#wsk art

[wesleysniperking]

usopp positivity post #16

Usopp says thank you for the support. No matter how discouraged you feel, good things come to those who wait and–

Stay true. Of all things, stay true.

previous post

next post

Usopp fan club (feel free to join)

[chibrary]

Some at the team knew he was the man for the job, but Charles Leclerc's procurement of a seat relied on a neat bit of manoeuvring in order for their boss to agree to a deal.

We're not talking here about the delay that followed Sergio Marchionne's death before Leclerc gained a 2019 Ferrari Formula 1 drive, rather his maiden season of car racing in the '14 Formula Renault ALPS series.

Fortec Motorsport engineer Martin Young knew all about the talents of the 16-year-old Monegasque driver.

"My background is in karting," he explains. "I used to work for the factory teams in Italy. I knew the drivers to watch from karting would be Max Verstappen, Ben Barnicoat and Charles Leclerc, and Fortec wanted to run teams in Eurocup, NEC and ALPS."

It's worth explaining here that in those days Formula Renault 2.0 operated as a pyramid structure, with the Eurocup at the top, and the Dutch-promoted Northern European Cup and Italian-run ALPS series as the base. Fortec was already established in Eurocup and NEC, but was venturing into ALPS for the first time.

"At the time it looked like Verstappen would be doing Eurocup, and we had Ben signed for NEC," continues Young. "I spoke to Jamie Dye [Fortec managing director] and said that if we wanted to move forward in ALPS we needed to get Leclerc.

"We did a test day at Motorland [Aragon] and we sort of lied about his times - we'd put Charles up against a lot of experienced drivers, so he was 1.2-1.3 seconds off - so that Richard [Dutton, team principal] would stay interested in giving him a bit of a deal. Richard was asking, 'Is he really good?', and we said, 'Yeah, we know he's really good.'"

Barnicoat, now a factory McLaren GT racer, was already familiar with Leclerc - as a Racing Steps Foundation protege, he was part of the ART Grand Prix line-up in international karting in 2012 and '13, while Leclerc belonged (and still does) to the All Road Management stable of ART shareholder Nicolas Todt.

"I had two years as team-mate to him in karting," says Barnicoat. "The first year I was directly racing with him, and in the second he went into gearbox [KZ] karts. He was one of the best team-mates I ever had, if not the best. A great guy.

"That first year, Charles won the WSK series and I won the European championship - that was up against the likes of Verstappen, so the competition was extremely high. I feel sort of left out!

"He had a bit more track knowledge so in the first half of the year he was beating me, but then we pushed each other really hard and that worked for the team - we got a lot from that.

"Looking at how good he is, it's nice to know I beat him on occasions, to know that I had the talent and ability to do that."

Fortec was one of the teams that tested Verstappen, and was also eyeing a deal with another talented karter: George Russell, whose plan was to combine Renault ALPS with what was then BRDC Formula 4.

Russell, who now is on course to succeed Leclerc as Formula 2 champion, eventually joined Prema Powerteam for ALPS, but that deal fell over on the eve of the season and he secured a last-minute berth at Koiranen GP.

"We wanted George; we tried to sign him," says Dutton of what could have been a mighty line-up had Russell joined Leclerc. "But he signed for Prema and then [Lawrence] Stroll [who had taken a majority shareholding in Prema] stopped him from going there."

"Me and Charles were testing for Fortec," says Russell, "and at the same time Verstappen was there with Josef Kaufmann Racing, I think. We were in talks with Fortec, but we decided to sign with Prema."

When it's pointed out what a mega line-up that would have been alongside Leclerc, Russell laughs: "In hindsight that could have worked out better for me than Koiranen. That [the late Prema split] put us in the shit a little bit, and three weeks before the first race I didn't have a deal. We took the gamble on Koiranen."

Autosport reminds Dutton of an awards evening over the 2013-14 winter when, asked about Russell, he said: "We've got someone even better - a lad from Monaco..."

