#i do like that the 2010 one also had more tracks so i had a better idea of the characters and their interactions when they're not singing

[loverboybrightsideghost]

la cage aux folles musical. that is all.

[astonmartingf]

MISERY ; MW2

mark webber x rbr race engineer! reader

. . . fuck sebastian vettel and fuck his goddamn race engineer who he can't help but think about all the time. he's bitter, jealous and in misery.

amgf finally i've moved everything 🎉 yay! everybody cheered!! i'm so happy and excited, i'm going home for the week and i'm writing the heck out of that alo fic and doab will be finally over 🫠🫠🫠

death of a bachelor ; masterlist

[2009]

With the way the Australian was acting one would say he’s bitter. Fighting the urge to roll his eyes every time you laughed at something Seb said, which wasn’t even that funny. Maybe you were trying to be civil, but Mark wasn’t having any of it. 

Not only was he fighting for his seat in Red Bull, with the addition of a newer and younger driver he was about to be replaced. The team finally made a car competitive enough to race for podiums, but instead of attacking for points he’s left behind the dust of his teammate Sebastian Vettel.

YN who was now assigned to Vettel- are not only starting to form a better relationship, but also score more points. Not that YN nor Vettel was to blame, the sport is already complicated in a way with changes and upgrades, not everything is constant. 

And as much as Webber wanted to work with you, with how things are looking it’ll be better with both of you to do different things. You were Vettel's race engineer, and he stuck as the second driver.

[2010]

He can’t seem to pinpoint the root of his frustrations, but every time he hears your voice in the background of the team radio, talking and congratulating the fuck out of Sebastian and his pole position, he turns into this miserable monster who wants nothing but to silence you.

This of course hasn’t got unnoticed by the younger German driver who was observant, nosy, and attached to you by the hip. It seemed like wherever you go, Sebastian would follow like a lost puppy on the track. 

Which only irked the driver more, adding to the long list of unexplained frustrations in his head, eating him up. “You know, with how much you’re frowning, it’s shocking it hasn't formed into a unibrow yet.” 

Mark glanced up to see the one and only Sebastian Vettel with a goddamn awful smirk plastered on his face. Clearly he knows what’s up, rolling his eyes as the Australian raised his middle finger in front of the younger driver.

An audible gasp left Sebastian’s mouth, “You shouldn’t do that to me, I can help you know-” teasing the older driver.

Raising his brows Mark pulled Sebastian closer to him, whispering in his ears, “I don’t need your help mate, now go on and annoy someone else.”

“So… I should just go talk with YN then.” 

The mention of your name whips his head back to Sebastian, smirking as if he caught him in action. Pressing his lips into a thin line, Sebastian nods, slowly putting two and two together.

“There is something going on with you two… YN had mentioned you a few times in our conversations.” 

Mark knew better than to react, there’s no way he knows. But the thought of you speaking about him, he couldn’t help his curious nature. Turning around slowly he could hear the German’s stifling laughter. “Spill it.”

“On second thought, I think it’s time for my debrief with YN. I guess you’ll have to figure it out next time.” Shrugging his shoulder, Sebastian walked the other way leaving Mark no time to chase him.

“For fucks sake… Get a grip Webber.”

[2011]

The only thing that developed from last year was his relationship with Sebastian, it boosted the morale of the team but more importantly it put him in conversations with YN. From a bystander’s view it’s embarrassing to see his efforts go to vain.

Especially with Sebastian’s new found knowledge, he teased the Australian often. This time he learned not to blame YN, hearing Seb talk about how you’re always busy prepping and forming strategies, as well as the pressure to perform in meetings.

He could barely catch you since you were all over the paddock, nose buried in different papers looking at data, triple checking results for Sebastian. On the way from the small set prepared for the DHL Fastest Lap Award he was shocked to see YN walking beside him.

“Congratulations on your award.” Mark froze, he had not expected this at all. He’d been looking for you, biding his time to form a conversation, yet here you were congratulating him.

“Are you looking for Seb?” Mark spoke without speaking, wincing at his reply- there were definitely better responses but why would he assume you’re looking for Seb after congratulating him.

“You don’t like talking to me much? Seb has been talking a lot about you, you’ve gotten quite close these past year.” Mark stayed silent, waiting for you to say anything more.

“But I’m not here for Seb, I came looking for you actually. You deserve that award, and many more. I guess I’m just proud of you.”

This revelation came as a surprise to Mark. Bewildered, he asked more about your statement. “I thought you hated me.”

“I don’t think I ever hated you Mark, if anything else- you should hate me.”

Brows furrowed in confusion, Mark was lost. But he knew he would get his answers soon, “Why would I hate you?”

Placing your hands deep in your pockets, slouching as the corners of your mouth form to a frown, “I disappointed you Mark. Though, I’m glad to see you winning now. You did it by yourself, and I know you will continue to do better.”

[2013]

It all happened too fast. In the corner of the pit wall you stare at the screen as you watch Sebastian overtake Mark, you froze. You wanted nothing more than to run and leave, but at the same time you were stuck in your seat like a deer in headlights.

Hearing the radio beep, Sebastian’s voice was drowning in your train of thoughts and in the background you picked up the voice of Mark speaking to his own engineer. Closing your eyes, you take a deep breath before responding to Sebastian.

The whole situation is out of hand, and despite you not agreeing with his actions, you have to focus on your work that needs to be done and prioritized before anything else. Just like you always have.

At the end of the podium celebration you found yourself hiding inside the team garage away from both drivers, knowing fully well you couldn’t take the stress from it all. As much as winning with Sebastian felt good, not only for the team but for your career, it also brought out the worst parts of yourself.

You didn’t know you could be this calculative, greedy, and the hunger from wanting all the wins took a toll on you, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally had you drained. You felt miserable, and worst of all- you felt yourself to blame for what happened. 

All you wanted to do was run away, there was no longer a voice of reason- the sport became unenjoyable for you, and there was no longer hope for you to get back and enjoy the sport like you used to.

Sitting in silence, you jump at the sound of Mark’s voice muffled behind the door. “YN? Can I come in?”

“It’s okay to come in.” Your voice comes out thin, hiding your face in your arms. “Are they looking for me?” Peeking over, you catch Mark kneeling down beside you.

“Nah, they’re just cleaning up. Are you feeling okay? Do you want to talk about it?”

It took you a few years to approach Mark once again, blaming yourself for his past results. As a race engineer it was your responsibility to support and ensure the drivers of their performance. You worked hard behind the screens, drowning yourself in data in the hopes of finding ways to improve.

You sit in silence, slowly relaxing as you lean on Mark’s shoulders, “It’s not your fault you know, not now and definitely not before.” 

“How are you so sure of that?” 

Mark hummed in thought, “Because I spent all those years blaming myself as well, I thought I wasn’t capable of putting out results and when you were with Seb, I can see your genuine happiness whenever he’s winning. Something we never got to experience together, I think it’s unfortunate but it’s definitely not your fault. You should know that, I don’t blame you now.”

You nod to yourself, “You blamed me before? I’m glad to hear that, I was inexperienced and only had myself to blame.”

You feel Mark laugh as his shoulders rise and fall, “I definitely cursed you in my head more times when we were together, but I learned then. And look at us now, we’re definitely better than before.” 

“I’m sorry, Mark. I could’ve done more.” Pressing his lips, Mark nods to himself.

“I understand YN. I wouldn’t lie if I say I’m not flattered that you chose to support me, but don’t ignore Seb for too long.” 

“I’m not ignoring him at all, I just want space to think clearly.” You rise from his shoulders, facing him for the first time. Your eyes puffy from crying.

“And, what did you think about?” Mark asked, wiping the tears rolling from your eyes.

“I’m thinking of quitting after the season.”

yourinstagram

liked by aussiegrit, oscarpiastri, and 648,297 others

yourinstagram it's been a while in the paddock but good luck to our boy oscar <3

view 97,461 comments...

aussiegrit thank you for coming and for the nonstop support love ❤️

sebastianvettel let's meet up soon

yourinstagram sure seb, i miss you and hanna

user1 their boy oscar WOW

user2 why are you casually dropping this????

user3 i'm here from twitter and it's a mess

user4 i just read the webyn thread

user5 we're all here from twt???

oscarpiastri thank you so much for coming to see me!

yourinstagram good luck on your first race! we're proud of you

user6 yn left and came back as MOTHER!!!

user7 this is single handedly making me look forward for the 2023 season in the hopes of seeing mark and yn on the paddock

[drvscarlett]

About You Pt5

Sebastian Vettel x Webber!Reader

Summary: Everyone knows about the history of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. But there's a well kept story within the paddock about Sebastian Vettel and another Webber. This is that story.

About You Series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

A/N: and its a double update!!! im showcasing a lot of side characters that will eventually be a huuuuge part of the plot (winks). also the brewing tension. let me know what you folks think about this

Taglist: @spideybv28 @randomcuboidshape @mehrmonga @casperlikej @cliosunshine @honethatty12 @randomgirlnumber-13 @sugyomama @ririyulife @skywalker1dream @vicurious28 @cristianovettel @callsignwidow @gothicwidowsworld

2010, Istanbul Park

The necklace sits heavy on Y/N's neck. She had been fiddling with it the whole morning. There was something about the internal and unspoken pressure happening in the Red Bull garage ever since both of their drivers tied their points for the championship. She have heard more conversations here and there about who would Red Bull side with, their older driver or the rookie.

It was very stressful for Y/N to spend time with the two drivers involved with the discussions.

"Nervous?" Sebastian noticed.

"Can't help it" she gave a weak smile.

"For me or for Mark?"

Y/N had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. As if she hasn't had enough of this whole which driver would you pick to side on. She just gestured that her lips are sealed meaning that she won't take anyone's side.

"Stop trying to get my sister on your side" Mark apparently overheard the conversation "Blood runs thicker than water, am i right sis?"

"I'm not gonna comment on that"

"See what you are doing to my sister, you are ruining this family Seb" Mark overdramatically reacts

"Your sister is my bestfriend, get over it" Sebastian rebutted.

Bestfriend.

And just like that, there was a pang in Y/N's heart. Maybe another factor of the heavy feeling is that she has been doing her best to bury her feelings for Sebastian. But after the whole Monaco pre-birthday thing, every effort that she has to bury her feelings is thrown out of the window. She was hopelessly inlove with the man and Sebastian was very blind about it.

"Just have a good race, okay?"she reminded the two.

"I think we will score some good points today" Sebastian confidently stated.

"That's the fighting spirit" Mark cheered on.

It was moments like this that Y/N was reminded that the two Red Bull drivers are not fighting each other as the team pictured them to be. They may showcase competitiveness during the races but that's just normal. Outside the track, the two share a very friendly atmosphere with each other.

Soon, the two set off to go their respective cars. Y/N watched the race outside of the driver's room for a change. Ever since, she started to hear the gossiping of the Red Bull crew about Seb and Mark, she opted to be more around them. She wanted to know what they are saying to warn the drivers or make a possible plan on how to resolve if ever the situation escalates.

The race started out well with Mark leading comfortably. Sebastian was behind and Lewis was next. It was going really well for Mark and if Y/N have to say it then he might win another race. Sebastian, on the other hand, has been challenged by the two McLarens of Hamilton and Button.

Then it happened all so quickly.

Y/N let out a gasp as the two Red Bull drivers crashed with each other. One was sent down to the gravel while the other managed to push back to the track. Y/N was too focused that she didn't notice that the cameras were pointed at her.

'Y/N Webber

Mark Webber's sister and assistant, Sebastian Vettel's bestfriend.'

The whole garage was in shambles as the radio messages from Sebastian sounds really angry. The amount of swear words in the radio was a stark difference from the jolly Sebastian that she was speaking to a couple of minutes ago. Y/N looked worriedly as Sebastian goes to the stewards.

"It was Vettel's fault"

"No, Mark Webber wasn't looking and giving him space"

"That's stupid, it was clearly Sebastian Vettel's fault"

Watching the replays, Y/N hates to admit it but this one is on Sebastian. She could hear the discussion even becoming more rampant as Sebastian reaches the garage.

A permanent scowl graces his face as he talks to Helmut and Christian about the incident that occurred. Y/N followed to check up on him and she can't help but overhear the conversation.

"That was not right, this shouldn't have happened" Christian lectures "It will cost us a lot of points with the two McLaren looking for two podium finish today"

"Don't look and point fingers at me, I'm not the only one who crashed" Sebastian clearly not thinking his words through.

"Sebastian this should never happen again, understood?" Christian firmly ordered

"But it isn't right to blame Sebastian, the boy is right there were two of them there" Helmut comes to the defense of Sebastian "It was clear that Mark did not make way for him resulting to the crash"

Y/N felt herself getting red. It was clear as a day that the crash was not caused by Mark. It was getting clearer for her that someone has been playing favorites.

"See, you better have word with Mark" Sebastian said.

"Unbelievable" Y/N muttered.

She was taught that if she couldn't say anything good then she probably shouldn't say anything at all so she walks away. She decided not to show herself even after Mark got a podium finish.

Her sudden disappearance did not go unnoticed but Sebastian just let her be.

2010, Silverstone Circuit

Things at Red Bull garage has gone from bad to worse. It was difficult now to hang out with Mark or Sebastian as the two drivers have intended everything to be a competition. Y/N didn't want to see any part of this which is why she is currently doing babysitting duties at Mercedes.

It was a weird set-up seeing how one of Red Bull's employee is staying at the pristine white facility of Mercedes—she sticks out like a sore thumb. But Mick Schumacher only wants Y/N to be with him as he watches his father race. It has always been that case ever since Y/N met Mick when he was around 4 years old.

"Y/N, are you not scared for your brother and Seb?" Mick asked as the two of you watched the cars go out for the formation lap.

"I used to be scared" she still is "But its something that they love"

"Mama says Papa gives her a lot of stress when he races. I hope there is no aksident"Mick's tone was with a slight worry.

"Your Papa will be okay, he is a legend"Y/N assures.

The cars are now slowly lining up to the starting grid. Sebastian was on pole while Mark was the 2nd one so they were sharing a Red Bull front row. It only made Y/N worry even more because race starts are quite chaotic here in Silverstone.

"Mark and Seb must be really lucky to be at the front"Mick commented

"I sure hope so"

The lights started flashing and the infamous lights out and away we go went off. It was indeed chaotic at the start with Sebastian and Mark neck to neck with each other. They were both trying to take the lead even if it means pushing the other off track.

"OH FUCK" Y/N immediately covered the ears of Mick as the collision was broadcasted.

Mark managed to go through but Sebastian had puncture. The German was obviously mad for losing crucial places.

"What happened Y/N to Mark and Seb, I thought they are teammates" was the confused question of Mick.

She sighs. Her thoughts are echoing what Mick just said. What happened to them.

"Mick,they are still teammates its just that they also have to compete with each other. Its a sports and sometimes we lose,sometimes we win"Y/N tried to explain it to 10-year-old Mick.

She could already imagine the chaos in the Red Bull garage. She hears the commentaries that maybe this was Webber's revenge for Istanbul. The headache that will emerge for her after this whole race will be very difficult to ignore.

"Y/N if I become an f1 driver,would you come see me?"Mick asked

Its like heaven sent an angel in the form of Mick for Y/N. When she hears him talk it feels as if the world is slightly a little simpler and better. How she wish she lives in that same bubble as Mick.

"I won't crash, I promise"Mick added

Young Mick is still very young but he really dreams to be a Formula 1 driver like his father. Y/N could feel grey hairs developing if she sees Mick in an F1 car.

"Of course Mick"

"Good"Mick grinned "Oh look Y/N your brother is leading! Go Mark Webbahhhhhh"

The cheers of the little Schumacher made Y/N grin. She will deal with all the Red Bull stress later.

2010, Hockenheimring

Usually, Y/N likes getting her coffee at the catering but she doesn't feel like interacting with any Red Bull team for this morning. This is why the Webber girl is seen queuing up in a local Starbucks.

She was just about to sit down and wait for her coffee when a random man bumped her. It sent all her paper flying and Y/N could only grumble since the man didn't even look at her to help.

"Some people these days lack manners"she huffed in frustration.

It was a good thing that someone was helping her picking up the paper. She looked at the bracelets adorning her wrist and the long blonde hair tied up into a bun, thank God for a woman.

