia, oscar was a member of the oakleigh go-kart racing club and being actively mentored by james sera, a multi-time australian karting champion and fa kart dealer who worked with young karting talents alongside his cousin david. in late-2015, he presumably helped oscar and his father reach out to ricky flynn, who ran ricky flynn motorsport (rfm) and whose team was at the time enjoying exorbitant success in the karting scene; lando had won the world championship at the kf level the year prior, and logan would soon clinch the kfj title in 2015, results which further drew oscar's interest toward the team. ricky flynn agreed to take oscar on and have him and his dad move out to europe, and by november 2015 oscar announced on social media that he would be joining rfm the next year. in january of 2016, he and his father moved to hertford, uk, so that oscar could begin a 100-day karting program and travel extensively around europe to attend races. this is where he met logan sargeant, who was in his final year on the team but competing a class above, now at the ok (previously kf) level. oscar himself was only competing in the okj class.

not oscar-related, but as you can see guanyu, logan, and maxf were already acquainted before oscar and logan met, since the three of them and lando had been in rfm together as of 2014 — (may 11, 2014) & (feb 6, 2015)

oscar and logan in 2016

in an interview published on june 7, 2023, oscar reflected on leaving australia and committing to his racing dream, saying:

"i think if there was a turning point, it was probably when i started finishing towards the front in australia, and i started winning a couple of races here and there and finishing in the top three of championships and stuff, and then went to europe and fully committed to going down that route. [...] there's obviously a very big commitment at that point when you move halfway across the world without family and stuff. so i knew at that point that i really wanted to become a professional because, firstly, that's what i want to do anyway, but, secondly, now i'm sacrificing seeing my family, and stuff like that to be able to do this — which was a sacrifice i was more than willing to make."

like the majority of oscar's karting career, his time with ricky flynn can primarily be summarized as decent. none of his performances were particularly stellar, and in november 2016 he placed 6th in the fia world championship final behind the likes of victor martins and théo pourchaire (he mainly competed against guys like them, dennis hauger, caio collet, etc… once again logan was a class above and lando/maxf had already graduated to single-seaters), but he showed promising racing foundations and a great capacity for improvement, especially given that he'd moved to europe the same year and was still adjusting to life and racing on the opposite hemisphere. about 6 months into his new karting venture, oscar had settled in reasonably well and his father decided he would return to australia to continue on with his life, so they made the joint decision that oscar was to begin boarding at haileybury's uk campus and continue racing in europe entirely on his own. uk and australian school years are misaligned, so my personal understanding is he moved to europe after finishing year 9 in australia, attempted online school/took a few months off (he says he did online coursework here, but mentioned here that he was out of school, so it sounds like it must have been a very half-hearted effort…), came back to australia over the uk summer to do some more karting, then began boarding in september 2016 as a year 10 student. he spent ~4 years there and eventually received his a-levels in 2020, except his final year was disrupted by covid and he never sat his exams. (blog post mentioning his a-levels + btg transcript excerpt about his exams; his website says he attended haileybury from 2016-19, but i think this mainly encapsulates his boarding period, as he was still doing remote work in april 2020.)

oscar in f4 with his gcse revision guide, 📸 sebastiaan rozendaal (may 20, 2018)

2016 is also when oscar began his well-documented super-liking of several of lando's social media profiles. i think understanding oscar's time in rfm and his extremely british single-seater origins helps better paint his history with lando and maxf; my personal understanding of pre-mclaren landoscar is that while oscar never formally met lando or maxf during his karting days, he knew of them quite well through rfm and thus followed them on instagram/twitter after moving to the uk. of course, oscar has a fairly active social media presence in general, so young oscar quietly liked instagram posts and tweets from many different people, but i do feel compelled to note that in the early days he liked lando, maxf, and logan's posts with seriously impressive frequency compared to anyone else on the grid (or anyone in general, really); after creating his twitter account in may 2016, some of the very first tweets oscar liked were from maxf, and he also liked a multitude of mundane lando tweets from 2016 until… today, while on the other hand he didn't start liking george's tweets—another similarly-aged young british talent—until late 2017. (he does have some fun george-admiring moments though, but that can wait for another time!) outside of rfm, other people oscar was familiar with during his early racing years were british f4 teammate ayrton simmons, to-be series champion jamie caroline, and old australian karting friend christian pancione, who appears to still be one of his best mates (if not his best) as of today. fun fact is that christian raced for the carrera cup as a support event to the australian gp in 2023; here's oscar allegedly checking the quali live timing at lunch during his own media day.

