f1disasters

[f1disasters]

[f1disasters]

wait would you u want to explain the context of multi 21?

MULTI-21: A HISTORY LESSON

MODERN ASSUMPTIONS:

it has been over a decade since the 2013 malaysian grand prix. as the years have gone on, people have forgotten, or smoothed out, the minutiae of it.

when people talk about multi-21 nowadays, it tends to fall under three headings:

• evil supervillain seb was addicted to winning and didn’t care about his team. selfish emotionless robot. got booed for a year and deserved it

• cunty brat seb was a disobedient child and refused to listen to his team and faced no consequences ever because he was red bulls special little boytoy

• poor mark webber was betrayed by his team as he had been for five years. the win was his and seb stole it

but of course, nothing is ever so simple

BACKGROUND

by 2013, sebastian and mark had been teammates for 5 years, and part of the extended red bull “family” for 7.

when they became teammates in 2009, mark was the older, more experienced head. seb was the young wunderkind who already had a race win under his belt, more than mark had.

(ironically, mark won his first race in germany in 2009. seb wouldn’t win his home GP until 2013. seb has since called mark’s 2009 german gp win as one of the most impressive drives he’s ever seen.)

anyway. let’s go back in time. it’s japan. it’s 2007. and it is raining. it’s lap 45, under the safety car after alonso crashed out. the rain is TORRENTIAL, and mark (red bull) is running in 2nd. he’s so sick that he’s vomiting in his helmet. seb (toro rosso baby. 20 years old) was 3rd. hamilton was leading, and braked quite dangerously. seb was caught out by this, and crashed into the back of mark. both of them had been running in the podium places, and both had to retire. mark called seb a kid without experience fucking it up. seb cried in his garage. this is the first time they crash. mark later referred to it as the first time they made love on track because he’s a freak

fast forward to turkey 2010. they are teammates now, and have been for over a year. fuji 2007 had largely been forgotten. water under the bridge. they are fighting for the championship against ferrari and mclaren. mark got pole, but around lap 40 seb had caught up to him as mark had to save fuel. they “merged towards each other” (generous). mark didn’t give seb enough space, seb was too over-eager. people will have different opinions. unless you’re helmut marko, who will always back seb, since seb is a product of the red bull academy whereas mark wasn’t. mark went on to finish on the podium, seb had to retire. seb was PISSED! (sexy). this is seen as the start of the “rivalry” by many.

britain 2010. aka the mark-webber-slams-water-on-desk moment. seb was given the new front wing from marks car for qualifying because he was a better qualifier because his had broken in fp3. he would ultimately get a puncture in the race, whilst webber with the old wing came first, and graced us with the “not bad for a no.2 driver” radio message.

so, where are we by summer 2010 and spring 2011? fuji was no one’s fault really, turkey was six of one half a dozen of the other, but mark felt the team favoured seb. britain made that feeling CONCRETE in marks mind. then seb won the title in 2010 after not leading until the final race of the season. in the press conference before abu dhabi 2010, seb kept getting asked if he’d let mark past it if would win mark the championship, and he kept evading the answer. see, mark had been ahead in the championship, but he qualified 7th while seb got pole and won. so, come 2011, webber was convinced the team favoured seb. however, seb was by far and away the better driver.

so. britain 2011. an underrated moment of the vettel webber rivalry. mark qualified on pole, with seb p2. seb quickly took the lead in the race. later on in the race after some botched pit stops and drama, mark was close to seb. red bull told mark NOT to pass seb.

mark ignored this team order. he tried to pass his teammate, but ultimately failed to do so. it’s often forgetting in vettel/webber rivalry lore that mark was the first of them to ignore a direct team order. the difference was he just wasn’t able to make the overtake. here are two interesting quotes from just after the race:

and now. brazil 2012. another forgotten multi-21 backstory. it was the last race of the season, and seb was fighting for his third straight championship, only alonso could possibly beat him. mark qualified 3rd, seb 4th, and alonso 8th. seb had a rocky start to the race, which resulted in him being hit from the back & spun around. he pulled off the mother of all recovery drives to win the championship. alls well that ends well right? wrong. horner admitted a few years ago that seb felt that mark was to blame for the rocky start by forcing seb into the wall. horner even went as far as to say that this lack of teamwork was directly in sebs mind when malaysia 2013 came around. that that was seb’s revenge.

conspiracy theorists will say that mark forced seb towards the wall because he wanted his mate alonso to win the championship over his teammate. definitely possible but not confirmed.

so. here we are. malaysia 2013. it’s been 5 years of crashes, ignored team orders (mark), favouritism (seb) and finally an almost championship-ruining shove towards a wall.