"Thank you so much for helping me" Y/N started "You really didn't have to"

"Nonsense, it will be rude to just stare at you picking up your papers"the woman has a thick German accent, similar to Sebastian.

She is probably local, Y/N thinks.

"Still thank you" Y/N politely insisted "Do you want to sit with me, the whole cafe is full"

"Of course"

Y/N wasn't usually chatty but the woman is very comfortable to talk to. She mentioned that she was a local but she lives a bit far from here and that she was only here for the weekend. Y/N shared how she is also here for the weekend.

"Wait are you going to watch Formula 1?" she quizzed

Y/N was about to answer when she heard the call of the barista. he quickly picked up her coffee and went back to her new friend.

"No way, you are Y/N?THE Y/N Webber?" the girl repeated.

Y/N chuckled. It wasn't usual that she has been recognized by formula 1 fans. She felt red as she admits that she is a bit flattered that she knows her name.

"I didn't know I am famous around here"Y/N joked

"Sebastian always talks about you, I was really looking forward to see you later at the garage"

Oh? Y/N thinks there is only one Sebastian that she knows.

"My name is Hanna, Hanna Prater" she introduced "I'm Sebastian's childhood bestfriend"

2010, Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

Sebastian was bitter. He felt as if he lost a golden opportunity by not being able to score any points today. He is so bitter that he choose not to celebrate with the team tonight and he intended to stay holed up in his hotel room.

However, after a while,he grew tired of the hotel room walls so he ended up walking at the rooftop of the hotel.

Only,he wasn't the only one there.

"Hey stranger" he called out "I haven't seen you in Red Bull garage for a while"

Y/N turned around and she smiled when she met his eyes.

He doesn't understand how she does it but everything seems to melt in the background when she does this. It felt like he was back in his rookie days when they met up at the rooftops and talk for hours. It was much more simpler back then.

"I have been busy.. socializing" Y/N replied.

They both know that was a lie. Y/N was obviously using socializing as a front when in truth is she doesn't like to mingle with the toxicness of the Red Bull garage. But, Sebastian lets it slide.

"Is it bad that I missed you and I want you to stay at the garage?"Sebastian popped the question out of the blue.

"I'll be there as Mark's sister and his assistant, I don't think it will work well with the situation" Y/N informed.

There it goes again. This was that line that Sebastian has been hindering him to confess or ask her out.

It felt so stupid that he can flirt with anyone with ease but when it comes to Y/N, its so hard.He shouldn't have been scared of Mark, he is never scared of Mark (and it shows multiple times on track). But the thing that Sebastian knows is that Y/N has high regards for her brother and Sebastian didn't want to put a strain in their family.

"How are you feeling with the race today?"Y/N asked, diverting the topic.

"I could have been better." Sebastian sighs "Maybe I should train over and over again"

"Don't push yourself, you are still in the pool for the championship" Y/N assures

The championship. It's everything that Sebastian has ever thought of lately. Its within his reach and he really wants to extend a lead with it but somehow its not working. He really thinks that there is a high possibility that he can get his first championship this year.

"The championship must feel really nice" Y/N comments as she observes the smile on Sebastian's face

"I mean that's why were all racing dangerously" Sebastian chuckles.

No sane man would want to race in harsh conditions or beyond normal speed limit without any incentives.

"Just don't lose yourself"Y/N said "I worry about you Seb"

He acknowledges that. He is not dumb that the Red Bull crew has been pitting him and Webber against each other. In the end, it places a pressure on both of them to perform well because all that Red Bull cares about is who will bring the victory. The more likely victor will be the more favored one.

"We'll be alright" Sebastian comforts.

Even if this is all a lie, the two finds that comfort and repeat it to themselves. Maybe if they repeat it a lot then maybe it will end up coming true.

[mecachrome]

pre-mclaren oscar piastri primer (ft. maxf, landoscar)

0. introduction

for a few months now i've been wanting to make both an oscar primer and a timeline of pre-mclaren landoscar moments, but i couldn't figure out which one to prioritize… then after some deliberation i finally realized i could just combine the two things together! so. here is an oscar-centric timeline that is mainly about his racing background, moving to the uk, and how he became acquainted with other members of the rfm pack—aka lando, maxf, and logan. i don't know whether any of this information is useful or even vaguely interesting, but i mostly just wrote it for myself and thought i'd share what i had in case anyone else wanted to check it out. please feel free to comment or shoot me an ask if anything here is egregiously incorrect; i've checked and linked as many sources as i could but it's of course possible that some errors remain :)

1. background, rc racing, early karting days (2007-2015)

oscar piastri was born on april 6, 2001 in brighton east, a suburb of melbourne not far from albert park circuit, as the son of chris and nicole and to-be oldest brother to 3 younger sisters. a love for all things automotive ran deep in the piastri family: both of his grandfathers were mechanics and his father had also co-founded his own vehicle diagnostics software company, hp tuners, aka oscar's sponsor throughout his racing career. thanks to his father's business, oscar's family was objectively well-off and managed to contribute a fairly substantial amount of support toward his junior career, but they also weren't swimming in cash by multi-millionaire motorsport standards either.

(L-R) mae, edie, hattie, and oscar, from nicole's twitter — each sibling is ~2 years apart (source)

while most drivers on the current grid were introduced to motorsport through go-karting, usually at or before the age of 7, oscar's path to single-seaters differed slightly. he first developed an interest in racing via remote-controlled cars at the age of 6, when his father brought him a monster truck as a souvenir back from a business trip in america. oscar began racing them that same year, eventually moving to safer electric track vehicles and even winning the second class of the national titles in 2010, at the age of 9. he was so small then that he often needed to stand on a milk crate to see the cars on track, and the next-youngest competitor at the time was twice his age. (source)

oscar on the podium at age 8 (nov 16, 2009)

oscar with his father chris, who often competed alongside him in a separate class (dec 21, 2010)

by 2011, oscar and his father were seriously considering his potential of pursuing rc racing as a viable career path, but things changed when he was introduced to karting via a friend's daughter in the rc community and his aspirations slowly shifted toward racing from inside a car. oscar was an unsurprisingly sporty and competitive child growing up; he'd played some cricket and aussie rules football and knew that all he wanted to do was race professionally, full-stop, at the time thinking along the lines of australian racing categories like v8 supercars. he was still competing in remote car racing as late as 2013, but he began karting seriously within australia in 2014, placing respectably in the junior categories of several regional karting series against relatively senior and more-experienced racers, and even going to france for a one-off event where he finished on the podium of the iame international junior x30 final. this outing affirmed his potential to his father and motivated the two of them to split time between australia and europe in 2015 as they juggled his karting future; plans for two more european events that year fell through, including the cik-fia world championship at the kfj level (which logan sargeant would go on to win), but at this point they were officially looking to take his career to the next level and commit fully to european karting in 2016.

this is when ricky flynn (and the hypothetical idea of lando norris!!!) comes in. before we get into rfm and karting professionally in europe, it's important to note that the defining aspect of landoscar's junior careers is that their pathways never once intersected. in fact, they don't even seem to have met properly before oscar entered the f1 grid as alpine reserve, although they'd spoken over social media and oscar was familiar with several people around lando's life—for example, maxf, logan, guanyu, and even lando's older brother oliver, who had also raced for rfm.

in short, you could say that landoscar's biggest hindrance was their parallel excellence. oscar was good enough to catch up and even surpass everyone else at lando's level, but lando remained untouchable throughout the years. oscar is only 1.5 years younger than him, but their f1 careers are offset by 4 years (2019 vs. 2023 debut) because of exactly two things: oscar's 2022 gap year in alpine and his two attempts at formula renault eurocup. on the other hand, lando sped through all of his junior categories in blistering fashion, falling short of the championship only once: the year he placed 2nd in f2 behind george russell. this is significant because many talk about the clinical nature of oscar's rapid single-seater ascension and three b2b2b victories (still very impressive, especially given his limited karting career!), but all of that speaks equally to the illustrious nature of lando's junior success and the sheer magnitude of faith placed in him as mclaren's "golden boy" coming up the ranks. to put things into further perspective, lando was teammates with maxf and jehan daruvala at rfm until 2014, jehan competing in the same class and max one below, yet by the time oscar was racing max and jehan—in f3 in 2020 and f2 in 2021, respectively—lando was already into his 2nd and 3rd years of f1. here's a chart that hopefully makes a bit more sense:

majorly simplified timeline showing lando, guanyu, maxf, logan, and oscar's junior careers + the karting classes they primarily competed in each calendar year. maxf did not complete his 2nd f3 season and many of them contested multiple/different formula renault series, but this is just a rough overview of their feeder series experience. 

2. moving to europe, rfm, regional formulae (2016-2019)

back in australia, oscar was a member of the oakleigh go-kart racing club and being actively mentored by james sera, a multi-time australian karting champion and fa kart dealer who worked with young karting talents alongside his cousin david. in late-2015, he presumably helped oscar and his father reach out to ricky flynn, who ran ricky flynn motorsport (rfm) and whose team was at the time enjoying exorbitant success in the karting scene; lando had won the world championship at the kf level the year prior, and logan would soon clinch the kfj title in 2015, results which further drew oscar's interest toward the team. ricky flynn agreed to take oscar on and have him and his dad move out to europe, and by november 2015 oscar announced on social media that he would be joining rfm the next year. in january of 2016, he and his father moved to hertford, uk, so that oscar could begin a 100-day karting program and travel extensively around europe to attend races. this is where he met logan sargeant, who was in his final year on the team but competing a class above, now at the ok (previously kf) level. oscar himself was only competing in the okj class.

not oscar-related, but as you can see guanyu, logan, and maxf were already acquainted before oscar and logan met, since the three of them and lando had been in rfm together as of 2014 — (may 11, 2014) & (feb 6, 2015)

oscar and logan in 2016

in an interview published on june 7, 2023, oscar reflected on leaving australia and committing to his racing dream, saying:

"i think if there was a turning point, it was probably when i started finishing towards the front in australia, and i started winning a couple of races here and there and finishing in the top three of championships and stuff, and then went to europe and fully committed to going down that route. [...] there's obviously a very big commitment at that point when you move halfway across the world without family and stuff. so i knew at that point that i really wanted to become a professional because, firstly, that's what i want to do anyway, but, secondly, now i'm sacrificing seeing my family, and stuff like that to be able to do this — which was a sacrifice i was more than willing to make."

like the majority of oscar's karting career, his time with ricky flynn can primarily be summarized as decent. none of his performances were particularly stellar, and in november 2016 he placed 6th in the fia world championship final behind the likes of victor martins and théo pourchaire (he mainly competed against guys like them, dennis hauger, caio collet, etc… once again logan was a class above and lando/maxf had already graduated to single-seaters), but he showed promising racing foundations and a great capacity for improvement, especially given that he'd moved to europe the same year and was still adjusting to life and racing on the opposite hemisphere. about 6 months into his new karting venture, oscar had settled in reasonably well and his father decided he would return to australia to continue on with his life, so they made the joint decision that oscar was to begin boarding at haileybury's uk campus and continue racing in europe entirely on his own. uk and australian school years are misaligned, so my personal understanding is he moved to europe after finishing year 9 in australia, attempted online school/took a few months off (he says he did online coursework here, but mentioned here that he was out of school, so it sounds like it must have been a very half-hearted effort…), came back to australia over the uk summer to do some more karting, then began boarding in september 2016 as a year 10 student. he spent ~4 years there and eventually received his a-levels in 2020, except his final year was disrupted by covid and he never sat his exams. (blog post mentioning his a-levels + btg transcript excerpt about his exams; his website says he attended haileybury from 2016-19, but i think this mainly encapsulates his boarding period, as he was still doing remote work in april 2020.)

oscar in f4 with his gcse revision guide, 📸 sebastiaan rozendaal (may 20, 2018)

2016 is also when oscar began his well-documented super-liking of several of lando's social media profiles. i think understanding oscar's time in rfm and his extremely british single-seater origins helps better paint his history with lando and maxf; my personal understanding of pre-mclaren landoscar is that while oscar never formally met lando or maxf during his karting days, he knew of them quite well through rfm and thus followed them on instagram/twitter after moving to the uk. of course, oscar has a fairly active social media presence in general, so young oscar quietly liked instagram posts and tweets from many different people, but i do feel compelled to note that in the early days he liked lando, maxf, and logan's posts with seriously impressive frequency compared to anyone else on the grid (or anyone in general, really); after creating his twitter account in may 2016, some of the very first tweets oscar liked were from maxf, and he also liked a multitude of mundane lando tweets from 2016 until… today, while on the other hand he didn't start liking george's tweets—another similarly-aged young british talent—until late 2017. (he does have some fun george-admiring moments though, but that can wait for another time!) outside of rfm, other people oscar was familiar with during his early racing years were british f4 teammate ayrton simmons, to-be series champion jamie caroline, and old australian karting friend christian pancione, who appears to still be one of his best mates (if not his best) as of today. fun fact is that christian raced for the carrera cup as a support event to the australian gp in 2023; here's oscar allegedly checking the quali live timing at lunch during his own media day. 

so, to conclude, oscar's early lando focus basically traces back to the motorsport path he took at the behest and guidance of his early rfm connections in the uk. the thing is that despite growing up in australia and vaguely admiring several aussie drivers in f1 as a child (read: mark webber and eventually daniel ricciardo), oscar has never had a specific driver he consistently mentions when pressed for his racing "idol," likely since his personality inherently resists idolatry and he instead views successful people more as actionable benchmarks or reference points for self-improvement rather than as unattainable paragons of accomplishment. as a kid forced to grow up almost entirely on his own, the majority of his racing aspirations were molded independently in the uk—he completed his karting career in the uk, boarded at haileybury for 4 years (fun fact: other drivers to attend include jehan, callum ilott, and clément novalak; callum was a few years above oscar and finished school in 2017, but the two would later become quite talkative over social media anyway), raced in british f4, became a brdc member, contested eurocup under a british license and therefore had the british flag raised and british national anthem played during his wins, stayed in the uk even at alpine since the factory is based in enstone, etc. oscar basically moved to the uk from australia without having really met anyone significant in the racing scene (other than jack doohan, or more importantly jack's father mick, but jack is younger and did an extra year of karting) and pretty much didn't have anyone specific to "look up to" at the time. oscar's first acknowledgement of lando's online existence was in december 2015, when he liked one of lando's instagram posts prior to moving to england, so it can be assumed that lando basically functioned as his most accessible reference point in the junior ladder as a 14 year old dipping his toes into the european racing scene for the first time. that is my highly subjective analysis of the situation!

select quotes re: oscar's inconsistent responses to his motorsport "hero" (or his favorite driver / a driver he looks up to in general):

(f1fs; mar 9, 2022) "i started watching f1 in… 2009 was the first season i properly watched. so when brawn came in, obviously mark was the only aussie on the grid at that point, so i was kind of naturally going for him. then joined by daniel, so obviously going to support the aussies, but i think watching lewis has been nothing short of spectacular, and a very good role model. [...] i think when i was first watching, i supported mark, but, you know, and i hope he takes no offense to this—vettel was winning everything at that point. so i was supporting mark, but vettel was doing most of the winning. i think now that i understand more about racing though, i would say [the driver i look up to the most is] lewis, mainly. the way he goes about things on and off the track is quite exceptional."

(mcl youtube; mar 29, 2023) sporting idols mentioned: ayrton senna, alain prost, michael jordan (see also ultimate athletes list)

(p1; aug 10, 2023) "i would say i never had like one specific idol. when i was growing up watching mark webber was at red bull, and obviously being australian, red bull being very quick at the time, i kind of naturally followed him. i mean—even like some of the guys in the junior ranks above me. like lando was always kind of two, three years above me, winning… most things on his way up. so i guess kind of him in some ways?"