"It was really quite a late deal," recalls Dutton. "He missed most of the winter-test programme. But you just knew he was the real deal. In and out of the car he knew what he wanted. In lots of ways he reminded us of Verstappen when we tested him."

Young confirms that the sum total of Leclerc's pre-season mileage was four days at Aragon, and two at Barcelona, before going straight into the pre-weekend test for the Imola opener.

"The first three race weekends his experience was a bit low," says Young, "but as soon as he got on the podium he was there every weekend.

Leclerc went on to finish runner-up to the flying - and experienced - Nyck de Vries in the ALPS points, with two race wins at Monza under his belt, but perhaps the more impressive performances came in his three 'wildcard' outings in the Eurocup. The first was at Spa, one week before the Belgian track's ALPS round.

"He was 30th in qualifying at the Eurocup," says Dutton. "We changed everything - we couldn't understand what the hell was going on. One week later he qualified third for ALPS. That was really, really special."

In his next Eurocup outing, Leclerc took a fifth and a second at the Nurburgring, and in his final one he took a brace of seconds at the Hungaroring.

"I was looking after Matt Parry and Jack Aitken in Eurocup," says long-time Fortec driver coach Matt Howson. "I'd heard [Leclerc] was something maybe a bit special, but you hear that all the time, and wait until you see it yourself.

"Usually you understand the driving style straight away - what's good, what's bad - and the thing with Charles is it didn't matter whether there was understeer or oversteer, he seemed to deliver a lap time."

The cerebral approach of Leclerc and engineer Young frustrated Howson at the Nurburgring.

"He'd never seen the place, and there were only two 45-minute [test] sessions, and furthermore Martin was determined to try things on the car," says Howson.

"I said, 'Don't do it, leave him out'. He was last in the second session, and then he was P3 on the grid for the second race - that's unheard of in Eurocup [for a newcomer]. Renault is a very finicky formula, and it all has to come together to deliver results, but Charles seemed impervious to everything.

"Based on that first year, I knew he was a little bit special. Whenever he was tested in Eurocup, he defied his experience. That's a marker - that you can break all the accepted rules."

Talking about that Nurburgring episode, Young says: "That literally sums up Charles Leclerc. That year we were struggling in Eurocup, and I said I'd come in with Charles and we'd do some testing. Going into qualifying he'd never run new tyres, but he went from last to the front. Nothing ever fazed him."

In Young's view, he also compared favourably to Lando Norris, who tested FRenault cars with Fortec in 2014 before his first steps into single-seaters: "I worked with Lando towards the end of the year, and Lando eventually got to the same point [as Leclerc] but needed a lot of testing, but Charles could just get in and drive. It was second nature to him."

Russell took a distant fourth in the ALPS standings, although he did claim the 2014 BRDC F4 title.

"With Nyck winning the championship it didn't make any sense to me, but I think at the time there were a few dodgy chassis around," he says. "When I tested Nyck's car it was extremely different in terms of characteristics. I wasted a season there, but it was character-building."

He also suffered from chicken pox that caused him to miss the Monza round, where Leclerc took his two wins.

"I didn't think it affected me at the time, but I struggled a bit for no reason in the following few F4 races," says Russell. "It was quite severe - I've still got some bad scars. I put my family off their dinner a few times!"

But Russell trumped Leclerc by joining Tech 1 Racing for the final Eurocup round at Jerez as a wildcard - and winning: "I got my self-confidence back a bit, jumped in that car and won."

Both Russell and Leclerc had initially targeted a full season in Eurocup in 2015, but such were their reputations by the end of '14 that each went to the Formula 3 European Championship, Russell with Carlin, and Leclerc with Van Amersfoort Racing.

Fortec tried to hang on to Leclerc for F3. "We tried so hard to get him for F3, but we lost him to VAR," says Dutton. "We did some tests with him in the F3 car and he was straight on the pace. At Silverstone he was quickest of everybody there, and then we went to Valencia with him and we had a nightmare with mechanical issues. I think that didn't do us any good."

