#vro0m's asks

[vro0m]

How is it stupid to acknowledge that men's bodies produce 20 times more testosterone than women, and on average have 60% more muscle mass than women? Wouldn't that benefit them when it comes to withstanding the G-forces in F1? i looked up Danica Patrick. And even though she is considered one of the most successful female drivers in motorsport, I was surprised to learn that she hasn't actually won a Nascar race. Aren't all the cars equal in that series? She did, however, win ONE race in IndyCar. So at least there's that.

I want to see a woman in F1, but if she has to exert more effort to achieve similar results to the men in the sport, is that really fair to her and the other drivers? I'm sure WNBA athletes would love to play in the NBA, as well, but the average points scored by the avg NBA player is 21, whereas the average points scored by the avg WNBA player is 14, so how would a woman fare in the NBA?

Sorry but you can't have it both ways. you can insist that F1 is such a physical sport, giving f1 drivers the credit of being athletes, but then make the argument that women would be equally matched with them in a physical sport. Makes no sense.

Anon I feel like I won't convince you so honestly I don't wanna really engage you but here are some ideas :

Look up women who've actually been in F1 instead of other series

Look up equality of opportunity in sports instead of relying on essentialist biology

Here are some sources you might wanna check out if you're actually honestly interested in the topic and not just out here being sexist : Jezebel article about why there aren't women in F1, Forbes article about the barriers to younger girls joining the sport, Autosport article about women who did race in F1, and there's much more out there for you to read and develop an educated opinion on the topic, I'm not gonna do all the work for you.

#there are women astronauts and you think women can't withstand f1 g force? come on #vro0m's asks

[vro0m]

THIS is how I find out Toto Wolff and Susie Wolff are married? I legit thought they were cousins or something.

Bro what.

#They have the same surname and the first place your head went was COUSIN?! #Not even idk siblings #No : COUSINS #f1 #2023 winter break #vro0m's asks

[vro0m]

What do you mean, they can fall off????

I know there's barriers and everything but this is terrifying to me. Thinking of Guanyu's 2022 crash like. Mmh.

#vro0m's asks #not saying they CAN #saying they MIGHT #in case of a bad crash

[vro0m]

Answering both of you at once because similar questions.

I think people like rookies because of the novelty, especially when they come in on short notice like Liam and Ollie had to. It makes for great stories : "he was called just (insert number of hours) before the race and still managed to end up P(x) ahead of (name of an established driver), unbelievable!"

The thing is, we have a 20-driver grid and there will always be someone in P20, and P19, and P18 etc. When you see the same people in these spots GP after GP and compare that to some wild card ending up in the midfield or even getting points in a one-shot race, it's easy to start thinking the drivers who are always at the back of the field are undeserving. But if you replace them with new drivers, there will still be someone in P20, and still someone in P19, and still someone in P18, etc. Let's not even get into the difference the cars they're driving makes!

Novelty wears off, and then all that's left is to perform. Managing a somewhat good result (I mean even managing to just finish the race and not crashing) as a rookie in one race is genuinely impressive in its own right for specific reasons (lack of training and preparation, first time on some tracks, dealing with new settings, drivers you've never driven against, different procedures, pressure and excitement, etc.) but driving a whole year in F1 has its own challenges (adapting to tracks week after week after week, race calendar is crazy, still lack of training and preparation, delivering consistency, growing expectations, more opportunities to make mistakes, handling media duty and scrutiny, managing recovery, etc.).

The rookies are generally underprepared nowadays, the gap between F2 and F1 is gigantic and they have few opportunities to learn. So on the one hand it makes it even more impressive that Liam and Ollie performed the way they did but on the other hand it makes it more risky to hire a rookie in the cost cap era and more probable that they are not as ready as it seems to take on a full F1 season, despite their performance in a few surprise races. Simultaneously, the older drivers can't keep on going forever and someday these teams are gonna have to take the leap and hire an inexperienced driver despite the risk.

