zayniegal

[zayniegal]

[zayniegal]

Oliver that’s literally just an emoji

[zayniegal]

yup. definitely charles' child

📷 @/antoinetruchet

[zayniegal]

I was rewatching a monaco vlog and kept wondering how the fuck he fit a grand piano in his house

it's sooo beautiful tho i love steinways

crane

[zayniegal]

End him Nico

[zayniegal]

I'll never get over the picture of teenage seb watching michael drive for ferrari... and teenage charles watching seb for ferrari... and teenage ollie watching charles drive for ferrari.... the ferrari dream never dies no matter how many hearts it breaks.

[zayniegal]

[zayniegal]

number 1 & 2 of best 50... power couple fr 😁

[zayniegal]

🚨 Max Verstappen was spotted driving around Monaco in his boyfriend Charles Leclerc's Ferrari 488 Pista Spider

[zayniegal]

Max Verstappen & Charles Leclerc were the only ones who didn't lose a single position on Lap 1 when starting on pole.

My Goats 🙂‍↕️

[zayniegal]

thinking about Charles sneaking his hand on Max's waist in the 2 miliseconds he found to take and his arm lingering while pulling away as Max holds his neck like a kitten tonight

[zayniegal]

I can't stop thinking about how all the other popular pairings (Ch*rlos, Carl*ndo, even Land*scar) rely so heavily on the PR around them. They thrive on the fact that they are publicly friends/teammates. (In the case of the first pairing that is the ONLY thing they have going for them). Meanwhile, lestappen are out here without any public connection to each other, without any joint PR, they're so not publicly friends that they don't even follow each other on sm. And yet... and yet we get so much content of them when they don't know they're being recorded, of them just talking or playing padel or hanging out with the same people and it makes you wonder. It makes you wonder indeed.

The power they have in the fandom, the popularity they have, all that with barely any targeted content. And no, RBR admin posting videos of them talking after a session recorded from far away does not count as content, because where are the song guessing videos, the team games etc etc that all the other pairing get? Nonexistent.

Lestappen has gained this immense following out of nothing. If we got regular actual lestappen PR content I genuinely think their popularity would be scary. If they are beating everyone in ao3 like this what numbers will they do if we had ACTUAL content like the other popular pairings get? Because the numbers all those other pairing are doing is BECAUSE of the PR. And everyone is lying to themselves if they say it's not. Half of these ships would die if there was no content I'm being so serious right now.

And yet here lestappen are. Please think about that for 2 minutes and tell me you don't want to go jump off a cliff.

[zayniegal]

I know we joke about Charles being Max's emotional support rival, but today? Max made it painfully obvious he's smitten—head-over-heels, can’t-think-straight, hopelessly in love smitten. What do you mean you have your pregnant girlfriend sitting right next to you, and yet you’re completely ignoring her, laser-focused on Charles as if he’s the only person in the room?

[zayniegal]

a short story about how oscar became a carrier pigeon for max and charles:

[zayniegal]

why did no one talk to me about this.

[zayniegal]

2013

2022

2024

Lestappen at the FIA Gala through the years

[zayniegal]

This year has really been one for breaking the misconceptions for Charles. Systematically dismanting the common criticims one after another.

1. Makes too many mistakes - the consistency this year has been out of this world.

2. Is not good in wet - the Ferrari car is shit in wet (as opposed to the Redbull or Alpine, which shine in these conditions) and still he was able to get a pole (kind of) in the mixed conditions in spa in a 4th quickest car of that weekend and not crush out in any of the wet races (as opposed to Carlos who is praised for his wet weather ability or at least that's my perception).

3. Needs quickest car and everything to go perfectly on the weekend to win - Monza anyone? Let’s be honest this was a strategy blunder from Ferrari to pit him this early and he still made it work somehow.

4. Is only good on Saturday - C’mon, 16 positions gained throughout the race (in car that was not the fastest that weekend), winning from 4th on the grid twice, no penalties, the example of the most beautiful racecraft of the season.

5. Does not preform under pressure - flawless in Austin from turn 1, did everything he could in AbuDabi, won Monaco (with the expectation that he will, no mistakes, flawless) and Monza (the mounting pressure of the McLaren rocketship)

6. Crashes too much - only crash he had in competitive session was being squeezed in the middle of 2 other cars, other than this pretty much unavoidable damage to his front wing, he did not get into any scrapes

Some more questionable ones:

1. Is not vocal enough with Ferrari - Charles has been much better at expressing his negative opinions this season.

2. Relies too much on the pit lane — honestly I think this is not a great take anyway, as strategizing from the cockpit is only praised in case the driver still did what he was told and later we all theorize what would have happened (with the high sight of knowing what did happen while the people making the call do not have the future info but have other data we will not see). Charles did call the one stop strategy in Suzuka which went incredibly under radar. Yes there has been questionable calls in Silverstone, but I would leave that one with the growing pains of new race engineer driver pair that was not really tested in wet yet and move on.

And bonus (I did not see these as common criticisms, but he went above and beyond):

- He mastered the race start this season. So many positions gained in turn 1 (or first lap). Always ready to capitalize on the battles before him - just a joy to watch.

- His tire management was the best on the grid this season (this is something he used to be criticized for as well once upon a time).

He really is the driver of the season for me (I can accept arguments for Max, but noone else).