Livinpipedreams - M

(Putting this in anti tags to be safe but I don't think I'm anti more than just dissapointed)

Myself and some friends were chatting about why it feels bad if Lando wins the WDC

It's because he hasn't had that "wow" drive (yet)

When you look at drivers like Lewis and Max (actual world champions) and Charles and maybe George (both definitely potential world champions), all of them have iconic races that people point to to watch - that is a race that only they (or maybe a select few) could have done at that point in time.

It's the race that everyone talks about, no matter who wins or whatever, everyone is talking about that driver; "did you see what they did though?!"

Sure, load of drivers have had great recovery drives (like Lando now! Baku 2024, 15th to 4th), but could any of them have done what Lewis Hamilton did in 2021 Brazil, last to first in the thick of a championship fight? It really doesn't fee like it- iconic drive from Hamilton, its all everyone was talking about. Wow. Not even Max could do that the same year in Sochi (last to 2nd).

It doesn't even have to be a winning drive- Sure, in 2016 the championship was heating up between Hamilton and Rosberg, but nobody was really talking about that in Brazil because did you see what Max Verstappen did with his car? An iconic recovery drive in the wet that took out other champions like Raikonnen at the same time! Niki Lauda took his hat off for that drive- iconic! Wow.

Even this year in Monza, sure Lando closed the gap to Max but did you see what Charles Leclerc did? He won with a brilliant tyre management, holding off the Mclaren of Piastri! Wow. (We're debating whether this one is truly an "iconic" drive, but Charles has had several of these moments already too, like holding off Hamilton himself to win in Monza 2019 too)

And Lando just... hasn't inspired people the same way?

He's had some good drives but that's kinda it? The best ones we could think of are some of his recovery drives (do you really want a world champions who can only do recovery drives though?) And maybe that time he was leading in Sochi 2021 vs Hamilton? It was painful when he span out (that was more mclarens fault too hoenstly), and people did sorta talk about it... for like 5 minutes until Max came 2nd and the championship talk was back on.

Lando is a good driver, they all are, but he hasn't had a "wow" drive where everyone was talking about him and his skills only.

(Miami we think was more about the safety car and Zandvoort wasn't iconic because everyone had just spent 2 years hating on Max for doing the same thing in the dominant car at the time, and then Lewis before him. Lando wasn't alone in being able to do that. If Lewis, Max, Charles had the car they would also do the same thing.)

So it's just sort of "eh, sure" when people talk about Lando being world champion. Sure, I guess, whatever.

He's not properly "wow"ed us really :/

AGAIN?!?!?

My love, come back to me, I have HOURS to waste and you were my Plan A

Perfect fit

“HADES : Tell them that you weren’t hungry, tell them you followed the pomegranates seeds because they taste like blood, like love.”

— Pauline Albanese, The Closed Doors (via houseborgia)

Unpopular opinion but Charles didn't drive horrible today? Like if that was dangerous, what do we call his performance last year? Lol Apart from the lap 1 incident, all the others were just racing to the limits. People accuse him as if he caused dnfs here and there.

If he was racing with the same mindset as last year, in Baku he would have cause an accident with seb but he didn't. Today, after many races ferrari had the best pace comparing to the McLarens, so it was a chance to get points.

Was it risky? Yes. But it's ferrari, we won't see another enjoyable race like this probably😭

ansjdjd, oh anon, I don’t think he drove horrible today at all either!

Quite the contrary, his dirve was impressive today, especially given how little confidence we had in the SF21 after Paul Ricard, or just given its confusing performance over the season — I just wish it could have been a bit cleaner (Lap 1 the obvious one I wish he avoided, also wish he didn’t clip Kimi’s front wing during overtaking but looking back I don’t think that’s entirely on him?, or I think there might’ve also been a touch with Alonso??). Babette, one of the sanest people here whom I trust, took a look at those incidents, so I’m going to link the posts here: On Pierre-Charles incident in Lap 1. On Kimi-Charles & Fernando-Charles.

Tumblr generally is…just such a reactionary place, and people are quick to come to their own judgments. I don’t get it. I admittedly get a bit confused since I definitely haven’t watched F1 long enough to be able to judge drivers’ performances/FiA penalties so well. So I can’t comment on whether or not he deserved to get some penalties today for any of that, I just know people seem to have the impression that he has more leniency from the FiA — whether that claim is substantiated or not, I don’t know. I didn’t watch the 2020 or 2019 seasons when it was happening, nor do I have like the data or knowledge to compare to other drivers. But the FiA, to my knowledge, has never been…the most consistent body with any of this in the first place 🤷🏻‍♀️ I digress, I just. generally would prefer it if Charles can keep out of these controversies COMPLETELY so I don’t have to go through extra psychic damage of seeing bad takes on his driving.

Still, I agree that his driving this year is not comparable to the magnitude or seriousness of errors he made in 2020, so I am glad for that progress! In some ways, you could say I am probably just having sky high expectations for him, given his talent and also how he’s always had an attitude of learning from mistakes. He’s probably my favorite driver on the grid right now, of course I want him to be ironing out his mistakes ASAP and having smooth, clean drives where he can go apeshit without consequence or comment.

