F1 drivers being Ferrari fans! 🐎

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ok so i think we have all seen the comments under any video where nico rosberg is mentioned, yeah?

it is always something along the lines of "omg its nico rosberg, the guy who beat lewis hamilton in equal machinery" and i did not take much notice at first, but so many of the videos with rosberg had that in them and it bothers me.

it tends to be a jab at lewis, saying that it is the car that made him the best, not his skills. and i think that is wrong.

this is how i look at it: nico rosberg spent a year going to extremes to beat lewis. mind games, doing crazy things to keep his weight down, didnt sleep in the same bed as his wife during the season... lewis was doing none of that, and it was a close fight. five point gap.

even rosberg himself knew he was doing too much to get the smallest bit of leverage on lewis, he likely burnt himself out, hence why he retired.

people right now are using rosberg as an excuse to shit on hamilton, say that his car was the reason for his championships, not him. i think that is bullshit. do not get me wrong, lewis is flawed, everyone is, but lewis in his prime was truly a monster on the track. if lewis was doing the same things nico was, he'd most definitely beat him and have the 2016 wdc.

good for rosberg, not hating on him as a guy, but the comments are annoying me lately so i am here to complain. he won 2016, i'm not disputing that. i'm just saying that demeaning lewis' wdc's to only the cars ability to drive is not looking at the whole picture.

i do not know. i am tired. english is hard and hurting me. i just need to get it out before i explode. good night :)

you guys im so sorry i'm dumb but since i only started watching this year idk much abt the drama that went down between lewis and nico. someone please explain the context behind "monaco based youtube who beat lewis hamilton in equal machinery". like ik it's abt nico and lewis but dk the context and how people take it.(like in a mocking way orrr fr)

I’ve seen some great batfam sports!au, like hockey players and ice dancers, and then some.

And you know what? I have something to offer you, the small niche of intersectional fans of both the batfam and Formula 1. There’s like three of us on here but I’m making this for us.

The batfam, but make it F1 🏎️:

Bruce: Used to be a driver, now team principal. Most definitely Mercedes. His team has been dominant for so long, and they’re an established, respected name in the sport. (He is def. Toto Wolff. Have you ever seen the actual Toto Wolff? He could be batman I kid you not.). He appointed Barbara as Mercedes’ main race-strategist, and Alfred, who used to be Bruce’s PR rep when he was a driver, is now Dick and Damian’s.

Dick: Is Bruce’s number one driver. Multiple times world champion, likeable loveable fashion forward superstar (your Lewis Hamilton type). He’s been there a long time and has seen it all. He’s loyal to his team and plans to remain there until he retires. He’s one of the last of the old guard.

Tim: Is Bruce’s second driver for a season when Jason’s contract is broken. Arrived directly from F2 with a lot of potential but not a lot of experience. The pressure was immense, especially to replace Jason Todd and drive alongside an established world champion, and while he did well for his rookie season, he was not what the team was looking for for a second driver. He is remanded to a back-of-the-field team affiliated with Mercedes while he grows and improves. Tim to Williams is what I’m saying.

Stephanie: Steph is a development driver for Mercedes for a few years before she gets her big break and is announced for Williams to drive alongside Tim. A bit reckless, a bit too quick on the restarts. She gets a lot of flack for hitting the walls a few times but she’s a fighter and she gets results.

Cassandra: Arguably one of the best on the grid, she starts her rookie year with a midfield team before immediately being poached by Ferrari. (In my head she is very much a Charles Leclerc type - kind of shy, kind of awkward, but real kind and a menace on the circuit). PR darling and generally well-liked, she manages to be one of the more aggressive drivers on track without the usual “reckless driver” allegations.

Damian: The second Mercedes driver alongside Dick. Originally picked straight out of F3 by Red Bull and sent to Alpha Tauri, their junior team - Bruce and Mercedes definitely bought the hell out of his contract (in my head Ra’s is the Red Bull team principal and Talia is Alpha Tauri’s) after his first year and brought him in to replace Tim. He’s one of the youngest drivers on the grid, and he has a reputation of being dangerous in wheel-to-wheel battles.

Jason: Used to be Dick’s teammate at Mercedes and even won a world championship against him (for those who are in the know: I’m not saying Jason is the Nico Rosberg to Dick’s Lewis Hamilton, but he did beat him in equal machinery, so…), but left the sport for two seasons after a bad crash. People were very surprised to see him back in F1 driving for Red Bull for a year before switching to that second Ferrari seat. (Come one: I had to give that Ferrari Rosso Corsa to a guy whose helmet is bright red).

