Sneak Peek | Eddie Has A Short-lived Date

on ferrari politics, strategy and carlos sainz

Just a heads-up / disclaimer, i am a leclerc fan and therefore not unbiased. I did, however, come into the sport as a ferrari fan and tried to give Sainz his dues, and I still want him to, but- oh, well. We'll just get into it.

Ferrari, for a while, has actively suffered due to its own politics. Seb Vettel didn't seem to get on well in the atmosphere. They haven't been able to hold on for a championship since 2007.

There's a little bit of background I think is important for the current setup in ferrari:

Charles Leclerc was the last driver signed by the ex-TP, Arrivabene, and renewed by him also.

Carlos Sainz was the first (major) signing by Mattia Binotto, and was then propped by the management of the team through 2022, influencing car development in a negative direction.

After Silverstone 2022, Leclerc allegedly threatened to leave Ferrari. Binotto was fired and replaced with Fred Vasseur, who worked with Leclerc in his rookie season in F1 in Sauber. It's heavily speculated that this decision was made to please Leclerc and prevent him from leaving.

The 2022 and 2023 cars were influenced by Sainz's feedback predominantly, and his comfort.

Sainz has been beaten in teammate H2H by Hulkenberg, Leclerc and Verstappen. He looked good against a rookie Norris, which earnt him the Ferrari seat in 21.

In 2021, Sainz outscored Leclerc by five points. Leclerc had two dnfs to Sainz's zero, and lost probably about 40-50 points through no fault of his own. 2022, Ferrari started the year with the fastest car, and went backwards throughout because they refused to valorise their faster driver, who lead the championship by a fair distance after the first few races, picking up a grand slam in australia and winning by twenty seconds there, instead aiming to get Sainz "comfortable in the car" (Mekies' words). In 2023, from Carlos Sainz Sr's words, the car was developed in Sainz's direction, and every ferrari fan agrees the sf-23 was a shitbox. Still, Leclerc was the only driver to overtake Verstappen on equal stints (LV23) and picked up a ton of poles, outperforming his teammate and AGAIN losing out to bad luck with the trilogy of DNF, DNS, DSQ in a season. These weren't small points losses, either. all in all, he probably lost forty points alone in the second half of the season.

So, under Vasseur, the team is taking a different direction, being now firmly lead by Leclerc, who signed a contract extension of five+ years with the scuderia. Meanwhile, Sainz struggled to be offered more than a one-year deal, and there were rumours in the press about Ferrari wanting to bring in Albon, Norris in 2025/6. They very clearly wanted to keep that second seat open, regardless of Hamilton - his availability was just a bonus.

The narrative, somehow, has been twisted into Carlos' departure being comparable to Sebastian's: a betrayal. Carlos was offered an extension in 2023, and didn't sign it, and instead his camp decided to start talking about their Audi offers during the Monza 23 weekend, as a way to put pressure on surrounding contracts, and Ferrari basically turned around, and said: fine. Go if you want.

Sainz has had a full season to negotiate. He's not particularly a victim here, in my opinion. He's repeatedly, across the course of his four-year stint with Ferrari, ignored team orders in both quali and the race to serve his own interests, and lies in interviews after. Two recent instances that spring to mind are Bahrain 2024, where he implied to the press he had similar braking issues to Charles' (he didn't) and Barcelona 2024/ Austria 2024, where he went against his own TP to say he never agreed to saving his tyres after overtaking and making contact with his teammate, potentially costing Leclerc and the team a podium / a position.

There's a reason Sainz is leaving. If it weren't for Hamilton, it would be Albon, Norris, or someone else. The two drivers aren't a good fit. Vasseur said he had to calm them down every two GPs. Sainz's camp is reportedly incredibly toxic to be around, in general, and Ferrari is one of the only teams where somewhere in the contracts they can't prioritise upgrades to one driver. they're the only team to consistently bring upgrades to both cars, regardless of how urgent those upgrades are.

The team has been obsessed with giving Sainz and Leclerc equal status. Now its actively harming them. Leclerc has long been faster. In 2019 he outperformed a 4xWDC in the form of Seb Vettel at points. He won his first two races back-to-back. People who know both compare him to Verstappen. After firing Seb in 2020, it was expected Leclerc would lead the team moving forward, but Carlos came in and demanded equal status, and now there's a whole mess as a result. No other top team is this nice. RBR, McLaren, even Mercedes to some extent, make no pretenses about who they prioritise, and it helps them. There's team orders regularly. This doesn't happen at Ferrari, and even if it does, Sainz ignores them anyway. and this isn't just from this year. This is from 23, 22 ("stop inventing!" comes to mind).

Along with this, he lies (or is just delusional) to the media, about pace, damage, strategy. It's exhausting to keep up with. Then, when Leclerc hits back, he's labelled a poor sport (his comments about "that moment in his career" were so cheeky, but in my opinion, not uncalled for), and he also made a comment after imola quali, but it was in french, to canal+. Anyone who follows Leclerc knows these comments aren't out of nowhere, and he can bite back if he needs to.

