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dear-ao3 · 9 months ago

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the boys are fucking BACK BABEYYY and so am i, your friendly neighborhood saph. hello. today is february 25, 2024 and here we are, back at it again with another update. a very long update. please be prepared for how long this is.

this is, everything you missed if you didn't watch all 24 hours of pre season testing.

now before we get into this. i need you all to note that it is nothing short of a miracle that this update exists. not only did i spill water all over my laptop this week but my apartment ceiling started pissing at the severe unadulterated hour of 6:45am yesterday (and the guy who fixed it was a lewis hamilton fan?? that story is here) and then i broke a jar of peanut butter all over my kitchen. so i am exhausted. i am spent. and i am so tired of writing this update. so please, i beg of you, enjoy this.

now before we can get into the Pre Season Testing Drama, we first need to talk about the sir lewis hamilton thirst trap selfie curse.

what? you might be saying. is that a thing? did you mean to say those words in that order? and the answer is yes.

according to urban legend (and instagram) when sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie, someone in f1 looses their job/resigns/gets fired, etc.

lets take a look at the evidence from 2022:

sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: a few days later sebastian vettel announces that he is retiring

sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: a few days later its announced that daniel ricciardo is leaving mclaren before his contract is over

sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: a few hours later its announced that nicholas latifi is leaving williams at the end of the season

sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: a few hours later its announced that mick schumacher is leaving haas at the end of the season

sir lewis hamilton posts a thirst trap instagram selfie: two days later mattia binotto, the ferrari team principal, announces that he is resigning at the end of the season.

now im no scientist. but that seems like some strong correlation.

and sir lewis hamilton posted a thirst trap selfie earlier this week. and we all know what's going on with christian horner right now...

speaking of!!

there is another Rumor afoot in the paddock. the rumor being that christian horner is going to announce that he is resigning on february 28th. this would be just before the season officially starts. and yes, its just a rumor. but as we know, thats how most f1 news starts. as a rumor.

also red bull had a meeting after the first day of testing at their hospitality. it was speculated this was to announce to everyone horner is resigning. horner was at testing. but he was not in his team shirt. interesting.

it also came out that apparently there are over 100 pieces of evidence against horner. ford is mad (as they are going to be supplying red bull with engines) and they want this thing resolved. horner was asked about it at the press conference and he basically said he can't say anything cause its ongoing (and that was before the 100 pieces of evidence thing)

also! apparently horner was offered the opportunity to resign for "health reasons" at the end of last year, before all of the allegation rumors got out. he refused.

but well get back to testing in a moment.

first! some slightly irrelevant but still funny news:

this is not really news but apparently zak brown, mclaren ceo, was a normal guy who went on wheel of fortune when he was younger and won a bunch of money which he used to finance his racing career, which didnt really work out for him, but he had enough connections to eventually much later on become the mclaren ceo. which is. kinda wild. (via the red flags podcast)

drive to survive season 6 came out on netflix on friday. it is about the 2023 season and i haven't watched it yet but apparently lando norris asks lance stroll if he can "wank" yet after his wrist injury

christian horner apparently unfollowed max verstappen on instagram

pierre gasley, the very french alpine driver, posted a photo of himself pulled over and getting breathalyzed on instagram. this was soon after deleted, probably by his pr team, but it was fucking hilarious. and before you get all oH hEs pRomOtiNG dRinKiNg aNd dRiVinG, apparently getting breathalyzed when youre pulled over is just something they do in france.

pierre also apparently knew that hamilton was going to ferrari before it was announced. but he refused to say how. the answer to that is likely that charles leclerc told him, because they are besties. so zhou can keep a secret, but clearly charles cannot

gunther steiner, the disgraced haas team principal, is making a return to the paddock in the form of a member of the permanent presentation team for RTL germany. basically hes going to analyze and discuss the races and all that good stuff. which is great for him!

carlos sainz posted a video of himself making pancakes to an audio clip form an interview last year where he explains how to make pancakes. its funny because the audio and the video actually provide very little instruction for how to make the pancakes.

we found out that when the hamilton to ferrari news broke, lando norris was actually in a cave in vietnam with some of his friends. and when they all got out of said cave and turned their phones back on, his friend said "oh lewis is going to ferrari!" and lando thought that he was playing a prank on him.

the official fia photo day.

god. the photo.

every year they do a Drivers Photo. and it normally looks like a kindergarten school picture:

or they get fancy and do something like this:

well not this year.

this year they decided to make it look like they were all contestants on the bachelorette. if the bachelorette was the world championship.

now i understand this is the first time youve all actually seen all the guys photos on this post. so ill take a minute to tell you everyone's names:

from left to right

valtteri bottas (ass calendar man), carlos sainz jr (proud owner of a Volkswagen golf hatchback), nico hulkenburg (hates when daniel ricciardo says his name), lance stroll (canadian), max verstappen (once ripped down a door for his cats), yuki tsunoda (hates working out in the morning), logan sargeant (a literal florida man), charles leclerc (cannot park a car to save his life), kevin magnussen (his daughter helps him put on his gloves), pierre gasley (has cardboard cut outs of the drivers in his garage), fernando alonso (sponsored by tiktok???), sir lewis hamilton (slaying as usual), lando norris (ok WHO put him next to george russell he looks so small), oscar piastri (reportedly has never used a comb), george russell (man of memes), daniel ricciardo (a car mechanic), checo perez (drives a minivan), zhou guanyu (can keep a secret), alex albon (has an entire instagram just for his pets) and esteban ocon (gave ryan reynolds one of his helmets)

and with all that aside. lets get into pre season testing. grab a snack. get a drink. or maybe go to bed. this is a long one.

first. what the fuck is pre season testing?

pre season testing is the week before the first race of the year. the teams have all revealed their new cars for the season and this is the first time all the cars are together on track. its mainly to test set ups and collect data, kind of fine tune everything before the first race and make sure nothing is going to explode. its also a chance to check out what your rivals are up to and see if youve got a hot chance in hell this year. it takes place over the course of three days, with two four hour sessions each day. each team is allowed to have only one car on track at a time, so they split their drivers between the sessions.

its not really about going As Fast As You Can tho (much to the commentators general chagrin), and all the teams are changing the car set up throughout the sessions (tires, fuel, etc) so you can't really tell whos going to slay and whos going to flop in a season just from testing alone. the commentators all bitch and moan throughout testing though that no one is going Fast, so much so that one of them, jolyon palmer, named the last bit of the day when the track is the best "power hour" where Hopefully the cars go fast. and they made him this graphic for it:

but teams generally dont go as fast as they can because sometimes they like to hide some of their pace to surprise the rest of the grid at the first race.

testing is largely important because the data they gather data to help tell them how to make their car faster for their upgrades for later on in the year. so after testing they're already making upgrade packages for months in advance.

and, as commentator/presenter will buxton said, building and setting up an f1 car is a lot like building ikea furniture. the first time sucks but then it gets a lot easier.

