#yeah brocedes deep dive is Coming its just a Lot

[dear-ao3]

and welcome back to the off week. i really thought that i could get away with no update this week, but alas. contracts have been signed and ice cream has been made. dogs have appeared and red bull marketing continues to be, well, red bull marketing. so today is april 14, 2024 and lets just dive right in head first to the most bemusing smattering of information that is on this post

were covering a few things this update, each more perplexing than the last:

-landos continued dedication to the bit -charles leclerc (as an entity) -fernando alonsos cryptic way of speaking -carlos sainz tempting the devil (among others) -the bonkers social media highlights of the week -brocedes

so lets just get lando out of the way. back on the government mandated mclaren update. first, he was on the forbes 30 under 30 europe list for sports and games. now that im writing this, im not sure lando actually acknowledged this at all? it might have just been the mclaren ig acc. also his ln4 official account called him pookie. not once but twice. who is running this account. we need need answers.

he also stared directly into a camera not once but twice:

yeah man. idk either.

and lastly, if you remember last week lando ran into alex's grandma at the airport. alex albon posted photos of her at the end of the race weekend with a signed lando norris cap and the caption "left suzuka with some souvenirs...well grandma did"

moving on from that. mr leclerc. the miserable soup can. tho this week he was not miserable at all. i know! i was surprised too!

first! we have the tiny mystery dog:

his name is leo leclerc. in pretty much every photo of him charles is holding him like a tiny purse or perhaps the way sharpay evans would hold boi in high school musical. and many, many people were keen to point out that not only! can he be friends with lewis hamilton's dog roscoe next year, but also, he seems to have taken a page out of lewis hamiltons book in getting a dog and naming it after his biggest rival (roscoes name is quite close to nico rosberg and leo pretty much means lion which is max's nickname) (in case you dont know who nico rosberg is, worry not we will get to him at the end of this post)

and then, more interestingly, we have the launch of lec. charles's ice cream. and let me tell you, if anyone could have managed to look miserable while eating ice cream, it would have been charles, but alas he did not. there is life in his eyes this week!

tho he did say a few things that made me and others fear for his mental state, including comparing ice cream flavors to ferrari potential:

and oh yeah did i mention the flavor names are insane??

vanillove. salty carammmmel. peanut caramel tango. swirly pistachi-oh! and chocolate crunch.

and, as we know, charles and lewis will be teammates next year. lewis is vegan (and has an interesting affinity with vanilla ice cream but well get to that later) and charles had this to say when asked about making a vegan flavor for lewis:

"we were talking about it the last time on the track! he has this new alma project of his, which is very nice because he has developed a new soft drink, while i have ice cream. so surely, one day, when he arrives at ferrari, we will celebrate with my ice cream and his drink."

he was also asked by the italian press "to verstappen, what can we offer to him? chamomile ice cream to calm him down a little bit?" and charles said this in response:

"no, we have a good relationship. what im interested in is beating him on the track to start with, and that's what we're working on. i'll also give him the flavor he likes and then we'll try to beat him on the track."

which is all kinds of unhinged. especially coming from the same week that he got a dog and basically named it after max. (they still dont follow eachother on ig lets remember)

it was also pointed out by a few people, mainly on this tumblr post, that this had the same but also opposite energy as lewis saying this back in 2014 about if he remembered the first time he met nico rosberg: "I remember the first time I looked at girls. I remember when I met my girlfriend, the first time I had sex... But I never actually think about the first time I met Nico. I don't remember things like that." which is just. what a thing to say. anyway, we will get to brocedes later on this post and this will all make sense. or perhaps it wont. brocedes is an enigma.

now you might be wondering Why an f1 driver would make ice cream, given the fact that they adhere to pretty strict diets due to the weight restrictions on the cars and all that. well, aparently, that was the very reason why charles decided to make the ice cream in the first place:

"as a professional athlete it is crucial for me to maintain a healthy lifestyle where my performance is strongly linked to commitment, training and fitness. this, however does not prevent me from indulging in some small little forbidden pleasure, particularly that of a food i love."

which is to say, he definitely made his own ice cream brand (which has like protein and less calories in it or something) so that he can eat a whole pint of ice cream after he gets fucked over by the ferrari strategy once again.

and how does it taste? couldn't tell you, its only in italy and i live in the us. so if someone wants to teleport me ice cream i would be unbelievably pleased.

another driver was also hungry this week, but not hungry for ice cream, sweet treats or even food (well perhaps food. you do kind of need that to live), nay he was hungry for a contract renewal.

can you guess who it is?

if you guessed logan sargeant...well you would be incredibly incorrect.

but if you guessed fernando alonso, you would be right!

he extended his contract at aston martin. we dont know exactly how long it is, but it is multi year, meaning that he will be at aston until at least 2026. the aston martin team announced it in the funniest way they possibly could.