But, yeah, as you said, he is driving on the limit. I think with the SF21 not being the most consistent car and also losing so many places from the Lap 1 incident, he absolutely had to push it above and beyond, especially when Paul Ricard was such a dismal result for him personally and for the team, plus how they need those points from both cars to keep up the competition with the McLarens, as a precious anon said! Of course, he’s taking risks and of course he’s willing to get a bit of his elbows out if needed. He’s lucky that most of the dents in his drive weren’t detrimental, so this is a really good result for the team, and I think that’s super important to have good drives like his recovery drive today to keep the team going through tough times (same as how his almost miraculous performances last year must’ve sustained the team through an intensely painful season). It’s not just a recovery from lost positions from the first lap but also from last weekend, honestly.

Also, I think people really forget every once in a while that Charles has always been capable of taking these risks that don’t always pay off but are arguably largely necessary gambles when you have a subpar car. Or the fact that he has always been capable of being a bastard on track (the aggression came out in F1 because of Austria 2019) — but hello? 2012 “just an inchident”? Even in F2, where I always thought he drove most beautifully, aka cleaner and more calculated imo compared to his post-Austria 2019 style or 2020 “high risk high reward” mentality, he was absolutely capable of being really “racey.” For example, the last race of the F2 2017 season in Abu Dhabi, Charles already won the championship two races ago? but he still fought very on the limit with Alex Albon to win this last race and even made contact, which did screw up Alex’s exit in a corner and allowed Charles to take the lead on the last (or penultimate?) lap and win. Mind you, the Prema he was in was a dominant car. I think that also makes a lot of difference when it comes to how he drives. When he has a shitty car like SF1000 and less shitty but not great not consistent car like SF21, I can understand how he can’t afford to not drive to the limit. Regardless of the car though, I think Charles has always been explicit about enjoying driving on the limit like this. So guys, just accept him for the demon he is and has always been, or like spray holy water on your households to repel him from your space.

But take heart, anon! I weirdly think that Ferrari is going to be okay. Charles seems a lot more motivated this week in all his interviews after the free practices compared to Paul Ricard, where he really looked like he was struggling and also how dead inside he looked whenever someone asked him about the race 😂 It’s a good sign that he was disappointed for P7 in quali and for the race. It means he was expecting and aiming for a lot more. I think if Ferrari can figure out what they did right (God, what a sentence lmao), there’s some hope that they can keep up the performance (I really hope). I feel pretty encouraged honestly, even though I said I was prepared to drop the whole season just last week. Ferrari is weirdly taking everything in well, staying calm and pretty energized to fix its problems. So, as I said before the race weekend, we should just take it chill and treat it as extended testing sessions for Ferrari. I’d rather they be flailing now than after 2022 hits. The earlier they can figure out their problems, the better next year’s car can be.

Besides, Charles managed to drag ShitboxFerrari1000 into some pretty unbelievable places last year, so I wouldn’t rule it out for him to do something batshit this year either with a better though not great car (and he already parked it on back to back poles) 💖💖

no but like... the thing about pierre and charles knowing each other by heart... yeah. yeah.

like we've seen it mentioned that charles' dad used to bring gifts for pierre when he was on the podium in karting races, and that now pierre's parents promise charles has a family with them no matter what. they used to go on vacations together as kids and pierre used to basically live with charles when they were karting in the south of france and even as recent as 2019 they've mentioned trying to have a holiday together every year even since joining F1.

and how charles saw pierre suffering in 2019 but we still saw them supporting another seemingly every weekend when even other well respected drivers took opportunities to dunk on pierre's shortcomings. how charles' friendship and support didn't falter even when pierre got demoted despite everyone else treating that situation so cautiously. how in brazil he crashed out in a stupid and embarrassing incident but still showed up for pierre. made a post for him to congratulate him on his first podium even though he's never done the same for anyone else. and same in monza even though we know he hit the wall hard enough to need medical checks but he embraced pierre hard enough to push him back a little. how in baku he sped up in his cooldown lap to wave at pierre and nearly ran through parc ferme to congratulate him even though he himself just lost out on that podium.

and then there's the way they interact. pierre saying "in 8 years, teammates again?" to charles bringing up their karting days. pierre, without hesitation, associating charles with the word friend. saying "me and charles saying basically the same thing? that's not surprising," in reference to their team radios in 2019. pierre saying he would pick charles to take with him on a desert island because he'd know he would have fun. how he'd pick charles as his teammate over world champion idols.

and then there's charles crediting one of his best qualifying performances in 2020 to watching pierre's onboards and learning from him. charles telling the media he would love to have pierre as his ferrari teammate even though at the time everyone knew there was basically zero chance of that happening. he praised pierre as the most impressive last year on more than one occasion. charles fulfilling on a not so sure promise to pierre that he'd win in spa in 2019 for anthoine, and never once even implying to the media that maybe it's strange that a fellow competitor would ask for that.

they continue to speak well of each other even though more often than not they've been in direct contention with each other across several teams. today most of us were sweating, afraid they'd take each other out and then both of them got out and gushed about how fun it was.

so yeah. it really is fair to say they do know each other by heart.

ao3 is down life is meaningless

bitch this is all you’re gonna get. this life, this face, this body. you better not ‘maybe in another universe’ your way out of everything. sit your ass down and face this. go make tea and have a picnic and read a goddamn book. kiss your loved ones, send that damn text, and hug your siblings. this is all you’re gonna get.