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dear-ao3 · 12 days ago

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welcome back once again. i feel like im just screaming into the void at this point guys. is anyone still out there? is anyone still reading? i don't know but we’re back. i know we were just back but were back again cause we’re in triple header hell! but we are in mexico, so at least we get the cool f1 song! today is november 3, 2024 and here we goooooooooo

and im going to let you all in on a little secret here. i have pretty much no idea what happened this weekend. like i know things happened. i have notes written down. but this is going to be a surprise for the both of us. in my defense, i had an anatomy test and a work trip. so apologies if this one is a little rough around the edges.

charles leclerc became a fighter pilot. or at least he did on instagram, as a brand deal/partner thing. sorry that's not descriptive. let me try again.

he got to go on a rafale fighter jet to take part in a french air force training mission and its going to be in the documentary called supersonique.

he also ate what seems to be mcdonalds after

franco colapinto was in a forbes magazine. he was talking about being a driver from south america just ahead of the central/south american leg of the f1 season:

"I know that the Argentines are enjoying having a driver back in Formula 1 as much as I am; seeing when I do well and being just as happy as I am when we get good results… that is something that we all enjoy. I feel that we are a team with all the Argentines, who pushed me a lot to get to where we are; and what we achieved is also part of them. I love that they are happy with everything that is happening this year. I am very happy to see them enjoying what I am doing. Obviously, continuing down this path, seeing that I have so much support from Argentina, is something unique"

oscar was also in a forbes magazine. they somehow managed to make him look like a giraffe.

and it was lewis hamilton’s dog’s roscoe’s birthday he is 12. lewis lightly demanded that everyone wish him a happy birthday and you cant possibly say no to sir lewis hamilton.

valtteri bottas is also selling a piece of his mullet??? i swear im not making this up.

and im not sure if this was during this exact week but one of the williams mechanics? engineers? said that they only just recently got franco to stop taking the bus (like a real. commuter bus) from the hotel he stays at to the williams factory in england. franco thinks that its stupid to waste a car to drive him to the factory when he can sit on the bus and get a nice view. but you know, safety and all that.

one person was not gracing us with his presence this media day was fernando alonso. he was not feeling well and did not go to media day. he did show up later in the weekend, which was good cause it was his 400th gp this weekend. no one else has ever gotten to this many before. he had a cool helmet and everything.

and you know, everyone was well and truly impressed because holy shit. 400 races.

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everyone had only good things to say about him in his 400th race (thats a link to another video that it wont let me insert)

yuki and liam built a giant jenga tower (with the help of standing on a chair)

charles made a second, more unhinged, instagram post, showing off his helmet for the mexican gp. ill just let you watch it.

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then he showed up in his suit, slaying, and trying to speak spanish.

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oscar and lando did a fan stage with franco and alex. oscar told franco that he wants to learn spanish just to understand his interviews because apparently they are really funny.

max reacted to the grid recreating the inchident video. actually hold on this may in fact be from last week. you know what i don't care. its a good video. its going in.

george was also asked about the penalties from the texas week, namely his that he got for his incident with valtteri. he was very GPDA president about it. he said:

“when you watch an incident in slow motion, or you pause it at any given point - my penalty with valtteri, the rule states if you're not ahead of the apex and you push someone wide, you get a penalty. so by the letter of the law, my penalty was correct. but anybody who knows racing, and anybody watching it, knows it was not correct. i don't really know how we move forward. i think we’d probably all want to see the probably the same stewards all year long, so that the drivers and the stewards can all be on the same page, and that we can apply common sense when needed, rather than having to really follow the letter of the law.”

he also said that he could not speak about the other penalties that were given out because he had not thoroughly reviewed them yet. but aparently the driver guidelines are going to get gone over in qatar.

and now, for everyone’s favorite part. the silly season update.

this week it came in the form of a quote from valtteri bottas, saying that should he wind up with no seat at the end of the season, he would consider going back to mercedes as a reserve driver for next year.

why is this interesting??? WELL

mercedes currently has two reserve drivers as we know. one is frederik vesti. who i never really talk about, mostly because mercedes pretty much just kinda locks him in the simulator and that's about it. but hes charming in the sense that he reminds me of this kid who was in one of my algebra classes in high school who asked our teacher if he ate a gummy worm off the floor if he could get extra credit. the teacher said no. the kid still ate the gummy worm for fun.

anyway.

the other reserve driver we have talked about quite a bit and it is mick schumacher.

mick has been reserve driving for merc for two years now, following his untimely exit from haas at the end of 2022. and by untimely i mean he was apparently told during the last race weekend in a hotel lobby that he wasn't signed for the next year. anyway. mick is one of the reserve drivers, yes, but he is also racing for alpine in the WEC (world endurance championship) series this year. his WEC contract was for one year and as of now, when i am typing this, he has not re signed any contracts with WEC. despite the fact that everyone on the team has pretty much said that they would give both their right arm and their first child for him to re sign with them. but, mick is waiting for any news of a formula 1 seat before he signs another WEC contract.

aside from that though. mick did say that if he cant get a seat back on the grid then he wants to stay with mercedes as a reserve driver. so then why. is bottas saying. that he wants to go to mercedes as a reserve driver.

i have no idea. but this is formula 1. so it could either mean everything or it could mean nothing.

and the silly season rumors also continued to swirl around one franco colapinto. who, if you will remember, has no contract for next year. james vowels had this to say about franco: “even if hes taking points away from us [next year] he should be racing in f1.” which is to say that williams would release franco from his contract with them (cause he was in their drivers academy) so that he could sign with another team. and currently only two teams have seats open: vcarb (though they might be locked down with liam lawson) and audi/stake (who everyone seems to be in contention for).

speaking of rumors. helmut marko was back running his mouth (if you're surprised about this, clearly you haven't been paying enough attention to this post) this time about oscar coming to red bull should max leave or retire (like he is presently threatening to do every now and then due to a potentially expanding race calendar and also tighter regulations). and oscar shut that right down in a very oscar way:

“definitely not [going to red bull]. i’m very happy where i am. im under contract for the next two years after this and im certainly not looking to go elsewhere. it wouldnt be a week in f1 without some comments from helmut.”

he was then asked if he was surprised that helmut would say that oscar is going to sign with red bull and oscar said

“not massively. its a nice compliment i would say. but again i am very happy with where i am. they [red bull] have quote a bit pool of drivers they can choose from if they want.”

and zak brown conferred this:

"We're obviously very happy with our two guys and got them signed up for quite some time." though. as we know. contracts don't really mean too much in f1. so whos to say.

but helmut marko wasn’t done talking about the mclaren drivers. he still had shit to talk about lando:

“we know norris has some mental weaknesses. ive read some of the rituals he needs to do to perform well on race day.”

this was in relation to lando fighting for the championship with max, and why helmut thought that max was superior, despite having the inferior car.

andrea stella, the mclaren team principal, responded to this, saying that

“max was addressed for swearing. for me, this is much more severe.”

and zak brown said

“i read marko’s comments. poking at that situation i think is pretty inappropriate and kind of sets us back 10-20 years.”

and of course, helmut responded to them.