The issue isn't teammates fighting each other. It's that there's long since been a power imbalance in this team and Ferrari has suffered as a result. And it looks like they're going to continue to suffer in the next few races.

(Just needed to get this off my chest. I think Sainz actually is a pretty decent driver, but his politics just. Rubs me the wrong way and I need him to sign a contract so everyone else can start to move. I'm sick of talking about him).

I know we're all very excited about all of Oliver's interviews, but the next episode isn't about buddie or bucktommy - it's about Maddie and Chim getting married after years of love and pain and loss and hope.

It's about Maddie marrying a man who loves her, who respects her, who trusts her, who doesn't control her, who wants Maddie to just be Maddie.

It's about Chimney marrying a woman who loves him, who values him for exactly who he is, who laughs at his jokes, who overcame hell and came out the other side a little battered and bruised but still alive, who loves him for exactly who is he and has never once asked him to change.

It's about a couple who fought through abusive ex-husbands and near death experiences and PPD and breaking up but still loving each other so much and getting back together because being apart was never going to work for them.

It's about a family that deserves happiness finally getting to celebrate that after years of so much drama.

So again, I know we're all excited about the buddie and bucktommy of it all, but let's not forget what 7x06 is about - Maddie and Chimney getting married.

On another note to what’s happening rn in the 911 fandom:

Media literacy is very important, and I’m choosing to believe that people just never learned what this means. So, in light of recent developments, I’m sharing one of my favorite YouTube channels where you can learn about good/bad representation of queer folk in mainstream media. I encourage you to watch it for a multitude of reasons, but the main one is:

If you ever actually cared about seeing queer characters on your screen and it NOT being a fetish you have for some god forsaken reason, then you’ll sit down and learn that putting aside your ship wars and appreciating something as monumental as a character getting a healthy queer sexual awakening is more important than your faves kissing or not.

YouTube

A Story Worth Telling

Where diversity meets discussion. We’re Alex and Josh, the dynamic duo behind this channel, and we’re thrilled to share our journey with you

First of all, I've absolutely loved the fic, I love how you write them interacting with eachother. Secondly, I'd love to hear more about your lube research because from what I've gathered Vaseline was invented in 1872, but it became a popular lubricant in the mid 1900's and the first comercial lube was invented in 1904.

Thanks for your fic!

I full body CACKLED at this ask 🤣 thank you for liking my fic! It means the world to me that people are liking it!

As for the research…

I am no historian by ANY means, so I just waved my hand around some technical things and made up a rhetoric for myself:

If one person from this couple is a more seasoned veteran on being gay, he’d know more about **things**

Said person is not rich (by the era standards) but he’s probably got good connections in a community that is marginalized and persecuted (meaning, they’ve got each other’s backs and would help out with almost anything, to their abilities)

Probably has had more than 1 partner in the past so it’s trial and error, practice makes perfect, and experience mixed all together

Taking all of this into consideration… while yes, petroleum jelly was **just** invented but hadn’t actually gained a popular status in the market, what were other historically known substances used prior to its invention?

Oils.

And Henry could probably get his hands on some better quality ones (both by his presence as a photographer and how alluring people used to find that profession [ie. payment through services or favors/products for **explicit** photography]). So think, more than the cooking olive oil or oils you’d find in a kitchen, he’d probably have access to things like clove oil or even hemp seed oil. Maybe even GOOD quality ones that come from outside England (importing them would’ve made them wayyy more expensive, but if poppy sold for cheaper than bread, surely some seller would sell nice oils for a more affordable price).

… or they could’ve easily raw-dogged it and used saliva.

Omg your tags about bodies!!!! 😭😭😭 I am in a heap!!! I cannot cope with Alfred & Henry and im so sad we never saw Henry leave or whether he ever found out about Alfred's sacrifice like I am feral 😢

AHHHHH I **KNOW**. Codas and fix-it fics are being worked on because if I don’t somehow make them happy I will actually cry. The ending giving us a hopeful glimpse of them is enough to get me through this writing process atm. (ALSO, SO GLAD MORE PEOPLE ARE FINDING THE SHOW AND WATCHING IT!!!)

"i could never replace you" "my attention?" "so that was okay?" "i think you're adorable" "i didn't want to pressure you" TOMMY KINARD THE MAN THAT YOU ARE

Listen, I love Max. I do want him to win another WDC. But, after last year, I love seeing everyone be more competitive.

I also need to see the analytics of those Mercedes because George has been the one carrying the team so far this season

LANDO TAKE CARE OF YOUR TYRES DON’T GIVE GEORGE AN OPENING

That 1cm to the barrier gave me a tiny heart attack, I need that left rear to hold out at least 10 more laps

RYAN WHAT

bucktommy kiss 7.06

nothing beats a meet cute at a crime scene lol