It's all a matter of subtle timing, I think. You want to make sure your rookie is as prepared as can be before you hire him so he doesn't repeatedly crashes your expensive car once he gets to drive it but you wanna make sure no one snatches this promising talent before you get a chance to sign him. At some point you find yourself on the edge of "better keep a known, proven, but aging driver" and "better put this hotheaded child who might or might not be the next big thing in my car before it's too late" territory and your choice will probably rest on your aging driver performance and consistency v. the risk of the unknown + the risk of passing up the future champion. Hiring a driver, new or not, is always a gamble.

In any case hiring or not hiring these rookies doesn't have much to do with the current RBR domination, that's more about car development. But eventually all these drivers come and all these drivers go. Generations will succeed one another, it's unavoidable. When is the question.

#vro0m's asks

[vro0m]

People need to start predicting for both Lewis are Alonso💀 60-70 yrs from now they may both be buried in f1 cars💀

Like I once said : one day the sun will engulf the earth, and that day Alonso will be watching the dawn sitting in an F1 car

#vro0m's asks #f1 #fernando alonso

[vro0m]

Oh my God😭😭 what about the steering wheel??? Is Lewis going to redesign the Ferarri steering wheel to match his??? The driving styles??😭 Charles likes Overseer and Lewis likes Understeer how are they going to give feedbacks😭 ahhh the depression is hitting again🥲

Hey look, sorry you're worried, but I'm gonna need you to understand that literally hundreds of drivers have changed teams in the history of F1 and everybody has always survived this incredibly mundane event so please chill out, okay?

#f1 #some of you are gonna burn out before it happens at this rate #vro0m's asks

[vro0m]

I hope this part at least is made up bc what the fuck if it isn’t. Lewis told Toto yesterday..? https://x.com/lh44updates/status/1753082301611749443?s=46&t=gE0C5rbbTrCEQr2Yeerjcg

Even if it's true, again, it goes with the hypothesis that it wasn't supposed to come out so early. It makes perfect sense. Everybody has been wondering about the weird timing since this morning. It's because it's a leak. Lewis told Toto once it was done as one should, but somehow someone heard of it and now here we are.

#vro0m's asks #f1 #lewis hamilton #2024 preseason #the lewis rumour

[vro0m]

Maybe Im missing something, but did Bianca Buscamante like a bunch of offensive tweets or just the one about Lance? If it was just one, I feel like everyone is overdoing it. It seems like she's being bullied to keep her in her place as a woman and woman of color. Do people not see the parallels between what the f1 community is doing to her and Lewis'?

From what I saw she liked more than one tweet about Lance specifically but honestly that's not really the issue imo? Liking hate tweets about someone else is a douchey move, and it's bad PR, and it's honestly immature but whatever.

My issue with it, and I think a lot of people's, is that one of these tweets (and yes, afaik only one) used autism as an insult and that's ableist. I do think people who endorse discriminatory messages or say discriminatory things should be held accountable in some way, and I don't think we should treat ableism as less of an issue than, for example, racism or sexism or queerphobia.

I'm sure some people will use it as an excuse to bash on her as a woman and as a woman of color and that's a different and also very real issue that we should hold these people accountable for. Her liking an ableist tweet doesn't make it suddenly okay to be racist and/or sexist towards her.

It's very unfortunate that it's coming from one of the very few women of color in the sport but it's still ableism and so imo she should be held accountable for it like we would want to hold anyone else accountable for it. No less, but also no more.

#do I think it will happen that way realistically? No #2023 winter break #bianca bustamante #vro0m's asks

[vro0m]

did you hear about the staniel who turned the horner SH allegations into a fic where daniel used these SH allegations to blackmail RB into giving him checo's seat bc like. what the fuck is wrong with f1 fans (those drivers fans in particular if we're honest) to where their first thought after allegations of a woman being seriously psychologically harmed by a man in authority's mistreatment is "omg this would be a good plot for my rich, privileged ass blorbo to avenge himself" like daniel fucking ricciardo is a white ass multimillionaire. he can claim anybody mistreated him and thousands of fans and the media will immediately believe him and come rushing to their aid. there's been female employees of red bull getting harassed online, called liars, getting doxxed, etc. since this shit broke, keep your privileged ass blorbo out of serious shit that doesn't concern him. this isn't a hehe funny situation time for my fictional version of my blorbo to shine, actual people were hurt in this situation. jfc at least SOME empathy and critical thinking skills in this fanbase i beg.