“i never talked about mental health. i just said that max is mentally stronger. they are deliberately causing unrest.”

and that may be so. it may not be so. it all depends on how you spin it.

you know what doesnt depend on how you spin it?

alex albon bonking oscar on the head with a boom mic

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and also whatever the hell george is doing here

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now. this is potentially i think the third time that george has had to defend himself saying that he is Not dating another driver (im not sure, my resident George expert is asleep). hes done it before with alex albon (entirely unprompted i might add. in a twitch stream. when people were asking if alex was going to go live. and george said “we might be best mates but he is Not my boyfriend.” which was something no one was accusing him of) and i don't remember what the other time was. but i know that this has happened before. and george. if you’re defending yourself against allegations that no one is making well. that kinda says something.

but lets get on to practice, i say, as it is now 12:30am on brazil race day. really. how do i get myself into these situations.

idk

but alas we had practice. i don't really know what happened, i didn't watch any of it. but! pato o’ward with mclaren was in fp1, along with ollie bearman at ferrari, felipe drugovich at aston, kimi antonelli at mercedes and robert shwartzman at stake.

it was a proper big deal for pato to be in for fp1 because hes mexican and everyone there was really really excited for him to be in. he currently races in indycar and hes a pretty big deal. hes also the mclaren reserve driver. and he put on face paint. really, he is quite funny and i would recommend at least glancing at his social media, its off the walls.

alex crashed into ollie and went spin.

robert saw it happen and his radio was just a tad unhinged:

robert then also got a five place grid penalty for overtaking under a double yellow flag. which is really interesting because that penalty can only be served in a formula 1 race and guess what, robert is not a formula 1 driver. but at least he can now join the club with jenson button for Drivers Who Have Grid Penalties That They Cannot Serve.

then in practice 2 we had a rather large crash from george. by rather large i mean 35g. straight into the barriers. and the way that he hit the barriers, he almost went directly into the concrete.

which is why when he got out of the car and whisked off to the medical center, he was clearly limping and also couldn't breathe.

(if you're new to the world of formula 1, yes this is less than ideal, but he did come on radio saying that he was fine, which is always good and did get out of the car himself, which is also always good. sometimes they just get the wind knocked out of them during the big high impact crashes. lando had a worse one in vegas last year)

still. there was a red flag as they extracted george’s car from the barriers. and we didn't hear anything from mercedes about whether or not george was okay (usually this is something that comes through pretty quickly when a driver has to go to the medical center post crash because sometimes they get sent to the hospital for precautionary checks)

but we did hear from the admin on the LN4 twitter account (?) (one of lando’s official accounts) and they posted something to the extent of “is it in bad taste to say we’re so back” right after george’s crash. it was quickly deleted.

eventually, we found out that george was in fact okay, back in the hospitality, and probably complaining about how his car didn't really work too well.

forward into qualifying we go.

one of the ferrari mechanics decided to do some acrobatics

and lando took one of his famed mid quali naps.

and it had been 4,480 days since fernando alonso’s last pole position in germany 2012.

oh you wanted to actually know about what they did? in the cars? my most sincere apologies. without any further ados:

well there was not a lot of grip. because this is a high altitude track. the highest altitude of the whole season.

it was also checo’s home race. somehow i forgot to mention that. but he is in fact mexican and he is also a HUGE deal in mexico. last year he did not have a good race weekend here, he got shoved off the track at the start by charles leclerc (i think it was a no fault thing but i do not remember, neither of them had anywhere to go) and ended up dnfing on turn 1 lap 1. which was not great. and he definitely did not want a repeat of that this year.

unfortunately he was off to a bad start. in his first qualifying lap he managed only a 1:18.5 and martin brundle said “what did he do there? oh dear. not particularly fast”

he said that he had braking problems and was stuck down in p19.

meanwhile george russell.

they had had to rebuild the car for him after his crash in practice the day before and he had all kinds of old spec parts going on his car. no one was really sure when it was exactly from. some said miami. some said silverstone. in any case, it was not up to date.

oscar piastri was also having a time of it. he only managed to go 13th fastest and then it got deleted for track limits so he got shoved back down to 19th. he had time to go out again though and he did. he needed at least a 1:17.2. he did a 1:17.5. “this is not a cracking lap” said martin brundle.

checo meanwhile got knocked down into the bottom five by charles leclerc. which was slightly cruel after last year. “ah shit,” he said over the radio. “Indeed,” martin agreed. and oscar got knocked down to the bottom five by franco.

“similar position from lando last year, so ill make sure to do my homework to see how he moved through the field” oscar said later. i think last year lando started p17 and finished p5. it was slightly insane.

haas meanwhile, the 300 person team, had both cars through. this year they were really, really making the upgrades work for them. and also bottas was through. hes never not made it to q3 in mexico.

q2 was mostly uninteresting except for when yuki tsunoda went crash. he was okay, but it ended the session slightly early. so himself, liam lawson, fernando alonso, lance stroll and valtteri bottas were all out.

meanwhile. alex albon had almost all but matched the pace of the mercedes. which was really interesting because need i remind you that alex albon drives a williams. and williams is definitely mid field, despite being mercedes powered.

in q3 max made it to provisional pole. but then carlos took it from him. and carlos kept it. he was on pole!

“what a lap,” carlos said

“two laps,” his engineer said.

he also had a great secret third lap where he smacked lando in the nuts

and so lining up for thee start of the race we had

carlos, max, lando, george, lewis, kevin, pierre. alex, nico, yuki, liam, fernando, lance, valtteri, franco, oscar, checo, esteban, guanyu

and once the race started, yuki was very nearly immediately in the wall. he retired. as well as alex albon who was also involved in the incident.

max had picked up the lead from carlos somewhere and carlos ended up going off track and passing max, but when he rejoined he gave the position back.

so heading into lap 2, max was leading, then checo, lando, charles, lewis, george, jevin, nico, gasly, liam, lance, fernando, perez, colapinto, valtteri, zhou, ocon and albon

which meant that checo had somehow gained five places.

the fia thought that this was slightly too good to be true. turns out that he was being investigated for a false start.

checo did not agree with this. “no, no it was a great start,” he said over radio. “have a look because i don't think we were.” apparently he was though, and he got a five second penalty for it.

meanwhile, carlos passed max in a move that surprised everyone, even carlos himself.