All who worked or raced with Leclerc agree about his qualities as a man.

"Of all the drivers in F1 who've come through us, Charles is the one who gets [guest] passes for the British Grand Prix," says Dutton. "He had Martin [Young] and Jamie [Dye] there this year the whole weekend, in Sauber hospitality. He's a proper guy."

"I still speak to Charles every week or so on various topics," adds Young, who attended Leclerc's initial grand prix free practice outings in 2016. "He's still exactly the same person."

Barnicoat, who is one of the drivers for the McLaren hot laps at F1 events, bumps into Leclerc regularly.

"When we raced against each other in Renault there was quite a lot of rivalry from what we'd had in karting," says the Briton, who added three 'wildcard' ALPS outings as direct team-mate to Leclerc to his title-winning NEC campaign.

"But it would have been nice to get more direct comparisons. In 2013, when we were in karting, I went to the grand prix with him in Monaco and stayed on his uncle's boat, and had a really good time. We spent a lot of time together, and although we were rivals we helped each other out. He was a good friend of mine and still is."

Leclerc is also resilient. "Jules Bianchi came to the Hungaroring Eurocup round to mentor him," says Howson, "and I understood then how close they were. After that incident [for Bianchi] and his father [who died in mid-2017], he's probably been tested off track more than anyone else, but it's not bled over into anything on track.

"He's incredibly mature. He's relatively introverted - he doesn't come in and make lots of noise, but he's polite, considerate and always looks you in the eye when he talks to you. It doesn't matter whether he's got loads of cameras on him, he'll always come over for a chat."

Russell, meanwhile, is "100%" sure that Leclerc will flourish at Ferrari.

"Charles is one of a handful of others I put in the best-of-the-best group," he says. "In my opinion he absolutely deserves his chance at Ferrari. He's got the speed and the talent, and I'm excited to see how he fares next year. I've no doubt that he will be competitive."

[tatinkatin]

Anorher not so well known incident between Max and Charles as reported by a charles fans' website in 2013:

(For context this happened in a qualifying heat in Sarno in 2013.)

"Regarding Max Verstappen's WILLING accident on Charles, one of our sources in the paddock explained the problem in detail.

The Dutchman was experiencing clutch problems and his engine was giving up. As his clutch took several metres to catch each gear, the Monegasque driver, who was coming in at full speed, tried to get through on the inside but Verstappen could do nothing better than to take the ART GP driver out in the grass, before ending up on top of him and causing them both to lose ten places.

A few moments later, Charles, who had started under Max's nose, was pushed into the grass once again, then a second time, this time at full speed, on the brakes of the first corner. It should be noted that at this precise point of the circuit, the KZ1s reach the crazy speed of 160km/h, which is very dangerous in case of a crash! The Dutchman's gearbox could not cope with the shock and he gave up even before the chequered flag was lowered.

Such behaviour is not only incomprehensible, it is simply scandalous. And the question tonight is why the officials turned a blind eye to this serious incident that could have ended very badly.

In any case, it should be remembered that Max Verstappen is not a newcomer, as he was disqualified from a round of the European KF2 Championship because of a dangerous contact with Ben Barnicoat.

This behaviour is simply disgraceful and the karting world does not need drivers with such behaviour! It is really time that WSK officials regain control of their events and show authority towards the drivers."

translated with deepL

[lunararcade]

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ F1 DR INTRO

important info: in this dr i am 17. it is the 2018 f1 season and i am racing alongside lewis hamilton for the mercedes-amg petronas f1 team. it is my first year in f1.

what is my racing history? i have been karting ever since i was 7 years old (2008). i started with regional championships and won before winning nationally. i won some championships internationally as well. i didn't have a lot of money but my parents helped me to achieve my dreams, especially since i was really good at it. i began racing around the world with ricky flynn motorsports. i won multiple WSK world and european series. i raced in these circuits until 2015 when i won the CIK-FIA Euro championship and 2016 when i won the CIK-FIA world championship with Birel ART Racing. i was hired by prema racing to drive as an f2 driver in 2017, and became world champion by the end of the season. after this i was hired by mercedes on a lucrative, one-year contract.