so, to conclude, oscar's early lando focus basically traces back to the motorsport path he took at the behest and guidance of his early rfm connections in the uk. the thing is that despite growing up in australia and vaguely admiring several aussie drivers in f1 as a child (read: mark webber and eventually daniel ricciardo), oscar has never had a specific driver he consistently mentions when pressed for his racing "idol," likely since his personality inherently resists idolatry and he instead views successful people more as actionable benchmarks or reference points for self-improvement rather than as unattainable paragons of accomplishment. as a kid forced to grow up almost entirely on his own, the majority of his racing aspirations were molded independently in the uk—he completed his karting career in the uk, boarded at haileybury for 4 years (fun fact: other drivers to attend include jehan, callum ilott, and clément novalak; callum was a few years above oscar and finished school in 2017, but the two would later become quite talkative over social media anyway), raced in british f4, became a brdc member, contested eurocup under a british license and therefore had the british flag raised and british national anthem played during his wins, stayed in the uk even at alpine since the factory is based in enstone, etc. oscar basically moved to the uk from australia without having really met anyone significant in the racing scene (other than jack doohan, or more importantly jack's father mick, but jack is younger and did an extra year of karting) and pretty much didn't have anyone specific to "look up to" at the time. oscar's first acknowledgement of lando's online existence was in december 2015, when he liked one of lando's instagram posts prior to moving to england, so it can be assumed that lando basically functioned as his most accessible reference point in the junior ladder as a 14 year old dipping his toes into the european racing scene for the first time. that is my highly subjective analysis of the situation!

select quotes re: oscar's inconsistent responses to his motorsport "hero" (or his favorite driver / a driver he looks up to in general):

(f1fs; mar 9, 2022) "i started watching f1 in… 2009 was the first season i properly watched. so when brawn came in, obviously mark was the only aussie on the grid at that point, so i was kind of naturally going for him. then joined by daniel, so obviously going to support the aussies, but i think watching lewis has been nothing short of spectacular, and a very good role model. [...] i think when i was first watching, i supported mark, but, you know, and i hope he takes no offense to this—vettel was winning everything at that point. so i was supporting mark, but vettel was doing most of the winning. i think now that i understand more about racing though, i would say [the driver i look up to the most is] lewis, mainly. the way he goes about things on and off the track is quite exceptional."

(mcl youtube; mar 29, 2023) sporting idols mentioned: ayrton senna, alain prost, michael jordan (see also ultimate athletes list)

(p1; aug 10, 2023) "i would say i never had like one specific idol. when i was growing up watching mark webber was at red bull, and obviously being australian, red bull being very quick at the time, i kind of naturally followed him. i mean—even like some of the guys in the junior ranks above me. like lando was always kind of two, three years above me, winning… most things on his way up. so i guess kind of him in some ways?"

(eff won; dec 4, 2023) "i don’t really have like one specific [idol]. i think what lewis has been able to do in terms of getting to seven world championships was incredibly impressive. i think what max is doing now is also very impressive…"

the first lando post oscar liked on instagram (dec 21, 2015)

the first maxf posts oscar liked; instagram (feb 26, 2016) & twitter (may 9, 2016)

anyway, back to british f4! despite his initially unconventional foray into motorsport, oscar's journey progressed in a much more orderly fashion once he stepped up to single-seaters. his actual debut was in f4 uae, which he ran 3 rounds of between 2016 and 2017 (another fun fact: this is where he briefly acquainted himself with mclaren indycar driver david malukas, who would later recall him being very intelligent and whom zak brown allegedly spoke to oscar about before appointing to their indy team). after cutting his teeth on actual car-racing for the first time, oscar decided against moving up to the ok class as he felt confident in his ability to be competitive in single-seaters. his first full season was therefore the 2017 british f4 championship, during which oscar signed with arden while logan went to reigning champions carlin (lando had won with them in 2015, then maxf in 2016). oscar made his way to the top step 6 times in the season and placed just barely above logan for 2nd in the championship, finishing behind the considerably more experienced jamie caroline. arden was also founded and is currently owned by red bull team principal christian horner, so it was during oscar's time there that christian took note of and interest in his talent; oscar reportedly did a few runs in the red bull simulator but was passed over for joining the academy, which christian later voiced regret on. (source)