“mate,” max said over radio. “what a can i do with a fuck empty battery? what is this stupid mode.” the team did not really look into it, but it became clear that carlos saw the car recharging its battery and still sent it and somehow it all worked out for him. max had had no battery from previously fending off carlos.

next up it was lando’s turn to get through. he passed, then max kind of ran him off the track. lando did not give the spot back. a few corners later max ran both him and lando off the track and charles took that as an opportunity to zoom right past them. i cant insert the video because f1 is blocked on tumblr, but you can watch the moment if you click here

“i was ahead at the corner! same as the last time, he keeps forcing me off i was just trying to avoid a collision! hes dangerous.” lando said over the radio.

this time it did seem to be actually dangerous.

“he overtook off track and pushed me,” lando repeated again.

both incidents were reported up to race control. but lando still got two track limits strikes, which would count against him if he went off again.

almost immediately, max got a 10 second penalty for forcing another driver off the track. “im sorry mate but that was outrageous,” martin brundle said.

max was told about the penalty. he was unbothered. “yeah, quite impressive.”

meanwhile charles got the fastest lap. and george, on his old spec car, potentially from miami, managed to pass lewis hamilton for fifth.

and then fernano alonso had to retire, on his 400th race for i think it was an exhaust issue. or a brake issue. a something issue. which was unfortunate.

also unfortunate was max getting Another 10 second penalty. for the second time that he managed to force lando off.

george’s engineer told him that max managed to get 20 seconds worth of penalties. “wow” george said, speaking everyone’s thoughts.

meanwhile, liam lawson and checo had an incident.

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and then he and lance stroll nearly smacked into eachother as well. checo ended up going into the pits after it (and i think served his 5s penalty) but then came out fine. despite a slight hole in his side pod. the incident did end up going to the stewards, but no penalties were given.

what was hilarious about this though is that it was the second week in a row where liam lawson was picking beef with one of the “old men” drivers on the track. first fernando alonso and then checo perez. and liam did flip perez off (at least i think it was) here.

liam did later apologize for this, saying that "he [checo] spent half the lap blocking me and trying to ruin my race, so i was upset."

after the race, checo said that it was a "i dont think it was a very clever move" and liam said "im not just going to get out of his way"

liam also said, much later on, potentially actually in brazil "im not here to make friends, im here to win"

cause remember that liam is trying to get checo's seat.

still, this was incredibly bad luck for checo at his home race, especially after wanting to get redemption for last year.

max also ended up pitting on lap 27 and served his 20 second penalty.

by lap 30 this was what we were working with:

p1 carlos p2 charles p3 lando p4 george p5 kevin p6 nico p7 liam p8 oscar p9 franco p10 lewis p11 valtteri p12 esteban p13 max p14 guanyu p15 pierre p16 checo p17 lance

this was excited because we almost had a HAM, BOT, VER in the timings, which was very typical of a few years ago when bottas was still at mercedes and max was constantly chasing them down. a few laps later, we did indeed get HAM, BOT, VER

carlos, who was still leading, was told to box a few minutes later “one more lap, one more lap,” he pleaded with his engineers, trying to become his own engineer again as he sometimes does when he is leading a race (a la singapore)

george had also pitted, but he was displeased with it. “why have we done this? surely we could have done 1 or 2 laps more,” he said, wishing that he had put his foot down a la carlos.

conversely, oscar piastri was practically begging to pit. “mate think about pulling me out of this shit,” oscar said, stuck in a drs train as he had been for the last many several laps, unable to overtake and just kind of stuck between haas, rb and williams.

oscar was at this point, sitting in 6th, in front of liam lawson. max was in 8th at this point, but quite a bit behind oscar. and the thought was that they, mclaren, were going to leave oscar as a sacrifice to fight with max to protect lando, who was trying to take as many points off of max as possible.

carlos was still chilling in first, 7.7 seconds ahead of charles.

and george had an asymmetrical front wing. not quite broken but also kind of broken. but still usable. so he kept using it.

max verstappen passed liam. he was now right behind oscar. and oscar had yet to pit.

franco had something wrong with his steering. “something is wrong with the steering mate. something strange. it goes soft stiff soft.” and yet, no one made a that's what she said joke about that.

oscar was finally pulled out of hell and into the pit lane. he came out 13th and very very behind max.

“is it me,” crofty said. “or is it suddenly getting cloudy.”

because that was just what this race needed. rain.

“its getting really dark!” max said.

rain was not expected to hit the track, but it was getting close.

“ive got very small rain drops on the visor,” george said.

“check for sweat george, check for sweat,” crofty said, calling back to that race i don't remember which one where george reported rain but it was really just sweat falling into his eyes.

oscar was meanwhile fighting back through the grid, he was up to 10th.

lando was now putting in the fastest laps, trying to catch charles. he was 20 seconds ahead of george at this point so he was in no danger from behind, but he definitely wanted to try to catch charles.

carlos and charles, because of this, had been told to speed up.

carlos did not agree with this “my opinion is that we are pushing too hard, absolutely no need for the team.” he was saying this because he was about to start lapping cars and thus be in traffic, but lando was too close for ferrari (4 seconds behind charles) to back off. and so they went.

franco took the fastest lap now.

and lewis was still trying to pass george (who, i remind you, is driving a car potentially from miami in terms of upgrades and has a broken front wing) by still i mean that this had been going on for a solid 5 laps at this point.

lando was only 1.5 seconds behind charles at this point.

“i need your best driving now, lets go” charles’s engineer said. ferrari were also having brake cooling problems at this point. and lando put in the fastest lap.

on lap 63 he was half a second behind charles

and then charles went off the track! nearly slammed head first into the barriers but managed to just barely catch it! but it was enough to send lando through to p2!

charles meanwhile was telling his team to “think about the fastest lap”

and george was still ahead of lewis. lewis had been half a second behind him for a long while. and the two mercs were in no mans land in a race with eachother. and lewis finally passed on lap 66. it took him 12 laps. and lewis has the most upgraded version of the car lets remember.

later on george claimed that there was nothing “better” about his car and its version than lewis’s so either, lewis’s car is fucked (as he has been saying this whole year) or! the miami upgrades and a broken front wing were actually better. ill let you decide on that one.

franco and liam meanwhile had an incident. franco’s front wing got smashed and liam claimed that he had nowhere to go.

checo was told “might be debris in turn 12” from the liam and franco incident. “i guess its the same idiot that crashed again?” checo asked.

“you can watch the highlights later,” his engineer said.

checo giggled and said “im watching them now.” so at least he got a little satisfaction from that.

but liam lawson pitted after his scuffle and went fastest.

then charles pitted and went fastest.

and then checo pitted and tried to go for a fastest lap attempt and then failed. probably because he still had a slight hole in his side pod.

so charles ended with the fastest lap. and who won?

