Resident F1 Oracle™

-mclaren are currently locked in a battle with themselves for the constructors championship because theyre about 500 million points ahead of all the other teams. in face, they could lock this down at the dutch gp, provided there isnt an absolute fiasco.

-second in the constructors championship, much to the surprise of everyone including themselves is ferrari. they've had an utterly ferrari season, which is to say that the car is a shitbox that leclerc keeps putting places it should never go (like the podium) out of sheer audacity. lewis hamilton is also racing this year for ferrari for the first time after leaving mercedes after 11 seasons. its not going well, but thats definitely not His fault. the car is a piece of shit and the strategy isnt much better.

-lando norris (mclaren driver) is engaged in a battle for the drivers championship with his teammate oscar piastri (mclaren driver). as in, the team refuses to say whos the number one driver and are just kind of alternating who gets the preferred strategy as long as the two of them play by the """"papaya rules"""" (which as far as we know means like dont crash into eachother and play nice with your toys pls and thanks). lando started out the season ahead of oscar, but oscar has since overtaken him in the points. prior to the dutch gp, lando had 275 points and oscar had 284. a mere nine point difference. by all accounts, this championship battle is expected to go down to the last race in abu dhabi, nine races from now. the last time a championship went until abu dhabi was in 2021 when max verstappen narrowly beat out lewis hamilton, winning his first drivers championship title after race control made a shitty call about a safety car (the racing world is still divided over this). and the last time there was a championship battle that went to the wire between two teammates it was between lewis Hamilton and nico rosberg in 2016. everyone keeps saying that lando and oscar are just like nico and lewis. they are not. nico and lewis dont talk to eachother anymore because of the championship battle (though there's been conflicting reports, mostly from nico) with lewis going out of his way to ever even mention him and nico yapping about him whenever he gets the chance, but they live in the same building. lando and oscar comment on each others instagram posts. they are not the same.

-the dutch gp is the first race of the second part of the season, coming immediately off the back of summer break. its also max verstappen's home race. last year it was won by lando, who said over radio after winning that his drive was "simply lovely" which is max's catch phrase. that he trademarked like a week later. every year everyone shows up in orange to the dutch gp because its max's color and theyre like wooooo go max! super max! and every year mclarens like omg omg wow look! all this orange! just for us!!! and red bulls like no ❤️

-anyway thats enough backstory. lets get to the interesting bits.

starting with the fact that, as i said, this race is coming after a relatively quiet summer break. there was no breaking news. no nothing.

immediately After summer break though valtteri bottas and checo perez were announced as the 2026 cadillac drivers, which will join the grid as the 11th team next year. this is funny for two reasons: 1. bottas announced this by posting a photo of himself on a surf board in a tux holding an american flag that everyone thought was ai until he also posted the behind the scenes video of the picture and 2. christian horner, the disgraced ex team principal of red bull, who was mostly i think responsible for the firing of checo perez from red bull was fired from red bull, leaving checo employed and him not.

yuki tsunoda was also announced as a hex clad pan ambassador in a video with gordon ramsay

red bull once again posted about charles leclerc, saying that they hoped their seats wouldn't be full of water during the dutch gp, a call back to leclerc's radio from australia 2025 when something malfunctioned in his car and he came on the radio to say that his seat was full of water. (he was told that it "must be the water.") this is of course all about the ongoing weird feud sort of bromance that charles and max have that i really dont have the time to explain. but essentially theyre besties. but theyre worsties.

also lance stroll crashed in practice and in qualifying. not that really matters but it did happen.

and isack hadjar said that the song he was adding to his garage's playlist for the race was the 33 max verstappen song. (you know, dudududu max verstappen)

so all in all, pretty quiet in terms for f1.

sunday morning rolls around and the grid, of course, lines up as they do every other sunday where there's also a race.

p1: oscar piastri (mclaren) p2: lando norris (mclaren) p3: max verstappen (red bull) p4: isack hadjar (a rookie at vcarb. very important) p5: george russell (mercedes) p6: charles leclerc (ferrari) p7: lewis hamilton (ferrari) p8: liam lawson (vcarb) p9: carlos sainz (williams) p10: fernando alonso (aston martin) p11: kimi antonelli (mercedes) p12: yuki tsunoda (red bull) p13: gabriel bortoleto (stake f1 team kick sauber) p14: pierre gasly (alpine) p15: alex albon (williams) p16: franco colapinto (alpine) p17: nico hulkenberg (stake f1 team kick sauber) p18: esteban ocon (haas) p19: lance stroll pit lane: ollie bearman (haas, started pit lane because he changed his power unit or something)

its humid, hot, and theres a threat of rain.

and lewis hamilton was already under investigation for failing to slow under yellow flags on his way to the grid. oops.

and its also lights out and away we go.

now, last year, max overtook lando on the first lap, claiming the lead for a little while before lando eventually took it back. and if there's one thing about max verstappen, is that he loves to 1. pass lando 2. repeat history and 3. give his home crowd a good show.

so thats exactly what he did.

except the pass wasnt exactly....standard per se.