who are my friends? my closest friend is my best friend charles leclerc, who was my teammate at prema. me and him had a title fight in 2017. i am very close with his family <3 love them dearly. i am also close with his brother arthur! we met through charles and karting. my other closest friend is logan sargeant. he has been my best friend for years. we grew up karting together since my first year and remained super close as we both started karting in europe. i also competed against oscar piastri for a while and he is a good friend of me and logan. i am also friends with lewis hamilton as he is my teammate at mercedes. i am acquanited and friendly with max verstappen as we raced against each other in karting quite a few times. i know a lot of the other f1 racers from karting actually (:

any romantic relationships? no! i don't have any current romantic relationships.

what is currently happening? i had been getting podium since the start of the season, breaking multiple records not only as a woman but as the youngest f1 driver. however, at the canada grand prix, i won with a grand slam (fastest lap, pole position, first place). i also won in france and austria. i am doing extremely well!

any current conflicts? yes. multiple. mercedes has not been a good working environment. lewis is great, but i am not taken very seriously in the garage. i am also told not to overtake lewis even when i have openings and the next driver is multiple seconds behind. i have recently taken to ignoring these orders because they're stupid which has caused a lot of problems with toto wolff.

toto also ignored my complaints during monaco. i told him i had very little control over the car and something was off during qualifying, but he didn't listen and i had to drive at the race with little control over the car. it cost me a podium and i got p4. he also yelled at me after i won in canada because it was at the price of lewis getting p2, which is awful! but i am looking into new potential contracts for 2019 (redbull is looking promising if daniel leaves, which he will).

i am also nervous for my 10th race of the season which is silverstone, because i crashed there (not my fault at all) during my 2017 season in f2. it was pretty bad. the car exploded with me inside and i was concussed, but not majorly injured. charles also crashed a bit further ahead and ran to help me get out. however, i think this next race will be fine.

if you have any questions about this dr please feel free to ask. even though the circumstances have been a bit iffy right now, i really like all of the people and have been enjoying the racing so i'll be sharing plenty of stories!

[meganwhalenturner]

After touring the antiquities @semperlego and I refreshed ourselves in the Cleveland Museum of Art's atrium The Avenger's Headquarters while discussing Lavinia by Ursula LeGuin with the Sounis WSK book club.

[f1]

Six Formula 2 drivers among Red Bulls 11-strong junior squad for 2023 | Formula 1