(eff won; dec 4, 2023) "i don’t really have like one specific [idol]. i think what lewis has been able to do in terms of getting to seven world championships was incredibly impressive. i think what max is doing now is also very impressive…" 

the first lando post oscar liked on instagram (dec 21, 2015)

the first maxf posts oscar liked; instagram (feb 26, 2016) & twitter (may 9, 2016)

anyway, back to british f4! despite his initially unconventional foray into motorsport, oscar's journey progressed in a much more orderly fashion once he stepped up to single-seaters. his actual debut was in f4 uae, which he ran 3 rounds of between 2016 and 2017 (another fun fact: this is where he briefly acquainted himself with mclaren indycar driver david malukas, who would later recall him being very intelligent and whom zak brown allegedly spoke to oscar about before appointing to their indy team). after cutting his teeth on actual car-racing for the first time, oscar decided against moving up to the ok class as he felt confident in his ability to be competitive in single-seaters. his first full season was therefore the 2017 british f4 championship, during which oscar signed with arden while logan went to reigning champions carlin (lando had won with them in 2015, then maxf in 2016). oscar made his way to the top step 6 times in the season and placed just barely above logan for 2nd in the championship, finishing behind the considerably more experienced jamie caroline. arden was also founded and is currently owned by red bull team principal christian horner, so it was during oscar's time there that christian took note of and interest in his talent; oscar reportedly did a few runs in the red bull simulator but was passed over for joining the academy, which christian later voiced regret on. (source)

maxf, logan (center), and oscar (to max's right) on a day maxf was visiting the 2017 british f4 grid (april 11, 2017)

linus lundqvist, oscar, and logan on the podium at snetterton (jul 30, 2017)

jamie and oscar, who were… er, mathematically in the main championship fight. for some reason they made them take these photos (sep 30, 2017)

after a successful f4 outing with arden, oscar returned to the team for his first season of formula renault eurocup in 2018, a renault series that ran in its specific configuration until 2020 before merging with the parallel regional series frec to become what is today known as freca. this season proved to be less competitive for oscar, as arden was relatively inexperienced in this series and oscar's three teammates were afflicted with what can colloquially be referred to as a "skill issue," making it difficult to collectively develop the car throughout the season. (blog interview) the series was thus returning driver maxf's to lose, who at the time was racing for reigning champs r-ace with teammates that included oscar's fellow rookies logan and victor martins.

despite the unideal environment, oscar managed to prove his worth by placing a respectable 8th in the series, scoring 110 points as a rookie driver and capping the season off with 3 podiums and a top-finish of 2nd place—a jarring contrast to his teammates' joint total of 12 points. this result attracted the attention of r-ace and granted him a seat with them for the 2019 season, at which point maxf and logan both graduated to f3. thankfully that wasn't too much of a concern for oscar since he'd always intended to do two seasons of eurocup, and now he finally had a chance to win the first serious championship of his racing career with an established racing outfit.

oscar, max, and yifei ye on the hockenheim r2 podium (sep 23, 2018) [full gifset]

oscar's second season of eurocup is when he truly started proving himself as a driver, or at least to the people whose names, money, and opinions mattered around the paddock. his main competition in 2019 was again victor, who was now racing for mp and had been made a member of the renault sport academy back in 2018 after a strong performance in french f4. despite a close title fight, oscar managed to hold him off for the championship in the final race of the season, kicking off what would soon become an impressive string of consecutive single-seater series titles. even sweeter was the fact that all eurocup champions were awarded a renault sport academy spot that could be left or taken as they pleased, and of course—while the finances weren't nearly as impressive as alpine would later proclaim in their baseless smear campaign—oscar's connections in the racing world were limited as an australian driver almost exclusively managed by his father, so he gladly accepted the offer for the many venues of support renault presented to him.

see also: bby oscar briefly mentioning lando after winning eurocup in 2019 (@ 1:10)

oscar being lifted by his team (r-ace) after placing 4th in the abu dhabi finale and winning the title by 7.5 points

3. renault sport academy, lockdown, f3 (2020)

many things happened in 2020. one: oscar became an official member of the renault sport academy, joining the likes of max (who'd been picked up on merit after winning british f4 in 2017), guanyu, christian lundgaard, caio collett, and fellow new recruit hadrien david (victor had been strategically demoted after oscar's win because renault is a notoriously unserious organization, but again this is not the post). two: by the time oscar was ready for f3, moving up the ladder proved to be exorbitantly expensive, and he realized he needed better funds and managerial support to sort his career out. he'd been offered a spot in prema's f3 team by team-owner rené rosin at the end of his eurocup season, who'd named him for the post-season test before the championship was over and stressed that the spot was his no matter where he finished. (source) prema is unquestionably one of the top—if not frequently the top—teams one can drive for in most junior series (though there is also somewhat of a self-selection bias; if you ask oscar he is not a significant beneficiary of prematax!), having absolutely demolished the f3 competition that same year and achieved a clean sweep of the drivers' standings with rob shwartzman, marcus armstrong, and jehan at 1-2-3 consecutively. oscar completed post-season testing with them in spain alongside to-be teammates logan and fred vesti in october (source), before confirming on jan 26, 2020 that he would be joining them for the f3 season as a renault junior.

so, where does mark webber come in here? apparently mark's trainer from red bull and wec had also been oscar's trainer since 2016 (i'm pretty sure this is australian physiologist simon sostaric), and it was through their joint connection that oscar was introduced to mark. according to mclaren's 2023 season preview, "the pair hit it off, and webber took his countryman under his wing," signing oscar to jam sports management, aka the management agency he runs with his wife ann. mark's support would become a major factor in helping oscar progress through the feeder ranks and establish himself in f1, mainly because he had actual connections and could help oscar network with sponsors and negotiate his way during future signings. of course, more on this later.

as an aside, here are a few things mark has said about oscar:

"he’s got that white line fever when he puts his helmet on and turns into a different character, which is sensational." (mar 1, 2020)

"one of oscar’s biggest strengths by a mile, compared to everyone he is competing against — and this will be a huge string to his bow when he makes it to f1 — is his composure. he has immense levels of composure. [...] if you are weak mentally you won’t make it. he was on his own from an early age. he did brilliantly with his studies. but the racing disease would not go away, he wants it very much." (sydney morning herald; dec 11, 2021)

"he’s a prost, mate. he’s such a thinker and so calm. at first i thought i needed to inject a bit of urgency in him, but actually no, he’s got his own frequency. that’s just where he is." (the race; oct 7, 2023)

estimates provided by chris piastri on the cost of oscar's junior career, stressing the million-dollar commitments of running a single season of f3 or f2 (source)

anyway, back to the chaotic events of 2020. i think something that's good to keep in mind when discussing oscar's time in the renault sport academy is that he was actually a relatively new recruit, as in he only participated in a single training camp with the other juniors in 2020 and most of them (max, christian, guanyu, the temporary ghost of victor) already knew each other before. oscar essentially met with renault's factory team in early 2020, filmed promotional material with other juniors in january before attending the season opener together in february and then heading to winter training camp later that month, after which he and max left early for f3 pre-season testing in bahrain on march 1—a blessing in disguise, seeing as caio, hadrien, and christian remained behind and would soon be stuck quaranting in a hotel in tenerife—then briefly spent a week at school before returning home for what was meant to be a quick pit stop at the australian gp, which at the time had yet to be canceled.

then, of course, lockdown happened.

simplified breakdown of renault junior stints, notably showcasing the academy's struggles to meaningfully promote any of its juniors

oscar at the 2020 renault season opener alongside then-academy director mia sharizman, then-tp cyril abiteboul, alain prost, f1 drivers esteban ocon and daniel ricciardo, and the other academy juniors: fewtrell, lundgaard, zhou, david (feb 12, 2020)

oscar and maxf behind the scenes of the same event (feb 12, 2020)

stuck in australia for three months, oscar would end up participating in two fia virtual races, one for f2 and another for f1 (jun 7, 2020). a fun landoscar tidbit is that he finished 5th in the virtual gp right behind lando, so they technically had raced each other before 2023, depending on... well, whether you count a 2020 sim race wherein george russell and alex albon lead the pack as a real race. nevertheless, this was a time when drivers were becoming much more active online, seeing as streaming was the best way to keep their images relevant and connect with fans, and despite oscar expressing little interest in streaming on twitch he would still experience a considerable uptick in his online activity and twitter reach that year.

racing resumed on july 4 at the red bull ring in austria; oscar had been granted an exemption to travel to the uk and complete a 2-week quarantine back on may 27, a reassuring indicator to the motorsport world that the f3 season would run after all. now that he no longer had to attend school, having received 2 b's and 1 c for his maths, physics, and computer science a-levels, oscar relocated from hertford to oxford in june to be near the renault facilities, which he visited nearly every day to train at, and began living independently (as in in a flat) for the first time since 2016, rooming with fellow renault junior caio collet.

as i said before, this season is when oscar's online presence and "memeability" began to really conceptualize, enabled primarily by the fact that he was a) finally living outside of a school dormitory, and b) now, of course, signed at prema, a team notorious for its social media visibility, literal family atmosphere, and frequent youtube pandering. according to this f3 article, his twitter followers jumped from 795 at the start of the season to 11.6k by the time he won the championship, an audience built significantly off the self-deprecating string of jokes he used to tweet regarding drs and general reliability issues faced throughout the season.

what i guess i want to touch on here is how oscar's online presence has always been concentrated around the bare fundamentals of his personality: dry humor, candid words, sparing emojis, a few humorous photos detailing the mundane reality of his everyday routines, and at most the occasional inopportune meme or reaction gif (#thepiastri 🤷‍♂️, f2 in baku, jetpack guy, so on). he's bantered frequently with callum on twitter and near-obsessively liked memes, videos, and other updates lando shares with his audience, but he also has seemingly little interest in building up his own "brand" the way lando so smartly has with ln4 and quadrant, and quite frankly seems viscerally incapable of wanting to engage one-to-one with fans or otherwise leveraging the popularity of his material image. basically what i like to say is that oscar enjoys being adjacent to "lad humor" and will happily enable it, but he really has no interest in being the one to initiate it himself!

"there's some things you want to share, some things you don’t. in today's age and sort of having the profile that us drivers do, we kind of just have everything shared,” piastri said. “but (social media) can be used for good, certainly within the profiles that we have. but in some ways, it can be negative, and there's always going to be people out there that don't like you for being you.” piastri tries to write as many of his posts as possible, and he checks those written by his team to be sure they sound authentically him. (the athletic; jun 29, 2023)

along these lines, oscar does enjoy the spotlight, only he seems to prefer it concentrated in a specific lens toward a specific productive end. he's endlessly capable of seeing the objective upside of a situation, joking after he was made a meme in baku following his f2 sr1 collision that he was all for it if it got him popularity. after his eurocup championship he also said: "i think everyone loves a bit of spotlight on them. i think that's just human nature, so a bit of attention's always nice." which is interesting to me!

but back to racing. this season would unexpectedly become two things: maxf's last competitive season in motorsport—especially disappointing considering that he'd gone into the championship expecting to put on a second-season title charge, instead failing to gel with the hitech team to the point that each increasingly poor weekend made him spiral mentally—as well as oscar and logan's last season racing against each other before f1, since logan would later encounter financial difficulties that left him stranded in f3 as oscar catapulted himself to f2 victory. 2020 was obviously a weird season in general because of covid and the gap from pre-season testing, so it also meant that oscar had gone into the season fairly rusty; he managed to win the first race of the season, but on top of his drs rollercoaster he did struggle with middling results in qualifying and was met step-by-step throughout the championship by logan.

maxf's last race in f3 was the barcelona sprint race on august 16, with three rounds left to the end of the season. he dnfed in an unfortunate first-lap incident mere moments after oscar charged his way up from 5th on the grid to the front of the pack, where he would eventually breeze his way to victory and pull himself near-level with logan for the championship lead. i recognize that this is an oscar post and not a maxf post, but i think their time in f3 during an extremely isolated and covid-affected period speaks to both an interesting dynamic between them (the little kid who always lagged a series behind you suddenly beating you on merit) and their respective temperaments toward racing. while at renault, max reportedly lived with jack aitken during the week but would return to his family home on weekends, so it makes sense that he struggled to adapt when covid hit and drivers were collectively forced into very regimented sporting bubbles. mark webber, who worked for channel 4 as a commentator and had access to the f1 paddock, basically couldn't see oscar in person and instead spoke to him over the phone every day on race weekends. maxf said of his decision to quit:

"normally [...] i’m able to stay calm under pressure and i don’t let many things get to me but when you have a bad qualifying result and you see guys up there that you know you’re capable of beating, it definitely takes a dig at you inside and it’s been a lot to process throughout the year." (source)

while then-academy director mia sharizman, who worked closely with the renault juniors, spoke of oscar's inherent propensity for independence and how he adapted well to the pressures of living on his own:

"if you look at oscar piastri, he has been living on his own, [away] from his family who are in melbourne for the past five to six years. because he has been living on his own in boarding school, he learns how to live on his own, and he thrives in that. we have to force him... 'have you spoken to your father?!' it's just things like that, but he thrives in that. that's why he thrived in those weekends racing. he loves being on his own without anybody. on the other hand, we had max fewtrell, for example, who can't – he couldn't survive the 11 weekends racing, because he always needed his family to be around him. so those are the things that suddenly you see and, i think that that we see now, after a few years a driver who is quick, a driver who has the talent, and then the driver who is stable." (source)

2020 is also when lando and oscar spoke to each other on twitter for the first time. yay! after lando went semi-viral for having a meltdown over a hornet on three separate social media platforms, oscar first joked with him about it on august 24 (this was incidentally also the day maxf announced his functional retirement, which oscar liked as well 😭), before referencing the incident again a few weeks later in september.

(aug 24, 2020) / (sep 10, 2020)

outside of drs tweets and trying desperately to banter with lando norris, oscar's popular tweets at the time included several food-related mishaps and home appliance tragedies. while this isn't actually a lando moment, he was also slandered by the LN4 twitter account a month later on october 17 for reasons that remain a mystery, resulting in this set of interactions:

(oct 17, 2020) / (oct 19, 2020)

bonus: maxf's tweets @ oscar (when you aren't close enough to just text him.......)

but back to f3. similarly to his second season of eurocup, oscar would go on to clinch the title in only the final race of the year, this time even more stressfully—he never got pole that season and won arguably off of consistency, benefiting from errors and unfortunate collisions involving his primary competitors. after a hectic qualifying and string of contentious grid penalties set for the before-last round in monza, he began the feature race 15th on the grid but put on an impressive performance to finish on the podium, buffing his points lead after logan was tapped by clément and put out of the points. he, logan, and fred all dnfed in race 2 (read: the novalak pendulum swung away from oscar's favor to maintain stringent cosmic equilibrium, while logan and fred threw away a points opportunity with a teammate4teammate love tap), and oscar went into mugello with only an 8-point lead over logan and a 24-point lead over pourchaire. this weekend proved equally hectic, as is frequently the case with f3 racing standards, but in short oscar and logan entered the final sprint race level on points, with théo approaching terrifyingly near in their rearview mirrors. logan was unceremoniously taken out of contention on the first lap after contact with zendeli, and oscar managed to squeak his way to 164 points in the championship by placing 7th in the race; théo finished 3rd, with 161 points, two positions away from claiming both the race and the championship title.

a succinct summary of an eventful season! (posted jun 30, 2021)

despite winning the f3 championship in far-from-dominant fashion, oscar's career was now steadily on an upward trend. on october 30 he was rewarded with a private test in the r.s.18 at bahrain alongside christian and guanyu, and a month later confirmed that he would be racing for prema again in f2 (december 1, 2020). as a rookie f3 champion there was a moderate amount of interest in him, but no one really expected him to carry home the f2 title on his first try and so one of the main favorites going into the next season was his second-year teammate and 2019 f3 champion rob shwartzman.