CARLOS SAINZ

he was followed by lando, charles, lewis, george, max, kevin, oscar, nico, pierre, lance, franco, esteban, valtteri, guanyu, liam and checo.

he got his “one last win” in ferrari (but didn't sing smooth operator over the radio. sad.) and also! ferrari are now ahead of red bull in the constructors championship!

the standings are

mclaren: 566

ferrari: 537

red bull: 512

and according to one laura winter “ferrari are on a charge”

but lets hear from the drivers first

charles said that “it was a difficult one….race was the best we could achieve on my side today.”

lando said that he “tired to avoid any crashes, carlos did well!....i didn't want to expect such a thing [max’s driving] because i respect max as a driver but i was expecting it and i avoided it” he later elaborated on this, saying that

“i don't want to complain about it, you know. cause you know, this is what i love. i love going into races and knowing like ‘we’re gonna have a good battle today and hes [max] going to put up a good fight’ and all of those things. and i look forward to it. but things like today are just a bit too far in my opinion and obviously in the stewards opinions too and i would say pretty in the majority of people’s opinions. and that's just not how i think many people like to go racing. but i respect max a lot. i want to race hard against him but if i didn't do what i did today and avoid him, id probably be out of the race you know, so…its tough but i played my cards well i knew what to expect in many ways and yeah. points are good for me at the minute. and we just keep our heads down.”

max had a totally different view

“well i mean at the end of the day, if you agree with it or not, it doesnt matter because the penalties are given. so honestly that's also not my biggest problem of the race. my biggest problem was just that we had no pace. yeah, just struggling a lot on the tires. yeah, couldn't really attack and i couldn't follow ferrari and mclaren.”

he was then asked if he would do something different next time. and he had an interesting answer again:

“uh. maybe get a drink in the pit stop.”

so as usual max remains unbothered. you cannot pay him to be bothered because its not in his nature. he just wants to go racing.

one person though was happy with his result and that was carlos sainz.

“i just really wanted this one, i wanted it for myself….with four races left i just want to have fun.”

he was also asked about his overtake on max and he said that

“i needed to surprise him one way or another, i was a bit far back but i had nothing to lose so i sent one down the inside.”

(as a side note they kept calling carlos the “king of mexico” which just. feels wrong? given you know? colonialism and columbus and the conquistadors and all that that pillaged the crap out of mexico and south america? but maybe that's just the history major in me talking)

but it was also good news for ferrari itself because of how much they have gained over recent races and carlos had this to say about that

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by absolute contrast. charles called max “my max” in the press conference

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and then accidentally swore

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and immediately got approached by an fia official after

jury is still out on his punishment, he may need to do community service with max.

aside from. all of that. haas! had a great run of points, p7 and p9, and are now in front of alpine in the constructors championship. kevin said that the upgrades that they have brought recently “have just worked….sometimes we surprise ourselves.” which i think really well and truly sums up the entirely of haas.

he also said that he is at peace with this potentially being the end of his career, though he has been in this position now twice before and has come back. so. jurys still out on kevin magnussen.

and we also heard from franco colapinto. who said that the fans here really motivated him. “in football we are fighting with eachother and that doesnt happen here” he said. but he also said that he didn't have anything else left in the car today.

he was asked about his plans for next year and he said himself that he does Not have a seat for 2025 and there have not been talks. he wants to come back in 26 or 27. but, remember, this is the kid who likes to fuck with everyone. so whos to say. also his team apparently have been talking to people and there is a Chance that he could be in for the RB seat for next year. we will see what happens.

“everybody is tired,” james hinchcliffe said “but everybody is having fun.”

and especially having fun were mclaren and ferrari, specifically zak brown and carlos sainz, who photo bombed eachother.

oscar called lando landito during one of the post mclaren videos

and then lando and carlos celebrated their podium together

they actually went out together with a bunch of people at what seems to be a big fancy dinner thing. and carlos was sitting. next to lando. but across from his own girlfriend. which is kind of hilarious.

and then they went out and carlos sang smooth operator. because what else did you expect him to sing. he’s carlos sainz.

we have one more race in this triple header, and that is brazil. and since i am coming to you from the future, i can tell you all that you’re going to want to tune in for this one. its off the walls in more ways than one. and i promise it will be a much better update than this one. see you all soon :)

the 2024 formula 1 silly season and drama master post, part 2 (part 1 here)

Hello and welcome to ah fucking fuck auto caps fuck fuck fuck how do i turn off auto caps AHA there we go okay. take 2

hello and welcome to the great and very insane formula 1 2024 season drama post, part 2. if you are new here or are just looking for part one (which contains the previous 16 (?) races, the off season, pre season testing and everything else, that can be found HERE. (a word to the wise: open it in a browser, not the app, and preferably on a computer to avoid crashing. its fucking long).

what the hell is formula 1? car go fast. fastest cars in the world zoom around tracks at top speeds of over 300kph, piloted by the top 20 drivers in the world. it might not sound dramatic, but oh man. you will Not be disappointed. this post focuses on the drama, the insanity, the sheer what the hell how is this a serious sport. no legitimately. we've just about seen it all this year. grindr, dogs, watersports, ice cream brands, its all here.

the point of this post? to educate, to catalog the insane drama, and to just have a good time. people like to gatekeep this sport, there is also a lot happening. i try to make it easy to understand. again, probably best to start at the beginning of the post because it does a pretty good job of explaining things, which i began way back in january, and can be found HERE (again, shes long, be careful)

and, as usual, if you do not want to see this post EVER AGAIN, block the tag #saph explains silly season 2024

and a second caution, i assume this post will be getting long as well. including this one we have minimum 9 updates left!

anyway, those of you who have been following along the whole time, welcome back! i know we got a little delayed. and i know we’re on a new post, so lets just briefly take a second for me to explain what the fuck happened. first i had an anatomy test, second i work 2 jobs with fuck ass hours, third tumblr decided to stop letting me look at any of my drafts, fourth tumblr support ghosted me about the drafts issue and the post was half saving half not so i just decided fuck it, were going with post 2, electric boogaloo, and fifth, i decided to start typing this instead in a google docs so. many changes. if you're new here i am usually more on top of this.

but here we are. were back on street circuits. we’re in baku, azerbaijan, for the start of the last third of the season. 8 races remain, world championship titles are still within grasp of multiple people. the drama is dramaing. and today is september 22, 2024 and lets fucking go.

first and foremost, on account of the fact that this post is late (again, see above), were going to have to do a bit of a speed run. if you're new here, i promise that this is not representative of my normal dedication to the update post. and for those asking, yeah, ill probably compile it somewhere better than a tumblr post after its all said and done, but we don't have time for that now.

what we do have time for is the Off Week (and like some of the media stuff). and it was filled with silliness:

george russell decided to wear what can only be described as slightly ugly yellow short shorts with his taylor swift shirt that he got at the eras tour. this was baffling for several reasons, the main reason being that i don't think the internet knew that he was capable of wearing a graphic t shirt

fernando alonso got his aston martin valkyrie finally. in case you are unfamiliar, a valkyrie i think is the worlds fastest street legal car. he posted tweets about this that made it seem like he wanted to fuck the car. hilariously, the car broke down an hour later.

we also had the very thrilling conclusion to grill the grid. oscar won and he somehow managed to look more pleased about his grill the grid win than his first race victory.