"saph," you might be saying. "did you really watch 24 hours of testing just to write this post?"

yes i did. and i took notes :)

now. as excited as we all are about the boys being back on the track, we also get to hear the commentary. people have asked where they can watch f1. im pretty decently sure you have to pay to watch it (tho if someone knows of a free version throw it in the comments) and i have f1tv pro (which if youre going to pay to watch f1, pay for f1 tv pro because you get to see the onboard cameras and all that good stuff), so i hear the sky sports announcers. for the races i listen to the international broadcast (which Yes may be Slightly Biased but i want to hear crofty ok sue me). and the announcers. well. they have their fun. i also sometimes can't tell them apart when theyre talking cause they all have British Announcer Voices so if i fuck up who said what i apologize.

testing, can be pretty boring. theres long stretches of time where not a lot is happening and they have to make it sound interesting for people, so they talk about nothing (like in vegas where they talked about the plot of oceans 11 for a good 20 minutes and managed to get it wrong) or they shit on the teams.

and before we get started, a quick bit about the tires.

if youre new here, there are Several kinds of tires for f1:

c1: hardest tire c2: still hard but slightly less hard c3: mid tire c4: soft-er c5: softest inter: transitional between wet and dry tires wet: for rain and wet conditions

generally, the softer the tire the faster your car will go because theres more grip. each track uses different tires depending on the configuration and this becomes a bit part of the strategy. for example, for one race the options could be the c1 c2 and c3 and for another one it could be the c3 c4 and c5.

and one more disclaimer: i was mostly listening to testing as opposed to having my eyes on the screen the whole time. so i may have missed a few things. everything in here though, unless otherwise stated, happened at testing.

now ive gone back and forth on how to work through the testing drama, and ive decided to just split it up by teams. the days are slightly irrelevant. and there are some parts where i get into the weeds a little on the car mechanics and set up and everything, but i really tried to make it entertaining. so without further ado:

Visa Cashapp Racing Bulls (RB)

Apparently. the visa cash app racing bulls team doesnt want to be called visa cash app and they also dont want to be called racing bulls. despite the fact that this is their name. the commentators found this very silly. so they're calling the team RB. for racing bulls. again, the commentators find this stupid with one of them even saying that he hates calling them that cause the initials "mean nothing." they went on a tangent about how the team and company is registered under racing bulls so they should be called racing bulls. but alas. they are RB. aparently theyre called rb because it is "more snappy" but rb does stand for racing bulls. though that did not stop them from calling them both alpha tauri and toro rosso (the teams previous names) accidentally. and alex albon was asked what he thought about the rb team and he said "now when we say rb are we talking about yuki and daniel?"

this also sparked, i believe it was will buxton (?), to go on a long tangent about the history of every teams names in formula 1. this ended with the statement: "they could call themselves dave if they wanted" the brand doesnt matter.

then they also shitted on the livery. because it looks a lot like the old toro rosso livery. someone (i dont remember who) said something along the lines of "it looks like they were digging around at the factory, opened a cupboard and were like hm looks like we've got loads of silver and blue paint lets just use that. and we've also got loads of blue pants leftover lets use those in our uniforms"

which is hilarious. but also it kinda does look like that:

other drivers and the commentators though said that, clowning aside, the rb team seems to be doing pretty well. considering that they are sharing a lot of parts and stuff with red bull, this would be obvious. but they could be the dark horse of the season.

laurent mendies, the rb team principal, who may actually be more French than pierre gasley, seemed very optimistic, calm and collected. though i am not sure a french guy with thick black glasses and a curly gray almost mullet would be capable of being pessimistic.

also. their drivers, yuki and daniel, remain nothing short of iconic:

here was yukis instagram story:

and daniel ricciardo had several unhinged moments. including one interview where he expressed the desire to eat a fly for "protein" that was flying around his head. and when he was told the official name of the car (rb vcarb 01) and he said "??? is that what its called??"

daniel said the car is "alright." and he has driven many many red bulls so he knows a good fast car when he drives one. he said that they are definitely not last years red bull and he pretty firmly said that they wont be on the podium next week. the current goal is getting to q3 (round 3) of qualifying. and thats not a fairly hopeful statement from daniel ricciardo. so. perhaps they are just a mid field team.

also we've had an update on zak brown's statement on the partnership that exists between the rb and redbull teams. zak said that technically red bull and rb are currently existing within the current f1 regulations (as in, red bull is not breaking the rules by owning two teams) but he thinks that the rules should change to not allow this, as literally every other sport is not allowed to have two teams at the same level.

Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber

similarly to RB, the commentators also shit on stake. they shit on stake throughout the weekend, the name and the color. but i believe it was ted kravitz (the f1 presenter who often hangs out in the pitlane) said in session 1: "if its got carbon fibre or not, living breathing or not, its flouro green, thats the philosophy down here at sauber" the teams also do something during testing where they put flow vis paint on the car and drive it (to see air flow) and its neon green most of the time, so you can see it, and they were like man. every time a sauber car comes out of the garage i keep thinking whos doing a flo vis test again? but its just sauber!

mclaren even really shit on them in an instagram post (that was quickly deleted and i tried to find it in a screenshot but i could not) where they posted a photo of the mclaren on the track next to the sauber and then the mclaren again covered in flo vis paint with the caption "did stake sneeze on us??"

the name shitting was also present. they decided to call the team sauber tho instead of stake and kick because "thats the name of the team, the others are brands" and yeah, they're correct about that. but in the second session of day 1 one of the commentators stumbled through the whole team name and then said "stake kick sauber, choose your own adventure at that name!"

aside from literally everyone shitting on their name and their color though, they did well. they were flying a bit under the radar, but still doing pretty well. their car notably is the closest set up to last year's red bull, with them copying a lot of the design elements (aside from the nose of the car, which is different). and i know that doesnt mean a whole lot to a lot of you, but basically the car is entirely different than it was last year and since they copied a lot of the elements and shape of the fastest car last year, the hope is that they will have some pace this year.