4. f2, alpine reserve duties, #piastrigate (2021-2022)

at the start of 2021, fernando officially took daniel's place at renault and the team rebranded itself as alpine, parting ways with team principal cyril abiteboul and functionally replacing him with new ceo laurent rossi—part of a no-tp management structure, frankly a self-evident infrastructural faux-pas from a million miles away. the renault sport academy was then also renamed to alpine academy; again i know that this is an oscar post so i won't get too into the details of Alpine Being Alpine, but understanding how the academy functioned does help better contextualize the inevitable unfurling of piastrigate.

the main issue, really, would always be laurent rossi, or at least the values laurent rossi had been hired to represent and which he willingly peddled during his controversial tenure at alpine. after rossi's appointment it was reported that "the renamed alpine academy was now being tugged in two directions between director mia sharizman's ideal as a creator of future f1 drivers and alpine's chief executive officer laurent rossi's commercially-led preferences." (source) mia directed the academy from january 2016 until may 2022, and had been the one to restructure its recruitment process by demanding better funding and robust testing programs to cyril:

"when we first restarted the team in 2016, it was, we didn't even have a two-year-old car program at that time. we had to use a 2012 program using the [lotus] e20. [...] then in 2018, i went through it, and i said to cyril abiteboul, "look, let's try and do this." we needed financial resources. i needed a head start with financial resources to kick start the program whereby you entice drivers, and you offer [a place] to the academy drivers. it was more to see how they are... it was more of an evaluation process... that was what the first idea was. then we developed the program to develop the drivers to suit their formual 2 program." (source)

(note: mia also believed that 2020 was a disappointing year for all of his juniors save for oscar's performance in f3, which is a whole other thing. but rossi's greatest shortcoming was that he had singular, insulated vision, and he resisted any external input to the detriment of reactionary business decisions, a fact that alienated alain prost and soon led to his exit from the outfit in 2022. not a good look!!! prost would later call rossi "the best example of the dunning-kruger effect, that of an incapable leader who thinks himself able to overcome his incompetence with his arrogance and lack of humanity toward his troops." 🤌)

so basically, the cracks of mind-boggling incompetence within the team's leadership structure were long evident. on a brighter note, oscar's 2021 f2 season would quickly become his strongest single-seater contest ever (f1 youtube has a good summarizing video of his season, if interested); because of covid, f2 was experimenting with a three-race format this year in which quali set the reverse grid for sr1 and sr1 results then set the reverse grid for sr2, which essentially meant high qualifiers were rewarded for simply maintaining composure in the first sprint and running cleanly in the top 10 in order to secure a favorable grid spot in sr2. oscar adapted well to this format, building off his reputation of smooth, consistent driving on top of slowly improving his qualifying results over the course of the season, finally breaking through with his first feature-race win in monza. 

oscar with mia sharizman

this is also around the time when lando mentioned oscar in official f1 media for the first time, reading off a question about him to daniel in an interview posted in october:

"this one's not even about formula one. it's about oscar piastri. oscar pias-tree! [...] he's been on it this year." — (full video) (oct 1, 2021)

of his own f2 campaign, oscar said:

"i thought that i could challenge for race wins, but i probably wasn't expecting to be so consistently at the front. consistency is something that i’ve had as a trait throughout my career, and i was expecting to be consistent in my results this year — but maybe a bit lower down!" (source)

not only did he end up being consistently at the front, he became virtually unstoppable in the second half of the season. on december 11, oscar clinched the title in abu dhabi with two races to spare, ending the season with 5 consecutive poles and 4 consecutive feature wins, 60.5 points above his previously-favored teammate in the standings. #notbadforashitqualifier!

by now oscar was a hot commodity in the paddock; the only problem was that alpine didn't really care, mainly because rossi had enthusiastically re-signed ocon to a three-year deal in 2021 and held zero intention of actually promoting any of its juniors to one of the race seats, plus the one open spot at alfa romeo had instead gone to guanyu and his considerable financial package (though oscar has always been vocally defensive of guanyu's appointment to his detractors). instead of moving to another series, such as indycar or super formula, oscar recognized that he'd proven everything he needed to prove within the feeder system and opted to remain on the grid as alpine's reserve driver, mainly so that he could embed himself in an f1 team environment and—most crucially—avoid being left "out of sight, out of mind," because once you go to america you usually don't come back.

i'll keep the rest of this post brief since i feel like everyone already knows What Went Down, but a quick highlight for fellow landoscar enjoyers was the 2022 australian gp on april 10, during which oscar accompanied rosanna tennant for the post-race show and awkwardly participated in a chaotic lando & alex interview. as far as i know, this was landoscar's first time interacting on-camera!

o: "i haven't raced either of them, no." l: "not yet!" o: "not yet. hopefully soon." — (full video) (apr 10, 2022)

then silly season started, and everything was thrown into disarray when sebastian vettel announced his imminent retirement and fernando subsequently took his place at aston martin; alpine scrambled to recover from this blindsided move and prematurely promoted oscar to an f1 seat, to which oscar eventually posted The Tweet—claiming he'd never signed a contract with alpine and would not be racing for them in 2023, thus kicking off #piastrigate. or the piasco, or whatever you prefer to call it.

here's a good article that properly summarizes the crb ruling, but tl;dr: mclaren and alpine had come to an agreement back in march to loan oscar to mclaren's stable of reserve drivers after daniel contracted covid; mark webber, who was close to andreas seidl from their time at porsche in wec, quietly negotiated a contract with mclaren for 2023 that oscar would then sign on july 4, which was reportedly initially a reserve deal with an upgrade clause to a full-time drive given a dr buyout; alpine's legal team turned out to be essentially one overworked legal director who mishandled the situation thanks to a lack of organizational support, while a concrete williams deal never actually existed no matter what people continuously allege, and any proprietary right to oscar's services that alpine purported to have for the 2023 season would soon be voided by crb rule on september 2. in other words, they dun goofed.

because tumblr dies when i try to include it in this post, here's a link to a condensed chronological timeline version of this post.

that's it for now. i'm sure you know how the rest goes!!!

[argentinagp]

ALEXANDER ALBON CAREER PRIMER Reblogs are appreciated and if you want to post it in other website you can as long as you give credit! Enjoy! 🫶🏻 Also thank you to the fantastic @hungriestheidi for beta reading this mwah!

Alexander Albon Ansusinha has always had a passion for motorsport. When he was very little his idols were Valentino Rosso (MotoGP) and Michael Schumacher (Formula 1). But the Ferrari driver was by far the number 1 for him, his entire room was red from his bed to the curtains and the rug. He always cried when Michael lost and his mom had to put a race from a VHS where Michael had won. His first word was ‘rrari.

But his first encounter with a kart, at the age of 4, was not ideal:“The first time [in a kart] I was in tears I hated it. I was in Disneyland I think. I still remember crying about it but I just remember stepping into the car, it was like a mini F1 car” - Beyond the grid 2019

A few years later though, when he was 7 years old, his dad bought him his own go-kart:

“We lived in the country back then. Next to our house there was a field on which my father laid out a figure-eight layout with stones. That's what I messed around with every day after school.” from Top Gear. And then at the age of 8 he was finally allowed to drive on a real track, back then it was just him and his dad, Nigel Albon, who was his driver coach, mechanic, etc, and who also was responsible for getting him into racing.

His first year in karting was difficult, he struggled with performance and lack of experience, and, because of his financial situation, it was almost from race to race and he had to adapt very quickly to progress. But, then, he went to Malasya to do one race for the first time away from the UK and he finished that race 4th which gave him a lot of confidence. And this was a turning point in his karting career. After that year and a half, he started to score podiums. It was becoming serious. In 2006 he went on a higher level and his father had to stop being the one to help him and a professional team took over, even though he remained alongside him through all his karting years.

With strong results and titles in England he moved up to KF3 from 2008 to 2010, where he was noticed by Red Bull Junior Program.

“2009 was a good year,” he recalls. “I remember competing against guys like De Vries, Marciello. Then, in 2010, I got signed by Intrepid and went against drivers like Verstappen and Gasly to become European and World Champion. - The Race Box. In 2010 Red Bull Motorsport took him under its wings through its Thai division, they were keeping a close eye on him and more so when he switched to KF1 before being integrated into the Junior Team for 2012. “What’s important to remember is that I was at a stage in my life when I was able to stand up a little, thanks also to my double-nationality. I realise today how lucky I am to be part-Thai because of the interest that it created. There’s no denying that I would not be racing up to this day if it wasn’t for that too.” - The Race Box, 2nd part.

2012 was, as he described it, the most difficult year of his life. Career wise, he started Formula Renault, with Epic Racing thanks to Red Bull, but the whole year he spent the entire year at the back of the field, even if he had some good qualifyings. And this was in part a reflection of his private life problems. “But then at some point it turned and I think, I had some family issues a few years on when I was about 14/15, we like to call it my mom went on a holiday, that changed me. [...] the financial support was gone completely,” - High Performance. In the podcast he also says that this changed the way he approached racing. In karting he was not the most competitive kid and because he had the financial support, racing for him had no real pressure, he didn’t feel like it was a need. But after what happened he did feel the need to perform, he described it as a ‘survival feeling’. Because of all of this his first year in Formula Renault didn’t go smoothly and as a consequence of this he was dropped from the Red Bull Junior team at the end of the year, and he felt like the dream was becoming over.

All this also had consequences on his confidence, “I think I lost a lot of genuine confidence when I had this issue. I went from karting to cars, I struggled with cars, didn’t have the feeling, didn’t have the knowledge of single seaters to begin with. I struggled with genuine life confidence, went from having a lot of friends to no friends, started to be a lot more introverted, so everything started to fall away a little bit, becoming a little bit more fragmented in just how I was as a person.” - High Performance.

In 2013, though, he was picked up by the Gravity Junior Program linked to the Lotus F1 Team, which only lasted for one season. Alex considers it as his first proper year in single seater. It didn’t go well, but he did show signs of potential, a big jump from 2012. “After a tough 2012 Lotus helped get the sponsors to race,” revealed Albon. “I most probably wouldn’t be driving if it wasn’t for them, so I am very thankful for what they have done!“Apart from helping find sponsors, I frequently visit the factory in Enstone where we have our physical assessments as well as individual programs made. We also have a sporting manager at each test/race who is there to speak to the team and drivers, giving advice to both” - The Checkered Flag.

Even though he stayed with them for one year, this allowed him to join the KTR formation in 2014 and he finished in 3rd place in the championship. It was also at the end of 2013, just before 2014 started, when he started to regain the confidence he had lost the previous years, “I just remember there was a winter test, it was in December after quite an average season and suddenly I was now quickest in this test, it was in Portugal, and I was like well okay and and and honestly from that point on just I was quick” - High Performance.

In 2015 he signed with the Signature team making his way to the European Formula 3 Championship, all thanks to his links to Lotus in Formula Renault. He finished 7th overall that season and then moved to GP3.

He also competed on Macau for Signature this year

In 2016 he signed for ART to compete in GP3 (alongside an familiar face, Charles Leclerc). He exceeded all of ART’s expectations by integrating himself instantly into the company and fighting for pole positions and victories from the first race weekend (words from team principal Sebastien Philippe for motorsport.com). “He didn’t need a period of adaptation to become one of the best drivers in the category and he didn’t stop progressing throughout the year. He missed the title by very little and it was through no fault of his own, either sporting or personal, why he didn’t clinch it”.

After finishing 2nd, he continued with the team but now in Formula 2 in 2017. He ended up in 10th place for the championship with only two podiums.

“After the bad results of 2017, I knew there was something wrong. I wasn’t sure of what but I could feel it,” he says. “I stayed with my opinion and didn’t let the team tell me I was in the wrong when they were in the right.” - The Race Box, 2nd part.

One of the problems he faced this season was due to an injury, he broke a collarbone whilst out on a mountain biking training ride and missed the Baku round.

Also this is because I am a chalex enthusiast: in Abu Dhabi he was winning for the entire race before being overtaken with a controversial move in the last lap by Charles. [To learn more about chalex click here and here by @vegasgrandprix]

In 2018 Alex found himself again in a tricky situation: “There was 95% chance I would not race in 2018 until an arrangement was found with DAMS and it really paid off,” he remembers. “I went to the tests, kept pushing and was the fastest on track in one of the two days. Still, I was unsure just a few days before the first race of the championship. And it was like that for the first three weekends and even until June. It was a race-by-race situation.” - The Race Box, 2nd part. Not being considered as a priority choice made him angry to prove himself to the team and he came as one of the strongest contenders for the championship despite the season being made of ups and downs. 

This Formula 2 season in particular encountered problems, not only for Alex, with the introduction of the new Formula 2 car, due to a not great clutch system. This made Alex lose lots of positions in the early stages of the races.

But he could prove his value, he had 8 podiums and 4 wins, finishing 3rd in the championship behind Lando Norris (2nd) and George Russell (1st).

“It’s true that, for most of the season, it has been about Lando [Norris, ed.] fighting against George [Russell, ed.] but I was always behind or in between them for much of the year. Obviously, I think that it’s just the way the British media portrayed their battle. Don’t get me wrong, the two are very-talented drivers but it was nice for me to be up there too.”  - The Race Box, 2nd part.

In the middle of the 2018 Formula 2 season, Alex started to look for options to become a professional. His dream still was to become an F1 driver but offers were not appearing and after calling up Helmut Marko (who had kicked him off from the Red Bull Junior program in 2012) and being told that all seats are full, he signed with Formula E team Nissan alongside Sébastien Buemi.

“The level of competition in the series is intense, and I’m looking forward to testing myself against some of the best drivers in the world,” - Motorsport.com. 

He tested the new, at the time, Gen2 car in Calafat during the off season but he didn't make an appearance during the official pre-season test in Valencia. This is all because in the final race of the 2018 F2 season he received an offer from Helmut Marko to drive for Toro Rosso in 2019.

“It came to the last race of the year and Helmut Marco got me back again. So the one who told me ‘there's no space’ inquired about my simulator Services, that's what he said, he got his PA to come over and speak to me and say do you mind just popping into Helmut's office at the circuit and we had a chat about simulator work, I was actually at the simulator for Mercedes doing work for them, he wanted to know how much I got paid. He agreed to my terms on my simulator contract and then, I don't know what it is, I think it's just something he does occasionally, he was speaking about this contract and as I was kind of walking out the door he was like ‘by the way,  what's your position with your formula e contract, can you get out?’ and the one thing I did make sure in my Formula E contract was to have a clause in it that if I had a Formula 1 offer I was good to go and, I said well you know that's the way it is and he said ‘okay, let me get back to you’ and then within 24 hours it was almost pretty much all done.” - High Performance. 

It wasn’t till this moment that he believed that he could fulfil his dream of becoming an F1 driver: “It was not that clear to me formula one was this obvious pathway that I could achieve. I don't think I'm a normal driver in that sense where Formula 1 was this thing and that's all I thought about that's all I wanted to be, of course I wanted to be a Formula 1 driver but for me to believe it, after everything that I went through, I had to almost prove it to myself, I needed to see it. And I would say, only until I got to Formula 2, until I got the call that I was going to be in Formula 1  did I actually realise you know, I'm in it” - High Performance.

He went to his first year in F1 with 0 days in an F1 car. His first day was in Barcelona pre testing where you do a day and a half with your teammate and then go into the first race. He describes it as the most stressful time. 

And the first time in the test was not a good one: he spun on the first lap. It was due to no fault of his own, the car had a steering issue. He says that when he went back to the pit lane and a hundred photographers were waiting for him, it finally hit him that he was in Formula 1.

As the season went on, he started to get comfortable at Toro Rosso and started to have good races. He scored his first points in his second race in Bahrain. But then, after summer break, a change came through, “I was kind of living in this dream where the pressure every race was becoming less and less. I knew after the first race that I belonged, I knew, you know, I've got what it takes and and I do generally believe in myself, and then summer break comes around, had a great start of the Season, great rookie year so far, enjoying my racing more than I ever thought I could, and then I get the same guy, Helmut Marko, call me back to his office this time in Austria, so that's a bit more serious” - High Performance. He remarked that the conversation went the same way as the previous one, with Helmut dropping the news at the end of the meeting, “This is the number to speak to, this is going to be your engineer, maybe give him a call and figure it out. You can't go to the factory right away, because it's shut down but you are going to be announced in about two hours” - High Performance.

After being with Toro Rosso for 12 races he was promoted to the Red Bull Racing team, replacing Pierre Gasly. The team said they would “use the next nine races to evaluate Alex’s performance” and “make a decision as to who will drive alongside Max in 2020.” (BBC)

He of course wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass but he was not sure if he was ready or not for this, and how it was going to be being Max’s teammate. 

“[...] two weeks now or nothing, just thinking about this opportunity but I can't drive I can't get into my happy place, I can't get my helmet on, I've got to just prolong this anxiety out, but, of course, I went into it with more confidence than I did the first time. But it's these opportunities, you just have to take them because Formula 1, the way it is, it's so cutthroat but at the same time I thought to myself there are so many drivers who would kill for this opportunity, there's so many drivers who wish they could have a spot at a top team and within six months you have got that already, you're not going to reject it and with all, even with the ‘am I good enough’, of course there's this deep inner belief that ‘yes, I am’ and you got to go for it. So I am a little bit self conflicting in myself but deep down yes, of course, let's give it a go” - High Performance.

