Oh Nothing, Just Thinking About George Russell And How His Story Is Equally As Tragic As Some Other Drivers’

sharing some of my commissions i’ve done this winter break 🦐

kitty ear max has finally happened

motorsport incorrect quotes: 165/?

Is it a new thing that we don’t tell people how long we’re signed for?

Because Fernando is here to stay…until?

Lando is at McLaren for…a century?

Charles…Ferrari have contracted his entire lineage until the first daughter?

So the next guy, our last guy, is a local — — Local hero!  Floridian — — and a hero!  — and a genuine hero.  I mean yes, he just got back from F1, he did some time [inaudible], but beyond that, you know, this is the last American to win an international karting championship since Lake Speed in the sixties.  Way back, yeah. I mean, he was, what, winning in [inaudible]? I remember — I’m gonna date myself here for sure — but I used to manage a go kart track in North Palm Beach county in 2005 and he was there as a kid with his brother, running around. And they were fast then. He’s always been quick. Uhm, you know, Formula One’s a tough crowd out there. I think he did a great job representing, I have nothing but respect for this guy. And I’ve noticed that he’s gotten into these GT cars and he’s been quick in the GT cars! Yeah, and — it was really tough. One, he goes to F1. As you said, it’s just a —it’s a crazy atmosphere. Two, the Williams is not exactly…  It’s the worst car in the field! Yeah. And so you’re trying to figure out how to drive that, and everything. Uhm, but I think, you know, he had his rough moments but he also had a few where you can — he — he shone. He’s one of the twenty best drivers in the world. Yeah. Yeah. And remember that. That’s a — that’s a phenomenal achievement.

every day i learn something new about logan sargeant and his racing career, not just about his performance in f1 but in f2 and previous series, too. and every day i end up so sad because he genuinely has so so much potential and can do so much but he keeps being give a poor hand of cards. this guy out qualified his teammate in f2 TEN TO FOUR. and who was his teammate?? liam lawson. liam joined redbull’s driver academy in february of 2019 while logan only got to join an f1 team’s driver academy in october of 2021. that team was williams. which, as we know, hasn't exactly been the best performing team in recent years. oscar piastri got to join an f1 team’s driver academy in january of 2020 (the renault sport academy, later rebranded as the alpine academy). liam and oscar both got the opportunity to do f1 tests for YEARS prior to their f1 debuts in 2023. liam had 4 and a half years of experience in f1 cars before 2023. oscar had 3 years of experience in f1 cars before 2023. even if it was just testing and practice sessions, it's still something.

what did logan get? one measly fp2 session, post-season testing, and then jumped right in to pre-season testing in 2023. he already had a seat in williams then, so with the experience from before the pre-season testing in 2023 he got to do maybe 800km of testing in an f1 car. the others — in this case i mean oscar, liam, and heck even nyck de vris — had opportunities to drive f1 cars and gain experience for YEARS before logan. if you look at nyck de vris: he got signed to the mclaren young driver programme in 2010. he joined the audi sport racing academy in 2016.  granted, he left the mclaren programme in before the 2019 season and left audi after the 2019 season, too. but he then went to mercedes as a reserve driver and tester for 2020 and afterwards. this means he got just about a DECADE AND A HALF of teams putting their time and energy into training him to join f1.

logan got a year. one. single. fucking year. that is entirely incomparable to the other rookies from 2023, who had so much more experience before hand. and yet logan was jumped into f1 and the expectations were so high for a guy who hasn't had the chance to train and learn and gain experience.

and yet when we look at the 2022 f2 season, logan sargeant, a rookie, was 1 point off from his teammate —the one and only liam lawson — scoring p4 in the championship. he outqualified his teammate 10 to 4. he was the first american to win an f2 race (that is, of course, following the rebrand from gp2 to f2, but regardless, that’s still an important thing to note and an achievement of his that should be celebrated).