Williams

now williams, unsurprisingly, had a few problems. on the first day, alex albon was the only car to stop on track and it was due to a fuel pump issue. james vowels, the team principal, explained this very seriously. with the same level of serious that he explained his daughters christmas outfits 2 minutes later.

then in session 2 of day one, logan sargeant spun out with a gearbox issue. which is deeply surprising. and i will tell you why. ive alluded to this before but mercedes and williams have something of a partnership because mercedes supplies williams with some parts (engines, gearboxes etc.) so. Williams made the decision to run the 2023 mercedes geabox in their 2024 car (which is allowed). and that gear box was incredibly reliable. so the fact that theirs fucked out. not so great for williams.

there was also kimi antonelli talk. which ill get to a bit more later in the silly season section, but! james said that maybe they dont want to put kimi in their car anyway. meaning they wouldn't sign kimi if mercedes asked them to. which is! interesting!

and williams changed around their front wing to make it more uwu sexy (faster). though alex albon said that their straight line speed does not seem to be as fast as it was last year. this is not necessarily bad because their car was Only fast in a straight line last year. and as you know. tracks have turns. but this year it seems, at least according to alex albon, that they have "more options" as in the car does more than just go fast in a straight line.

alex also came into the commentary box and chose violence. within 4 seconds of being there he said "may i expose you guys a bit? it smells like champagne in here." he was so committed to the bit of proving that the commentary box smelled like champagne that he brought it up three separate times and even went as far as to sniff the container of wipes that they use to wipe off the mics to see if it was that. (it was not). (the commentators were also so outraged at this accusation that they brought it up at least four more times throughout testing. they determined that it was in fact the alcohol wipes)

they asked alex to predict what would happen next week at the bahrain grand prix. (there is a lap time record that people speculate will be broken next week, likely by red bull) and alex said the following:

"max is going to have a 25 second lead. hes going to go for a pit stop at the end of the race and hes going to go for his fastest lap at the end and break the lap record. [various discussion about him going already being at the bar by the time the other drivers cross the line] or he could be here cause clearly theres the champagne here."

alex also talked about the iconic george russell intro pose from 2023:

so according to alex:

"so i asked the people who filmed that why did you choose that video of george? and apparently i think it has to do with everyone's height that only george esteban and me could do it? thank god they chose george! everyone has that pose i think everyones got it. im sure they could have 20 drivers easily doing the whatever that thing is." and honestly i think hes onto something because landos pose was similar to georges but not as dramatic (likely because hes smaller and his arms probably didnt reach as far as georges do) and this picture got memed to high hell and a half. so. f1 if youre out there. please release the video compilation of all the drivers doing the george russell pose.

aside from all that though. he is excited about williams and about the car and everything that they have coming up. which sounds like it could be promising! but again! its only testing! and their testing kind of went the worst of everyones testing with all the problems that they had.

logan said in his interview that he is still "fighting the car a little more than [he wants]" but that hes excited for what they have coming and that hes hopeful that they will get their crap together and the car will be better because things are lining up as expected.

they also mentioned about 198120928 million times that "logan put on five kilos of muscle over the break and he is feeling very confident in his preparation for the next season" so hopefully he will do better than one single point this coming year.

and, they had this very very flattering angle of alex albon:

Haas

well. they were exactly where they expected they would be. dead last. they also said that they suspected that they would be dead last during their car launch.

there was one fantastic shot of nico hulkenberg in the cockpit holding a pair of pliers. would have loved to have known what he was doing with those.

and on day three kevin was in the car in the garage with a hammer doing Something in the cockpit?? what it was no one knows. commentator speculation was that he was fixing some padding. but it was at the very end of his run. so. hm!

the team principal, ayao komatsu, seemed very optimistic though? and seemed to have a plan? which seems good for them? he did say they had a few random car problems but they were able to run through all of the tests that they wanted to, which is always good.

haas had the most wind tunnel time of all the teams (wind tunnel testing time is determined by your position in the championship and haas came dead last and dead last gets the most time) but they wasted most of this wind tunnel time creating an upgrade package for the 2023 austin race which epically flopped.

haas's biggest problem consistently is the tires. their cars eat their tires. much like the tractors eating luigis radial tires in cars 1. and once they get their car to stop eating tires it will be significantly better for them. cause they have good pace on qualifying days but then it all falls apart on race day because they have to race for longer and the car chomps on the tires. its kind of unclear if they've gotten any closer to solving this problem, though the drivers are optimistic. kevin said that he thinks their tire problems have lessened a little, but we haven't seen race pace yet so whos to really say.

haas though have been pretty low energy. very accepting of the fact that unfortunately, they're probably going to be dead fucking last again.

at the end of day two they did all the stop and start and safety car tests and for the race restart test there were idk maybe 6 drivers lined up for the test and k mags was one of them. all the other drivers decided that they were going to Race Race off the line (trying to pass eachother, full sparks flying, etc) but apparently no one told kevin this. and he was very surprised that the cars were racing.

Aston Martin

they did pretty well. well. perhaps i should say that fernando alonso did pretty well. fernando was up in the top 3 quite a bit and the car, at least according to the commentators, seemed fast.

they spoke to one mike krak, the team principal of aston martin, who said that they definitely want to re sign fernando. when asked if fernando was happy, cause recall that he wanted to see what aston were doing before considering any other contract from another team, said "is fernando every happy?" which is very villain of fernando.

fernando alonso was, however, happy when during the red flag on day 2 he was sitting in his car the entire time. the red flag was upwards of 30 minutes. his seat must be quite comfy because everyone else got out.

there is some speculation that aston martin may have created a rocket ship. were not entirely sure though because most of the cars dont show their full pace during testing. but they do seem to be pretty even with mclaren.

and during his interview Fernando was as pleased as fernando can be. as in he said that the car this year was better than the car last year. which is something when most teams like to be vague. he did though say that red bull is definitely fast and "i think 19 drivers in the paddock now will think that they will not win the championship." and thats a pretty definitive statement. no one said it as directly as this, but it seemed to be the general driver consensus that max and red bull are winning this year again.