maxf, logan (center), and oscar (to max's right) on a day maxf was visiting the 2017 british f4 grid (april 11, 2017)

linus lundqvist, oscar, and logan on the podium at snetterton (jul 30, 2017)

jamie and oscar, who were… er, mathematically in the main championship fight. for some reason they made them take these photos (sep 30, 2017)

after a successful f4 outing with arden, oscar returned to the team for his first season of formula renault eurocup in 2018, a renault series that ran in its specific configuration until 2020 before merging with the parallel regional series frec to become what is today known as freca. this season proved to be less competitive for oscar, as arden was relatively inexperienced in this series and oscar's three teammates were afflicted with what can colloquially be referred to as a "skill issue," making it difficult to collectively develop the car throughout the season. (blog interview) the series was thus returning driver maxf's to lose, who at the time was racing for reigning champs r-ace with teammates that included oscar's fellow rookies logan and victor martins.

despite the unideal environment, oscar managed to prove his worth by placing a respectable 8th in the series, scoring 110 points as a rookie driver and capping the season off with 3 podiums and a top-finish of 2nd place—a jarring contrast to his teammates' joint total of 12 points. this result attracted the attention of r-ace and granted him a seat with them for the 2019 season, at which point maxf and logan both graduated to f3. thankfully that wasn't too much of a concern for oscar since he'd always intended to do two seasons of eurocup, and now he finally had a chance to win the first serious championship of his racing career with an established racing outfit.

oscar, max, and yifei ye on the hockenheim r2 podium (sep 23, 2018) [full gifset]

oscar's second season of eurocup is when he truly started proving himself as a driver, or at least to the people whose names, money, and opinions mattered around the paddock. his main competition in 2019 was again victor, who was now racing for mp and had been made a member of the renault sport academy back in 2018 after a strong performance in french f4. despite a close title fight, oscar managed to hold him off for the championship in the final race of the season, kicking off what would soon become an impressive string of consecutive single-seater series titles. even sweeter was the fact that all eurocup champions were awarded a renault sport academy spot that could be left or taken as they pleased, and of course—while the finances weren't nearly as impressive as alpine would later proclaim in their baseless smear campaign—oscar's connections in the racing world were limited as an australian driver almost exclusively managed by his father, so he gladly accepted the offer for the many venues of support renault presented to him.

see also: bby oscar briefly mentioning lando after winning eurocup in 2019 (@ 1:10)

oscar being lifted by his team (r-ace) after placing 4th in the abu dhabi finale and winning the title by 7.5 points

3. renault sport academy, lockdown, f3 (2020)

many things happened in 2020. one: oscar became an official member of the renault sport academy, joining the likes of max (who'd been picked up on merit after winning british f4 in 2017), guanyu, christian lundgaard, caio collett, and fellow new recruit hadrien david (victor had been strategically demoted after oscar's win because renault is a notoriously unserious organization, but again this is not the post). two: by the time oscar was ready for f3, moving up the ladder proved to be exorbitantly expensive, and he realized he needed better funds and managerial support to sort his career out. he'd been offered a spot in prema's f3 team by team-owner rené rosin at the end of his eurocup season, who'd named him for the post-season test before the championship was over and stressed that the spot was his no matter where he finished. (source) prema is unquestionably one of the top—if not frequently the top—teams one can drive for in most junior series (though there is also somewhat of a self-selection bias; if you ask oscar he is not a significant beneficiary of prematax!), having absolutely demolished the f3 competition that same year and achieved a clean sweep of the drivers' standings with rob shwartzman, marcus armstrong, and jehan at 1-2-3 consecutively. oscar completed post-season testing with them in spain alongside to-be teammates logan and fred vesti in october (source), before confirming on jan 26, 2020 that he would be joining them for the f3 season as a renault junior.

so, where does mark webber come in here? apparently mark's trainer from red bull and wec had also been oscar's trainer since 2016 (i'm pretty sure this is australian physiologist simon sostaric), and it was through their joint connection that oscar was introduced to mark. according to mclaren's 2023 season preview, "the pair hit it off, and webber took his countryman under his wing," signing oscar to jam sports management, aka the management agency he runs with his wife ann. mark's support would become a major factor in helping oscar progress through the feeder ranks and establish himself in f1, mainly because he had actual connections and could help oscar network with sponsors and negotiate his way during future signings. of course, more on this later.