Yeah I heard.

First of all, like I said at the time that hockey fandom thing happened, I think you need to be really really careful saying things such as "those driver's fans in particular", because this isn't about who's a fan of who. We're all in this together as we exist in a shared fandom space (or generally as human beings) and who we are fans of doesn't make us morally superior to other fans in that space. Your corner of the fandom isn't immune to this shit.

This isn't about Daniel Ricciardo, or the fact that he's their blorbo, or what would happen if it was him. None of that is relevant to the conversation. You're getting mad that they made it about Ricciardo but to some extent you're doing the same thing.

This is about politics. This is about the dehumanisation of victims, especially when they are women and/or from marginalised groups. This is about just not giving a fuck what happens to your fellow human being and what it means to be them. The issue here is bigger than RPF or this specific investigation or F1. I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.

If you're reading this and you are afab I'm sorry to say there's a serious statistical probability that someday you're going to be that person, if you haven't already been her. If you're unable to represent to yourself that this would be awful, and then how much more awful it would be that people are using this traumatic experience you had to write smut or whatever about some rando they're a fan of...

You're not a bad fan, you're a shit human being.

#tbc I'm not gonna talk about this subject ad aeternam because i said i wouldn't but this needed to be reframed #vro0m's asks

[vro0m]

Ok I have one. Explain to me a very basic, level 1 concept of F1. Like. The most simple way. Everyone should know this but I don't.

Hi Sae 💕 I set out to explain simply a very basic level 1 concept of F1 and ended up writing you an essay, I hope you don't mind. I can't help myself but infodump.

If you ask people what's most important in F1, chances are they'll tell you about the cars, the engines, the aerodynamics, the driver's talent but I'm here to argue that some of the most decisive and/or exciting moments the sport has given us to see were down to : relationships.

You always, always have to do better than your teammate (an unnecessarily long essay by vro0m)

I wanna preface this by saying I'm unfortunately missing a chunk of good examples because although I've been, as most of you know, watching Lewis' entire career from the start I've not yet seen 2016-2018 but it doesn't matter.

Introduction :

As you know, F1 is made of 10 teams, and each team has 2 drivers. It also awards 2 titles per season. One is the World Constructors' Championship, hereby referred to as WCC, that is won by a team, as per the points both of their drivers earned combined. The other one is the World Drivers' Championship, hereby referred to as WDC, which, as the name suggests, is awarded to the driver who's won the most points over the season.

This unique feature creates one of the most complicated networks of relationships in the world of sports, because each team wants the most points aka for both their drivers to do well VS. each driver wants to do better than his teammate. They have to work together to help the team, but they have to work against one another to help themselves.

It's a recipe for angst and drama, and god knows we love it.

It's also very much a key feature of the sport, and you can find examples of it influencing the way events unfold in all eras, although I will focus only on the years I have myself seen.

Teammates, rivalries, and egos :

Take the very famous Multi-21 drama. Mark Webber joins the young Red Bull Racing team in 2007. His teammate is David Coulthard, a veteran who's soon to retire. Webber was a midfield driver, who got his hands on a new, midfield team seat and must have thought he was set for life. Who knows, the team might even get better? But in 2009 the stars align and shine not on him but on young, golden-haired Sebastian Vettel, his new teammate, who ran into him once before in 2007 during his first season, after what Webber called him "a kid" and blamed his lack of experience.

Indeed Sebastian is a decade younger, brazen and moving through the ranks about as fast as the rocketship RBR has suddenly managed to put together. It's his third year in F1, against Webber's eighth, and he finishes 2nd in the WDC, not one, but two ranks ahead of him.