Alpine

alpine are happy with their performance. but last year they had a stupid amount of drama, so they are likely to be pleased because there is no more of that. jack doohan, their test and reserve driver, had a lovely conversation with the commentators during day two where he said that basically the team is exactly where they want to be in terms of set up. they do seem solidly midfield though. which is decent for them.

also! alpine put more paint on their car. the nose of it is now more blue. and according to the alpine technical director, the race pace gain of not fully painting the car is .03 of a second. which in formula 1 means 2 or 3 places sometimes. (its a race pace gain because painting the car adds weight and formula 1 is a weight game with the cars and paint is something that often gets sacrificed to make the weight requirement)

they had something pop off of their car on the front while they were driving. which isn't Great.

this being said. they weren't particularly stand out. they didnt bring the softest tires so we didnt get to see their zoom zoom pace, but the commentators seemed in agreement that they might have a lot of work to do. they are hard to place right now in terms of where all the teams line up.

they were talked about the least by far. but apparently they might have the least aerodynamic car of everyone.

Mclaren

reportedly the vibes were "good" in their garage. thats the thing about testing, you have to mostly judge the body language of the teams and if people seem stressed and worried then thats reason for despair. but mclaren seemed mostly pleased.

except of course when will buxton called their car "neon orange" on twitter and they responded back and said um actually No its Papaya. will buxton went on a very long rant during the afternoon session of day two of testing about how the mclaren is actually Not painted Papaya because "papaya is a creamier shade of orange" and he begged and implored the viewers at home to google search "pantone papaya" and compare it to the f1 car.

and i hate to say it. but i think will is right.

they went on another long tangent about color and the absence of color and pigment. and the freaking blue and black or white and gold dress from like 2012. all normal testing talk.

moving on from that. the commentators want lando to win a fucking race finally. so that he can move on from that pressure and get on with his career already. cause hes fast. but until he gets that win. whos to say.

lando also had fastest lap in session 1, .8 seconds ahead of max verstappen, for quite a little. before max went faster than him. for seemingly no reason other than he could. and then max's race engineer (gp) made this lovely face:

which caused many people to be like welp! thats it! were all fucked! red bull is going to win everything again!

(max verstappen also apparently sent that photo of gp to gp after testing and max said that "i sent that footage to him where hes smiling! he doesnt like to be on camera, so he was a bit like 'argh! i shouldn't have done that!'")

but back to mclaren:

they also talked a good bit about lando and oscar. the commentators seem to think they're kind of on a level playing field. now that oscar has a year under his belt and a few podiums, he seems to have found his confidence and he Could be very close in points and everything to lando. this is good. they need a strong pairing to bring the fight to red bull. and mclaren yes always say ohhhh we can't compete with red bull. and then they do. so we respectfully do not listen to a single thing that they say about not being able to take on red bull.

and they also said that oscar is more confident. which is true. in the few media things hes done he seems to actually want to talk to people instead of just follow around lando. kind of a lot like how lando was really quiet his first year at mclaren and just followed around carlos before growing into himself.

oscar also made a bold prediction that fernando would go to merc.

and this technically wasn't at pre season testing but while were talking about oscar being sassy he did this interview and well.

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yeah.

aside from that mclaren were dealing with a little bit of porpoising. which is the driver bumping up and down when they're driving. this was a large thing back in 2022 (and the origin of the iconic "change your fucking car" clip from drive to survive). and they had a problem with landos clutch (could have also been the fuel pump?), he had to stop on day 2 and 3 for awhile for them to fix that. but again, the team seemed pretty Unworried.

my personal favorite photo of lando from testing was this one, and since i can't find a real photo of it on the interwebs you will all have to tolerate the garbage quality of the snapchats that i sent my sister:

they do seem Quietly Confident. they did not really do all All Out Fast Lap (they didnt bring the softest tires that you would use for the all out fast lap) so they clearly are confident if they didnt want to test that. though they didnt really do too many laps in comparison to the other teams at testing, which isn't always great. so we shall see.

Ferrari

ferrari did decently well. with the exception of the drain cover incident on day 2.

now. this is not the first time that a ferrari has fallen victim to a drain cover. the first drain cover incident was in free practice 1 in las vegas 2023. carlos sainz ran over a loose drain cover about 9 minutes into practice, it blew a hole clear through the bottom of his car and delayed the start of practice 2 by i think it was 6 hours because they had to check the whole track again. he also got a 10 place grid penalty for having to change his power unit (even though he clearly didnt have a choice)

charles's run in with a drain cover was not nearly as dramatic. it was a painted over cover on some curbing on the track that got loose and damaged the bottom of his car. not so great. also sets a terrible start to the season for mr leclerc who is Notoriously Unlucky.

notably:

during 2023 charles had a dnf (did not finish) and dns (did not start) and a dsq (disqualified) from starting pole position (first). in his 5 years in f1 he has only finished i think 2 of his home races (monaco) and has never been on the podium there. he gets fucked by the strategy. and during testing he now runs over a drain cover. brilliant.

and one report of the incident framed it like this for some reason:

and the commentators clowned on him a lot during the first day of testing, when max verstappen decided to pass him:

��first move of the year and it was a red bull overtaking a ferrari, who would have guessed”

“poor little charles leclerc already has to be looking at the back of a red bull"

“oo another overtake. charles is getting overtaken left right and center”

but back to testing. this incident caused a red flag about 2 hours and 30 minutes into the first testing session on day two. and they had a red flag for about a half hour or so before they decided that they would not resume the session in order to make repairs to the track. which is very unfortunate for the teams because they only have a limited amount of testing time. they extended the afternoon session to 5 hours to accommodate the time lost during the red flag.

carlos, weirdly, blamed himself for the drain cover situation because apparently he saw it loosen before charles hit it, went to talk to the marshal about it and then charles hit it. ferrari tho were pretty nonplussed about the whole thing though. they had parts to fix it and it wasnt nearly as bad as the vegas incident.

aside from that though, ferrari seemed as confident as they could be with red bull being the insane team that they are. carlos had fastest lap on day 2 of testing and charles had fastest lap on the third day of testing, with max in 4th. and the commentators were pretty convinced that ferrari could bring the fight to red bull in terms of qualifying, not necessarily the race, just like last year. of course, its just testing, this is mostly for set ups and isn't actually representative of race pace. but still!

they interviewed fred vasseur (the team principal) and honestly i was so surprised at how aggressively french he sounded that i forgot to listen to most of what he was actually saying. literally this is the most french man i have ever heard. i knew he was french. but i didnt know he was this french! hes more french than the rb team principal. anyway. what did fred say. i have no idea. i think he said that the car is doing well (but dont have too high of expectations!) and carlos and Charles are doing well. he complimented carlos on handling the lewis hamilton situation pretty professionally all things considered. seriously go look up a video of him talking.