Red Bull has announced its full line-up of Formula 1 juniors for 2023 including six drivers who will race in Formula 2. Dennis Hauger and Ayumu Iwasa remain in the series following their race-winning rookie campaigns last year. Jak Crawford and Isack Hadjar have been promoted together from FIA Formula 3 to race for Hitech GP. Red Bull’s F2 sextet is completed by Enzo Fittipaldi and Zane Maloney, who have been added to the junior team and will be team mates at Carlin. Fittipaldi picked up six podiums as an F2 rookie in 2022 with Charouz Racing System, and now moves to a more competitive team, while Maloney was championship runner-up in FIA F3 with Trident and makes a full-time move up to F2 after making his debut in last year’s finale. They join the Red Bull Junior Team as F2 race-winner Jehan Daruvala and F3 racer Jonny Edgar are dropped, and it means just three vacant seats remain on the F2 grid for 2023. Sebastian Montoya, who was announced by Red Bull earlier this month, will be the brand’s only junior in F3 this year. The son of F1 race-winner Juan Pablo Montoya will drive for Hitech, who are running Red Bull juniors further down the single-seater ladder too. Honda junior Souta Arao will drive for the team in Britain’s GB3 series Arvid Lindblad, currently one of Hitech’s drivers in Formula 4 United Arab Emirates, will switch to Prema for his European racing campaigns in the category. Liam Lawson takes over the RBJT-sponsored seat in Super Formula, meaning Ren Sato has been shown the exit door Two other departures from Red Bull’s roster are Formula Regional racer Noel Leon and former Honda junior Yuto Nomura. Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free The two youngest additions to the RBJT are Enzo Deligny and Enzo Tarnvanichkul, both stars of the international karting scene last year. Deligny will step up to car racing with Campos Racing in Spanish F4, having been one of the top rookies in senior karting in 2022. The 14-year-old Frenchman was second in the WSK Euro Series and fourth in the CIK-FIA European championship. Due to his age, 13-year-old Thai driver Tarnvanichkul will remain in karting and will compete for a factory-backed Kart Republic team. He was the CIK-FIA World Karting champion on OK-Junior karts in 2022, was the WSK Final Cup runner-up and fifth in the CIK-FIA European championship. 2023 Formula 2 driver line-up Team Drivers MP Dennis Hauger TBC Carlin Enzo Fittipaldi Zane Maloney ART TBC TBC Prema Frederik Vesti Oliver Bearman Hitech Jak Crawford Isack Hadjar DAMS Ayumu Iwasa Arthur Leclerc Virtuosi Jack Doohan Amaury Cordeel PHM by Charouz Roy Nissany Brad Benavides Trident Clement Novalak Roman Stanek Van Amersfoort Richard Verschoor Juan Manuel Correa Campos Ralph Boschung Kush Maini Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free Formula 2 Browse all Formula 2 articles via RaceFans - Independent Motorsport Coverage https://www.racefans.net/

[hopidoodle]

Good morning lovelies!!!! 

IT’S HERE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I am so excited because the first two chapters of “We Should Kiss” by @witchygirl99 are here!!!! 

You can read them HERE

Thank you so much again to Witchy for commissioning me. I absolutely loved being given the chance to create art for a ship that doesn’t get the love it deserves!!!!!!! Witchy’s done an incredible job as always, so go give it a read and send her all the love!

ALSO: Witchy and I created a playlist to go along with this story which you can listen to HERE

[accionintransigente]

Rolando por Jacarandas

[witchygirl99]

FRIENDS. FRIENDS!!! I cannot express to you how beautiful, stunning, show-stopping, amazing @hopidoodle’s art is.

Every time I look at it, my soul ascends. It was very much part of the inspiration for writing this (I cannot tell you how long I’ve stared at it, over the course of these many weeks, but it’s a very long time).

GIVE ALL THE LOVE ❤️❤️❤️

We Should Kiss

A KagKik modern day AU

Oh, but how the truth aches. Kikyo hums and drinks more wine, lets Kagome prod her again and again until she gives in. Like a seedling growing from its roots, she will always strive to reach the bright exposure of the sun. “Yes, Kagome.”

“You’re the best,” she beams, and that tips her over, more potent than any glass of wine.

They talk until the evening ends, midnight long past. Sango is drinking water, and Kagome gives her sloppy, drunken encouragement, more than a little wasted herself. Kikyo’s got the higher tolerance, but she’s had more than both of them.

“Stay here,” Kagome says, petting Sango’s head. “It’s too late, and you gotta put safety first. Right, Kikyo?”

“Right.”

“See? Right. You can take my room, okay? The mattress is a cloud. A literal cloud.” Kagome giggles. “It’s heaven.”

Sango frowns. Her body tilts dangerously on the couch. “But where would you sleep?”

“With Kikyo, obviously.”

Obviously.

Obviously.

Kikyo puts down her glass, and heads straight to the bathroom to wash her face. The water doesn’t help to clear her head; the words with Kikyo, with Kikyo echo endlessly in her mind. She flosses – messily, poorly – and then brushes her teeth.

There’s a knock on the door, but it isn’t locked, and Kagome bursts in a moment later, shushing herself. Her dark brown eyes are wide, glassy with booze. Every bit of her is flushed. Kikyo wants to ravish her, push her up against the door until Kagome’s begging, writhing against her, pleading.