as an aside, here are a few things mark has said about oscar:

"he’s got that white line fever when he puts his helmet on and turns into a different character, which is sensational." (mar 1, 2020)

"one of oscar’s biggest strengths by a mile, compared to everyone he is competing against — and this will be a huge string to his bow when he makes it to f1 — is his composure. he has immense levels of composure. [...] if you are weak mentally you won’t make it. he was on his own from an early age. he did brilliantly with his studies. but the racing disease would not go away, he wants it very much." (sydney morning herald; dec 11, 2021)

"he’s a prost, mate. he’s such a thinker and so calm. at first i thought i needed to inject a bit of urgency in him, but actually no, he’s got his own frequency. that’s just where he is." (the race; oct 7, 2023)

estimates provided by chris piastri on the cost of oscar's junior career, stressing the million-dollar commitments of running a single season of f3 or f2 (source)

anyway, back to the chaotic events of 2020. i think something that's good to keep in mind when discussing oscar's time in the renault sport academy is that he was actually a relatively new recruit, as in he only participated in a single training camp with the other juniors in 2020 and most of them (max, christian, guanyu, the temporary ghost of victor) already knew each other before. oscar essentially met with renault's factory team in early 2020, filmed promotional material with other juniors in january before attending the season opener together in february and then heading to winter training camp later that month, after which he and max left early for f3 pre-season testing in bahrain on march 1—a blessing in disguise, seeing as caio, hadrien, and christian remained behind and would soon be stuck quaranting in a hotel in tenerife—then briefly spent a week at school before returning home for what was meant to be a quick pit stop at the australian gp, which at the time had yet to be canceled.

then, of course, lockdown happened.

simplified breakdown of renault junior stints, notably showcasing the academy's struggles to meaningfully promote any of its juniors

oscar at the 2020 renault season opener alongside then-academy director mia sharizman, then-tp cyril abiteboul, alain prost, f1 drivers esteban ocon and daniel ricciardo, and the other academy juniors: fewtrell, lundgaard, zhou, david (feb 12, 2020)

oscar and maxf behind the scenes of the same event (feb 12, 2020)

stuck in australia for three months, oscar would end up participating in two fia virtual races, one for f2 and another for f1 (jun 7, 2020). a fun landoscar tidbit is that he finished 5th in the virtual gp right behind lando, so they technically had raced each other before 2023, depending on... well, whether you count a 2020 sim race wherein george russell and alex albon lead the pack as a real race. nevertheless, this was a time when drivers were becoming much more active online, seeing as streaming was the best way to keep their images relevant and connect with fans, and despite oscar expressing little interest in streaming on twitch he would still experience a considerable uptick in his online activity and twitter reach that year.

racing resumed on july 4 at the red bull ring in austria; oscar had been granted an exemption to travel to the uk and complete a 2-week quarantine back on may 27, a reassuring indicator to the motorsport world that the f3 season would run after all. now that he no longer had to attend school, having received 2 b's and 1 c for his maths, physics, and computer science a-levels, oscar relocated from hertford to oxford in june to be near the renault facilities, which he visited nearly every day to train at, and began living independently (as in in a flat) for the first time since 2016, rooming with fellow renault junior caio collet.

as i said before, this season is when oscar's online presence and "memeability" began to really conceptualize, enabled primarily by the fact that he was a) finally living outside of a school dormitory, and b) now, of course, signed at prema, a team notorious for its social media visibility, literal family atmosphere, and frequent youtube pandering. according to this f3 article, his twitter followers jumped from 795 at the start of the season to 11.6k by the time he won the championship, an audience built significantly off the self-deprecating string of jokes he used to tweet regarding drs and general reliability issues faced throughout the season.

what i guess i want to touch on here is how oscar's online presence has always been concentrated around the bare fundamentals of his personality: dry humor, candid words, sparing emojis, a few humorous photos detailing the mundane reality of his everyday routines, and at most the occasional inopportune meme or reaction gif (#thepiastri 🤷‍♂️, f2 in baku, jetpack guy, so on). he's bantered frequently with callum on twitter and near-obsessively liked memes, videos, and other updates lando shares with his audience, but he also has seemingly little interest in building up his own "brand" the way lando so smartly has with ln4 and quadrant, and quite frankly seems viscerally incapable of wanting to engage one-to-one with fans or otherwise leveraging the popularity of his material image. basically what i like to say is that oscar enjoys being adjacent to "lad humor" and will happily enable it, but he really has no interest in being the one to initiate it himself!