He ended his debut season 8th in the WDC with 92 points, 76 being scored during the last 9 races at Red Bull compared with 97 for Verstappen in that same period, which solidified his place on the big team for 2020. He also won the Rookie of the Year award at the FIA Prize Giving Ceremony.

The following year, though, the car changed quite a lot and it became much more tricky to drive for Alex. He says that it was specially the lack of experience what made it so difficult for him to overcome the problems and he didn’t really know what direction the car needed to go. And for his teammate it wasn't a big issue. Alex started to overanalyze and was overcritical in his performance and he spent so much energy in trying to find a solution to the problems he had and he says that he should have “taken a step back a bit and trusted myself a bit more”- High Performance. And from there it all started to snowball and every time the car became sharper and sharper and he started to become more tense.

On top of it all, one of the things he struggled the most was the media side of being on a top team. Not only because he was on a top team, but also because of all the noise around the swapping seats. Every mistake he made got criticised. Plus all that it is social media with the memes and he became almost a joke, and as much as he could ignore it, on Thursday, media day, he had to go answering questions about his performance and who could replace him. 

Back then he didn’t have any structure, didn’t have a team behind him. “I think Red Bull, especially, they have one extremely quick driver but they're not that used to having young drivers in their team. So, you know, there was help and there was advice when needed but it's not that obvious actually. And so I was with my trainer, we kind of looked at sports psychologists just to see if I need to get that confidence back and that that inner belief back, but I think people don't realise that Formula 1 as much as it is a team sport, it's still very individual, you have the team and the team do care about you, and they do want the best for you, but it's a strange sport where you have your little circle, it's a team within a team, and you have your little support network which for me is my family and at the time my trainer and that was it. But I realised in time that that wasn't big enough and actually, you know, I didn't have a manager at the time or, you know, even anyone to kind of handle the social side of things so I went quiet on everything.” - High Performance. 

His results this season were not ideal, even if he had two podiums (being the first asian f1 driver to do so). Alex finished the season 7th in the WDC with 105 points to Verstappen’s 214. And as a consequence he was replaced by Sergio Perez the following year leaving him without a seat for 2021 and as a reserve driver for Red Bull.

The news of being replaced were delivered to him by team principal Christian Horner when he went to his office in the factory. He knew it was coming because of all the noise from the media. “I do genuinely believe that Christian and Helmut, they really wanted it to work, the reason why I was told so late was because they gave me to the last race to try and show my worth, so, for that, you know, I genuinely do believe they wanted the best for me, but it just didn't work out and, you know, obviously ‘Sergio is going to take your place and we'll keep you as a simulator driver if you accept, we'll try to find you a place for the year after’ and so that was it” - High Performance. 

As much as the 2020 season was painful, he didn’t find the relief he thought he would because all he wanted was to get back again.

On the year away, he had two clear objectives to work on. On one side, he worked on being less of a yes man like he was at Red Bull and prioritising himself. And on the other just performance wise, where were his weaknesses.

The first two months he used them to find the structure he needed, “I need to actually live and figure out where my money is going, what am I doing kind of thing and get the network going, so I had a true team. And I chose people that were, maybe not the most experienced in their role but would fight for me to the death and these are the same people that I have with me to this day, you know. people who wanted an opportunity but cared for me. So I took a guy from Red Bull, who always fought my corner, no matter how tough the situation was, he became my manager and then my trainer who's obviously been with me from the very beginning, so I created my network.” - High Performance.

But working on his driving was a very tough task because he couldn’t actually drive the car, so he did a lot of work at the simulator which made him understand a lot of things better. He wanted to do what it takes to get himself to be the best driver he can be and consequently put him in the best position.

On a professional level, he wanted to do the best job for the team to show that he was a valuable asset, not just for Red Bull but for every other team. So he wanted to make the car as quick as possible. 

Even though he was on the sidelines he was helping Checo get comfortable with the car and he was driver coaching Yuki Tsunoda who was one of the junior drivers at Alpha Tauri. “It was this weird thing because, for example with Yuki, I wanted to take his seat, he was a potential candidate that I could replace. But then I remember having that chat with Helmut Marko, he told me at the time ‘you need to driver coach this guy’ and I was like ‘I'm not going to, that's a potential seat’ and he said ‘no, no he's already signed like he's guaranteed’ so I was like okay fine.” - High Performance.  And clearly, his work paid off because Red Bull Racing won the 2021 driver world championship, albeit controversial. “I was listening to Max and Checo, I was there at the time, and obviously Checo was new, but Max drove the car last year and he was talking about how much better the rear felt, how much more stable it was and you're just like ah, you know it does hurt a little bit, but at the same point you're like okay that's great you know, i've i feel like i've contributed to that.” - Beyond the Grid 2022.

At the same time, Alex participated in 14 of 16 races of the 2021 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters alongside Formula 2 Driver Liam Lawson for the Italian outfit AF Corse with the backing from Red Bull.

He won his maiden DTM race at the Nürburgring, becoming the first Thai driver to do so.. “Today, that was a really good day for my team and for myself,” Albon said after becoming the first DTM race winner from Thailand. “The team has been working hard overnight and that paid off. Today, we have made a step forward, we want to carry over this momentum.” - dtm.com.

For 2022 he regained a seat for Williams Racing. For this to happen one of his best friends, George Russell [to learn more about galex click here by @onadarklingplain] helped put a good word for him in the team, since he was a driver for them and was moving to Mercedes, and a spreadsheet he made comparing his results relative to Max and of the other two teammates the man had. 

“Alex is one of the most exciting young talents in motorsport, yet comes with a large amount of F1 experience from his time at Red Bull. His multiple podium finishes highlight his speed as a driver, and we know he will immediately feel at home with the team at Grove.” - Jost Capito, CEO of Williams Racing via williams.com.

Alex now feels much more comfortable since joining Williams and has learned a lot about different things, “I've got a very good team around me, you know, it's a core team now. It's maybe four of us at this point but they protect my best interest to heart. Like right now, for example, it's very hard for the team to get access to free time of mine or you know they want to come and see me in Monaco and film a piece with me or whatever, they're laughing behind the scenes. But it's true that I've got a good group around.

And the other thing is purely the wealth of knowledge that you get. It sounds silly to say because I've only been in Formula 1 for four years now, but I know what the car needs in terms of an engineer I think. I don't want to sound silly saying this, or arrogant saying this but I do think I could engineer a car to a decent level by myself, if I needed to, I wouldn't get everything right definitely, check how much fuel is in the car, but in terms of like General scientific point of view I understand it. And the final thing which is the biggest thing is I'm just not tense, I'm at one with the car, I know what the car's going to do before I go into the corner.” - High Performance.

[skitskatdacat63]

Fernando Alonso & His Relationship With Cards

I'm sure we're all familar with the cards on the back of Fernando's Vegas GP helmet by now, but did you know his relationship with cards goes a lot deeper?

I. Magic Tricks

You've probably seen or heard someone at least mention Fernando's propensity for card tricks. As far as I can tell he was doing them(publically) as far back as 2003 all the way to as recently as 2018. Even once performing a card trick, with a condom and a teddy bear(!??!?!??!!), in front of Valentino Rossi who said "How was that possible?"(x)

But how did this start? According to James Allen, "Fernando admits to having been heavily influenced by his grandfather, a mercurial figure, who taught him magic and card tricks, still one of his passions away from the race track."(x) And I'm not sure the validity of this one, because I couldn't find an actual source, but apparently he once said: "My parents are responsible for the two things I like doing most - driving and magic tricks. They bought me my first go-kart and a magician's kit."

In several interviews he described it as his hobby off track, and that he loved learning new tricks and surprising others in the garage with them! So clearly cards are pretty important to him both as a hobby but also to who he is as a person since they've been with him just as long as racing has.

II. Card Symbolism in His Helmets

This is the reason I originally made this post, but I thought I should also explain the origins of his card fascination first. As I said, we probably all remember the cards on the back of his helmet in Vegas, but did you know that wasn't the first time he had cards on the back of his helmet?

From 2008-2013, he used to have a pair of cards on the back of his helmets. The symbolisms of the cards themselves as well as the evolution of their design is really fascinating to me! Even more so with the recent development of the card choice in 2023.

Fernando said he wanted to reference his two titles in some way on the back of his helmet and after his friend sent him several ideas, he decided on having two cards(an ace of clubs and an ace of hearts, sometimes pictured with 05 and 06 on them as well), saying: "I picked the cloverleaf [the ace of clubs - Ed] to give me luck, but the only pity is that it doesn't have four leaves!"(X)

2008.

Here's the very first appearance of the cards! They're displayed flat, with the 05 and 06 clearly visible

2009.

Very similar to 2008, but with a slightly different design, and they're maybe a bit more straight with less shadow?

2010.

This is the first major change! I was sad they didn't have the years on them anymore, but then I realized they're sparkly to match with his signature lightning bolts on the top of the helmet!!

2011.

Honestly I'm still somewhat unsure if this is the actual 2011 helmet? It's pretty difficult to find clear photos of the back of helmets from older seasons. It's easiest to find them on replica sites or auction sites so I'm not 100%? But anyways, I like that this has the championship years on the underside of the cards

2012.

This is when I started getting weirdly emotional about the helmets. Do you see how they've progressed from being a centerpoint to being curled up and sad at the bottom of the helmet? Not listing the year anymore??

2013.

Same thoughts as 2012. And after this season, they cease to exist (just like his ferrari chair in the garage, WOAH CALLBACK), until cards make a reeappearance in his Vegas helmet, albeit in a different form

2013 Monaco(Honorable Mention):

For some reason 2013 helmets were easier to find proper pictures of, so I happened to witness this absolute beauty. The creativity of this helmet genuinely blows me away??? Wanting to keep the card motif, but making sure to incorporate it into the rest of the puzzle piece design?? Mwah! There was another special 2013 helmet but they didn't change the cards at all so I really applaud this one

2023 Las Vegas(The Return of The King):

The magnificent return! But look! The cards are different cards! Instead of being two aces, it's now an ace of hearts, a four of hearts(his driver number of course!) and, the, now iconic, representation of himself as a Joker. I literally could not believe my eyes when this helmet was released and I saw the Joker card, what a fucking silly old man....I really wonder if he felt nostalgic having cards on his helmet again or if he didn't think about it all and was just like, "ah cards because Vegas!!!"

III. Why Does This Matter?

*The rest of the post was factual, this is moreso my personal thoughts on the symbolism of the cards/designs

This post spawned from me recently watching the 2010 Bahrain gp and noticing "hey wait a minute...are those CARDS ON THE BACK OF HIS HELMET!?" It's a really tiny detail that's unfortunately covered up by the HANS device pretty much whenever he's wearing the helmet, so it's really difficult to spot! But I became fascinated with the fact that he had cards on his helmet before that recent helmet, and now here we are!

There's something to me about how the design of the cards evolves over the course of six seasons from the cards being front and center to being smaller, more folded up and closer to the bottom of the helmet. As I said, the 2012-2013 ones genuinely made me depressed because it feels, symbolically, like his hopes for getting another Ace are becoming more and more unlikely and falling away until they eventually fall falt and fade away entirely after 2013 and disappear for basically a decade.

But when they return? They're not the same cards! Instead of representing Fernando's championships, they now represent him as a person, displaying his driver number and his persona of being a Joker!! Though I do think it's interesting he happened to keep the Ace of Hearts, even though he talked more about the Ace of Clubs before. I'm not sure it's actually this deep in reality, but I like to think that it's him not letting his championships(and the lack thereof) define him, but rather letting who he is as a person shine and be the centerpoint instead! But on a sadder note, as @suzuki-ecstar said to me, maybe the Aces aren't there anymore because he's lost all hope for a chance at a third Ace entirely :(

[linkyu]

tell me about your defense contract pleage

Oh boy!

To be fair, it's nothing grandiose, like, it wasn't about "a new missile blueprint" or whatever, but, just thinking about what it could have become? yeesh.

So, let's go.

For context, this is taking place in the early 2010s, where I was working as a dev and manager for a company that mostly did space stuff, but they had some defence and security contracts too.

One day we got a new contract though, which was... a weird one. It was state-auctioned, meaning that this was basically a homeland contract, but the main sponsor was Philip Morris. Yeah. The American cigarette company.

Why? Because the contract was essentially a crackdown on "illegal cigarette sales", but it was sold as a more general "war on drugs" contract.

For those unaware (because chances are, like me, you are a non-smoker), cigarette contraband is very much a thing. At the time, ~15% of cigarettes were sold illegally here (read: they were smuggled in and sold on the street).

And Phillip Morris wanted to stop that. After all, they're only a small company worth uhhh... oh JFC. Just a paltry 150 billion dollars. They need those extra dollars, you understand?

Anyway. So they sponsored a contract to the state, promising that "the technology used for this can be used to stop drug deals too". Also that "the state would benefit from the cigarettes part as well because smaller black market means more official sales means a higher tax revenue" (that has actually been proven true during the 2020 quarantine).

Anyway, here was the plan:

Phase 1 was to train a neural network and plug it in directly to the city's video-surveillance system, in order to detect illegal transactions as soon as they occur. Big brother who?

Phase 2 was to then track the people involved in said transaction throughout the city, based on their appearance and gait. You ever seen the Plainsight sheep counting video? Imagine something like this but with people. That data would then be relayed to police officers in the area.

So yeah, an automated CCTV-based tracking system. Because that's not setting a scary precedent.

So what do you do when you're in that position? Let me tell you. If you're thrust unknowingly, or against your will, into a project like this,

Note. The following is not a legal advice. In fact it's not even good advice. Do not attempt any of this unless you know you can't get caught, or that even if you are caught, the consequences are acceptable. Above all else, always have a backup plan if and when it backfires. Also don't do anything that can get you sued. Be reasonable.

Let me introduce you to the world of Corporate Sabotage! It's a funny form of striking, very effective in office environments.

Here's what I did:

First of all was the training data. We had extensive footage, but it needed to be marked manually for the training. Basically, just cropping the clips around the "transaction" and drawing some boxes on top of the "criminals". I was in charge of several batches of those. It helped that I was fast at it since I had video editing experience already. Well, let's just say that a good deal of those markings were... not very accurate.

Also, did you know that some video encodings are very slow to process by OpenCV, to the point of sometimes crashing? I'm sure the software is better at it nowadays though. So I did that to another portion of the data.

Unfortunately the training model itself was handled by a different company, so I couldn't do more about this.

Or could I?

I was the main person communicating with them, after all.

Enter: Miscommunication Master

In short (because this is already way too long), I became the most rigid person in the project. Like insisting on sharing the training data only on our own secure shared drive, which they didn't have access to yet. Or tracking down every single bug in the program and making weekly reports on those, which bogged down progress. Or asking for things to be done but without pointing at anyone in particular, so that no one actually did the thing. You know, classic manager incompetence. Except I couldn't be faulted, because after all, I was just "really serious about the security aspect of this project. And you don't want the state to learn that we've mishandled the data security of the project, do you, Jeff?"

A thousand little jabs like this, to slow down and delay the project.

At the end of it, after a full year on this project, we had.... a neural network full of false positives and a semi-working visualizer.

They said the project needed to be wrapped up in the next three months.

I said "damn, good luck with that! By the way my contract is up next month and I'm not renewing."

Last I heard, that city still doesn't have anything installed on their CCTV.

tl;dr: I used corporate sabotage to prevent automated surveillance to be implemented in a city--

hey hold on

wait

what

HEY ACTUALLY I DID SOME EXTRA RESEARCH TO SEE IF PHILLIP MORRIS TRIED THIS SHIT WITH ANOTHER COMPANY SINCE THEN AND WHAT THE FUCK

HUH??????

well what the fuck was all that even about then if they already own most of the black market???

[demolition-lesbians]

Rolling Stone #1119 December 9, 2010 - The Playlist Issue

(click for better quality) Here's the playlist if you want to take a listen! Transcript:

Gerard Way: Glam Rock

My Chemical Romance's frontman grew up a metalhead, but when he heard Iron Maiden's lead singer, Bruce Dickinson, cover Mott the Hoople's "All the Young Dudes," he discovered a whole other world, "I knew I had to find out more," Way says, "To some people, glam is just about makeup. To me, it's a very magical thing almost like witchcraft."