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nico rosberg went to the green awards and he wore a fantastically insane teal blue suit. yes i know hes not a current driver. but you all like hearing about him so ask and you shall receive. unfornunately i cant find a picture of it though

and also not a current driver is mick schumacher, but my roommate asked me to include that he was seen on his girlfriends instagram being bad at golf. like. exceptionally bad at golf. like he hit a tree 20 feet in front of him.

also playing golf was lando norris. except he managed to look like try bolton from high school musical 2.

he also talked about the world driver championship with his friend max fewtrell while they were playing golf. unfortunately i lost this link in the sea of technical difficulties, but the gist of it was that he was saying that there is still hope for him to beat max in the championship (hes about 60 points behind right now). lando doesnt usually talk about the championship because he doesnt want news outlets to paint him as “desperate” so this was interesting

charles leclerc had an insane off week. first he rear ended someone in monaco. then he spoke at a yacht conference. he was not scheduled to speak at said yacht conference, he was there doing something else and they were like hey you're cool people know you, heres a microphone. he alsp ended up on a weather channel while promoting a karting event he was doing for the jules bianchi foundation (his god father, the one who died during the f1 race in japan 2014). he also changed his instagram pop and re centered it because some random tiktoker told him it matched his aesthetic better.

oscar piastri posted a photo of himself sitting in the cockpit of a plane and then promptly deleted it. because he posted it on 9/11. for anyone who doesnt know what that is, that was when some terrorists hijacked commercial planes and few them into the world trade centers in nyc and the pentagon in washington dc

max verstappen also posted a plane pic with himself and lando norris, but he did not delete it.

we also had the return of daniel ricciardo’s jpg instagram account, which is kinda like a finsta for photos that hes taken. i think lando started this a few years ago.

heading into the race week we certainly got a weird ass batch of pr. including but not limited to:

lewis hamilton was back on top and slaying in the fit game. as was yuki.

lewis hamilton also exposed george russell as listening to katy perry pre race. katy perry and taylor swift (this was after he claimed that he liked listening to old school rap music.) though, lewis then started singing wrecking ball???? confusing vibes all around

george was not off the hook yet tho because some intern definitely make him say skidibidi toilet or whatever the thing is idk, i might be gen z but im not insufferable, okay? actually george in baku was just all kinds of unhinged

george and alex also got up to something, what it is no one knows but it is clearly something

max pulled up to the paddock de aged about 10 years. picture one is of him in baku in 2015 (i believe he was 17) and picture 2 is this year. no i am not kidding.

and franco walked into the paddock telling everyone about argentinian mate (which is a drink, not a friend)

and max shoved a microphone out of the way so everyone could gossip

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then of course, we had some slightly more relevant drama

haas announced that ollie would be replacing kevin at baku. in case you forgot, kevin magnussen received a total of 12 penalty points over the season so far, which means he gets one race ban. how did he get the points? well he was mostly wreaking havoc on everyone else so that his teammate, nico hulkenberg, could drag his car into the points. lets all remember the time in saudi arabia where he managed to get 20 seconds of penalties by basically driving like a mad man just to make sure that nico could keep his position after he pit stopped. anyway, nico was kind of pissed about the race ban situation and said “maybe the guidelines for F1 penalties need to be reviewed as the stewards ‘want to get involved’ no matter the contact.”

in any case though, k mags was out. and ollie was in. we’ve seen ollie before. notably he subbed in for carlos sainz at the saudi arabia gp when carlos had appendicitis. he managed to get points as well. since then, he has been announced as a haas driver for 2025 and is now subbing in for k mags (haas, later in the week called him a super sub. clearly no gen z person read that over.) he can do this because ferrari has a haas engine so they share reserve drivers.

adrian newey finally got employed. i know! i can hardly believe it either! but he did! and youll never guess where!

ferrari? no that would be too obvious.

mercedes? nah

williams? no too much of a shit show

aston martin? ding ding ding! just the right amount of shit show!

that is right. newey is going to aston for 2025.

apparently he was offered a “good package” according to himself, which i assume means pay and also the fact that lawrence stroll made him a shareholder? stakeholder? whatever its called. in the team itself. basically he has a lot of power.

he said that he always wanted to work with fernando and lewis. and he couldn't do both. and aston had a better package than ferrari.

fernando looked positively evil during all the announcement pictures. and called the team "definitely the team of the future" and for those of you who don't know, fernando is positively evil. hes just been stuck in a shit box and we havent seen very much of him, but man does he know how to evilly slut it up. so that will be fun to see.

by contrast, people said that lance was not excited enough. and well. lance 1. has resting bitch face and 2. never really looks excited about anything. also he lives in a world where take your child to work day somehow became his job. (his dad owns the team).

lewis hamilton was asked what he thought about adrian not going to ferrari, and here's what he had to say:

"i feel like, while I have mentioned before that it would be an honor to work with adrian, i have been privileged to work with two championship winning teams that didnt have adrian."

mclaren announced pato o ward would do FP1 in mexico. who is pato o ward? hes one of mclaren’s indycar drivers and one of the f1 reserve drivers. he is incredibly charming and definitely runs his own social media as seen here:

mclaren Also claim they figured out who their number 2 driver is and they claim its oscar. i say they claim because the statements were a lot more complex than that. essentially, according to andrea stella, the priority is to the team first, then lando and then oscar. so they didn't outright say that oscar is the number 2 driver and i am willing to bet real money that this is because mr mark webber, oscars manager, has something in oscars contract that prevents him from being a number 2 driver. this is of course because mark webber was one of the most infamous number 2 drivers in f1 history to none other than menace war criminal sebastian vettel, who in their time as teammates, managed to win 4 back to back world champions. or, top to bottom if you're mrs darbus from high school musical.

lando was asked about this and he said that yes, the team does support him. though he would not expect oscar to give up a win for him and that it is more complex behind the scenes. i suppose we will see if there are any papaya rules coming out this weekend….

and oscar said "i think the main point is its not purely just going to be me pulling over for lando every single race, because thats how none of us, including lando, wont want to go racing, if we feel that someone has done a much better job on a weekend, whichever way it is, we want that person to be rewarded."