"there's some things you want to share, some things you don’t. in today's age and sort of having the profile that us drivers do, we kind of just have everything shared,” piastri said. “but (social media) can be used for good, certainly within the profiles that we have. but in some ways, it can be negative, and there's always going to be people out there that don't like you for being you.” piastri tries to write as many of his posts as possible, and he checks those written by his team to be sure they sound authentically him. (the athletic; jun 29, 2023)

along these lines, oscar does enjoy the spotlight, only he seems to prefer it concentrated in a specific lens toward a specific productive end. he's endlessly capable of seeing the objective upside of a situation, joking after he was made a meme in baku following his f2 sr1 collision that he was all for it if it got him popularity. after his eurocup championship he also said: "i think everyone loves a bit of spotlight on them. i think that's just human nature, so a bit of attention's always nice." which is interesting to me!

but back to racing. this season would unexpectedly become two things: maxf's last competitive season in motorsport—especially disappointing considering that he'd gone into the championship expecting to put on a second-season title charge, instead failing to gel with the hitech team to the point that each increasingly poor weekend made him spiral mentally—as well as oscar and logan's last season racing against each other before f1, since logan would later encounter financial difficulties that left him stranded in f3 as oscar catapulted himself to f2 victory. 2020 was obviously a weird season in general because of covid and the gap from pre-season testing, so it also meant that oscar had gone into the season fairly rusty; he managed to win the first race of the season, but on top of his drs rollercoaster he did struggle with middling results in qualifying and was met step-by-step throughout the championship by logan.

maxf's last race in f3 was the barcelona sprint race on august 16, with three rounds left to the end of the season. he dnfed in an unfortunate first-lap incident mere moments after oscar charged his way up from 5th on the grid to the front of the pack, where he would eventually breeze his way to victory and pull himself near-level with logan for the championship lead. i recognize that this is an oscar post and not a maxf post, but i think their time in f3 during an extremely isolated and covid-affected period speaks to both an interesting dynamic between them (the little kid who always lagged a series behind you suddenly beating you on merit) and their respective temperaments toward racing. while at renault, max reportedly lived with jack aitken during the week but would return to his family home on weekends, so it makes sense that he struggled to adapt when covid hit and drivers were collectively forced into very regimented sporting bubbles. mark webber, who worked for channel 4 as a commentator and had access to the f1 paddock, basically couldn't see oscar in person and instead spoke to him over the phone every day on race weekends. maxf said of his decision to quit:

"normally [...] i’m able to stay calm under pressure and i don’t let many things get to me but when you have a bad qualifying result and you see guys up there that you know you’re capable of beating, it definitely takes a dig at you inside and it’s been a lot to process throughout the year." (source)

while then-academy director mia sharizman, who worked closely with the renault juniors, spoke of oscar's inherent propensity for independence and how he adapted well to the pressures of living on his own:

"if you look at oscar piastri, he has been living on his own, [away] from his family who are in melbourne for the past five to six years. because he has been living on his own in boarding school, he learns how to live on his own, and he thrives in that. we have to force him... 'have you spoken to your father?!' it's just things like that, but he thrives in that. that's why he thrived in those weekends racing. he loves being on his own without anybody. on the other hand, we had max fewtrell, for example, who can't – he couldn't survive the 11 weekends racing, because he always needed his family to be around him. so those are the things that suddenly you see and, i think that that we see now, after a few years a driver who is quick, a driver who has the talent, and then the driver who is stable." (source)

2020 is also when lando and oscar spoke to each other on twitter for the first time. yay! after lando went semi-viral for having a meltdown over a hornet on three separate social media platforms, oscar first joked with him about it on august 24 (this was incidentally also the day maxf announced his functional retirement, which oscar liked as well 😭), before referencing the incident again a few weeks later in september.