logan sargeant has so much potential and if only williams would show him a little more faith unlike what they’ve been doing, if only they’d give him the same upgrades as alex, if only they wouldn’t force him to drive a car 15kg overweight from that of his teammate’s car, if only they wouldn’t force him to use outdated rear and front wings from the season prior. then perhaps he would have a chance to show what he can do. perhaps if he wasn’t stuck in a team with a crap car who have shown zero faith (which has been vehemently obvious since the circus in australia) in him and made him absolutely miserable, a shell of himself — which you can clearly see in recent interviews and photos of him — then maybe he’d be able to show how good he really is. and maybe if williams hadn’t been so adamant about taking him out of f2 so quickly and let him develop for one more year, we’d be seeing headlines that say “logan sargeant, first american f1 driver on the podium since michael andretti in 1993.” and perhaps we could even see him winning races.

no matter what someone says about his current f1 performances — though most base that solely off of where he ends up on the grid rather than looking at his actual driving and seeing how good he is as a driver considering the crap circumstances he’s in — logan sargeant is a better driver than what everyone says. he is trying so insanely hard to get a car that is miles off from the rest of the field to place as high as humanly possible. no one can say that if you put another driver in that car that logan is driving they'd be doing better than he is now. the fact is, they wouldn't be. he's been given an absolute tractor and is expected to score points when that car isn't built for getting in the points. and yet logan managed to get p10 in the miami sprint race — which should be recognized and commended. because he was in an awful car and he absolutely shined that day. that was just the start of showing what he could do. but he hasn't been given the same resources as alex, those being the upgrades, so what more can he do compared to what he's doing now?

and i am actually sitting here crying as i type this because this is a driver who is giving it his all even when the entire world is against him, even when his entire TEAM is against him, and he is persevering to the best of his abilities. and i know exactly what it’s like to sit here, wanting to reach for your dreams and show everyone how good you are, but to have only your closest friends and family on your side, rooting for you. what it’s like to look everywhere around you and see everyone calling you crap and saying you should quit and that you aren’t and never will be good enough. to look around and see your closest friends and family cheering for you, yet feeling like crap because you aren't doing as well as you would want, feeling inferior to everyone around you.

news flash: logan sargeant is and will always be good enough. he just needs the opportunity to show it, and williams is ruining that for him.

and yes, i will defend him with my life. people who try to say otherwise can try to do the same hours — the WEEKS — worth of research that i’ve done about logan and his career because he IS a good driver and HE DESERVES BETTER.

any hate comments towards logan will be deleted, because i have neither the time nor the energy to deal with that and argue with logan haters. i've said all of what i know and can remember about him and his career above, and will add what i can as time goes on and i remember something else or learn something new. if you have the time to hate on logan, you have the time to do your research and examine the fact that he has the potential to do well, but is not in a position for that because of the abhorrent circumstances he is currently in.

thank you for coming to my ted talk. edit: i'd also really recommend reading this twitter thread!! it goes into some more depth on logan and his f2 / f1 career, and even a little bit about his f3 career. it's very informative and articulates much of logan's career and why he is a better driver than many believe very well. https://x.com/herrocult/status/1795747913588761027

“ummmmm ur bra strap is showing :/ ”

btw the katy perry/bezos' girlfriend/other four irrelevant billionaires 10 minute space stunt was not the first all female expedition no matter how much they try to market it as such. the first all female mission was in 1963 with soviet cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova, Irina Solovyova and Valentina Ponomaryova - all three of which were working class and had to pass incredibly hard exams to be chosen from 400 potential candidates. just in case we started falling for the propaganda machine again

Lance Lore: Florida Winter Series 2014

This post will cover Lance’s participation in the 2014 Florida Winter Series, or as I like to call it: Baby Racing Summer Winter Camp.

Which is where this picture originated from:

First things foremost, what was the Florida Winter Series? 

It was a “non-championship racing series organized by the Ferrari Driver Academy in Florida”. The series used the Tatuus FA010B chassis. This car is also used in Formula Abarth and other regional championships. The car was built to Formula 3 safety regulations.

It was an educational experience for young drivers to gain familiarity and development with single seater racing. For some drivers such as Lance and Max, it was their first ever time racing single seaters as they were literally in karting before this. 

Who participated? 

The series had 11 fixed participants, and Lance was the youngest.