max verstappen commented on the mclaren situation as well. which was funny mostly because red bull has one of the most defined number 1 and number 2 drivers of any team. he said "you look at it form oscar's perspective, he is closer to lando than lando to me. they have to deal with that."

and allow me to put on a tin foil hat as we are about to talk about the future of the red bull seat. because all i have to offer here is a baseball hat and a red bull can.

a long time ago we talked about the red bull cans. the ones that red bull makes to promote f1. at the end of last season red bull put max and checo on the red bull can. this season at the start it was just max on the red bull can. well. now checo has reappeared on the cans too. and i will tell you what i think this means. it means that checo is not getting swapped this season, which was a possibility for awhile.

but! there is more!

daniel ricciardo made an instagram post this week. and it was very interesting. but most interestingly he was wearing a red bull hat.

which he does occasionally, no big deal really. he did race for the for several years, he technically does currently. BUT then he showed up TO THE PADDOCK wearing the red bull hat.

which is Big Interesting. usually you show up in a statement outfit or wearing the team kit. and daniel is not a red bull racing driver. he is a visa cashapp racing bulls driver. they might be owned by red bull but they are Not the same team. so why the red bull hat. in the paddock. well, the rumor is that hes taking checos seat for 2025. and the rumor is that this will be announced before mexico. so checo can have a proper send off.

and with that. the baku lore.

theres a lot that has happened at baku. as i said its a street circuit. and i think its the fastest street circuit. but over the years theres been some notable events.

such as the great kimi raikkonen radio for gloves and steering wheel:

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they gave mini kimi this week gloves and steering wheel in honor of that

the max and daniel crash in 2018 when they were running p1 and p2 respectfully

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and of course. how could we forget. charles’s infamous “i am stupid” radio.

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speaking of charles, he crashed again in fp1. not quite in the same spot, but nearly. he took a picture with the marshalls.

then in fp2 he rage quit, basically saying that the car sucks.

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but he was back and better than ever in practice three because he managed to top the time charts. welcome back fuck ass ferrari.

some other teams definitely experienced the lows but not really the highs of baku during practice. like lance stroll who came on the radio to say “this is not a car” (good thing they have adrian newey now, right?

franco colapinto also cut his ear before practice on the neck strengthener stretcher thing that they all use and the team wanted to give him stitches but he was like no no no i need to be in the car in about 5 minutes im not doing that. so he jammed on his helmet and jumped in the car. he also crashed and when he went to the medical center he took off his helmet and there was blood everywhere and they were like no no no you cannot race! and he was like no! this is not from the crash! and then explained it and they let him do qualifying.

also im pretty sure? ollie bearman crashed? in practice? but frankly i don't have time to google it so whos to say.

but alas. qualifying.

i know i know this is kind of a shitty update. i promise ill go all out in singapore. i PROMISE.

so as i said. its a street circuit. high speed. 90 degree corners. and also windy as hell. we also had the dynamic duo of karun and harry in the commentary box.

max led the first practice, george led the second and i think charles led the third. or some order like that.

slipstream here is almost essential (slipstream: going behind another car to reduce the wind drag so you can go faster)

charles has the last three pole positions (first in qualifying) here in baku, but he has never won. by comparison, red bull have never had pole here but they have won.

and franco has never been to baku before.

i think that's all the exposition that we need here.

q1 started with max complaining about his car. “the car is jumping around like crazy on the rear axle” he said. despite this he was sitting in p3.

the mid field battle though….the mid field battle was heating the hell up. mostly because none other than franco colapinto, who if you will remember, has never been to baku before, had split the two ferraris. he was in third for the moment, .109 seconds behind carlos sainz and .159 seconds ahead of charles leclerc. we still had a lot of qualifying left to go, so this was probably not going to stay, but it was still insane. he was pushing insanely hard, nearly kissing the walls. clearly he had learned from his crash in practice.

the two mclarens waited until the very end of q1 to do their final flying push lap, and oscar made it through, but tragedy struck for lando.

lando was in the middle of his last flying lap, time was ticking down, and there was a Very Brief yellow flag on the track. now, according to rules, you cannot complete your flying lap if there is a yellow flag. so lando pitted and was stuck down in 17th and out of qualifying. this would be the first time that he was out in q1 since vegas last year (which if i remember correctly was also not his fault)

now though, of course nothing is ever that cut and dry. people thought that there had been a mis showing of a flag. yellow flag means that a car is stopped on track, white flag means that a car is going slowly on the track. and people thought that there had been a yellow flag shown when it was actually supposed to be a white flag (if there had been a white flag then lando would have been able to keep doing his flying lap) lando himself said that he had no idea what people were talking about because there is a light on the steering wheel that lights up when flags are called and he had a big yellow light. so it was clearly a yellow flag.

if you're concerned about lando being able to pull it out of the bag, id like to point you in the direction of the mexican gp last year where lando qualified 17th and finished 5th. on a track that was hard to overtake on. he can be absolutely insane when he wants to be. worry not gentle reader.

in any case. also out in q1 was daniel ricciardo, valtteri bottas, zhou guanyu and esteban ocon.

and notably, williams, who was on fucking fire this weekend as we already saw, finished q1 with alex albon in second (ahead of oscar) and franco colapinto in 8th. pierre gasly had somehow managed to also get into 4th. and nico hulkenberg was in 7th with ollie bearman in 13th. i told you the mid field battle was heating the hell up.

q2. everyone zoomed straight out of the gate. they didn't want to get lando norris’d. but, speaking of that, if lando managed to get no points in the race and charles managed to win, charles would overtake lando in the drivers championship. mark webber himself told this to charles, who was absolutely baffled.

in any case, charles was kinda suffering right now and that was because he was not getting slipstream from carlos to make his lap faster. meanwhile, carlos seemed to be actively trying to give charles the slipstream because he came on radio to say “he keeps missing the tow”

and amazingly, franco colapinto was 4 tenths AHEAD of alex albon. alex albon who had not been unqualified by his teammate once since the start of 2023. ex red bull driver alex albon. that alex albon.

max topped the times in q2, followed immediately by charles. insanely, fernando alonso managed to drag the aston martin to fifth. and franco was right behind him in 6th. by comparison alex albon was in 10th.

and from q2 we lost ollie bearman, yuki tsunoda (who has never qualified lower than 8th in baku), pierre gasly, nico hulkenberg and lance stroll. so yes, ollie bearman managed to outqualify nico hulkenberg. this is ollies second ever f1 race.

steaming on forward to q3.

we had, for review, in q3 the following:

both ferraris, both red bulls, both mercedes, both WILLIAMS (has not happened since vegas 2023), plus fernando alonso and oscar piastri.

right out the gate it was wild.

