#this is not my best work tbf but i just wanted to write a dorky lil smth

[navree]

Sneaking into parties and being found out by men more famous than the Beatles and Jesus and George Washington combined is the kind of thing that gets security hauling you out and dumping you on your butt by the trash at best, or even just being flat arrested at worst. Clark and Lois sneak into a party for a story while totally not fighting, and meet both a new and very familiar face.

Fandom: My Adventures with Superman, DCU (Comics), Superman - All Media Types, Batman - All Media Types Pairing(s): Clark Kent/Lois Lane, Lois Lane & Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne Words: 6,240 Chapters: 1/1

[formulatrash]

Wow i realy liked how you phrased your opinion on Lewis. You’re probably really sick of these questions already, but on the off chance you’re not, could you maybe give your opinion about Sebastian? (not about his performance but more about him as a person) I feel like he’s so controversial in the paddock so I’d like an opinion that comes from a person who actually knows her shit :) Anyway, wishing you a lovely day!

Hello anon.

Sebastian’s a bit of an enigma I guess - I don’t know him personally so can only talk about how he is in a sporting sense. On the one hand, you have the surface-level, which is that he’s a dork with quite badly limited social skills - relatable, as someone with Asperger’s myself. 

On the other hand, he’s also very ruthless. To be fair, all of them are. Even the ones that seem super fluffy and nice because you have to be to be a competitive driver when you’re on track. That doesn’t mean they take it away with them when they take the helmet off, of course.

That ruthlessness came through a lot at Red Bull during the tussles with Mark - who is also very ruthless for the abovementioned reasons. And definitely gave it out to Sebastian plenty.

When Seb appeared he was a bit of an affront to F1. He’s got some of the small-cute-babyfaced thing Lando has now but also he was sort of the antithesis of What An F1 Driver Is Supposed To Be. I mean, you have to remember that everyone through Jenson was too much of a boyband member when he moved up to F1 because he had turn-of-the-millennium David-Beckham-style highlights. God, it’s just ridiculous.

Anyway, so. Seb’s this like dorky kid and everyone’s like who the hell let this nerd in???? So there was always a bit of push-pull in the press and fandom about whether Vettel was being helped to wins, over approvedly Dudes’ Dudes Webber or Alonso or Raikkonen or whoever. 

And a young fanbase absolutely lapped it up, which was very good for the sport. Seb’s dominant era was the last of the seasons widely available on free-to-air before the Sky deal really set in and audiences went into major decline, so it’s thought of very fondly.

Do I think he can be a bit of a shit on track? Yes. Both to himself and others - it used to be being bullish about leaving room or, idk, the Multi-21 incident or whatever and now tends to manifest in self-sabotage. I think he’s still a fantastically talented driver but the last few years have definitely seen times when he’s let the contents of his head get the best of him. I suspect he’s best at driving when he doesn’t have to think about it a lot.

Which isn’t a criticism. That’s the zone drivers want to be in - because you can’t be running strategies through your head while you’re doing a qualifying lap. I think the years at Ferrari, in frustration at trying to work out what the problems are and lead the team, have created too much noise-to-signal stuff he needs to think about for him to be able to find a comfortable setup. 

That’s just conjecture. But it’d be my analysis - if he’s on a good day and feels comfortable and reassured that the team have everything in hand, he doesn’t make errors. In fact that was the main problem with his dominant era, which was that it was impossible to get him to budge because he didn’t accidentally leave a gap or whatever.

Some drivers are very comfortable with the frantic thinking-about-everything stuff, it’s generally what makes the difference in Formula E because there’s no telemetry which is why F1 midfielders or back markers are better placed, coming in there - but I don’t think Vettel would be keen on or flattered by a switch. That’s not a criticism - in order to perform at the very, very front you need to be able to define the perfect setup and know how to analyse and ask for that, rather than knowing you’re constantly scrabbling for alternatives to see if something works.

I understand why Vettel has such a huge fanbase and the other drivers respect him immensely. He’s someone whose voice carries a lot of weight in the paddock and him and Lewis (and Romain, tbf) have very much accepted the joint mantle of being the older, responsible ones who represent the drivers to the sport when they need to.

I don’t think he’s in his twilight years but I do think he hasn’t been enjoying F1 a huge amount for the last couple of seasons. Something obviously drives him to stay and I don’t think it’s money or definitely not fame, he’s got plenty of the first and actively dislikes the second.

Vettel obviously feels he has more wins in him or that the fight between himself and Hamilton is still playing out or maybe just that he has a responsibility to get Ferrari back to the front. I think that kind of project matters to him a lot. So I doubt that he will retire in 2021 but the speculation will, of course, endlessly continue because people can’t find anything else to write about.

On a personal level I used to find him quite grating because he had a tendency to be awkwardly weird at female interviewers that I really don’t find charming - your opinion may vary but it’s, y’know, annoying in the workplace.

I think, in retrospect, he’s just an idiot with limited social skills - like most of us. A lot of people in motorsport have a lot of difficulty interacting with people outside it and even ‘mildly anomalous people within it’ can throw people for six because it’s a ludicrous pantomime bubble world.