In 2010, they collide again during the Turkish GP, while Webber is in the lead and Vettel tries to overtake him, sparking controversy over the team's management of the drivers. Webber finished 3rd and Seb had to retire from the race. But it didn't matter in the end, because that year, he won his first WDC, and RBR won their first WCC. And then again in 2011. And then again in 2012. The blond kid turns out to be the golden goose.

And Webber is pissed. Because as a driver, when your team puts together a winning car, you don't have a good excuse for not winning the title anymore. All there is to it is that he's not as good as his teammate, and that's the worst thing a driver can be in F1. You always, always have to do better than your teammate. Even when your team is last. Why? Because you're in the same car. Your teammate is the gauge of your actual driving skill. If you end up behind another team's driver, you can always say his car was better. There's no hiding your shortcomings when it's your teammate. Even less so when the spotlights are shining on you.

So what does he do? Work his ass off? Train? Study the car better? No. He blames the management. Right from 2010, as soon as he realised who he was up against, even though he was leading for most of the season, he claims RBR is giving Seb the preferential treatment.

Team principals :

See, that's the third angle of that love/hate triangle. Driver-driver-team principal.

If you're a team principal, your drivers are a constant headache because chances are they fucking hate each other. Might or might not be okay off track, but as soon as they sit their asses in the cars, they most probably hate each other. And the more your team wins, the more they hate each other! Backmarker teams usually have rather minimal internal drama because what are you fighting about? P19? But when you start winning... boy oh boy.

Because that's the whole point, right? You're more or less happy to be a team player when there's not much on the line for you (although as stated earlier, you still wanna finish ahead of your teammate). But when you're in a winning car??? That might be your only chance to win a WDC in your whole life. Better seize it. Better run your teammate off the track as you do it because he now also has a winning car. Better fucking win.

Back to the team principal. You don't care which one of your drivers ends up first, as long as your team ends up first. You know what doesn't help teams end up first? Drivers crashing into each other while racing for the win, like Webber and Vettel in 2010.

Enter team orders.

Team orders... or not :

Team orders are exactly what they sound like : the team is ordering their drivers to act a certain way, whether they like it or not, because the team is looking out for the team and the drivers are looking out for themselves. It's the team being a stern parent and getting a grip on its rowdy children. No more games. Now you sit down and obey. Now you're also looking out for the team. After all, we're paying you.

Team orders are controversial, because nowadays when a team is good, a team is usually dominating. Hence there's no real racing at the front, the dominating team's drivers finish first and second most of the time. So if you don't let them race, and they have no real competition, then there's really nothing to see, and it gets boring. Team orders are also controversial because it doesn't give the other driver a chance.

But you don't give a shit, you're a team principal. Doesn't matter in which order your cars arrive. As far as you're concerned, your cars are first, out of all the other teams' cars. So you give team orders. You protect your 1-2 finish. Better believe Horner was fucking pissed when his drivers crashed in 2010.

Now, not always. Not all the teams. There was a time Mercedes let their drivers race for real, for real.

RBR tried it the stern parent way. It doesn't always work though. Malaysia 2013. Mark Webber is leading the race. Sebastian Vettel is second. They have about 10 seconds on the Mercedes, there's no threat on the horizon. "Multi-21," they are told. That's team orders for you guys are finishing in that order. That's stern parent for fall in line and bring home the 1-2. Webber is obedient, of course, he's in the lead. His goal aligns with the team's goal. But Seb is a brat, and his goal is not P2. The tensions have been piling up for several years now. While his elder relaxes in the lead, reassured by the team orders, Seb doubles down, attacks, and overtakes him for the lead. Fuck your team orders. Although he claims the relationship didn't impact his decision, Webber quits F1 at the end of the season.

That same year, Lewis Hamilton joins a then "best of the rest" team. Upper midfield, if you will. Lewis and his new teammate, Nico Rosberg, are childhood karting friends who are finally living their shared dream of being F1 teammates. And Mercedes takes a different path. A risky path. They decide that their drivers can race each other. They claim it pushes them to do better. Rivalries drive people, right? As much as your teammate is a gauge, he's a benchmark. You always, always have to do better than your teammate.