the car seems to be set up more to match charles's racing style than carlos's, but they both got very good laps out of the car and were consistently in the top 3 times. carlos actually had the fastest time of all of testing, which was a 1:29. charles and carlos both seemed pleased with the car in their interviews. carlos was more vague with his answers. when asked what charles thought about testing so far he said “it feels like every winter test which means that we dont know a thing” and then when asked about red bull he said “red bull unfortunately remains quite ahead." which is true.

charles was also asked about his new ep by will buxton during his interview. and when i say asked i mean will said “its testing so we need to talk about the important things. you have an ep out!” an ep that he apparently wrote in a day and a half??? (its called dreamers its very good). and then he was also asked if he is going to collaborate with lewis hamilton on an album next year. because that is a reasonable thing to ask during testing. charles said vaguely that he would talk with lewis about it. so. whos to say! we could get a ferrari album!!!

then the commentators debated what song charles and lewis should duet. and the consensus was everybody hurts by rem. yeah. says a lot.

and, perhaps most importantly, we got our closeup on charles leclercs eyes (which is a staple of any f1 event, the camera guys love giving him a good little zoom moment)

they also talked a good bit about the lewis hamilton to ferrari drama.

and, in case you need a refresher on why this was a wild bit of drama, this instagram reel is a good summary:

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and the general consensus was that if anyone said that they saw this coming, they were lying. they also are pretty convinced that, despite the fact that lewis is not allowed to bring race engineers etc with him from mercedes to ferrari, it would be highly unusual if some people didnt go with him. because in f1 the contracts are "water tight" and theres nothing that money basically can't solve. the person most likely to follow lewis is his race engineer, bono. one of the commentators said that they "can't see lewis putting up with the same radio calls as charles and carlos." this is probably referring to the infamous ferrari radios where they tell charles to stay out on track, then call him into the pits after hes already passed the pit lane or tell him to come in then change their minds once hes already turned in and tell him to stay out. it is also. a fantastic dig.

but also. at ferrari, sir lewis hamilton would be getting back together with fred vasseur, the Ferrari team principal, who he raced for in the junior leagues back in the day, effectively nicely bookending his career. and as they pointed out several times, it will be a good learning experience for charles to work with a world champion of lewis's calibre.

Mercedes

now mercedes. there was quite a bit of discussion around the seat positioning in the car. lewis hamilton wanted the seat further back and they finally put the seat further back. so now its in a set up where he will perform well with it. (looking forward to his time at ferrari next year though, that seat is further forward. this led to a long speculation of Will Ferrari Listen To Lewis, which i think i already talked about in a previous update).

there was also the mercedes front wing. mercedes put a front wing on their car this year that was different than the usual front wing. here we have the 2023 mercedes front wing:

and here we have the 2024 mercedes front wing:

as you can see where those arrows are pointing. the top bit of the front wing closer to the nose is very narrow to make it more aerodynamic and also stay in regulations that both sides of the wing must be secured to the car. still, this could be illegal in terms of regulations. the fia said that they would wait to deliver a verdict on it to see how much dirty air it produces.

they also are now sponsored by whatsapp. and this year they decided to make the radio button on their steering wheel a whatsapp button:

yes. f1 is a very very serious sport.

ultimately though. mercedes showed up. they kinda flopped last year and the car looked hard to drive. but this year they were positively slaying. not as good as red bull were but they were still slaying.

there was a whole lot of talk about the lewis and george situation. will lewis hamilton still be treated as the number 1 driver this year or will they treat george as the number 1 driver? lewis, as we know, is leaving to go to ferrari next year and it will be george carrying the team so are they going to still give lewis the winning strategy?? we dont know. lewis has said that all his focus is on mercedes this year so i think that he thinks that hes still going to be treated as the number 1 driver. george, for what it is worth, said that hes not really concerned about whos getting the seat after lewis because hes already had a top tier teammate, he knows mercedes will make a good choice.

george and toto had some funny moments on the cameras. toto raised his eyebrows at one like he was on the office:

and toto tried and failed to block george from the camera here (this was the only picture of it i could find that wasnt a gif):

Red Bull

ah red bull. well. as predicted they came and they slayed. and this was due to one man. adrian newey.

who the hell is adrian newey you might be asking? he is the chief technology officer at red bull racing. meaning that basically, he designs the car. and he is very, very good at what he does. so good in fact that he has been offered chances to work on space ships and turned them down to stay at f1. according to the commentators the last time he made a bad car was when he was at mclaren in 2003 and that wasnt because it was bad, it was because it was ahead of its time.

apparently. one year red bull was like hey. hey buddy. dont follow any regulations. just make us the fastest car known to man. just for fun.

and he did.

and it was so fast that no one could drive it.

anyway. this is the fit that this man was pulled up in in the garage:

which is nothing short of terrifying in a way that i cannot articulate. everyone else in their team shirts and then this guy looking like a dad who just walked away from a grill, about to kick everyones fucking asses.

but anyway. what on earth have red bull got cooking this year.

well ill tell you. as that is very much the point of this post.

to put it very simply. red bull took the concept that mercedes had in 2022/2023. the very one that mercedes tossed out because they couldn't figure out how to make it work. well. red bull took that and adrian newey said. hm. i can make this work. and then he did.

and this is important for a few reasons.

excuse me while i get into the weeds of car build a little here.

on the sides of the cars are these things called side pods and they regulate the air flow and cooling of the engine and all that good stuff. red bull last year put the intake on the opposite side as everyone else. so this year everyone copied red bull (because why wouldn't they??? red bull slayed last year) and then this year red bull were like hm well were not going to do that. they flipped the intake back on the other side, basically using the old mercedes side pods.

theres a lot more to it than that, but for all intents and purposes, thats what's going on

and everyones like? will this work? what the fuck is red bull doing? is newey getting ahead of himself ala mclaren 2003? only time will tell.

but as commentator/presenter rachel brookes said during day three "if it aint broke dont fix it, unless of course youre adrian newey because then you can make it better."

however, they seemed to have a 2 second lead over everyone in testing, and they really didnt hit a full out race pace at all (likely because they are confident) (the ferraris had faster laps than max did but they were on slightly softer tires) (most of max's runs were on harder tires (they didnt run anything softer than a c3) and they were still passing everyone which is impressive). and. max verstappen did notably say that the car does "everything i want it to." so looks like red bull will be at the front again. and the gap to them is probably larger than anything thinks it is. but who, if anyone, will bring the fight to them?? ferrari, mercedes and mclaren all seem capable of it.