“red bull! theyve re found their mojo! or have they!” karun said. red bull were in 5th and 6th and not entirely sucking for the moment.

everyone did one flyer and then came out at the end for a second flyer.

here were the standings:

charles, carlos, oscar, george, checo, max, lewis, alex, franco, fernando

and everyone was making it to the line and all was going smooth until-

wait a second what is that

could it be! alex albon! with the air box fan still on his car! surely not!!!

oh but it was! and harry and karun were like oh wow so unfortunate for williams tisk tisk

meanwhile ted jumped on the radio to Loudly announce to everyone that this was insane and if i have time here i will put the rant he ranted cause it was Fantastic.

and what do you know i have time

so we had 3 minutes left qualifying and everyone was pulling out of the pits for their last flyer when oscar hopped on the radio to say

"the williams still has the air box fan in"

"oh what an error! disaster for williams!" karun and harry said. they speculated if the marshalls could get it or if the session needed to be red flagged. but alex threw the fan off the car.

and then they asked "ted have you ever seen that before?" and ted did not hold back:

"ITS A MASSIVE YELLOW FAN HOW COULD YOU MISS IT???!!! HOW COULD THE MECHANICS MISS IT???? I CANT BELIVE THEY WOULD MAKE SUCH A MISTAKE DOWN AT WILLIAMS! SUCH AN EXPERIENCED BUNCH OF GUYS AND GIRLS! WHAT IS GOING ON AT WILLIAMS OPERATIONALLY? HOW COULD YOU SEND A CAR OUT LIKE THAT?"

alex, obviously, got fined for an unsafe release 5k euros. he also had to throw the fan off to the side and got slightly covered in dry ice. he did not get to the a second flying lap.

franco did tho!

and here were out qualifying results:

p1: charles p2: oscar p3: carlos p4: checo p5: george p6: max p7: lewis p8: fernando p9: franco p10: alex p11: ollie p12: yuki p13: pierre p14: nico p15: lance p16: daniel p17: lando p18: valtteri p19: zhou p20: esteban

oh ho ho but we werent done yet. because pierre gasly got disqualified from qualifying. for failing fuel flow regulations. and lewis was going to have to start from the pit lane for changing his power unit.

everyone, and by everyone i mean oscar max and checo, pretty much said that charles was going to get pole no matter what, they knew this coming in and the best they were trying for was second

onto the race.

notably, this is considered a checo track. this was one of the three races that max did not win last year. because checo won it. its a track that he does well on, evidenced by the fact that he qualified above max in qualifying. so people were expecting big things from him.

and so, we head into lap 1.

charles managed to hang onto the lead. checo passed carlos straight out of the gate for third and max managed to pass george to take fifth. lando had managed to get ahead of nico and up into 13th. notably, franco held onto 8th and ollie was able to hold onto tenth.

someone who was not doing well was lance stroll, who came on the radio saying that he had a puncture. this was from contact with yuki. lance had to pit for fresh tires and was pretty immediately thrown to the back of the grid.

by lap 2 lando had managed to get past daniel and was in 12th, he was trying to get past yuki next, which he managed by lap 3. yuki also lost a spot to nico.

also slaying in the mclaren was oscar, who took fastest lap. then charles took fastest lap.

and lewis hamilton, who had started from the pit lane, was up to 16th. already. somehow. though he was displeased with the tires, sayig that “this tire is pretty bad” over the radio.

yuki meanwhile was clearly having a problem because he had started going very very slowly. thought the pit wall said that he had no problems. this would later turn out to be false but we will indulge them for the time being.

franco was STILL ahead of alex albon on lap 6. STILL.

lando on lap 8 managed to push his way into points positions, overtaking ollie bearman for 10th. though this was where things were about to slow down for him because in front of him were alex, franco and fernando, who were all very close together and would be hard to get past.

george was back in bad luck hell as a plastic bag entered his airbox. will he ever catch a break.

on lap 11 nico hulkenberg finally caught up with ollie bearman and passed him for 11th.

and max’s car was not working. to potentially no one’s surprise. “i have zero bite in the car” he said. and this was probably true because checo was a whole 6.5 seconds ahead of him. insane gap.

several pit stops later that i will not detail out because we simply do not have the time, alex albon ended up in 4th and lando ended up in fifth. and oscar was about to get undercut by checo.

“mojo seems to be back for checo perez” harry said, correctly.

mojo was back for him indeed. and now he was right behind lando.

and if you will recall, according to mclaren themselves, priority at mclaren is the team first, then oscar, then lando. but oscar was ahead of lando. so what did mclaren do?

they asked lando do hold up perez, but not compromise his own race.

remever a long time ago when i said mclaren wouldn't have any internal drama this season? man how i was wrong.

lando managed to hold up perez for around a lap or two before he got past. this was crucial because this was during when oscar was in the pits.

thanks to lando and the power of the papaya rules teamwork, oscar ended up coming out in 4th, only .706s ahead of checo.

mclaren are working together everyone! mclaren are working together!

meanwhile, turns out that yuki did indeed have problems because he retired on lap 17 with a hole in his sidepod from the contact with lance on lap 1. this was now two races in a row where he had had to retire for reasons out of his control.

several more people pitted. and eventually charles was back out in front, oscar was in p2. until he wasn't. no, he didn't dnf. he overtook charles! he was in p1! he popped out of nowhere! nowhere being 2 car lengths back and just flooring it to spring around charles like a little silly slinky! karun called it a “good, fair and robust defense,” which sounds like its descibing notes in wine. but this was not wine. this was the baku gp. and we were only half done.

ollie bearman was defending against lewis hamilton, holding on tightly to 14th place.

charles was still behind oscar and he could not get past, despite the fact that he was still very much in spitting distance. “they are pushing like crazy or they have more grip than us” he said.

carlos got past both lando and alex albon and was up into 4th

this brought max up behind lando. max was on 11 lap old tires and lando was on 24 lap old tires. but lando still defended like hell and managed to hold onto sixth. max was 0.632 seconds behind lando on lap 25 when he said that “my brakes are not working.” this was hardly a surprise. max has hated the car since china.

also experiencing technical difficulties was sir lewis hamilton. he was stuck down in 14th and was first told to do “everything you can do to get the surface temp down” of the tires. he said “im trying” then several laps later on lap 29 he came on the radio to say “are you seeing how i have to drive this thing?” “yes,” bono, his engineer said. “quite effective though.”

max was still half a second behind lando. mclaren faked a pit stop call over the radio to get max to pit. he did not.

but, george russell did manage to pass him. which was “not good for max’s world champion aspirations.”

this was also when ted very bafflingly said that “if i had a sofa in the pit lane i would be jumping up and down on it” im not sure what that was in response to.

meanwhile, ollie was still holding off sir lewis hamilton. and charles was trying to get oscar to pit again by lying over the radio. it was not working.

lando did a pit stop finally and came out a whole 15 second behind max. he was hoping to catch max by the end of the race. but it might be tight. lets go last lap lando.