The team is doing really well, finishing 2nd in the WCC. Lewis finishes 4th, Nico 6th. The challenge is set. And in 2014, new regulations, new cars, the racing gods smile down on Mercedes like they did RBR in 2010, and they get a fucking rocketship for the next eight years. We're in a dominating situation, mostly. They had some competition, but most of the fighting was, in the end, infighting. It's the brocedes era. The most brilliant example of the complexities of F1 team relationships.

At first, it's exhilarating, racing each other at the front. But it's like Icarus and the sun, you cannot lose sight of the goal. Because you can't win and have a friend. From using engine modes they weren't supposed to use to try to beat each other, to controversial pole positions that might or might not have been won by cheating, Lewis ends up calling an end to their friendship only a third of the way through their second season together. And then, it's Mercedes' version of the 2010 RBR drama : Nico collides with Lewis, costing the team the 1-2. Turns out all the F1 roads lead to drama.

Lewis wins in 2014. Mercedes wins in 2014. Lewis wins in 2015. Mercedes wins in 2015. Nico wins in 2016. Mercedes wins in 2016. But Nico is so frayed by the rivalry, he quits. Just like Webber.

Now what? Mercedes tried the other way and they got the same results RBR did. Many wins, and one driver short.

Toto Wolff hires Valtteri Bottas. And Bottas is the final example of F1 relationships because he's the sacrificial lamb on the altar of Lewis' career. It's the last concept : first and second drivers.

First and second drivers :

See the last, and arguably most common, solution to the thorny team VS. teammate problem is to have, more or less explicitly, but mostly less, a first and a second driver. Which means, as a team principal, your order of priorities goes team > driver 1 > driver 2. It simplifies things for you because you don't have to juggle your drivers, favouring one over the other and then the other over the one, to keep them both happy and obedient and not crashing into each other like Mercedes had to at some point to try to tame the intra-team war the Lewis-Nico situation quickly evolved into. They thought they had a spark, they ended up with a forest fire.

But does it, really, simplify things? No. Because you always, always have to do better than your teammate. No driver is in it for the team. They're all in it for themselves. They put up with the team because they have to. If the team doesn't support them, well... Why would they support the team? And that's why they end up ignoring team orders. See, although Webber did it (as long as he was in the lead, anyway) most drivers will not ever admit being a second driver. Think Perez pretending RBR supports his fight for the title. Why? Well my friend, because you always, always have to do better than your teammate. They will never admit that the whole team decided that their teammate is the one they should back, at their own cost.

And that's just another source of resentment, right? They hate the team for not backing them up, and they hate their teammate because he's better. On top of it, they can't vent openly about it because it would be admitting that they're the second choice. So amp up team radio drama and internal problems shushed behind closed doors.

Now that's not what Valtteri did, actually. Surprisingly. Valtteri thought he had a chance, but he didn't. First of all because Lewis is untouchable as I mentioned in another essay, but also because his seat was built on the ashes of Nico's. There was no way they were letting the situation get that out of hand again. Enough with the permissive parenting. Turns out Mercedes is not the fun dad after all.

Valtteri is good. But Lewis is great. Valtteri doesn't have the kind of record sheet Lewis does. Choosing a first and a second driver is not so much a thought-through decision than common sense. The Mercedes management most probably didn't sit down at a table and write it down. It just. Was. Valtteri never got close to winning the title. And I know I've said it before but it's truly a wonder he didn't start hating Lewis for it. For being the second driver. Oh it did damage, don't get me wrong, but most drivers externalise such things rather than internalise them like he did. But eventually you can only sacrifice yourself for so long. Again, none of them are in it for the team. Valtteri was a perfect second driver, he obeyed, he didn't create drama, and he pushed himself to the point of exhaustion trying to catch up to Lewis to beat him the right way. Some people might argue he's not selfish enough for F1. I'll argue at least he's a decent human being. It might even have worked with a different teammate, but it was Lewis.