1: "Ziggy Stardust" David Bowie, 1972

This song defines glam. It was also the first thing in rock that really challenged people's notions of sexual orientation. Bowie actually sings about a man's ass! 2: "Children of the Revolution" T. Rex, 1972

You always knew Bowie would make it out alive and turn into another character; with Marc Bolan you didn't know that. He came across as very vulnerable. 3: "All the Young Dudes" Mott the Hoople, 1972

This is kind of a cheat because David Bowie wrote it for them, but I always preferred the Mott the Hoople version. By this point, Bowie was talking about the actual glam movement, which is why it's about kids stealing makeup and breaking into unlocked cars. Glam became about the kid in the room, the poster on the wall, putting on a women's short fur coat and eyeliner, with no shirt on, just listening to this music. 4: "Ballroom Blitz" Sweet, 1973

They completely break the fourth wall when the song opens up and they're calling each other by name. We emulated that on our song "Vampire Money." It literally starts out just like "Ballroom Blitz" does. 5: "Cum On Feel the Noize" Slade, 1973

Obviously, everybody knows this for the Quiet Riot version, but when you hear the original you realize just how bold it is. The soundscape they created is probably one of the best out of all the glam-rock bands. 6: "Love Is the Drug" Roxy Music, 1975

Roxy Music took the glam thing and then modified it. Bryan Ferry looks nothing like a glam artist, and that's what I love about him. He's wearing this great suit and he's got short hair and he's so romantic. Maybe some people wouldn't consider Roxy Music a glam band, but I do, for a lot of reasons. A major one is that they used to have Brian Eno behind the keyboard wearing feathers on his shoulders and eye shadow.

7: "Needles in the Camel's Eye" Brian Eno, 1974

Speaking of Eno, this is the first track on his first solo album. It's the glammiest track on the record. As soon as he finishes that song, he's almost over it, and he's moved on to something else. Besides Bowie, Eno is still the most important artist to me of the glam scene. When you heard his first album, you knew it was gonna be his last glam record. He just needed to do it once and he was done. 8: "Clones (We're All)" Alice Cooper, 1980

With "Clones," Alice Cooper was moving into the glam of the future, like this kind of Blade Runner replicant version of glam. Alice Cooper doesn't get enough credit for being a glam artist. A lot of people just say, "Oh, he's shock rock," but I think he's way more Rocky Horror than he is shock rock. 9: "48 Crash" Suzi Quatro, 1973

She's the most unsung glam rocker. She's also the prototype for the Runaways. "48 Crash" is one of her more aggressive songs. She looks amazing on the cover, wearing this black cat suit. Everything about the song is magic. 10: "Personality Crisis" New York Dolls, 1973

They were a lot more punk, but I will always consider the New York Dolls glam by the nature of how they looked and their attitude. They took glam to America and really challenged the sexuality of it. They also had Johnny Thunders, who's basically like the American Mick Ronson.

[chibrary]

ARTICLE: "How to stay friends when you're F1 rivals" (Autosport Plus, 2019)

There's always one, isn't there? Just after you've comfortably settled into your seat, clicked the seatbelt across your lap, and are scanning for a decent film on the seat's screen in front of you - someone asks you to move.

It was on the late-night flight out of Bahrain after this year's race that F1 Racing became aware of such a scenario unfolding: passengers being politely asked if they wouldn't mind moving seats so two chums could take up seats together. The architects of this kerfuffle, the two friends who became reunited at 30,000 feet, were none other than Pierre Gasly and Charles Leclerc.

"We grew up together," explains Gasly. "We first met in 2005, when I was about nine and our parents became really close. As families, we spent holidays, staying on boats together in the south of France and five years later we became team-mates in karting. That year I probably spent more time with Charles than I did with my own parents.

"One of my first F1 memories was when I went to visit Charles at his Monaco home during the grand prix weekend. His parents' house was miles away from the track and yet I could hear the cars, 3-litre V10s, in morning practice. We were so far from the circuit - yet it was super impressive."

Perhaps it was no surprise Gasly was so enchanted by the sound of a racing engine, as he comes from a family steeped in motorsport. In fact, he is the third generation of Gasly to become successful on four wheels.

"I don't think a lot of people know this, but my grandmother, Yveline Gasly, was a karting champion. My father was also a racer in karting, rallying and in endurance events - and a French champion too. I also have four older brothers and three of them raced in karting.

"So, from three years of age, my mother used to take me in a buggy that she pushed around and I would make engine noises. From a very young age, I was always part of motorsport."

Gasly won the French karting championship in 2010 driving for Sodikart when he was team-mate to his younger friend Leclerc, who was runner-up that year. It is the pictures of the two of them together (aged 14 and 13) that Gasly has shared with F1 Racing this month.

"We had a really good fight for the championship and it was a good time testing on tracks together and racing," says Gasly. "Although I moved on to single-seaters before Charles, we still have a very close friendship as he's a nice, kind guy."

Fifteen years after they first met the pair find themselves racing together in Formula 1, and following their recent graduation to Red Bull and Ferrari, they could easily find themselves sharing a podium once more.

In the early part this year, it's been Leclerc that has made more of an impression with his assured performances for Ferrari, while Gasly admits he still isn't yet fully comfortable behind the wheel of the Red Bull RB15.

Pre-season was blighted by two large accidents in testing and it's taken him time to get up to speed.

"It's fair to say that I don't feel as comfortable in the Red Bull as I was in the Toro Rosso last year," concedes Gasly. "In a way I found a direction quickly in the Toro Rosso to get the best out of it.

"But I've found it's a bit tricky in the Red Bull. I don't feel I can have the input I want inside the cockpit - it's quite inconsistent. It doesn't do what I expect it to do in one corner and then in another it's different again. The main thing is trying to drive the car as I would like it to be."

The environment at Red Bull is notably pressurised, as former drivers and power unit suppliers will attest, but Gasly hopes he will be afforded the time to adapt. Before the season began, team boss Christian Horner admitted Gasly has been "elevated 12 months before we'd ideally like" but more recently suggested his confidence had been growing.

"He had a tough pre-season, with the two incidents in testing putting him on the back foot, but at each grand prix he's got stronger and stronger," says Horner.

"I think more seat time will be extremely beneficial to him and as we come back to circuits that he's more familiar with, I think we'll see him make further progress."

The continuity for Gasly after his first full season at Toro Rosso has been the Honda power unit - which Red Bull is using for the first time in 2019. In addition, his engine engineer has moved over from Faenza to Milton Keynes with him.

Gasly has a familiarity with the Japanese manufacturer's working practices and culture, learning much when he spent most of 2017 racing in Super Formula in Japan.

Gasly made a surprise F1 debut in Malaysia that year when Daniil Kvyat was dropped by Toro Rosso, and he was surprised again when he was promoted to Red Bull for this season when Daniel Ricciardo made his unexpected decision to quit the team for Renault.

"When [Red Bull consultant] Dr Marko called me I could not believe it," says Gasly about the turn of events last August that led to his drive at RBR.

"I was so sure he [Ricciardo] was going to stay at Red Bull. At first Marko told me they were going to take their time and look at the options for next year - he said to enjoy the summer break and to try and disconnect from everything.

"Of course, it's not possible when you have something like a Red Bull drive in your mind.
I was waiting and there were two clear options, either to stay at Toro Rosso or move to Red Bull. Then Helmut called me back about two weeks later to say they had decided to take me for this year and that they thought I was the best option for the team for 2019."

Gasly's promotion has pitched him as a direct rival to his old friend Leclerc, but don't expect their on-track duel to come between their friendship. Indeed, don't be surprised to see the pair holidaying together again this year.

"We still text a lot, although it's harder now with our agendas to organise things, but every year we try and plan a trip away together in the summer," says Gasly. "It didn't happen last year, but we'll try again this year."

Better make sure they book the plane tickets at the same time then, to avoid any more last-minute seat-swapping...

[hockeyandhrsepwr]

Abu Dhabi moments

Jack Hughes x Ferrari driver reader

Je T’aime Masterlist

** Vegas is the last race before Abu Dhabi & series takes place in 2024 with Danny, Seb & Mick still on the grid **

A handful of moments as the season come to an end because I didn’t want to write a full fic. Also how are y’all? I’ve haven’t been on here in a while because ya girl had finals and grad 🫶

Post Practice, Friday

Welcome back to sunny Abu Dhabi, as we prepare for the final race of the season!! This weekend brings us the most heated battle for the Drivers Championship we’ve ever seen!! Yes that includes Lewis versus Max 2021, the Mercedes battle of 2016 & Sebastian Vettels maiden win in 2010. Ferrari have the Consrtuctors trophy, will they clinch the Drivers too? Lets have a look at the possibilities

Y/n L/n currently sits first in the points, with Max trailing by only one. Charles Leclerc only sits only 5 points behind him. It will come down to whoever takes the win for this race. Three potential champions, one race. Will it be a third championship for Verstappen, a second for Leclerc or a first for L/n?

Are you excited? Because we sure are. They all had great practices today. Who will come out on top? Tune in all weekend to see what happens!

Lets send it over to Naomi, who’s with y/n now

Media Pen

Hi y/n, how are we feeling today?

I’m doing great, how about you?

You know, I’m pretty good but were not here to talk about me. What’re you feeling coming into this weekend, knowing that the championship could be yours?

Honestly, I’m trying not to think about that. It’s just a normal race. I dont want to psych myself out since anything can happen once we get on that track. Of course I’d love to win, but who knows. Charles & I have been able to bring that constrictors back to Ferrari which was incredible, and whoever wins will have absolutely deserved it.

Thats a great way to look at it! I’m rooting for you but we’ll see what happens. Now, onto something more important. You had an interesting weekend in Las Vegas, didn’t you?

Yeah, you know the race was a lot of fun and it was great to win, especially given the issues we had the week before

Girl you know thats not what I’m talking about!!! I mean your after race shenanigans
Haha, yeah, so I got married which was a special experience.

Can I ask if you’d planned that going into the weekend?

Oh not at all! It was more a timing thing. So Saturday night Jack, my husband which is still weird to say, asked if I’d want to get married while we were there. He played a game in Vegas which is why he was there at all. Of course I wanted to marry him, but I didnt want to do it without some of our closest friends there. Luckily, most of them who play hockey were either in Vegas because they’re on his team or they were within a 2 hour flight range so we could get them there for Sunday night. And of course I was able to get the guys from the grid there no problem. So we just decided to go for it!

So no parents?

No, unfortunately not. Both of our parents live on the east coast and it was too quick to get them there, but we’re going to do a big party over the summer so they can celebrate with us.

At least they’ll have that!! Can I ask what the planning was like?

Jack took on all of the decisions which was really great of him since I had the race that evening, but Sunday morning we texted everyone with flight info & told them to get there asap. Then my best friend Thomas went & picked a dress for me, since Jack wasn’t allowed. I sent a message to our groupchat after the race with the chapel address once jack found somewhere & told the drivers to be there and look decent. It was a really great night though & I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Well congratulations!! Is he here this weekend?

Unfortunately not, hockey season is well underway, but I’m on the first flight to New York that I can get & we’ll have the winter break together.

Well, all the best to you and your new husband, and we’ll talk to you later this weekend I’m sure. Good Luck tomorrow!!

Thanks Naomi!

RACE DAY

Commentators

Oh my god, we’ve come down to the final lap to decide the championship. Who’s going to cross the line first?? Right now L/n is leading, but Verstappen is right behind her. Will he be able to get past?? The other Ferrari of Leclerc is a fraction of a second behind Verstappen.

There goes Leclerc!!! He’s trying to pass Verstappen, my word! OHHH he does it!! Charles Leclerc puts his Ferrari between the Ferrari of L/n and the red bull of Verstappen

Radio: “Tell y/n I’ve got verstappen, go & win it!!”

That was Leclerc, it looks like he’s going to defend against Verstappen so L/n can win. We have half a lap, can he hold off the Red Bull? Fantastic driving by Leclerc, and what a teammate!!

Here it it!!! Rounding the final corner in that iconic red car, its L/n!! The chequered flag is waving, SHES DONE IT!!!!

Radio: C’est toi y/n!!! Tu es la championne du monde!!!!!

In her 4th season in Formula one, your 2023 World Champion Y/n L/n everyone!! What a finish from the young driver. History is made here tonight as she becomes the first female driver ever to win the championship!! She’s also the second youngest driver to take it after former ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel.

What a race, what a finish as Leclerc crosses in second, less than half a second behind.

You

Over the radio you hear the team celebrating but you have no words. It doesn’t feel real. There’s tears streaming down your face. All the shit you put up with, all the years of hard work, missing your friends and family, it’s all lead up to this.

“Y/n?” You can hear your engineer ask since you haven’t responded, but nothing comes out. Driving towards the end, you do your donuts and pull in to your designated spot. You just sit there for a second before “HOLY FUCK” and someone on the other end laughs.

You’re still crying but its all happy tears as you pull yourself up & step onto the front of the car. You sit down on the Halo & put your head in your hands, trying to collect yourself as the crowd goes mad around you. Pulling off your helmet you look over to your team at the barriers & smile. You want to run over & celebrate with them, but you can’t bring yourself to move, afraid its all a dream. Then you get tackled. You’ve completely missed the other guys pulling up, too in your own head and you jump when Charles grabs you and pulls you off your car. He pulls you into a hug & whispers congratulations in your ear before someone else grabs you & you see Mick.

“You fucking did it!” He yells and you laugh. It was the kick in the ass you needed and you release Mick to go over to your team, hugging your engineer first. After that it’s a blur, until someone passes you a phone.

“McQueen!!!” Thomas is on the one end of the FaceTime, jack also popping up on the screen. You laugh at the nickname, glad to see their faces.

“I’m so proud of you!” Jack says “Me too!!” Thomas yells, wanting to be part of the conversation. “Thanks Thom!” “I love you so much babe! I can’t really hear you so I’ll call you later?” “Go celebrate, I’ll see you soon. Je t’aime mon amour” You blow a kiss before handing back the phone. There’s one more person you need to see. You spot Susie and you rush over to her. She’s been a mentor and inspiration to you since you were a kid and without her who knows where you’d be right now.

The rest of the day passes in a blur. You’re pulled into interview after interview, congratulations coming from all around and your phone buzzing like its possessed. You call your parents & Jack but thats it, grateful for all the love but too overwhelmed to deal with responding to all your messages. That night you and the boys go full send. You know its a good night since you can’t remember anything. Monday is filled with media, and then you hop on a flight straight to Newark.

Fourteen hours later, Jack & Luke are waiting from you when you finally make it through customs.

You’d think you’re racing or an Olympic gold to win the 100m with how fast you fly over to Jack & jump into his arms, tears streaming down your face as you hug him like a koala.

“Tu l’as fait” he whispers in your ear as you squeeze each other, your face buried in his neck. You can hear the emotion in his voice

“Je l’ai fais”

“Ma championne”

“Je t’aime tellment”

“Mon champion” you say back, smiling at the fact that both of you won this year

“Cough cough, Hi, hello, where’s my hug?” Luke says from somewhere behind you, causing you to giggle and pull your head up to look at him

“I’ll get to you in a sec”

Jack puts you down & you give Luke his hug. “Congrats y/n/n. You deserved it”

“ Thanks Moose. Now we match with our trophies.”

“We do!!” He passes you the big bouquet of flowers he’s holding, “from mom & dad”

“I love them. Let’s go home boys”

[zukadiary]

Kazuki Sora taidan diary 〜 2024.2.11

(also kind of a Boiled Doyle on the Toil Trail / Frozen Holiday write up)

I've now woken up eight times in a world where Kazuka Sora is an OG (changing that number daily, as I've been trying to write this for six days), and the sense of having somehow slipped into a severely incorrect timeline is getting progressively stronger. Coupled bizarrely with that is deep, deep gratitude that, despite everything that's happened in the last four years, and especially in the last five months, she got a gut-wrenchingly, absolutely devastatingly beautiful taidan. I can't say perfect, because perfect would have been after a well deserved top star run. But barring that, I never dreamed it would get this close.

Long post incoming.

I have to set the stage...