God, what Kikyo wouldn’t do.

[dleone]

Fours drive thru Astoria

[wesleysniperking]

I mean, Barto and his crew were Usopp’s friends…Usopp was the reason for its (the fleet’s) formation. Dressrosa, God Usopp, anyone?

Related link

[chibrary]

sources compiled: max verstappen and wsk promotion, both on youtube series: 2013, karting

charles gets third at the cik-fia kz european championship in genk. max wins.

its been a year since the "inchident" and tensions are still high on track... just two races earlier, max is forced to retire after pushing charles into the grass so hard that it causes his already struggling gearbox to fail. charles' team, artgp, decries the maneuver on track as "unfair" via a press release titled "ART Grand Prix stronger than adversities". (meanwhile, charles' fansite decides uses slightly more flavorful language in its own race summary... describing the move as "incomprehensible," simply scandalous" and "shameful" while appealing for officials to do a better job of penalizing dangerous moves. max's site ignores the race entirely, leaving no summary to memorialize his team's take on what happened in sarno. it makes sense: its a lone bad race for the dutch driver in an otherwise dominant season.)

ironically, the cik-fia would start the next race weekend the two attended in wackersdorf with a conversation to all competitors about sportsmanlike behavior.

things may not be as dire as they originally seem, however. charles and max might be ignoring each other on the podium, but they're still friends on facebook: max apparently leaves a comment-- deleted as part of his early f1 social media account purge-- on charles' post about the race.

[art-now-germany]

WSK-18JW, Markus Krug

Installation

https://www.saatchiart.com/art/Installation-WSK-18JW/29178/2791875/view

[housewivesf1]

Spanish-Dutch 16-year-old Maya Weug will also be competing for a place in the Ferrari Driver Academy. She is part of the Richard Mille Young Talent Academy and races with Birel ART in the WSK Euro Series.

Maya started karting when she was 7 years old. She became the Copa de Campeones champion in 2015 and won the WSK Final Cup race in the 60 Mini class, beating 33 others. She drove in the OKJ class in 2018, finishing the year 16th.

xx

[bluewails]

Tagging System — Sept. 2019

more for me than anyone else as things are shifted, but a guide to how things are run around here. let me know if anything additional needs to be tagged/fixed

misc → short, without category

resources → “that’s helpful but no category,” simplified misc tag

long post → misc long(er) posts — excluding resources, made to make misc easier to navigate — ‘long’ is a loose term

my post → additions, tags, self-made posts,,,, pls,, don’t look

bros → mutuals

meme → meme

language → resources for language learning and other language related posts (french, korean)

plant → not excluding art, fandoms, very general

lgbtq → it’s gay

tdov → trans day of visibility

lbdov → lesbian day of visibility

kpop → all groups, majority bg, mostly excluding svt and skz (side blogs)

additional tags of groups and members

🥳 → idol birthday

kdrama → what’s wrong with secretary kim (also tagged wsk) and others

art → non-fandom work

fanart → fandom work, not fandom tagged

bfu → buzzfeed unsolved

aesthetic → moodboards (generally), not excluding fandoms

icons → not exclusive, probably skipped tagging some idk

other tags:

incorrect quotes

minecraft

star wars

marvel

animal crossing

she ra

good omens

supernatural

cat!

dog!

watcher

[witchygirl99]

I don’t deserve you 🥺❤️

Good Morning Lovelies! I have a teaser for you all for a very special project I’ve been working on with @witchygirl99 which will be debuting soon and I’M SO EXCITED ABOUT IT AHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KagKik is a ship that doesn’t get enough love in my opinion and it’s honestly probably my 2nd OTP at this point so when Witchy asked me to make some art and then told me the story I practically vibrated out of my seat because it’s so good!!

You can read a teaser for “We Should Kiss” HERE! It’s angsty perfection and I can’t wait for you all to read it!!! 

A HUGE thank you to Witchy for letting me get my KagKik DREAMS out of my system!! I can’t wait for you all to see this story!