So he left. Now he's not stepping on podiums anymore but he is better than his teammate. And you always, always have to do better than your teammate.

#f1 #essay #vro0m's asks

[vro0m]

I know there’s a lot of prayers for Adrian Newey to join Ferrari but isn’t Newey’s cars the ones that are overly sensitive that Max’s teammates struggle with😅 we have Lewis struggling with the W13-15 and Charles struggling with was it last year when there were idk reports or rumors that the Ferrari was in Carlos’ driving style which is when I believe Ferrari fans started this thing of “the car is oversteery or it’s understeery”😅 these are two drivers who clearly have weaknesses. Seb and Webber?? imo, in a Newey car, one driver suffers more so idk if I share this sentiment😅 get rid of Newey so we all have a level playing field maybe😅

Newey has contributed to a bunch of championship-winning cars, not just Max's. If one driver struggles noticeably in a championship-winning car when the other one doesn't, it's honestly a skill issue. Sucks when your teammate has absolutely unparalleled skills that allow him to drive more or less difficult cars or cars that you don't personally enjoy as much for sure but that's not Newey's fault.

Also Newey is not single-handedly building the car. There's hundreds of people working on it.

#vro0m's asks

[vro0m]

NO BUT VRO0M. THE ENTIRE QUOTE.

“The first time he came to the factory, that’s the first time we met and the first time we started working [together],” said Bonnington. “It felt like he was a rock star walking in. Looking back at the pictures, you just think, ‘Wow, this is Lewis’. Michael was such a legend, a great driver to have worked with. And then Lewis comes along and you think, this is the next breed. He’s here and he’s the rock star – and I’m the one in charge."

HELLO?? they're insane.

I KNOW RIGHT????? The man was like. This is my rockstar, actually.

#f1 #lewis hamilton #peter bonnington #lewishamil10n #vro0m's asks

[vro0m]

Everyone knows testing is irrelevant so no need to worry-unless your favs are doing well and then it’s actually SUPER important and representative

Exactly YOU GET IT

#vro0m's asks #f1 #2024 preseason

[vro0m]

What are we thinking about this particular round of 'Lewis to Ferrari' rumours

Very disappointed that we're not creative enough not to recycle and rely on rumours from only a few months back to keep ourselves busy while waiting for the start of the season

#make up new things i beg #vro0m's asks #lewis hamilton #f1 #2024 preseason #the lewis rumour

[vro0m]

I think some people need to realise that yeah, Antonelli is good - but let's not pretend that him skipping the upper tier of F3 and going straight to F2 isn't a massive risk and he may end up needing a couple years there.

Honestly I hope for him he's not brought to F1 too early, especially if he's as talented as I'm being told he is. It'd be a shame if he "missed" his entrance because they didn't give him time to learn. And like I said before, it's not only the issue of rushing him into F1, it's also the issue of bringing him straight into (still) one of the top teams. Rookies more often than not start in a midfield or a backmarker team so they get a couple of years to learn and prove themselves first. Of course that's also made more difficult with the costcap given that these teams that were often entryways into it have even less of a budget to coddle newbies who get into expensive crashes and mistakes like we talked about earlier. And it sucks for them to see the talented ones then leave for better teams when they were the ones investing in them first. But to get back to Antonelli, think about George's journey to where he is. Iirc he also did just 1 year in F2 but he didn't skip F3 and then he still spent 3 years honing his skills at Williams! Antonelli going straight into the second Mercedes seat in 2025 after just the one year in F2 is, I repeat, not impossible, but it would be absolutely fucking crazy.

#vro0m's asks

[vro0m]

I wouldn’t be surprised if Toto potentially signed Daniel for 1 year until Kimi is ready. Daniel would be cheap (ish) atp in his career and really needs a seat and he might bring some fans and marketing opportunities with him. And that’s all Toto really needs for now until they’re properly regrouping for 2026.

I–

I never thought about this

I don't believe in this possibility at all but if it ends up happening I will probably choke to death laughing

#vro0m's asks