fernando also said This about the contract extension, which is intriguing and amusing:

"This is the longest contract I ever signed in my career. Something that will keep me linked with Aston Martin for many years to come.”

which leads many people to think that after hes done racing for them hes going to stay on as an engineer or a coach or an advisor or something else. which would be silly and goofy and evil of him as usual.

also on the contract hunt is one carlos sainz jr.

as we know, he was supposedly offered a contract at audi (currently stake) for 2025, but! he was also reportedly offered a mercedes contract!

this may come as a shock to many people because 1. mercedes pretty distinctly said that they hadn't been talking to carlos, 2. kimi antonelli is set to test driver a merc f1 car this week and 3. toto said last week (more or less) *cue austrian accent* "well you know the driver market is very fluid and we do not want to rush into any decisions blah blah blah"

reportedly though, carlos has not signed it because of the terms of it.

the contract that he was offered is a 1+1 contact, meaning that he is signed for one year with the opportunity to resign for a second year if hes doing well. he wants to be on the same contract at george russell, who has a 2+1 contract.

merc is probably doing this because they want to keep their options open for 2026. the options being signing kimi antonelli. who they really, really dont want to lose to another team (red bull).

also in terms of contract news, aparently red bull are reportedly considering re signing checo for 2025. this is rumored to be a 2 year contract. but he has to keep performing to the level that he is now. and historically, checo starts the season well and then it goes downhill.

and lastly, apparently yuki is reportedly on audis short list if carlos goes elsewhere

which takes us to an update on the open seats:

red bull: 1 mercedes: 1 ferrari: 0 mclaren: 0 aston martin: 0 alpine: 2 haas: 2 williams: 1 stake: 2 vcarb: 2

and now for the highlight of this post, the social media nonsense:

starting with the red bull marketing team making liam lawson read this script for a video:

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A post shared by Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing)

the general comments were "now he understands why checo and max dont like the marketing team"

also going off the rails this week was williams who posted this:

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A post shared by Williams Racing (@williamsracing)

alpine posted these two photos for pet day:

mercedes posted these photos of george, lewis and a child from the japan weekend:

max verstappen said this last weekend about f1 academy:

“There are girls, but much fewer than boys. For example, our team now only has boys riding. But if there is a fast girl among us, then of course we want her too. That's just how it is in the real world, isn't it? Team bosses don't look at whether someone is a boy or a girl. It's about how fast they are. It is good that Formula 1 now pays extra attention to women in motorsport with the F1 Academy, although I have doubts about how they approach it. The cars they drive are way too slow. If you ever want to get them into Formula 1, it really has to go to a higher level. It's nice and nice that girls are now sponsored by Formula 1 teams, but what do we actually help them with? There is no next step for them now. For example, the gap to a Formula 4 car is already too big.”

george russell is back on his shirtless (and toes out?) instagram pictures kick:

sir lewis hamilton won a gq global creativity award, where he was named and honors as a "f1 transcending powerhouse" and he also absolutely slayed the outfit game as per usual

zhou posted more content of his cat sweet corn

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A post shared by 玉米粒 SweetCorn (@ymlzhou.jpg)

and there was other stuff (carlos continues to seemingly bike across all of europe as does valtteri, logan and alex went golfing, several drivers went to the monaco tennis finals something or other etc etc) but thats the most important highlights

and so. without any further ado. a (very very abridged version) of the blood feud between sir lewis hamilton and nico rosberg

but before we get there, in case youre thinking to yourself, wow saph, your writing is so interesting and compelling! how do you do it! the answer is that i might not have a college degree in shitposting, but i do have a college degree in both history and writing, which together is a deathly combo that i wield like a very very dull double edged sword. in any case, should any of you want to read a more full length and in depth version of this feud, i am writing it out a la insane academic paper with the help of a few friends. why isn't the full version on this post? well this post is already too long and were barely at race 5 of 24 plus this is about the 2024 season and this drama is more than 10 years old. also, i did very very fully intend to have the insane brocedes lore post done before i updated this, but that is not physically possible so for now you will have to deal with this short version. and when i finish it, i will post it and link it here on this post for your viewing pleasure.

regardless. the blood feud.

was any real blood spilled? i have no idea. but nico rosberg did end up under a sink at one point in a hotel room in japan. thats neither here nor there tho and we dont know any more than that other than that it happened.

the feud is called a few things. the brocedes civil war. the silver war. the hamilton rosberg rivalry. any way you spin it, its about lewis and nico. and who might these two be? well im glad you asked:

we are already familiar with sir lewis hamilton:

8 7 time world champion, knighted by the queen of england, mercedes driver, owner of one dog named roscoe, enjoys surfing, fights for equal rights, all around good guy

and our other player, nico rosberg, who i have mentioned a few times:

1 time world champion, ex formula 1 driver for williams and mercedes. from germany but lives in Monaco, essentially a YouTuber, married with two daughters, now a sky sports presenter, was called brittney by the other drivers back in the day because of his hair.