Once upon a time in 2013, Asaka Manato, then nibante in Ouki Kaname's Soragumi, got her turn starring in Brilliant Dreams +NEXT, a multi-part Sky Stage series where you got to like, do some stuff of your choice with other people in your troupe. She decided to recreate some of her favorite revue choreography, and a friend alerted me that one episode was dedicated to the infamous Rosso scene from Takarazuka's Dream Kingdom (which, as you can see in the linked post, completely short circuited noob me from a decade ago). Maasama was still a good 2+ years from winning me over at the time, and I think I reluctantly watched it with some level of offense that she touched a Komu thing. As I'm sitting in front of my computer rolling my eyes, out comes this tiny thing in capri pants, mismatched socks, suspenders, and thick glasses: ken-4 Kazuki Sora, here to report on the situation in the rehearsal room.

She spent her airtime cracking jokes, tripping on her tongue, riding on Susshi's shoulders, and generally acting like Soragumi's annoying kid brother. I thought she was funny.

Another friend told me she thought she was tracked. I absolutely did not believe her.

Then, against a fair amount of adversity, she got the 100th anniversary Rose of Versailles shinko lead, and my eyes widened a bit. The next time I found myself in Japan, I was gifted a 9th row seat to what coincidentally happened to be her first ginkyou crossing in PHOENIX Takarazuka! I'd been spending the show curiously scanning the stage for her, and when I witnessed the gap between reporter and performer, my jaw hit the floor.

Afterwards, my kangeki companion asked if I was interested in anyone in the troupe. I said Kazuki Sora. She recoiled and said "but she's so short."

***

Something that I noticed during this taidan trip is that covid-era fans met a wildly different Sora than I know. Growing up in 2010s Soragumi was uniquely rough. I'm not even talking about ::hand waves:: the present circumstances and what may or may not have lead up to them; I mean they persisted with a level of star saturation through the dawn of the pandemic that had kinda crazy consequences for the otokoyaku track. Not only was the track itself overcrowded, but the troupe also held onto a number of non-tracked upperclassmen to whom they seemed unwaveringly committed to casting in juicy roles. I remember when things seemed so untenable that Soragumi fans were universally on pins and needles waiting for what felt like an inevitable big transfer out, and I remember freezing in shock on the side of the road when instead they transferred Serika Toa in.

Here's some analysis for perspective:

Kiki is the third oldest top of all time, and spent more time as nibante alone than Tamaki Ryou took to get from debut to top.

Lord knows how long Soragumi will be in this state of flux, but if they come out of it and Kiki gets a normal number of shows, AND Sakuragi Minato is next, Zun could immediately overtake Kiki for third place

Speaking of Zun, her first two-city lead was in 2020. Looking at her top star douki, Rei Makoto's and Yuzuka Rei's were in 2017, and Tsukishiro Kanato's was in 2018.

Rukaze Hikaru's first bow lead was in 2019, two years later than her other tracked douki, Akatsuki Chisei (four if you count A-EN).

Slightly more invisible but just as devastating, the lessened exposure on stage between leads has likely resulted in lower fan club numbers and less overall popularity.

...and back to Sora. Hundreds of us filled Hibiya Park this past weekend, but Sora spent her early Takarazuka career so buried that, despite being a triple threat on stage and an utter delight off, her fan base was small enough that at ken-7 they let me, not yet even a club member, accompany my friend to demachi where I became the third attendee. For years, Sora was, frustratingly, an in-person only watch. I'd go to Japan, memorize her positions, miss the rest of the show for following her with my opera glasses, and pop in the DVD at home only to find her always just off screen. A Motion was one of the most fun times I've had in a Takarazuka theater, and on the DVD during my favorite Sora SOLO, the camera is on Sorahane Riku wordlessly dancing.

I was floored when she got Anita. I was livid that she could give THAT PERFORMANCE and immediately afterwards be cast as an ensemble soldier in Red River (although she was so good in Citrus Breeze that after 5 years of deluding myself that I "couldn't betray my beloved Yukigumi like that" ((ironic, right?)) I finally caved and joined club). I stress dreamed multiple times about the impending bow announcement before she got Hustle Mates. I cried when she finally came down the stairs between two musumeyaku in Ocean's Eleven at ken-10, in which she played Linus, a role that felt like a big break even though it had previously always gone to ken-6s. FINALLY, the massive Ocean's taidan relieved a little pressure, and I felt a tangible thrill when suddenly she was all over the Aqua Vitae shonichi digest, something that had never happened before.

That's where we left off in February 2020, when the Diamond Princess docked in Yokohama, and my therapist didn't know what I was talking about when I said I was giving myself a stomachache watching live case numbers ahead of my scheduled trip, and I canceled my flight, and I put my freshly printed pack of homemade Suleiman postcards under my bed, and I didn't see her for 4 years 4 months and 3 days.

***

It's hard to talk about Sora's taidan announcement and not come off as biased and overly dramatic, given that she's my girl. But in 11 years of countless taidan announcements, I've never come close to being as blindsided by one as I was with hers. The vibe I've gotten is that fans, siennes, and patrons alike were all properly shocked.

I'd spent the better part of a decade internally screaming for Takarazuka to act like they recognize her undeniable talent. Frustratingly, it finally started happening during covid. While I was living under the impression that Hustle Mates was a genuine miracle, she got an unimaginable second lead... then, thanks to the breathing room in her new Yukigumi home, a third... and then a fourth. Having been burned for so long, I've always firmly been team I-don't-think-Sora-is-going-to-make-top, but despite that, I was actually starting to believe it could—dare I say would—happen. I wasn't even certain the people murmuring on twitter that she might leapfrog Aasa were completely delusional. I went into Hyperbolic Chart, my looooong awaited reunion, excited to assess Kasumi Sana as her potential future partner. I enthusiastically bought all her postcards for future writing, because the last time I'd seen her, she, at ken-10, didn't have postcards.

Two days after that I found myself again frozen in shock on the side of the road.

Two days after that.... yeah.

***

Somehow, despite 11 years of knowing how this works, of weathering various taidans with friends, of crying in bathrooms until they started cleaning the theater at taidans that weren't even technically mine, I was also completely blindsided by the taidan experience itself.

Part of it was definitely the time skip, from years of intimate Sora fandom to nothing to a couple of A-seki (she's the it girl now!) for a lead I wouldn't have chosen with a troupe I barely recognize anymore to bye, she's gone. Part of it was being thrown back into this after 4+ years of pandemic-dulled emotions, followed by the exhaustion of Takarazuka's crisis era. Part of it was lowered expectations from the largely uninspired and under funded lineup of forgettable shows churned out by tired directors of dubious morality. Part of it was the disaster-shortened Mura run, the self-preserving dissociation fueled by the pain and disbelief that there was a dinner show and I wasn't at it, followed by a month and a half stretch of work so busy it was still going while I sat at the ANA gate for my 1am flight.

But I got here and squeezed into one of those red seats and then all at once I was an unsealed vacuum, cracked wide open, and Doyle and Frozen Holiday rushed in and filled the airless void till it burst.

Boiled Doyle on the Toil Trail

I've been down on Yukigumi.

Yukigumi has been my home troupe for the vast majority of my fandom. I had the fancy Swarovski crystal Yukigumi bag charms, the whole Yukigumi getup from Sports Day '14, Yukigumi albums, Yukigumi chopsticks, etc etc etc. I literally didn't join Sora club for years because I couldn't imagine being pulled out of Yukigumi. But while I was locked out of the country, the march of time took my favorite top star and the vast majority of my emotional support upperclassmen. The pandemic spit Yukigumi out in a state that just made me reeeeeeeeally sad. So I stopped watching them. That's the exact moment they picked to put Sora there.

I hate to admit it, but I still haven't totally caught up on her Yukigumi time.

Which is probably the main reason this show caught me SO off guard... even having watched AND enjoyed the Mura livestream. Sora is best watched in person, after all.

Doyle—a silly take on Arthur Conan Doyle's life, and how he used a magic pen to write Sherlock Holmes by accident, thus setting into motion a runaway series of events—is not only a fun and joyful show, it's a masterpiece of casting. The top 4 were at their absolute peak, and it was a thrill to watch.

I've been watching Ayakaze Sakina since her shinjin kouen days, and my write-ups over the years probably betray my rollercoaster hot and cold journey through her career. I really liked Doyle as a lead for her though. She essentially plays a big idiot wifeguy with a dream, an imaginary best friend, and little conviction; she was very funny and charming. If you were one of the lucky few who managed to see On the 20th Century, think that guy but earnestly the main character vs. dude with main character syndrome. The older I get, the more I have a soft spot for shows where the top combi has "ecstatically celebrating at least their tenth wedding anniversary" energy, and this was one of those.

...Thanks in large part to Yumeshiro Aya, who is absolutely everything. She may be boosted by consistently reminding me of Shirahane Yuri since her partial lead in the 103s Bunkasai, but she also has a very particular type of girlboss energy that I don't feel like I've seen in quite a while. It isn't wearing the proverbial pants energy (a la early TamaChapi), but it is overwhelming I got this energy. I find her to be the absolute embodiment of a top musumeyaku, in that she understands the assignment (making the top star better), while perching on the edge of the backseat just enough that she doesn't overpower Saki, but she's still a knockout in her own right. She probably exudes an extra dose of this energy as Louisa Doyle, who plays a very similar role in her husband's life and writing career. I could not be more thrilled that Aya isn't retiring yet.

Asami Jun plays the aforementioned imaginary friend/magic pen-generated apparition, who happens to be Sherlock Holmes. Some people I've talked to seem a little disappointed in her stage time, but I really felt like this was also peak Aasa. She seems to have broken through a layer of ceiling and gotten really comfortable leaning into her c***y unique energy, which, though I can picture it being polarizing, really does it for me. I sure as hell have never seen an interpretation of Sherlock Holmes REMOTELY like Aasa's, but I was enjoying the Aasa of it all so much that I really didn't care.

When I saw that Sora was playing the editor of Strand Magazine, I was somewhat disappointedly imagining a role like Lestrade (not to invoke another Sherlock), the sort of there-but-not character that has dominated her Takarazuka career since she started getting named roles. My first surprise was how good of a role this was in general, and then how well suited it was to her. She gets to be aloof and handsome, but also incredibly upbeat and funny at times. Her little coworkers at her utterly failing magazine are obsessed with her (which is the mood of the century), and there is a cute little meta moment where Doyle threatens to stop writing Sherlock and Sora tries to quit her job, only to be restrained physically by said coworkers (which is the mood of the moment). Everything from the set of her off-gray permed wig to her 4 or so different plaid suits to her opening solo number was absolutely perfect (not as perfect as it was gonna be later!!!!!).

FROZEN HOLIDAY

It's weird watching a Christmas show in February

I rapidly stopped caring

Speaking of rollercoasters of hot and cold, Noguchi used to be my most hated revue director, hands down. Circa 2017-18, after being deeply personally burned by Super Voyager (and deeply personally confused by Beautiful Garden), the tension I felt while awaiting show announcements hoping I wouldn't have to watch another Noguchi was intense. Noguchi revues being something people covet nowadays still feels unfamiliar, but I count myself among people.

He turned it around for me with the Takarazuka equivalent of winning the grocery store ingredients episode of Project Runway: Delicieux, a covid-budget masterpiece of public domain music and foam macarons (incidentally, also a goodbye to Sora of sorts, as it was her last Soragumi revue). I officially owe him my life after what he did for her in Frozen Holiday.

Firstly, going into my 11th year of watching live Yukigumi, I've never seen Saki shine brighter. While ostensibly a Christmas spectacular, Frozen Holiday was also meant to celebrate Yukigumi's 100th anniversary. Despite the aforementioned rollercoaster, I'm so glad that the top star for the anniversary was someone who has not spent a day outside of Yukigumi in her sienne life, who I've been watching since before my first trip to Japan. And I think the joy of it really showed on her. Aya was an angel, so visually perfect in her snow queen dress that I believed she was destined to be top musumeyaku of Yukigumi from birth. Aasa continued to out-Aasa herself; the wave of feral energy she set off during the first livestream was well earned.

But... remember the disembodied arm just off the TV screen? The utter SHOCK I experienced when they treated her like a friggin' nibante...

Nanami Hiroki, who pulled top star numbers and probably had double our last day crowd at her average Hoshigumi ochakai, and Miya Rurika, who needed a simulcast for her last ochakai, didn't even get the final revue treatment that Sora did.

The disbelief that they did so good by her, the disbelief that I missed the transition, the disbelief that she was really leaving, shattered me.

In addition to general prominence throughout the revue, she gets a whole white-clad taidan number, complete with lyrics designed to blind her fans with saltwater, and one of the best bits of dancing I've seen out of her. After a seemingly impossible quick change, she rejoins the troupe for a very chuuzume-esque anniversary number (assuming the Christmas kyakusekiori is the real chuuzume), and that might actually be my favorite bit of dancing in the whole show. She co-leads the Noguchi-signature boyband number with Aasa, which I forgive because it's them and it's also T.M. REVOLUTION. She even gets a spotlight moment alone with Saki during the kuroenbi. And through all of it, she was so, so good. Good does not even begin to describe Kazuki Sora.

I felt like I cried for 48 hours straight.

***

I didn't manage to get myself actually into the theater for senshuuraku, but I did end up with two Hibiya cinema tickets. When I tried to pass one off onto one of the fellow jilted Sora Club members trying her luck outside of Chanter, I got pounced on by an old lady while those in their white wear were moaning about the cinema not being good enough. I was too tired and nervous to tell her I'd prefer to sit next to someone in club, so she got it. She and I ended up crying the hardest of everyone in the cinema by far. Thanks, old lady <3.

***

One thing that struck me was how desperately, frightfully grateful I was that Sora retired from Yukigumi. Sure, if she hadn't, her taidan would have probably just been canceled... but I don't even mean that. The anniversary aspect of Frozen Holiday was beautiful, and filled me with a joy and nostalgia I wasn't prepared for. It was my first kyakusekiori since 2019, and after Sora ran by me, I was blessed to find myself next to Kujou Asu, someone I adore enough to be in her club in an alternate universe. It was my first iride since 2019, and I had the privilege of seeing off one of my favorite musumeyaku, Sara Anna, as well. The way the troupe members talked about Sora, and what she gave them, and how thrilled they were that she joined them, made my heart swell. As genuinely mad as I was when they broke up KikiSora, I could see that Yukigumi gave her the space to blossom.

The farewell dinner was even entirely gluten free by complete accident, down to the fancy manju omiyage with mountain yam flour dough.

***

Five onsen dips, a massive weeb shopping spree a lifetime in the making, and one extremely bizarre Komu show later, I'm on the plane home, finally not crying on command.

But not having a runaway fave for the first time in ten years feels really desolate. I miss her so much.

[bomberqueen17]

encouraging

Last night I got very mildly high (a really great thing about being middle-aged in this new era of legal weed is that it's really easy to get very consistent and reliable gummies with very consistent and reliable doses of THC so you can get yourself very mildly stoned, not enough to freak out or like lose time or anything, just enough to be Altered and take a little mini-vacation from your own brainweasels, and wake up refreshed the next day instead of hung-over) and scrolled Tumblr until I saw that post about multi-vortex "dead man walking" tornadoes again, and that got me to go search up the one they mentioned by name and then go into a wikipedia spiral about destructive multi-vortex tornadoes. (The post, shockingly, isn't totally accurate, but isn't like. wrong-wrong. For the record though the dead man walking bit of the tornado wasn't as deadly as the just wall-of-black that came later.)