on top of this though, red bull is planning a large upgrade for their car seemingly early in the season (perhaps as early as race 5) which means they could get faster. the gap between red bull and everyone else could really widen. though, its been speculated that the gap wont be As Much as it was last year.

red bull does though apparently blast 2010s pop music in their garage (seemingly the only team that does so?) and general consensus from instagram was that they were playing the darude remix of sandstorm.

also max looked far more comfortable in the car than checo did. which is not surprising but also in a year where checo has to be on his best behavior to keep his seat, thats not great news for him. especially remembering the supposed clause in daniels contract that says he could replace checo if hes not performing early in the season. only problem with that is that historically checo does well at the beginning of the season and then drops off towards the end. but, we saw several times max taking fastest lap of the session, and checo never took fastest lap of the session.

interestingly we heard very little from horner. we did see him in the garage, he was back in his team polo for days 2 and 3 (i think?) but there were no real zooms on him or anything. it would seem though that regardless of whether or not he leaves this year though, red bull are set to win because the car has already been developed and all that. when theres a team principal change theres usually not real changes seen until the following season because of how the development process works.

on day three, about 20 minutes into the first session, one checo perez ran over quite possibly the same drain cover as charles leclerc and loosened it up. again. another red flag. another stop. and it was quite a long stop because they had to come up with a better solution.

and well. it was entertaining to watch them try to get the drain cover back in order at least. one of the commentators noticed that they were hitting a hammer with a screwdriver, which, same.

and several people shitted on drain cover two, electric boogaloo. including our good friend the mercedes instagram admin:

and lando's ln4 twitter account:

the drain cover part 2 incident forced them to combine practice 1 and 2 for day 3 together to ensure that everyone got a fair amount of run time. so it was a 9 hour straight day.

Silly Season Speculation

so so so on top of All That then there was a good bit of speculation on Silly Season. lets get a run down:

-ultimately, the whole silly season hinges on the mercedes seat

-commentators are Pretty Fucking Sure kimi is going to go to merc. but they need to decide if they're doing this for 2025 or later because he still needs to prove himself in f2. but its unlikely that they would sign someone else for Just One Year

-toto is likely Not going to let kimi slip through his grasp like max verstappen did

-recall tho. james vowels (williams team principal) doesnt really want to sign kimi antonelli to williams.

-however, merc needs to make up their big ass minds because the driver market will not move until merc decides whos getting the seat because Everyone Wants The Seat

-carlos it seems has literally every option open to him. sauber potentially but that seems like a long term project and he is in his Peak f1 years and will want to jump into something that will perform with him. he wants to win things. he could go back to alpine. he could go to williams if they perform well. or aston. or even merc.

-reguardless though, it seems like lewis signed with ferrari because he lost hope in merc. there are many instances where he said that "i want this to change on the car, this has to change on the car" and he was right and they didnt change it. and then he wanted a longer contract and they also said no. and he said fuck this im out.

-there was also speculation that the merc seat could be open to anyone. even people who already have contracts. could buy themselves out of it to go to merc. cause a merc seat doesnt pop up often.

-as we know. checo, liam lawson, yuki and daniel all want to second red bull seat. the commentators came up with a great solution to this problem and it was. why dont you just put all of them in the simulator to see whos the fastest? and unfortunately that wont work because as good as a simulator is, it is not a real car and some things do not translate. its still anyones guess who will get the seat.

-estie bestie is confident that he could stay at alpine because he thinks that he is doing well and he has been there for several years already. but he is also hopeful about mercedes because he is actually still under the mercedes umbrella. he was their test and reserve driver for i believe 2019 and he was in the mercedes junior program. there are a lot of people thought who severely doubt that this will actually happen.

-also alex albon is confirmed confirmed to have a williams contract for 2025. so hes off the market.

-theres at least two f2 drivers who might be up for f1 seats: ollie bearman and kimi antonelli, as well as then liam lawson. so potentially 3 people on the current grid could be out of a seat at the end of the year.

and finally. the speculation of What The Order For The Championship Will Be!!!

its widely regarded that red bull are going to be in the top spot again. so there wont really be a fight for first, but there will be a fight for 2 3 and 4. so that puts the upper mid field as being ferrari, mclaren, mercedes and aston martin. the only solidly mid field car could be alpine, same as last year. then the back of the field as haas, williams and stake.

the consensus though was. this is going to be an interesting year. the cars are all probably closer in pace than we think. no one had an absolutely jackshit run in testing. and by summer break, we should have a very close fight for at least 2nd 3rd and 4th playing out.

and with that. im going to take a nap.

thank you everyone for taking the time to read this ridiculously long update im sorry if i got a little in the weeds, there was a lot of info to sort through lol. and i see all of you commenting and sending asks saying that ive converted you to being a fan. im so glad were all having fun here :)

i will see you all next week for the FIRST RACE RAAAAAAAAA and the Official start of the season.

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

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

under the cut we go

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

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

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

so let’s meet the teams.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

let’s meet our drivers!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

feel free to add on and peer review me

#if you read this whole thing please you have my utmost respect #thank you katya and thank you my sister for putting up with me and helping me sort through the drama for this post #read more bestie babygirl PLEASE #not a tag #from saph #f1 #saph explains silly season 2024 #f1 pre season testing

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princehec-tor-kur · 5 years ago

Text

Perfectly Normal

Sorry for spelling mistakes, but I don't care anymore, I've been writing this for weeks. It deleted itself like three times. Dear lord help me. I'm so exhausted. Basic premise is: Prime's a creep and after the brainwashing he trapped Hordak's mind in a dream world so that his body acts obidiently in the real world.

The doors of the elevator slide apart opening up to the corridor. Hector stepped out. Attempting to balance four grocary bags he was carring, two in each hand. Hector was a regular man, with a regular wife and a regular life, but what was strange was he swore he was wet from the howling rain outside, just a minute ago. And now. Completely clean. Strange indeed.

BUT! No time for that, for as he leaned down to open his apartement door, it opened from the other side and a pair of stronge hands pulled him in. Into a warm embrace. He smiled ear to ear as his towering loving wife planted a kiss on his lips long and hard. He almost ran out of breath. His head was spinning. Hahahaha! Annie was a blessing from above, the greatest wife Hector could ever wish for. She took the groceries off of him and closed and locked the door behind him. Annie announced that she was going to get a quick shower and offered him to join. Hector however rejected the offer and got straight into the day's tasks.