tho this is Current Cool and (mostly) Chilled Out lewis and nico. which is. not the lewis and nico were talking about. nuh uh. at the time of these tales, these two were general pr nightmares and teammates at mercedes. lewis was not yet knighted. they were not nearly as reserved or chilled out At All. and over the course over the four years they were teammates at merc they managed to go from this:

to this:

(yes that is nico throwing his p2 hat at lewis i think this was in 2015 after lewis had just won the championship again. and it wasnt a friendly little toss toss. he wailed it across the room)

and these two. as you might have guessed. good freaking lord. theyre something.

so. we've talked about rivalries. we've briefly touched on charles and max, and lewis and seb, and we've talked about friendships like carlos and lando. lewis and nico put all of them to shame.

again, i will go deeper than this on the other post that is not done yet, but heres what you need to know to understand this season:

-as i said, these two used to be teammates, first in karting when they were kids and then again years later when they both finally made it to f1 at mercedes.

-because they were childhood friends, the lore here runs very very deep. both have said some of the best times in their lives were when they were teenagers trashing hotel rooms, wrestling and eating pizza and vanilla ice cream and kelloggs frosties late at night between karting races

-they were pretty unlikely friends. lewis grew up pretty poor and his dad worked 4 jobs to support his karting, he was bullied and dealt with a lot of racism. nico grew up wealthy as the son of an f1 world champion. both of them were different than the other karting kids (in opposite ways) and this is probably what drew them together

-they were teammates at merc from 2013-2016. this coincided with Peak Merc Dominance (beginning in 2014) and it was man against man from 2014-2016 as they both tried to beat the other in the championship. ultimately, this is what caused their friendship to deteriorate because they both became transfixed on beating eachother. after rosberg wrecked lewis's monaco race in 2014 lewis said that they were no longer friends, and there was also the scene where rosberg THREW his p2 hat at hamilton in the cool down room in texas in 2015 (pictured above), among many many other things (not counting all the times they crashed into eachother) (perhaps on purpose, perhaps not)

-lewis won the championship in 2014 and 2015 and basically, nico refused to be a second driver to lewis and wanted to beat him, he came very close in 2015 and then sacrificed literally everything (as in. stopped sleeping in the same bed as his own wife levels of sacrificing everything) in 2016 to beat him and win the world championship. including his friendship with lewis. he says that this was because winning the championship was his childhood dream. (his dad was also an f1 driver and had won the world championship).

-the championship in 2016 came down to the last race in abu dhabi, and reportedly nico was so nervous beforehand that he couldn't eat anything beforehand except for kellogg frosties, the very same cereal that he and lewis would eat straight out of the box as teens, but now they were hardly on speaking terms and he was battling him for the championship. they were playing all kinds of mind games with eachother at this point. this was the era of f1 where yeah you knew merc would probably win the race but you tuned in to see if nico and lewis would kill eachother on track. nico ended up winning the race and the championship and announced his retirement from the sport a few days later at the fia prize giving ceremony

-since then, lewis basically refuses to say nicos name and is generally awkward about the whole thing, but he and nico reportedly live in the same apartment building in monaco and lewis gets nicos daughters presents at christmas. nico pretty much looks murderous any time anyone suggests that lewis has lost his touch with racing or with the car and has said that in his heart lewis is still his best friend.

-lewis chilled the fuck out after this, complete 180 style. started being a pr dream, stopped calling out other drivers for not following him on twitter, doing activism, all of the good stuff we know him for now. theres one really heartbreaking interview in 2021 where they ask him if hes a better driver than he was in 2016 and he says "yes. and a better teammate."

-why is this important? well. nico as i said is a sky sports presenter and he is going to be at the chinese gp next week. also, you lot have been asking me to talk about them and simply there was no other place to put this.

-also, this has been lewis's worst start to an f1 season in his whole career (18 years). this is the first time that he hasn't had a top 5 finish in the first 4 races. yes, he has already signed with ferrari, but people are still wondering if hes lost his touch with the car, or if the car just kinda sucks. and i think nico is going to shoot some absolutely firey looks over this.

-also theres probably going to be a decent amount of talk about mercedes at the china gp because of all the contract talk going on around mercedes right now, so good to at least be somewhat familiar with the merc lore

and speaking of china! again! i remind you all! i am not watching the chinese gp live because i am being smited by my work schedule! the update will be late! but it will come! trust me! its also going to be an absolutely bonkers weekend! i know i say that every weekend but!! im feeling it in my baby seal boots this time!! does anyone even read this far on the post!! idk anymore!!!!

reguardless, thank you all for watching me loose my mind once again, ill see you all at some point next week :)

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

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

under the cut we go

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

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

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

so let’s meet the teams.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

let’s meet our drivers!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

feel free to add on and peer review me