From the FDA there was Lance, Antonio Fuoco (current WEC driver for Ferrari AF Corse), and Raffaele Marciello (current WEC driver for BMW M Team WRT). 

[Lance and fellow FDA participants]

Other notable names include, Max Verstappen, Nicholas Latifi, Ed Jones (WEC, IndyCar), and Tatiana Calderón (WEC, IndyCar).

[The Palm Beach Drivers’ Photo]

Will Buxton’s Reporting

Will Buxton, who if you don’t know is a British motorsport journalist and presenter for F1, was invited to participate for a weekend of the series. He documented his experience on his blog and there was also an NBC mini series. You can read/watch the whole thing online, I’ll just be focusing on Lance for this post.

[Pre Race Warm Up]

From his blog, it’s easy to tell that he quickly became friends with Lance, his garage mate, over the weekend. He documents his first impression of Lance as followed.

Lance Stroll. My garage mate. And on first impressions of him being late for every meeting, playing with his phone, goofing around, I presumed was going to be a cocky karting graduate nightmare. How wrong first impressions can be. A genuinely lovely guy, still so young at 15 and blisteringly quick. Supportive of his boys in the garage, a smart brain… and ever so confident. Confident to the point that if you don’t know him, you’d think he was being arrogant. Just as I had, before I really knew him.

Will realized how behind he was compared to the others, after FP1 he was 8.485s off the leading session time. He writes,

After each session, Lance would sit with me briefly and ask how my session had gone and advise on where I could find some time. After FP1 he handed me a tip that served me impeccably.

“Have you got a tinted visor?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Use it, man. The glare out there is so bad, you’ll tidy right up with it.”

And so I did.

I sat with Mario as he overlayed Lance’s lap with mine to give me an idea of how much later I could be braking, and even how I could change my style of braking. I was hitting the brakes early and with about three quarters of the pressure of Lance, pressing on them and then coming off almost completely in a square shape.

[Will and Lance discussing]

During Will’s second run of the first quali session for the race weekend, there was a red flag because Lance had crashed into the barrier. He wrote the following:

Lance was going over his crash, and we all sat down and watched the GoPro footage. He’d turned in just a touch early for Turn 8, a slight lift and then full throttle. The early apex had drawn him out to the edge of the track too soon and his front left had touched the grass moments before the kerbing started. On the slippery green stuff, and at that speed, he was a passenger for the five metres or so before the tyre barrier. The hit was recorded at 5.2G.

“You OK?” I asked.

“Yeah. My knee hurts a bit but I’m OK. I’m just pissed off because if I’d got the turn in right I reckon I could take it flat.”

This was another moment where I realized how much I liked Lance. A big shunt, and he was already thinking about taking the corner faster next time out.

Although during the break between quali’s, they managed to fix Lance’s car. After Will completed his first ever race (he came last and got lapped twice), Nuno Pinto (prema driving coach/manager and Lance’s coach to this day) told Will he did a good job, but was “almost too courteous to the other drivers.”

Which Lance replied: “Yeah man,” laughs Lance. “You’re way too nice. You could have held the other guys up so I could have had a run at them!”

Other Facts/Media

Over the course of the month, Lance podiumed twice (both times with Nicky)!

[Palm Beach R2 Podium]

[Homestead R3 Podium]

He also achieved 1 pole position. Bonus fun fact: Will beat Nicky in one race (due to a DNF). Now for some more pictures!

[Car check and rebuild, Lance removing the air filter to clean it]

[Other pictures of Lance]

[Lance and Antonio Fuoco]

[FWS Class of 2014]

[Bonus: Will congratulating + Interviewing Lance after his first F1 Podium]

Links/further media Will's blog NBC Mini series (spot the boys!) Homestead Race recap FWS 2014 - Highlight Video Florida Winter Series - Funniest moments Will Interviews Lance after Baku 2017

Note I know this was long, but thank you for reading! I've been meaning to write this up for a while now <3

reblog if you’re a lesbian who supports bi girls, a bi girl who supports lesbians, or if you want all wlw to have a nice day