Annie went off and Hector began to crack the egg shells and pour the contents into a bowl. Every egg cracked one the first time perfectly. And the yokes off the eggs incidently managed to form a smile. How amusing?! Hahaha! Hector looked outside throught the window, it framed a beautiful picture of a shinning, scheamering and glimmering city. Once again the thought crossed Hector's mind: wasn't it just pouring? Wasn't it just night? He must've remembered it wrong. He is quite forgetful. He forgets things a lot. That's why Annie is so great, she always reminded Hector things. She always told him what to do. Where would he be without her.

He shifted his attention to the sound of water running in the shower. The shower was on obviously, but no sound of movement. Hector shook it off and decided to check over his email. All it was, was some updates to the script, apparently Noelle had to do some last minute changes. Nothing to do with him though. He closed his laptop and just sat in the same spot for a while. What was he supposed to do? What a silly forgetful boy. Hector felt a something small in his pale. Strange. Did he pick this up? From where? It was... well, he wasn't sure what it was. A purple diamond of some sort, a vertical pattern he didn't recognise. A necklace? An earring maybe?

Just then he heard a voice above him clear it's throat. He didn't know why, but he jittered, a chill went down his spine. It was just Annie. He relaxed a little as she sat next to him, wrapped her arms around his abdomine, tightly. Annie was a head taller than Hector, so his head perfectly fit under her chin.

Hector lifted the crystal up, he asked if she seen it somewhere before, because he felt like he did. Annie just giggled at him, cupping his face, like she did always. She called him silly and reminded him it was a gift she bought for him on their honeymoon. The one in France, remember? And he did remember, the memory suddenly flew into his mind as Annie's silvery locks fell over Hector's face. She was very close. Hector began to get tense again. What was it.

Annie told him to relax. Hector closed his eyes. His eyeslids covering the world. All he saw was black. Which was slightly comforting. Annie began to scratch his just under his chin, she knew it was his weak spot. He loved it. Hector felt the resistance melt off of him and sank into Annie's arms. His lovely wife asked him what he felt. Which was difficult to answer, because Hector didn't feel much.

He never felt hunger or thirst. Never needed or wanted to sleep. Always had nightmares if he tried and always felt like Annie was awake all the time as well, which was strange because she never said anything. He lied and said he felt 'good'. He didn't know what that meant. A mischievious drin played across Annie's pale face. Hector knew that look, he didn't like it. He didnt want to. But he never had much of a choice.

Soon his dress was off and once again found himself staring at the ceiling on the couch. Hector never said 'no' to Annie, he never wanted to disappoint her and she meant so much to him. Plus it was what normal couples did. She enjoyed it. A lot. He could tell by the way she laughed during. She enjoyed it, that's all that mattered. Annie said it'd be good for him. To clear his head. It was normal. He didn't have to make a whole deal out of it. She knew better. He owes her everything. He'd be so lost without her. She was his one and only, one true love. He's blessed to have someone like Annie. No one loved him like her. No one. He was so lucky. Even if it hurt sometimes, ...everytime, he still pretended to enjoy it.

Day rolled around. Hector felt like it lasted an eternity. Today was Saturday, meaning it was his therapy meeting. Hector signed himself up a while back, not sure when, he couldn't remember. Money wasn't an issue. It was perfectly fine. But Annie seemed to disapprove. He knew how she looked at him when he wasn't looking. Annie insisted on going with him, to keep an eye on him. To support as best she could. Like couples do. She wanted to know what was wrong with him, how could she fix him? Hector didn't want to be fixed. He's life was perfect. The only reason he really went to the therapist was, because he liked her.

Plus, he didn't want to trouble Annie with all his faults and silly thoughts. He was sure she had more important things to do, like... well, Hector didn't really know what Annie did when he wasn't home. Did she have a job? How did he not know where his wife worked? He must've forgot. He was bad at remembering things. Did he mention he was bad at remembering things?

It was strange how he knew so little about his special, beautiful Annie, she practically knew everything about him. He opened the door and left, but not before Annie remembered him something. But he didn't remember what.

Hector made it to the session just in time. He sat down on the sofa. The doctor sat on his opposite. She was very short, informally dressed, acted like what she looked like: excited and cheerful. Hector wasn't sure, but the doctor sounded like she constantly had a cold and a blocked nose. He started to worry for the woman, she seemed slightly reckless. He liked her hair. He didn't know if that was weird. It was soft. He didn't know how he knew that since he never touched it, but he had a feeling it was. The session was ordinary. The doctor, Ester, was her name, asked him about his day. Did he read anything interesting lately? Did he have any new hobbies? Was he taking his sleeping pills?

Hector stated that he tried to read something, but he couldn't. It was too hard. He often went to a local library and the scene played out the same. A book was pulled from its shelf, it was opened, and Hector would proceed to stare at it for several minutes before ultimately placing it back to it's original spot. The librarian would ask if she could help in anyway. Hector would say no. And leave the front door. Words just didn't make sense to him. Especially in those 'self-help' books. Some alien dialect to him.

As for new hobbies... well. He bit his nails in embarassement. He began to play with his hair a few days ago.In the bathroom, when he was pretending to take a shower. When Annie wasn't watching. He liked changing it's colour. Dying it. He liked working with it.

And as for pills. Yeah, he was taking them. They didn't help. Hector still couldn't sleep. That lead on to she asked a curve ball. Whether or not his favourite colour changed. He said no. It was still black. Ester giggled that cute way she always did and stated that that wasn't a colour. She stated that black was the absence of colour, while white was every colour. Black was the absence of white, and white was the absence of black. She asked again. Hector was slightly confused. He didn't really like colours. They were too loud, too bright. Chaotic, blinding and distracting. Colour was alll around them, everywhere, around everyone. Creepy. Hector liked black because it was dark, you couldn't see very well in it. You could hide in it. Cover yourself with a blanket of it, so that nobody finds you. Fold him up and put him somewhere safe.

The doctor caught onto that. She asked curiously. 'What are you hiding from Hector?' 'What are you scared of?'

Later that day Hector found himself in a crowd of people. It was sufficating. Too loud. Too LOUD! Everyone was shouting and scwobbling, all moving and shifting out of turn. Hector wasn't used to it. He was used to humming. Of machinery. Why machinery?Hector couldn't take it anymore. He pushed through the crowd and run to the other side of the metro.

Hector relaxed as he laid his back against a concrete collumn, hiding him in it's great shadow. He kept to the dark, they couldn't see him there. 'What are you affraid of, Hordikins?'