Duke: A McLaren driver through and through: papaya orange shirt merchant and general internet celebrity. One of the more well-liked drivers on the grid. He used to briefly be in Alpine but was courted by other midfield teams when his contract ended, and has now been in McLaren for a few years. Definitely the F1 video games ambassador and an unforgettable presence in the Netflix F1 documentary/soap opera series.

Feel free to argue your batfamily member/F1 team opinions in the notes, just know that I will not 🙅🏻‍♀️take any Ferrari slander😤. Trust me I know what that makes me 🤡

Nico liked my comment under his recent ig post, now i will put this in my resume and send it to Mercedes AMG recruiting department to scared them now that i have a link to Nico Rosberg and that team seem to have an allergic problem to acknowledge their world champion 👍🏻 (he's so chronically online sometimes)

pot calling kettle chronically online here 😅 I'm guessing you commented something other than "is that the guy who beat lewis hamilton in equal machinery" which is ALL his comments 🙄

What are your thoughts on the whole "Lewis is pure natural talent and instinct while [insert driver (mostly seen this comparison with Nico)] is hardworking/analytical AND talented but not as much as Lewis" narrative/comparison and just how it's been pushed so much by journalists/media (esp during the Silver War if I'm remembering my dates correctly)? Because tbh it's always kinda rubbed me the wrong way the way that it indirectly implies that Lew doesn't work as hard as Nico/the other drivers because the implication that any driver on the grid, esp one with as many titles/accomplishments as Lewis, is working less than the other guys on the grid just doesn't make sense from a logical perspective, because no matter how much talent you have you can't win a million titles and break a million records without working just as, if not harder, than everyone else.

takes incredibly deep breath

i can answer this in one sentence: its racism.

but ill go more into detail, because racism in f1 is a weird beast that people SAY doesnt exist, but absolutely does. more below the cut, this is gonna be long

lewis hamilton is undeniably incredibly naturally talented. you dont do *that* in your rookie season and beat a world champion despite being put on alternate fuel strategies and tyre strategies for the first half of the season without incredible levels of talent. 07 is also spygate, though, so bare that in mind, i guess. regardless, insane season, and he outdrove PRIME FERNANDO ALONSO. AS A ROOKIE.

so im not team LH44 blah blah blah disclaimer here but yeah, you dont win SEVEN world championships without insane levels of talent, but also hard work. and the reason that it is implied that it was “just the car” for lewis so often is definitely attributed to casual racism in f1. even though drivers are nothing without their cars - schumacher couldnt have done what he did without ferrari. max couldnt be doing what hes doing now without RBR, same for vettel and RBR. people dont question their dominance as much (minus maybe max, who is still early on in his career)

i think the silver war unfortunately kinda makes the “lewis doesnt work as hard / hes just talented” argument stick out a bit bc nico in ‘16 was batshit crazy. he didnt see his wife and kids, he spent all his spare time in karts. he had to go in so hard to beat lewis its insane. but somehow the narrative for that gets switched to nico worked so hard / he beat lewis in equal machinery / he fought so hard to achieve what his dad did instead of lewis was so good that he was THAT hard to beat for an incredibly talented rosberg. which is … weird, imo!

but i think the main thing for me that sticks out is lewis not being top of the GOAT debate / there still being a goat debate between him and schumi. theres a BIIIIT of nuance there bc schumi won 5x WDC in a row (unmatched record) and drove in a very different era, and also had a HUGE cultural impact because he was the first f1 driver to be truly dominant and is the insp for a lot of the drivers on the grid today. however, lewis has more race wins, more poles, more fastest laps, and an equal number of championships. i am of the opinion that if lewis was white, he’d be largely undisputed as greatest of all time. instead, people won’t call him that unless he wins an 8th. EVEN if he does win his eighth, hes likely to still be debated.

we see racism elsewhere on the grid, too:

• albon often speaks about being called british when he does well, and being called thai when he does badly

• zhou guanyu being called a pay driver by everyone

• yuki tsunoda. ohhh my god that man is overlooked CHRONICALLY, not just by fans, but by his own team bosses. he very much deserves a shot at the RBR seat in 24 unless ricciardo is INCREDIBLE and outperforms him consistently, which i cant see happening.

theres also, somewhat, an argument for logan sargeant being somewhat of an outsider within the grid because hes american, but the fans definitely dont overlook him (partly due to his history with oscar piastri, who IS popular and on a team thats fighting for high points positions) but also imo bc hes white, where tsunoda / zhou arent.

ofc its more complex than this. theres a ton of factors at play, like ethnicity / race and then nationality that they drive for, where they’re bought up, and these all interact with each other, not just in drivers who are poc but in the white european drivers too. all of it plays into their image.

so yeah. people implying that lewis isnt as hard working rubs me the wrong way too. because its literally just racism, but most f1 fans will say that it doesnt exist, its just lewis’ demeanour etc.

which. ugh. whenever i encounter f1 fans IRL, its a pretty good litmus test as to whether ill like them or not is if they like lewis. if they hate lewis, ESPECIALLY if theyre a new fan and hate lewis, its a red flag, bc lewis has done barely anything to be hated, lol. esp when alonso has more cheating scandals and ppl seem to love him !!

