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wndow2soul · 13 days ago

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~My F1 DR intro

ᯓ★ Marcus Léo Guelorget is a French Formula 1 driver who was born to two successful parents in Nice, France on the 28th of December in 2002.

Even as a small child, Marcus had always liked cars and racing, especially Formula 1. Naturally, when he found out about karting, he started begging his parents every day to start karting. But his parents weren’t very keen on letting their son pursue the dangerous career that is racing. Luckily for him, his aunt Justine was a reporter for a French sports channel and helped him with his karting career. Justine played a very important role in Marcus’s life; finding sponsors, but especially, paying for her nephew’s karting fees when Marcus’s parents refused to.

“My aunt was a reporter for Canal+. She would visit us often, and she would bring me signed caps and other merch from the races she would attend. One day, for my birthday , she took me to the karting track, and decided I had talent for it. My parents didn’t want me in Motorsport, but my aunt convinced them to let me race. She was the one who paid for all of my karting costs and took me to the races. I owe everything to her.” Marcus Guelorget on how he started his racing career, SkySports

I. Feeder series career and achievements (2008-2022)

From 2008 to 2017 Marcus Guelorget was a professional karter. He was serious and calculated on track which was surprising for a kid his age. He won multiple races and championships, mainly centered in Europe.

On track he might be vicious, but off track Marcus had a lot of friends. Most didn’t last, but there was one boy Marcus immediately connected with: Quentin Ducros. Quentin and Marcus would become the closest of friends and would stay like that for many years.

In the 2018 season of French F4, Marcus came second in the championship. Many teams and driver academies were impressed by his skills. In the end, he joined BVM racing, as well as AMF1 Development Programme. With them, Marcus finished second in FRECA’s 2019 season.

Some time before 2020, Justine Guelorget pulled some strings to introduce her nephew to the ‘16 champion Nico Rosberg. The German saw how promising Marcus was and helped him get a seat in PREMA and the Mercedes Junior Team as his manager before the season started.

But 2020 was also the year things got really messy. At first Marcus was doing amazing in his new team, supported by Mercedes and Nico Rosberg, loved by fans from all over the globe. It seemed like he might win the title that year if he kept the consistency. Then, two days after the race in Mugello, he was hit by the news that his best friend had taken his own life. You can guess the shock that Marcus endured when he heard the news over the phone. One day he was partying with his friends after a race win, and the next day he was scrambling onto an airplane to get back to France. As they say, there are five stages of grief; Marcus was only on the first stage as he won the title: denial.

2021 was the year anger came in. It served Marcus really well during racing, although sometimes it costed him some penalties here and there. But all that adrenaline and emotion lasted so long. During summer Marcus started to become distracted, his results became worse with each race. By the start of fall, Marcus felt like his entire world was falling apart. The press wouldn’t leave him alone, his team principal was always mad, his aunt was worried, his parents were dismissing his feelings, the car felt undriveable… And then came his horrible crashing Sochi, leaving him injured for practically two months. Marcus would’ve probably tried to end it all if it wasn’t for his teammate back from F3, Louis Bernard. I will spare you the details, but Louis was the one who convinced Marcus to move in with him to Monaco, the one who made sure Marcus would eat anything at all, even though the only thing he could stomach was Nestle’s corn flakes because that was what he and Quentin would always eat as kids. Despite being physically ill from despair, Marcus kept racing, ignoring that he would throw up before every race. He finished seventh in the standings that year, which almost cost him his seat. Almost.

Marcus’s second year in F2 was considerably better. Having finally reached the stage of acceptance in 2022 (after one too many therapy sessions), Marcus Guelorget was doing a lot better emotionally as well as on the race track. He finished the championship in third place, and in the meantime he was also Merc’s reserve driver.

II. F1 rookie year

His debut in 2023 was pretty unexpected, to say the least. George Russell had been in a horrible accident during pre-season testing in Bahrain, and Marcus Guelorget was being brought from F2 to replace the Brit for the rest of the season. Many people said Merc was rushing it, that Marcus wasn’t experienced enough, scared that he would repeat his first F2 season.

But Marcus proved all of those people wrong. He finished his first race in P10, securing his very first point in Formula 1. From there, he just kept improving his results, only rarely DNFing. He even made it to the podium in Singapore having finished third!

Then in Qatar he had a pretty big crash, but that was not his fault. The weather was way too hot, and that combined with the heat of the engine was just overwhelming for Marcus’s body, causing him to faint. Thankfully he ended up with only a fractured rib and some bruises.

In the end, Marcus Guelorget finished 2023 with a rookie podium, as well as breaking the record for the rookie with most points gained in F1 history, with a total of 162 points.

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