And actually while it was terrifying to see what kind of destruction the weather can wreak, it was kind of... encouraging. Reading the accounts of historical storms and more recent ones, there's this throughline of learning, of new regulations and guidelines, of science being done. The old historic tornadoes, not only were the casualties high, but the aftermath horrible, people missing, fires wiping out survivors, local economies irrevocably destroyed. The newer tornadoes, often the weather itself was more severe, but there are fewer and fewer casualties, better warnings and advice from meteorologists, better government response. I didn't track any of my sources on this and I've closed the window so I'd stop reading about it, but I read with interest about how in 1991 a news team sheltered under an overpass during a scary but relatively weak tornado, and broadcast footage of this, and then in a much stronger early-2000s tornado, a number of people were killed sheltering under highway overpasses, and then by the 2010s the advice to avoid highway overpasses had become common knowledge, and people are no longer being killed this way. (Also I finally had my question answered, having been on the Thruway during a tornado warning: why not shelter under an overpass? Well! Because of fluid dynamics. Just as water pressure intensifies when going through a sudden narrowing in a pipe, so too does wind going through a narrower space, so if you're hiding in that narrow space you are gonna get sucked out of it. So if you find yourself out in the open, do not shelter under a bridge or overpass! Shelter instead in a ditch if you can find one, or a hollow in the ground, something open to the sky so the wind will not intensify passing through it. Now You Know. ok fine I reopened the tab to cite this: NOAA's page on this topic)

Another one was a storm in the 20s where several of the casualties were farmers out in their fields, taken unawares. Normally farmers are weather-savvy, the article said, and would know to shelter from storms, but this tornado had an unusual appearance, and took them by surprise. Contrast that to later storms, where mobile radars were deployed, where meterologists and broadcasters had protocols already in place, where local inhabitants knew to listen and knew how to respond-- there are still instances of bad advice, like an Oklahoma TV weatherman telling people to get in their cars and evacuate which led to gridlock on the local highway which would have resulted in hundreds of casualties save for the tornado missing that area, but mostly people know now what to do. The casualties are much sparser, and many of them now are, instead of people making fatal mistakes, instead people doing the right thing but the storm just being too powerful. (No less tragic, but I suppose it's slightly less heartbreaking to know it was just bad luck and not also poor information.)

And you see examples like in 2011 the 12 oil rig workers, who sheltered in the change house, which due to new information about tornadoes had been built with tie-downs, which nearly failed but did not and all twelve souls were spared, and the company improved construction of future change houses as tornado shelters based on this information.

Anyway, it was a weird thing to fixate on for the evening but in the end it did leave me with a feeling of hopefulness. Like, this is a thing where science and good government actually can concretely improve outcomes.

Let's not extend our worry into climate change making all this worse, just yet, and leave it at this.

LOL this is so poorly cited I'm turning reblogs off, and hopefully I'm done obsessing about tornadoes for a lil bit now. Well, we'll see if that resolution sticks, I reopened tabs to put in at least minimal citations here and haven't closed them yet.

[lizardsfromspace]

So the NFL's been doing special broadcasts for kids, since a lot of kids aren't playing or liking football these days for some unstated reason. In the past these involved a Nick broadcast with slime, and a broadcast with live color commentary from Patrick Star

Their new one is a special Toy Story broadcast that takes all the player tracking data from the game, and uses it to create animated doppelgangers of all the players as toys in Andy's Room. It looks like this

This looks like a lost PS2 game called Disney(TM)-Pixar(TM) Monday Night Football (TM) Cartoon Slam. What is this

This is the weirdest way anyone's ever broadcast a Jags London game, and Yahoo! once livestreamed one on Tumblr

Also Andy is incredibly into football now I guess. Since Toy Story 3 came out in 2010 and Andy was off to college then Andy Toystory would be, like, thirty now. Did he drop out and move home and get back his old toys from that little girl and also buy a lot of little football players and he stays in his room all day making them play and telling them "it's all okay you're back now, it's time to play, like when I was a kid" and Woody's just kind of sad about the whole thing, and then Andy stalks off to the corner to cry and all the toys have to lay there and watch his breakdown bc they daren't move while he's looking at them, not just to keep the masquerade but because revealing the truth may break his already fragile psyche, which is warped by his mom pointing out to him that Sid, the garbage man, is happy and has a nice house with his husband and kids, isn't it funny, and Andy laughed but in private he was so enraged he tore apart his toys and now he's angrier that he can't put them back together, and he just has Woody and Buzz and he's telling them he fucked up, he always fucks up, WHY CAN'T ANYTHING GO RIGHT ANYMORE? and then he runs off to the attic and none of the toys know if he's more of a danger to himself or others, and the torn up ones are still alive and conscious of their splintered being and can, for the first time in their plastic existence, suffer?

Anyway, the first down chains are Slinky Dog and players phase into him sometimes. Whoa!

This is a 1:1 replication of a real-life game happening in London and it has people running into Slinky Dog and merging with him. Past broadcasts just had AR elements, this one is full-on CGI models stiffly miming real-world movements. If any kid gets into football from this they have to be told that it actually isn't CGI toys playing most weeks. Though it will be for the Jags bc they have a second London game this year

[thepotentialof2007]

But who made Lewis do it, to bet on a Ferrari that's been losing for almost two decades?

Leo Turrini interviews Aldo Costa about working with Hamilton and Schumacher

A vegan menu is already ready at [Ristorante] Montana. Guess for whom.

While waiting to enjoy it in the company of the person to whom it will be dedicated (the menu), I chatted with a gentleman who has known those two up close and personal. Aldo Costa, my dear friend.

Costa: "Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton have a lot in common. But there are also significant differences between them. However, it is beautiful that the two most successful drivers in F1 history have chosen to link their name to Ferrari."

Aldo Costa, now technical director of the wonderful Dallara ("From the Parma hills we deal with 17 automotive projects, from IndyCar to Formula E"), Aldo Costa, I said, is the only Top engineer to have worked with both Schumi and with Hamilton. At Maranello he was part of the Dream Team of Montezemolo and Todt. In Mercedes, he won everything and more with Lewis.

Engineer, who is better between the two?

Costa: "I refuse to answer, this is a provocation. I want to say right away that Michael and Lewis are less far apart than you might imagine. Both have always had a very analytical approach to things off track. They are meticulous, very professional. They know that at certain levels it's the details that shift the balance, that determine the outcome."

From the outside Schumi looked like a robot, an alien....

Costa: "Wrong impression! Michael was very human in the work. He would sit there with the engineers and calmly convey his feelings about the car he was driving. He was never obsessive, that's it."

In contrast, Hamilton?

Costa: "Same dough. Lewis I got to know better, because in Mercedes I had a role that put me in more direct contact with the driver. He and I were symbiotic. Hamilton, like Schumi, asks for trust and trusts you."

That must be why the two of them won 14 world titles.

Costa: "So. Then, of course, they are also distinct and distant from each other."

In what sense?

Costa: "You see, they belong to non-overlapping cultures. Can I give an example? Schumacher was the last driver of an era when cars were developed on the track, through continuous testing on the asphalt. And in this he was formidable, unique I dare say."

Hamilton was not.

Costa: "No. Lewis belongs to the time of the simulator.They changed the rules. In short: Michael was always behind the wheel, Hamilton almost never because he can't. Not surprisingly, Schumi when he returned to racing in 2010, with no more circuit testing, he had a bad time. He, the simulator, just really hated it."

But other than that, the substance, I mean as achievements and victories, has not changed.

Costa: "Indeed, because we are talking about two Phenomena! I will give you another example. Schumi determined tire development with his testing, because he could do it. In Hamilton's era, the tires are baptized first by the sole supplier, and the greatness of the driver lies in his ability to make the most out of tires right away that he does not know, that he did not have a hand in choosing beforehand. And in this he is an absolute master, as Michael was in his world."

But who made Lewis do it, to bet on a Ferrari that's been losing for almost two decades?

Costa: "Well, he is an instinctive one. He followed his heart. It's not a turn dictated by the God of money."

But what are the chances that...

Costa: "I won't answer here. In Maranello they know they have a lot of things to fix..."

Does he think Hamilton will pull in technicians he trusts from the Mercedes school?

Costa:"I don't know. When he came over to Mercedes in 2013, leaving McLaren, he presented just himself. They called him crazy, but you know how it went."

One last thing, dear Costa. Since everyone understood that in 2011 the Ferrari made an own goal by torpedoing you from the role of technical director, in short , yes, would you go back to Maranello with your friend Lewis?

Costa: "No. I am happily ... married to engineer Dallara, by the way we collaborate with the Cavallino on the Le Mans project."

Hamilton will win without Costa.

Costa: "For the good it brings him, I wish him well."

[mwebber]

MARTIAN'S MATCHING PORSCHE 911 GT2 RS CARS: A MASTERPOST

are you ready to feel parasocial about a pair of matching porsches, one of which may or may not even exist? you've come to the right place!

SECTIONS:

what is the 2010 Porsche 911 GT2 RS?

what's been said about the matching cars

timeline

unanswered questions and speculation

WHAT IS THE 2010 PORSCHE 911 GT2 RS?

well, it's her (source in watermark)

though she's been upstaged by her counterparts in the last decade, at the time, the gt2 rs was the most powerful road car porsche had ever built. only 500 were made. one of which, as we all know, came into the paws of one mark webber--another, presumably, found a home in sebastian vettel's garage. why do i say presumably? well..

WHAT'S BEEN SAID ABOUT THE MATCHING CARS

rather than making you squint at a bunch of screencaps, i'm just going to copy and paste the quotes that are out there..

“[The 911 GTS RS] is a beast! It’s got biblical power – the amount of torque is phenomenal. Sebastian [Vettel] bought one as well back in the day, we bought one together pretty much and I think he’s had a few tricky moments in his! They’re proper machines, those things. I think the engine’s probably a little bit big for the body, but in the right hands she’s a machine!” Red Bull. july 28, 2016.

Webber said he shopped for a new ride with teammate Sebastian Vettel and both agreed that the Porsche made the most sense. He's extremely happy with the GT2's performance, comfort and race car-like driving dynamics. Auto123, date unknown. the video in question

“I think it was around Monaco Grand Prix time, [Red Bull teammate] Sebastian Vettel and I were looking at some cars,” Webber said. “I’m not big on my road cars, to be honest, but when we started talking about this one it was a no-brainer.” But instead of pulling any strings using his formula one fame, Webber reportedly strolled into a UK Porsche dealer to order his new wheels personally. Drive. October 7, 2016.

“As a young guy, growing up in Australia, the Porsche 911 was definitive. I remember talking to Sebastian Vettel when the GT2 came out, about the power, the way it looked. He said, ‘what do you reckon?’ I said, ‘we should both get one’, so we did. If you take a 911 to a track day it’s the car that’s running around out there still working, with its brakes still working, at the end of the day. It’s a Porsche. You know that. We all know that. Brakes are important, you know." Top Gear Malaysia. date unknown, but since the headline is "mark webber has retired from racing," i'm going to pin it at sometime around november, 2016

“… Monte Carlo Grand Prix, 2010. I was sitting with Sebastian Vettel, and we were looking at the new 997 GT2 RS. And he said, ‘Shit, we need to buy one of those, you know?’ And I said, ‘yeah, we need—both of us.’ So I think that night, Monaco, after qualifying, we, uh. I didn’t outqualify Seb often, but that day, lucky, I kicked his ass, I was on pole position and he was not qualifying that well. And I said, ‘you still gonna buy the 911?’ And he said, ‘yeah, we should buy it.’ So he got a black one, I got a white one...” fan video from the weekend of oct 2-3, 2021.

and though nothing was mentioned about matching cars, they're driving the same model (DEFINITELY different car though, one purchased by the red bull ring) in the now-famous martian taxi drivers instagram post, where mark says, “At the end of the day we even drove each other for a few laps. That’s the biggest bloody endorsement a street car can have, F1 drivers wanting to do more laps for the own pleasure😉👌🏽” april 24, 2020. this is the only allusion to the car i can find that is not only from 2010, but also shows that seb so much as touched a 2010 porsche 911 gt2 rs.

now, you may ask, why are you being so cagey about seb and his porsche?

well, the thing is. sebastian vettel has not so much as breathed a WORD to the media about owning a porsche 911, much less matching one with mark. as far as i can tell from the numerous searches i've done, anyway. everything we know about their matching porsches has come from mark.

TIMELINE

so with that, let's piece it together:

some point on thurs/fri of the monaco gp (may 13 or 14, 2010): martian see the 911 and they're like. hot damn. seb says what do u think. mark says let's get one each.

saturday (may 15): mark beats seb in qualifying, then gloatingly asks if seb is still in the mood to buy the porsche. and because seb is insane, he says yes.

some unidentified point in the future, likely in the break between monaco and turkey because i sincerely doubt mark was in the mood to go car shopping with seb after that (may 16-26): they buy the porsches. mark buys a white one, seb buys a black one.

2016: they don't speak about this to anyone in the media until mark retires from racing for good. when questioned about his favourite porsche cars, only THEN does he even mention that this car matching business took place at all. and, unprompted, repeats this story to multiple news outlets when asked about the 911.

we're faced with several years of silence until 2021, when the story pops up again.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS AND SPECULATION

have you ever thought it weird that something as clinically insane as matching cars with your rival was never given more media attention than a passing few lines in some articles? somehow, either nobody has asked about the fact that Thee most fractious relationship in contemporary f1 bought matching cars, or they DID ask and were effectively muzzled, which is telling in and of itself. and check the dates: 2016. 2016. 2016. 2020. 2021. they did not only keep this under wraps until mark retired and became a full time porsche #influencer. one of them is either STILL KEEPING IT UNDER WRAPS...

... or doesn't have the car at all.

does seb even own this porsche? why have we only heard of it from mark's mouth? there are so many articles on ~road cars f1 drivers own~ but none of them even mention seb having it. so what's the truth? did he never buy one and only tell mark he did? does it stay dusty under a cover in his garage, never to see the light of day? did he buy it and then immediately sell it/give it away after turkey? or because it was like, purposefully to match with mark, is it one of the things he's Sentimental about that he's viciously protective of and keeps out of the spotlight?

mark goes into detail and says that seb got a black porsche, so that must mean that it EXISTS? surely?? well, we take that for granted, but we may never actually know.

another thing: notice how in the Drive article, mark reportedly went to a uk dealership in person to order the car? if he and seb bought them together, does that mean they also went to the dealership... together? and if we take this to be true, does that then mean they physically went to a porsche dealership in the uk just weeks before they collided in turkey and their relationship tripped and fell off a cliff? or did they go separately in person, or did only mark go in person and seb order through connections?

yet another thing: in the "Mark Webber and his 911 GT2 RS" video linked above next to auto123, he drives a black 911 and seems to imply that the car is his: "i'm definitely not gonna be parting with this one." but the car is black. and he says he got a white one. WHAT? [EDIT: the one in the video may be the 2011 model and not the 2010 model he bought with seb]

AND ANOTHER THING TO NOTE: while the internet was surely a Widespread Phenomenon in 2010, there may very well have been printed news about the matching cars that never got digitally archived. unfortunately i do not have a time machine, so that's up in the air for now.

but that's it! that's everything we know about martian's matching porsches. i will be updating this post as more info comes to light, so if i've missed anything, pls let me know!

[attleboy]

Why do u draw?

oooooooo [rubs hands together] a fun one that probably isn't that deep but i'm going to take way too seriously!

so the short answer is fun, but i can never just say one sentence and be done with it soooo i elaborated and wrote a whole essay below. sorry not sorry

anyway if you didn't want my origin story no shame in that, it's not gonna be on the quiz, just keep scrolling :P

to cover all my bases let me start from the beginning and work my way forward...

i think pretty much all kids draw at least a little just because they can, but the thing that really inspired me to take art seriously was the great abundance of cat animations on youtube in the early 2010s... warrior cats amvs mostly, but also artists like bani the kitty and splashkittyartist! you can really see these inspirations in my early digital art hehehe (see below by attle b. age 8)

from then until about age 14 art was just... my thing? i did it pretty much everyday, probably couldn't have imagined life without it... i think back then my motivations were more inline with your typical social media artist motivations... get better, be seen, and maybe make a career out of it? never made it that far though because ehhhh life has different plans i guess

i fell into an art slump in the middle of high school for a variety of personal reasons i won't get into, and as such i had to give up my dreams of creating art as a job

as sad as that was in the moment, it forced me to change my outlook on the whole ordeal in a way that i think was ultimately healthier for me.

that brought me to where i am now! since i have no goals beyond keeping at it as a hobby, i do it simply because i enjoy the process, the product, and i feel like it lets me connect with my interests in a way i otherwise couldn't.

it's a fun way to express love for the things i care about, and while i still enjoy honing my skills i don't feel the same pressure to be perfect that i used to which is really freeing!!

so in that sense it's intrinsic motivation that makes me draw what i draw... however, the amount of art i put out and the polish i give it is definitely motivated by the eyes i have on me... while i'd still be drawing the same things if no one was watching, i would not be putting nearly as much effort into it, nor would i be doing it as regularly, so i do thank you guys for keeping me on track there <3

that's it i think? i could get into the philosophy of it, but i'll spare you that... okay thank you for letting me yap!!! ^-^