“The only reason Nico Rosberg will be remembered is because he beat lewis Hamilton that one time.” Is what you said and frankly i just think it’s a bit rude. Nico is his own person and yes a lot of his career is entwined with Lewis, but not everything about him has to be made about Lewis too. You’re just diminishing his achievements and making them all about Lewis when he can share elements of his career with lewis and still be his own person

I think you misinterpreted what I wanted to say in that post. Maybe I should've written it differently.

Nico is definitely a character. And F1 would be less fun without him. His achievements are absolutely his own, no doubt. I'm not criticizing the choices that he made either.

At the end of the day though, that is his claim to fame (until he makes an amazing investment or comes back to the grid or smth idk) and Nico knows it.

There's a lot of people who've won a single WDC. But Nico's is special. Why did he retire immediately after his single championship? To work on his mental health and focus on his family.

He gave up cycling for marginal gains. He gave up seeing his daughter and sleeping next to his wife for his championship. He's had to sacrifice a lot to get that championship, to beat his rival- and his only rival was Lewis really.

So yes. Nico's championship WAS about beating Lewis. What other rivals were there? No team was really up there in terms of performance. It was Nico vs Lewis. Lewis vs Nico.

But yes. This is the guy who beat Michael Schumacher and Lewis in equal machinery. This is a guy who can speak more than 4 languages fluently. This is someone who was offered a place at Imperial College to study aerospace engineering (which isn't easy to get into at all).

My post was supposed to talk about the tragedy of brocedes - whatever Nico does, he'll never be able to escape Lewis. Take Extreme E for example. Once again, It was Nico vs Lewis. It's poetic.

im not gonna justify the hate nico got cause i am someone who hates any kind of bullying whether it’s booing or online abuse or whatever shape or form, but i guess nico got hate mostly for betraying lewis (his longtime best friend) so if you think about it, it might have made sense to some to hate him, they thought it was rightfully so. (Again not me)!

But Valtteri? Valtteri got mocked, ridiculed, bullied, shamed, belittled and for fuckin what? for not being NICO! For not going down the same route as nico. Forgetting that him not doing what nico did, doesn’t mean he never tried to fight lewis or win anything. The thing is imo; Valtteri isn’t good enough to beat lewis. I mean even Nico needed to get into the mind games and psychologically manipulate lewis so he could actually get it 100% right, and although i hate nico & love Valtteri i must say, nico >> Valtteri . So literally Valtteri got bullied for something that isn’t his fault, but people hated him so much for not bringing lewis down bc that’s all they cared about. They don’t care about Valtteri actually winning. They just want lewis to lose. And let’s not pretend in 2021 many of the same people used Valtteri and supported him out of spite just to take a dig at lewis. So from my place i feel awful for Valtteri, when he got hate, he got it for not beating lewis. And when he got support, it was to belittle lewis or paint him as the bad guy who uses his teammate and Valtteri deserves better and you look closely and see them supporting max who literally openly obviously using the fuck out of perez or gasly who admitted the team played more on his side to make sure he scores more and didn’t give equal machinery to Yuki .. so they aren’t in for equality. They’re in to hate on Lewis. And all this and im not talking about some of lewis fans who hated on Valtteri for no reason other than expecting him to be a Lewis Hamilton or he is not good enough.

This got so long. Sorry for that. Have a good day! 🖤

This pretty much sums up my feelings on the entire situation other than the fact that I quite like Nico and love Valtteri.

Off topic for a second but I think I've figured out why I like Nico now. That desperation, that need to do whatever you can to win. The bone deep belief you have to prove yourself no matter what.... yeah, I know those feelings all too well. Especially the regret that comes afterwards so I think I relate to him a lot there.

Anyways, back to topic. I will never forgive those assholes who cried about how sad they felt for Val after his interview were he talked about very triggering traumatic events only to turn around and abuse him again when he said he'll get his elbows out against mv0 if he had to (when there is direct word by word quote of mv0 saying nearly the exact same thing). Non of them ever liked Valtteri and it's sickening to see them pretend when it suits them.

Have a good day as well darling💙💙💙