“lando, imagine andrea on your shoulder saying ‘zero wheel spin’ in every exit,” lando’s race engineer said. if you're confused, everyone else was too.

10 laps to go and here were the order of affairs:

oscar

+.449s charles +1.865s checo +2.989s carlos +16.530s george +1.909s max +11.535s lando +9.715s fernando +2.589s alex +2.451s nico +4.667s franco +1.590s lewis +1.261s ollie +1.791s pierre +9.205s daniel +23.919s esteban +.789s lance +3.862s valtteri +3.631s guanyu

lando was determined. he took fastest lap on lap 43 and was 8.8s behind max

at this point, the leaders were starting to lap the cars in the back. “the back markers are starting to come up,” checo’s engineer said to him. “its going to get messy.”

“hold onto your hats and if you don't have one go get one and hold onto it” harry said. harry would turn out to be correct.

we had the top 3 all running very close to eachother, that was oscar, charles and checo and “welcome to the party carlos sainz!” who was now 1.2 seconds behind checo in the four way battle for the lead.

definitely not leading was lance stroll, who retired on lap 47 with a brake problem.

oscar managed to pull ahead of charles by 1.5 seconds, finally knocking him out of DRS range. so now it was a three way battle for second. and charles had “no rear tires. no rear tires at all.”

and, just like i said he would, lando managed to pass max on lap 49. he was closing the gap slowly in the championship.

“verstappen’s day goes from bad to worse,” harry said. because lando still had fastest lap, so he would score 3 more points than max. which is important if lando wants to beat max in the championship (though i think hes still like 60 points behind)

meanwhile! franco managed to pass nico hulkenberg for 10th! he was in the points!!!! at his second race!!!

but this was short lived because there was a crash! a big smackeroo! between carlos and checo!! checo was mad, carlos didn't know what happened.

what happened was that carlos was trying to pass checo but checo did not move over. it was deemed an equal fault accident. both of them were utterly confused at what happened and apparently spent 20 minutes in the medical center being utterly lost and aparently saying that sometimes this sport sucks. and! contrary to what several people said! checo did not bang on carlos’s helmet after the crash.

the crash actually caused chef's dad to have a heart attack. he is stable now.

and well. this clip of george from the post qualifying interviews definitely didnt age well:

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but! since we were a matter of a few laps from the end, this meant that the rest of the race was finished under a virtual safety car.

which meant

OSCAR PIASTRI WINS THE AZERBAIJAN GP

and george inherited p3!

and on his own merit too! no safety cars, no team orders, no weird shit!

“yes!” he whispered over the radio.

he almost fell getting out of the car, then gave us all the “one moment” hand gesture before properly celebrating.

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he also got driver of the day!

(this was marginally better than george russell, who said over the radio “i cant get any rubber (to pick up on his tires) all im getting is leaves”)

gunther steiner also hosted the post race interviews. which was interesting.

george said that the most difficult part of the race was “driving full gas into a wall of carbon fiber on the penultimate lap…the vsc should have come out sooner”

charles bashed ferrari because they didn't do any high fuel runs in practice.

oscar was entirely pleased. “i managed to overtake and hold onto it for the next 35 laps..one of the better races of my career.” and honestly, oscar winning a race straight after mclaren basically announcing that he was their number 2 driver is nothing short of hilarious.

and! mclaren was now leading the constructors championship by 20 points! for the first time in ten years!!!!

the top three had a moment outside of the car that was filled with baffled:

and oscar's engineer tom got to stand on the podium with him. he usually takes a selfie with oscar after each race he podiums at, but he was too excited to so george took this picture for them

(george also aparently demomished oscar in a game of uno on the plane, immediately humbling him)

george also shielded himself from the champagne on the podium

the cooldown room reacted to the crash in a very straight forward manner:

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and very quickly cause its midnight and the singapore gp starts in 8 hours, the post race, speed ran:

-mark webber told off laura winter for thinking that oscar didn't have good tire management

-alex albon was “super happy, that's a lot of points for us” (williams finished in 7th and 8th). he cut his own interview short when ollie bearman arrived, saying “I can go, im happy to go” and then waving comically.

-williams was so pleased with this result they blasted everyone with champagne. and they overtook alpine in the constructors championship! this was also their best race finish all season

-(and a quick note, if youre going to really blame logan for being that shit of a driver here, please remember that the car he was driving was several rounds of upgrades behind alex's pretty much the entire time he was driving it)

-ollie became the first driver to ever score points in his first two races for two different constructors because the double dnf pushed him up to 10th place. he said that there was not much difference between the haas and the ferrari, the ferrari was just red

-franco continued to charm everyone and flirt with the reporters.

-they interviewed george and lewis and the camera had to be adjusted for george's height. it was comical and resulted in my favorite edit so far of the season (sound on)

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-lando looked pleased and happy for once. he said about holding off checo that “i didn't hold him up i just had to cool my tires a little.” he was delighted to be leading the constructors for the first time in ten years and he defended alex albon saying “i struggled to get past alex for a while, which is common, alex doesnt make mistakes.” he also ratted on max for going to fast during the VSC and said “i didn't complain, facts were stated.” and to sum it all up he said that “im executing things well, i’m very quick…i’m not going to be the happiest guy, but i am never the happiest guy….car is performing well everywhere…some red cars behind us seem to be our biggest competitors right now”

-by comparison george insulted all of pirelli. the tire people. “pretty infuriating that it (the pace) changes this so much….its black magic, people who make the tires don't understand the tires…..for 20 laps we had a car not worthy of points and for 20 laps we had a car fighting for victory and the only difference is the tires.”

-lewis was notably upset after the race and walked through the paddock with his helmet on, not wanting to talk to anyone. but he did talk to franco and ollie and congratulate them on a job well done defending against him and racing against him. franco even fangirled over this on his instagram.

-charles was clearly upset with ferrari. he was so upset he posted a thirst trap.

-and oscar. oscar was very happy this afternoon. and his mom was there! she doesnt usually come cause it scares her, but nicole was there today!

-mclaren celebrated with a hell of a lot of champagne. both oscar’s wina and lando’s insane recovery, and the fact that they were leading the championship. red bull have been dethroned, at least for now.

-there was so much champagne that lando took off his socks to spray it. all seems well at mclaren.

-at least one thing is for sure, oscar had a better time here this weekend than last year when he got food poisoning and only ate four pieces of toast

and with that. we head into singapore. quite literally as it is starting in a few hours. again, i apologixe about this post. its a little sad, but the next one will be better. pinkly promise.

see you all soon!!!

#not a tag #from saph #saph explains silly season 2024 #got up at 5:30am to finish this monstrosity lol #mexico gp 2024 #its mediocre i promise im better than this #Instagram

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