seb qualified on pole, mark 5th. but mark took the lead after the first round of pitstops. around lap 46, seb was gaining on mark, who was on old hard tyres. team orders came through for seb not to fight mark. multi 21 literally means that car no 2 should stay in position ahead of car no 1. just as mark ignored team orders in britain 2011, seb ignored them here. the only difference was seb actually got past. mark was furious (“yep that’s good teamwork!”) seb, a bad liar, was hilarious (“i was really scared… all of a sudden he was moving… i had to…”) horner was regretting most of his life choices (“this is silly seb come on.”)

seb won the race. the most awkward of all cool down rooms ensued (“multi 21 seb. yeah? multi 21”) seb chugged an entire bottle of water. poor lewis hamilton just trying to disappear into thin air. underrated moment is you can see a clip of seb trying to explain something to mark and neither of them are having a good time. on the podium interviews after mark said “seb will have protection from the team as always” - harkening back to his long-felt belief that the team favoured seb, yet ignoring his own history of ignoring team orders, and ignoring brazil 2012.

seb would later apologise.

…

three days later seb would rescind that apology.

(“i was racing i was faster i passed him i won.”)

at this stage, seb had been the dominant driver for four years running and some crowds had grown annoyed at him, so used this as an excuse to boo him at basically every race for the summer swing of the season. seb spoke at the end of 2013 about how hard this was for him, and how he was thankful for the support of his family and girlfriend during the hard times. it’s important to remember that seb was only in his mid 20s when all this booing and controversy was happening. it’s a lot to shoulder, especially when you’re only doing what you’ve always done, what you’re being paid to do: winning.

mark would retire at the end of the 2013 season, though apparently he had already made up his mind before malaysia.

seb would stay at red bull for one more year before moving to ferrari.

when asked in 2022, seb said he wouldn’t change what he did in malaysia 2013. and in my opinion, he’s right.

unlike the mclaren clusterfuck of hungary 24, there was YEARS of history between vettel and webber before multi-21. grudges, crashes, hurts, pride, friendship, rivalry, championships lost and won. this was the cumulation of their entire careers to date, all of their mistakes and their motivations for better or for worse.

basically, it was never so simple as “seb ignored team orders because he was an arrogant brat” or “poor mark the team never liked him” it’s… well it’s all of the above. cheers for reading. fuck me i went on a bit

[f1disasters]

in conclusion, mclaren and red bull have caused so much chaos that they’ve made ferrari look like a competent, functional team with capable strategy 💀

[f1disasters]

you’re telling me that this season both mercedes, both ferraris and both mclarens won but not perez and he is driving a redbull

[f1disasters]

we have a piastri maiden win, a mclaren 1-2 finish for the first time in years, lewis and max collided (again), the girls (max and gp) are fighting, perez in the points, but NO it's the mclaren strategy screw up and the frankly embarrassing team radio calls which will be the talk of the season

piastri i'm so sorry you felt the need to apologise, you deserved a better maiden win like this <3

[f1disasters]

charles you are so beautiful and sexy and talented and sweet and hardworking and beloved and kind and you hold a special place in everyone’s heart we missed seeing you so much. fred you are bald. carlos

[f1disasters]

always count on Ferrari to turn a car that starts the year well into something that even your worst enemy wouldn’t want to drive

[f1disasters]

george is such a concept. like they've taken a 9-year-old british boy and stretched him out vertically and then stuck him in one of the fastest cars in the world and made him a psycho about driving while simoultaneously having him speak in the most british way known to mankind. i love him a bit

[f1disasters]

“Your notebook’s…..rrrrrrrelatively interesting. Sometimes. But anyway, more importantly, this one is…is king. IT’S JB’S NOTEBOOK!”

This is definitely one of my favorite things that has ever aired on Sky Sports F1.

[f1disasters]

the spanish gp is a movie

[f1disasters]

“average f1 driver says 1000 words on the radio during a race” factoid is actually a statistical error. Carlos Sainz who yaps on the radio non-stop for a minimum of 50,000 words per race, is an outlier and should not have been counted

[f1disasters]

aborted formation lap and no leaderboard for the entire session this really is the pineapple of motorsport

[f1disasters]

Canadian GP is worse for your health than smoking, vaping and asbestos

[f1disasters]

Imagine racing in that fucking race fighting safety cars, your teammates, the weather, yellow flags, the board of meteorology, the tyres and at the end they give you this fuckass AI trophy (no literally it'd designed by AI)

I'd start biting people

[f1disasters]

Kevin magnussen overtaking the whole grid just to have the most disastrous pit stop 5 minutes later because they forgot the tires that's my KING

[f1disasters]

me before one of my teams play

[f1disasters]

logan sargeant has outqualified perez in a red bull six times