i've drained my body full of pins

[chiyou]

unironically becoming a lance stroll fan post-DTS was not on my 2023 predictions list. I looked into his career (both f1 and in feeder series) and my findings have been...interesting. monaco quali has just wrapped up a few hours ago. lance is in p14 after missing the weigh bridge and sustaining debris damage from norris' car. fernando is starting on the front row after fighting for pole position. people are calling for his teammate to be booted out of f1. everything is fine.

beginnings (circa 2005 - 2011)
Lance began competing in karting competitions around the age of 7, dominating the local scene. by 12/13, he moved to europe with his family to participate in international series'. lance said in a podcast that this experience was a wakeup call for him; he might have been the GOAT in canada, but europe was where the best of the best from all around the world came together. having an average to bad race would put you as far back as P15, that's how good the rest of the kids were.

he competed against some of his current fellow drivers, notably max, alex and nyck, all of whom dominated and were considered the best out of the 100 or so kids who came through the karting scene at the time. esteban was also a top talent, but interestingly he and Lance rarely participated in the same competitions, though they shared a podium at least once. este spoke once about how small lance was back then - to the point where he could barely keep his head upright beneath his helmet, and despite that, he was extremely quick and still beat esteban in some races. In este's words, lance's "daintiness" had always been a problem in his wheel-to-wheel battles because of how small he was compared to the other kids.

they would later meet again in F3 and become really good friends, both driving for Prema at different point in times.

he lives to serve (2011-2016)
naturally Lance progressed to car racing after graduating from karts. he dominated the Italian F4 championship, and then went on to compete in F3 Euro against george, charles, alex & giovinazzi, finishing 5th in the championship. his 2nd season of F3 euro is where it gets controversial - his dad bought Prema at some point in time, and that extra funding meant they could get better cars and equipment. even before that, prema was already the most dominant team in the feeder series, basically like what mercedes was in F1. it's not NOT unexpected to win when you drive for prema. Lance absolutely dominated that season and won the championship, but it was known that his teammates were told to move out of the way for him a couple times. george pointed this out at one point lol. making way for a teammate via team orders is nothing new, and Lance drove spectacularly that season, but it did raise some eyebrows about his championship title.

williams man... (2017-2018)
at that point, Lance had racked up enough points to gain a super license, meaning he was eligible to race in F1. williams was well past their glory days and often brought in pay drivers to keep the team afloat (maldonaldo, latifi, bruno senna etc.) and Lawrence took advantage of this, investing in Williams in exchange for lance driving for them. very controversial start to the season, an 18 year old kid who was clearly not ready to be in F1 yet, he crashed in testing and DNF the first five races due to both mechanical failures and crashing on his own. he scored his first ever points in his home race in montreal, and then immediately after scored a podium in Baku, his 7th ever f1 race (technically 2nd since he never finished the first five.... anyway), becoming the youngest rookie on the podium in f1 history. despite it being his first time driving an f1 car in full wet conditions, he qualified P4 in Monza and later promoted to P2 after danny ric and max took grid penalties. A promising sign that he's a good wet weather driver.

2018 was Lance's worst-performing year yet, but the Williams that year was a brutal car to drive. he and teammate sirotkin were both young and relatively new, so developing their race craft was fundamental, but they certainly weren't going to achieve much with that disgrace of an f1 car. nothing much to say here, overall a season to forget for lance.

racing for points (2019)
after lawrence saved Force India from collapsing and kicked his son's best friend out of his seat, lance teamed up with checo in the newly renamed racing point. checo beat his ass by a significant amount this season, but lance still displayed good race craft despite the car not being anything special. he managed to overtake Danny Ric in the tightest section of the Singapore circuit - a track notoriously hard to overtake in. he drove a mega race in germany, bouncing from P20 to P1 at one point, and ended up in P4, another great drive in wet conditions. In canada, he pulled off a long stint on hard tires and somehow kept pierre in a Red Bull with fresher tires behind him for 30+ laps, despite using an engine that was seven races old. he had christian horner seething on the radio which was hilarious. went from p17 to p9 on pure pace too. RP closed the season rather uneventfully.

COOKING.. in the first half at least (2020)
Lance's best-performing year. we know she was controversial but the pink mercedes was fast as fuck, and was even 2nd fastest car in certain races. lance regularly finished top 5 in both qualifying and race, and was even 4th at one point in the overall WDC standings. took a podium in monza, the temple of speed. then he had a freak crash in mugello that he was visibly shaken by, and that catapulted the beginning of his streak of bad luck. after contracting covid, he had a miserable couple of races that mostly weren't his fault, like in russia where was taken out by Lecrash (who controversially was not even penalized for it.)

he then took a shock pole in a rainy istanbul, 11 years since team silverstone's last pole position as force india. however, a mistimed pitstop and debris stuck to his car caused his tires to fail to warm up, and lance tumbled down the order to P9 after comfortably leading the race for 32 laps. the istanbul circuit was recently resurfaced, meaning there was a lot of oil on track, and it rained to top things off. that combination of oil and rain had drivers spinning and crashing everywhere - yet Lance was one of the very few drivers to be error-free all weekend, another testament to his wet weather skillz.