(aug 24, 2020) / (sep 10, 2020)

outside of drs tweets and trying desperately to banter with lando norris, oscar's popular tweets at the time included several food-related mishaps and home appliance tragedies. while this isn't actually a lando moment, he was also slandered by the LN4 twitter account a month later on october 17 for reasons that remain a mystery, resulting in this set of interactions:

(oct 17, 2020) / (oct 19, 2020)

bonus: maxf's tweets @ oscar (when you aren't close enough to just text him.......)

but back to f3. similarly to his second season of eurocup, oscar would go on to clinch the title in only the final race of the year, this time even more stressfully—he never got pole that season and won arguably off of consistency, benefiting from errors and unfortunate collisions involving his primary competitors. after a hectic qualifying and string of contentious grid penalties set for the before-last round in monza, he began the feature race 15th on the grid but put on an impressive performance to finish on the podium, buffing his points lead after logan was tapped by clément and put out of the points. he, logan, and fred all dnfed in race 2 (read: the novalak pendulum swung away from oscar's favor to maintain stringent cosmic equilibrium, while logan and fred threw away a points opportunity with a teammate4teammate love tap), and oscar went into mugello with only an 8-point lead over logan and a 24-point lead over pourchaire. this weekend proved equally hectic, as is frequently the case with f3 racing standards, but in short oscar and logan entered the final sprint race level on points, with théo approaching terrifyingly near in their rearview mirrors. logan was unceremoniously taken out of contention on the first lap after contact with zendeli, and oscar managed to squeak his way to 164 points in the championship by placing 7th in the race; théo finished 3rd, with 161 points, two positions away from claiming both the race and the championship title.

a succinct summary of an eventful season! (posted jun 30, 2021)

despite winning the f3 championship in far-from-dominant fashion, oscar's career was now steadily on an upward trend. on october 30 he was rewarded with a private test in the r.s.18 at bahrain alongside christian and guanyu, and a month later confirmed that he would be racing for prema again in f2 (december 1, 2020). as a rookie f3 champion there was a moderate amount of interest in him, but no one really expected him to carry home the f2 title on his first try and so one of the main favorites going into the next season was his second-year teammate and 2019 f3 champion rob shwartzman.

4. f2, alpine reserve duties, #piastrigate (2021-2022)

at the start of 2021, fernando officially took daniel's place at renault and the team rebranded itself as alpine, parting ways with team principal cyril abiteboul and functionally replacing him with new ceo laurent rossi—part of a no-tp management structure, frankly a self-evident infrastructural faux-pas from a million miles away. the renault sport academy was then also renamed to alpine academy; again i know that this is an oscar post so i won't get too into the details of Alpine Being Alpine, but understanding how the academy functioned does help better contextualize the inevitable unfurling of piastrigate.

the main issue, really, would always be laurent rossi, or at least the values laurent rossi had been hired to represent and which he willingly peddled during his controversial tenure at alpine. after rossi's appointment it was reported that "the renamed alpine academy was now being tugged in two directions between director mia sharizman's ideal as a creator of future f1 drivers and alpine's chief executive officer laurent rossi's commercially-led preferences." (source) mia directed the academy from january 2016 until may 2022, and had been the one to restructure its recruitment process by demanding better funding and robust testing programs to cyril:

"when we first restarted the team in 2016, it was, we didn't even have a two-year-old car program at that time. we had to use a 2012 program using the [lotus] e20. [...] then in 2018, i went through it, and i said to cyril abiteboul, "look, let's try and do this." we needed financial resources. i needed a head start with financial resources to kick start the program whereby you entice drivers, and you offer [a place] to the academy drivers. it was more to see how they are... it was more of an evaluation process... that was what the first idea was. then we developed the program to develop the drivers to suit their formual 2 program." (source)