A train zoomed past, using it's cover he sprinited like the hounds of hells were chasing him. He made it to the next pillar. They were staring. He knew it. They were watching him, like owls, with those big eyes. Owls eat bats, in the moonlight. No light! Must stay in the dark. They were whooting. Asking questions. They want to get close to you. Lie their way into your attic. DON'T LET THEM. He ran off as fast as he could. The cold night air rushing against his face. He ran so fast he thought his thin legs would snap off. Like match sticks.

He dashed across back alleies. Much less people there. Good for scaring people away. Less eyes. Navigating the streets was like being in a labyrinth. What did Annie remind of? Oh yes. The outside world is very scary. And it's always safe inside, with her. Noises came back, a crowd of people murmuring and whispering behind him. Insult sand jokes, about him no doubt. Blue and red lights blared, colours coming togther to judge him, curse him. A woman yelled for him to freeze.

Retreat! RETREAT! Fall back! I'll be back! This isn't over, mark my words Terrific Man! I will win next time! You'll see! I will enact my revenge! There was an old timey cartoon playing on every screen in every TV in a display window of an electronics store. A kids cartoon. Hector noticed it on his way. It stopped him. He swore he could almost hear his own voice in the screen. It put him in a transe, glued his eyes to the window.

The evil man lost. The good man won, stood over him victoriously. Grinning. Asshole. Your evil ways will never win! You'll always loose Marodar! As long as I live you will fail! I am destined to be Nebulosa's saviour and king! And you were always predestined to get the snot beat out of you! Haha! Good will always triumph over evil! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Stop laughing.

HAHAHAHA!!!

Stop it. I'm serious.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I SAID SHUT UP!

The good man began to unload on the evil man. One hit. BAM! Broken nose. Second hit. POW! Two teeth missing. And a third. BIFF!

Biff?! What the hell is biff?! What kind of stupid noise is biff???!!! That's not real!!! Is this a joke to him?! Is this just a game to him?!! You don't get to joke!!! Not in war!!! Stop acting like a child!!! YOU'RE AN IDIOT!!!

Another hit and another and another. The pain doesn't stop. The crowd cheers him on. Hector gets cross. He slams his fist against the glass window.

STOP.

He doesn't stop. Hector slams his hand against the glass again.

STOP! IT!

People at the bus stop near Hector begin to turn around to look at him. A woman huddles one of her children closer to her, away from Hector. Everyone giving him judgemental looks. Hector doesn't even notice. He doesn't care about the kids looking at him, who cares about kids?! Creepy little monsters. They all look the same. All colours are white. The spectrum is a lie. Individuals. Ha. Idiots. All of them alike.

POW!

Marodar The Lord of Darkness is defeated. Children cheer. Hector doesn't cheer. The white screen turns to the audience and smiles with a bing in his teeth. Teeeeerrific ;)

SHUT UP! SHUT UP! THIS ISN'T A JOKE! LEAVE HIM ALONE!

Hector pounds the glass with knuckles twice, before they start bleeding. The laughing doesn't stop. Hector yells and slams his forehead into the glass, the window bends inward, the entire sheet of glass cracks.

Remember kids. He's wrong. Always wrong. And he will alway, always fail.

A wink.

And the screen cuts to black.

Hector sees the world in red. His face covered in running blood. He was loosing conciousness. Breaking down walls hurt. His legs wriggled like jelly as a hand landed on his shoulder. It was a woman, middle aged, white, blond with a uniform and badge. Hector tried to resist, but he couldn't, he was too weak. Hector was placed on the back seat of the cop car. The officer stated that Annie was worried about him. He wasn't answering his phone, he wasn't in before curfew. She called the police, they've been looking for him all over. She said that she found him talking to himself. Not true. Hector was talking to the asshole in the TV..., but he didn't say that, he knew she wouldn't understand him.

She said that he was lost in the streets again. Like the time he stole four bags worth of groceries. People called in his sighting when he was found sculking in the metro. She called him something, some name, term... scichaniac? Sci- scicha-...

Schizophreniac. That's it.

You know, you people should be in those mental hospitals. Somewhere they can fix you. Hector said he didn't need to be fixed. He was beautiful with all his imperfections. The officer laughed. Well, that was a lie. Cause look at you, you look terrible. Hahahaha!

A joke. A joke? This is a joke to you?

The car arrived at Hector's house, weird, Hector thought he lived in an apartement block. Maybe he just remembered it wrong. It was a suburban house, with a mailbox and a white picket fence. Idealic. Perfect. Too perfect. When he first stepped back into his home, a huge weight lifted off of his shoulders. He was home. Safe. Away from the colour and the noise and the insanity. The big bad world vanished behind those doors and Hector was free to roll up into a ball in the bathroom. He could hear Annie through the wall.

Static.

Annie came back into the bathroom and brought him into a warm embrace, peppering him with a shower of kisses. She was too close again. She told him she was worried sick, that she didn't know where he was. Didn't he tell her about his sessions? Why didn't he? Annie cupped his cheek and lifted up his chin, so that he stared into her eyes. She said she'd make it all better. She said she'd make him forget all about that awful day. Hector didn't want to forget. Her hand trailed down to his dress. But Hector wasnt in the mood. Stop it he said. But Annie didn't listen. Not anymore. Before he realised that he was doing, he slapped Annie's hand away, he pushed himself away from her.

I SAID STOP IT!

But he soon found to regret that as Annie narrowed her green eyes at him. She was disappointed. So much progress, gone, backward, down the drain. Annie's expression morphed into something darker. She was angry, displeased. Tears began to stream down Hector's face, for he knew what was about to happen, he knew that look. He tried to apologise, to beg.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please, forgive me. I- I won't do it again. P- Please anything, but that, don't- I dont want to forget again! Please! Brother! PLEASE! Annie kissed his cheek, wet with salty tears.

She grinned.

POW!

The screen cuts to black.

Hector awakened to a beautiful new day in his bed, with his amazing wife next to him. She's already awake. She greeted him, a smile and a warm embrace. What a perfect life. That exact thought processes played in his head all morning. He decided to make breakfast for his lovely partner as she took a shower, pretty quickly too, since he didn't even hear her wash. He served the plate of eggs and bacon to Annie. However, her smile faded, a confused expression came over her.

When did you dye your hair? She saided with a quirked brow and narrowed eyes. Hector ran his hand through the now dark blue hair. He had no idea.

He didn't remember.

#hordak #entrapta #horde prime #entrapdak #kind of #implied #hp is a creep

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