his bad luck continued after that, and in styria he made a really stupid move on danny ric in desperation. interesting to note here that lance has always had a reputation of being a relatively clean driver who rarely made errors, so this move was uncharacteristic and rightfully criticized. Racing Point eventually lost p3 in the constructors. lance managed to snag another podium at the penultimate race in sakhir after doing a crazy 40 laps on soft tires, but the damage was done to lance's season, and he deserved a lot more than what he got.

double oh seven (2021-2022)
a good first few races for lance in 2021 as aston martin, handily beating a washed seb vettel. as the season went on, however, he repeatedly made a lot of stupid mistakes and questionable moves that resulted in penalties and crashes. at one point his clean reputation disappeared entirely, and he became more known for his aggressive driving style and lack of spatial awareness. it got even worse in 2022, most notably crashing into latifi in melbourne and pulling a late-braking move on Fernando in COTA that could've ended very badly. this resulted in a reprimand and penalty points on his super license. Fernando however defended lance in the press afterwards, and people dismissed it as him not wanting to start bad blood between him and his future team mate (he had already signed with Aston at that point).

after Seb's retirement announcement he and lance were constantly trying to run each other off of the track. lance did say this year he wasn't proud of what he did and that he took it a bit too far with seb sometimes. they still seem to get along well, with seb saying that he had faith lance was able to race in Bahrain in spite of his injuries.

Aston Martin had a terrible first two years, with lance and seb constantly getting knocked out in Q1 because the car was just this slow. people were questioning fernando's move to AM who were 2nd last in the constructors at that point. seb deserved a lot more than what he got before he retired - but at least it was still better than his stint at ferrari.

as for lance... i dont know what happened to his race craft since racing point. I genuinely wonder if the heavy mugello crash and longterm covid affected his form, because he had never been so aggressive and unaware of his surroundings before. theres nothing worse than seeing a driver you like seem to REGRESS in terms of race craft. despite everything, Lance was consistent and constantly managed to finish P10 from the back of the grid in that tractor of a car. he put in some quiet, impressive drives that were overshadowed by his boneheaded mistakes: a great drive in France 2022 where he managed to hold off max seb AND lewis. an amazing start in suzuka where he made up 7 places in the opening lap alone - and in Palmer's words - one of the best wet weather starts we've seen in a long long time. someone said he drives like Senna: except you never know if we're going to get ayrton or bruno.

can you hear the drums, fernando... ?
fucks sake. A mega race in bahrain finishing P6 with pins in his wrists and a broken toe. saudi arabia has honestly been his best weekend so far - he was so close to pole in qualifying, beautiful overtake on sainz in the race. and then he retired due to an ERS issue. completely mid in melbourne but managed to snag P4 due to others' misfortunes. baku was a bad race for both AMs because of drs issues. a bad strategy call in miami quali put fernando in p12 and lance p18, knocking him out of q1. they managed to save fernando and he eventually finished P2 which made lance look like an idiot. floor damage in monaco, where he was flying in Q1 and even putting out purple sectors before the damage. this is going to be a long race, barely any overtakes in monaco. Fernando is probably going to be on the podium again. I hate it here.

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overall THOTS
having alonso as a team mate is both a blessing and a curse lol. he has always been known as a "team mate killer" - whether it was kimi raikkonen or felipe massa or stoffel vandoorne he easily beat them all, and by a LARGE margin. I genuinely think fernando is one of the most talented drivers in f1, and he could have achieved a lot more had he made better career choices and didnt let his hot-headed nature get in his way. he has a knack for extracting the most out of his cars - both checo and lance got 2 podiums each in the pink mercedes, but I can't help but think that Alonso would've regularly put that car on the podium. conversely, we wouldn't be talking about how Aston is the 2nd fastest car this year if he wasn't driving it. he will always be a measuring stick to Lance, whose nepotism can buy him some time, but once investors feel like he's holding the team back, Lawrence will have no choice but to drop him, especially since he wants AM to challenge for world championships.

Lance is such an anomaly of a driver. he seems to thrive in wet, chaotic conditions more than in dry and ideal ones. his quali pace has always been his Achilles heel, but he has good race pace - kind of like a reverse Trulli, who had a knack of putting his cars further ahead of where they should be in qualifying, but go absolutely nowhere come race day. lance is an excellent starter, and is always making up places in the first lap. he's a good overtaker, good at managing tires. he's beaten george on pure pace this year the few times they've been close to each other.

but he is inconsistent. he makes stupid mistakes. he isn't as adaptable as Fernando is, we've seen that in baku after he changed his brake balance settings at fernando's suggestion. his start to the season has been compromised by his injury and a combination of bad luck and strategy so far - unless mclaren gets their shit together he is the only driver on the grid rn capable of getting his maiden win. it's never a good look when you're in the 2nd fastest car and finishing just outside of the points while your team mate is on the podium.

over his career he's had flashes of brilliance that show his talent ceiling is very high - its just that he's often below it. Maybe he's another fisichella or sainz; excellent in midfield cars and underperforming in top ones. maybe he would do better in other racing series, and just isnt cut out for f1. maybe it's just fernando who is making him look worse than he is. but we're only 7/21 races in, and I know he has a lot more to show. But for that one magical start in a rainy suzuka, Lance was on it. if he consistently puts in more moments like that, he'd be a serious contender, becoming the high caliber driver I know he's capable of being.