(note: mia also believed that 2020 was a disappointing year for all of his juniors save for oscar's performance in f3, which is a whole other thing. but rossi's greatest shortcoming was that he had singular, insulated vision, and he resisted any external input to the detriment of reactionary business decisions, a fact that alienated alain prost and soon led to his exit from the outfit in 2022. not a good look!!! prost would later call rossi "the best example of the dunning-kruger effect, that of an incapable leader who thinks himself able to overcome his incompetence with his arrogance and lack of humanity toward his troops." 🤌)

so basically, the cracks of mind-boggling incompetence within the team's leadership structure were long evident. on a brighter note, oscar's 2021 f2 season would quickly become his strongest single-seater contest ever (f1 youtube has a good summarizing video of his season, if interested); because of covid, f2 was experimenting with a three-race format this year in which quali set the reverse grid for sr1 and sr1 results then set the reverse grid for sr2, which essentially meant high qualifiers were rewarded for simply maintaining composure in the first sprint and running cleanly in the top 10 in order to secure a favorable grid spot in sr2. oscar adapted well to this format, building off his reputation of smooth, consistent driving on top of slowly improving his qualifying results over the course of the season, finally breaking through with his first feature-race win in monza.

oscar with mia sharizman

this is also around the time when lando mentioned oscar in official f1 media for the first time, reading off a question about him to daniel in an interview posted in october:

"this one's not even about formula one. it's about oscar piastri. oscar pias-tree! [...] he's been on it this year." — (full video) (oct 1, 2021)

of his own f2 campaign, oscar said:

"i thought that i could challenge for race wins, but i probably wasn't expecting to be so consistently at the front. consistency is something that i’ve had as a trait throughout my career, and i was expecting to be consistent in my results this year — but maybe a bit lower down!" (source)

not only did he end up being consistently at the front, he became virtually unstoppable in the second half of the season. on december 11, oscar clinched the title in abu dhabi with two races to spare, ending the season with 5 consecutive poles and 4 consecutive feature wins, 60.5 points above his previously-favored teammate in the standings. #notbadforashitqualifier!

by now oscar was a hot commodity in the paddock; the only problem was that alpine didn't really care, mainly because rossi had enthusiastically re-signed ocon to a three-year deal in 2021 and held zero intention of actually promoting any of its juniors to one of the race seats, plus the one open spot at alfa romeo had instead gone to guanyu and his considerable financial package (though oscar has always been vocally defensive of guanyu's appointment to his detractors). instead of moving to another series, such as indycar or super formula, oscar recognized that he'd proven everything he needed to prove within the feeder system and opted to remain on the grid as alpine's reserve driver, mainly so that he could embed himself in an f1 team environment and—most crucially—avoid being left "out of sight, out of mind," because once you go to america you usually don't come back.

i'll keep the rest of this post brief since i feel like everyone already knows What Went Down, but a quick highlight for fellow landoscar enjoyers was the 2022 australian gp on april 10, during which oscar accompanied rosanna tennant for the post-race show and awkwardly participated in a chaotic lando & alex interview. as far as i know, this was landoscar's first time interacting on-camera!

o: "i haven't raced either of them, no." l: "not yet!" o: "not yet. hopefully soon." — (full video) (apr 10, 2022)

then silly season started, and everything was thrown into disarray when sebastian vettel announced his imminent retirement and fernando subsequently took his place at aston martin; alpine scrambled to recover from this blindsided move and prematurely promoted oscar to an f1 seat, to which oscar eventually posted The Tweet—claiming he'd never signed a contract with alpine and would not be racing for them in 2023, thus kicking off #piastrigate. or the piasco, or whatever you prefer to call it.

here's a good article that properly summarizes the crb ruling, but tl;dr: mclaren and alpine had come to an agreement back in march to loan oscar to mclaren's stable of reserve drivers after daniel contracted covid; mark webber, who was close to andreas seidl from their time at porsche in wec, quietly negotiated a contract with mclaren for 2023 that oscar would then sign on july 4, which was reportedly initially a reserve deal with an upgrade clause to a full-time drive given a dr buyout; alpine's legal team turned out to be essentially one overworked legal director who mishandled the situation thanks to a lack of organizational support, while a concrete williams deal never actually existed no matter what people continuously allege, and any proprietary right to oscar's services that alpine purported to have for the 2023 season would soon be voided by crb rule on september 2. in other words, they dun goofed.

because tumblr dies when i try to include it in this post, here's a link to a condensed chronological timeline version of this post.

that's it for now. i'm sure you know how the rest goes!!!

#oscar piastri #*m #quite possibly the dumbest thing i've ever written and most likely of no use to anyone at all. but i had fun so no flames pls 🥲☝️#there's so much more i could have said this is quite frankly the condensed version... scrapped a whole separate section on just his psyche #i need 2 be normal.........#op meta

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