nearly skidding into the grass, kicking up dust and dirt galore, max verstappen overtook lando norris off the starting line at the dutch gp. literally through sheer insanity because max doesnt have the fastest car anymore, he hast been on the podium since silverstone which was like five or so races ago. hes not winning the world title this year. and yet. hes doing shit like this on a sunday just for fun.

also having fun was alex albon, who somehow managed to move up five spots. not having fun was gabriel bortoleto, who had possibly the worst start ive ever seen and dropped all the way back to the back of the grid. but he wasnt going to let that stop him, he tried to pass lance stroll but sorta kinda flopped and fucked up his front wing. though he didnt pit. lance did though. for hard tires. because why not.

and lando had decided that he had enough of max being in front of him and overtook him back on the outside of turn one.

which is again, kind of an insane thing to do to max verstappen. but alas, the boys were not here to play.

lando was then told to "go get him," him of course being oscar. which he did gladly. karin chandhok, who was subbing in for martin brundle, even said that “norris has just dropped max like a hot potato” because by the next lap he was already 3 seconds clear of max. and taking the fastest lap. going faster than oscar. (oscar, who, if he won the race was going to tie for most career wins by an australian with mark webber, his manager. oscars only in his third year of f1).

karun also said that he was “using a very unscientific method here (to predict the start of the rain), there’s no umbrellas or ponchos going up in the grand stands outside the commentary box yet”

and by lap 11, isack hadjar was still somehow holding off charles leclerc, holding onto his 4th place.

having a significantly less good time though was ollie bearman, who on lap 13 was behind bortoleto and said over radio “i’m a bit scared about bortoletos front wing, it’s flapping," which pretty instantly brought it to the attention of the stewards. but nothing continued to be done about it.

a lap later, it was no longer a problem because lance ran over some debris. with was the remains of bortoleto's front wing. thanks for taking one for the team there, lance.

and with lap 15 coming to a close, we had the following running order: piastri, norris, verstappen, hadjar (still in fourth), leclerc, russell, hamilton, lawson, sainz, albon, tsunoda, antoneli, alonso, colapinto, gasly, hulkenberg, ocon, bearman, stroll

and at the start of lap 16, oscar, who was still comfortably leading, announced that "i’ve got a few drops of rain on my visor” 

alpine, who i bet you forgot were here because i definitely did, told their drivers to swap positions, which put pierre back in front of franco in 14th and 15th.

charles leclerc, who was so valiantly trying to pass hadjar, in a fucking racing bull in his rookie season, for the last 16 laps, finally slowed down, probably to save his tires. but its a bad day for ferrari when they cant pass an rb. great day for rb tho.

meanwhile, people were still trying to figure out the weather.

"oh theres zak brown (the mclaren racing ceo) doing the old fashioned trick of sticking his hand out to see what the weather is instead of looking at the radar,” karun said on lap 17.

finally, someone in the stewards office decided to investigate bortoleto for his disintegrating front wing. though nothing came from it.

lando was also almost ten seconds ahead of max (he did that rather quickly, dont you think?). meaning that oscar could pit and come out ahead of max who was still in third. which they might do if they want to give them an equal chance at racing and blah blah blah. because mclaren still refuses to pick a number one driver, despite everyone's general upset about the whole thing.

but mclaren didnt pit. fernando alonso did though, for hard tires and came out in 20th. there was strong speculation that he might go to the end of the race without pitting again. a fact that he himself might not have been aware of.

while crofty and karun were yapping about tire strategy with bernie collins, there was an improvement in the unscientific rain predictions. "a lot of people in the grand stand in front of me getting a jacket and a hat on” bernie said.

“it’s like a poncho wave more and more fans getting them on” crofty added.

which of course meant that it was Pit Stop Time. it was also officially raining as of lap 21.

but mclaren still weren't pitting. “lando can you get closer to the car ahead?” his race engineer, will joseph asked.

“maybe a touch…” lando said.

the car ahead, of course, being his teammate oscar piastri.

kimi antonelli was also still trying to get past alex albon, as he had been doing for quite awhile. “idk what bono is saying to kimi these days, perhaps hammer time, but this is hammer time for kimi because he’s got a 5 second gap to albon now” crofty speculated.

on lap 22 a good half of the grid had pitted. though not mclaren, or haas, or ferrari, or max. the order looked like this: piastri, norris, verstappen, hadjar (still in fourth), leclerc, russell, hamilton, lawson, sainz, albon, antonelli, gasly, ocon, bortoleto, bearman, stroll, alonso, tsunoda, colapinto, hulkenberg

ferrari were Thinking about pitting though. and lewis, probably because he knew that whatever pit stop strategy ferrari had up their sleeves was going to be complete and utter ass as usual, proposed that he wanted to undercut the rest of the guys in front of him, because none of them had pitted yet. unfortunately for lewis though, he didnt have a pit window, meaning that if he was to pit he would come out in a shit load of traffic, so they pitted leclerc instead on lap 23. in the rain.

and that ended up being the wrong call cause no less than four seconds later, sir lewis hamilton was in the barriers.

later on, lewis said that he wasnt entirely sure why he had crashed, and was not sure if it was the paint because "my pace was looking pretty decent, had the pace of a few cars ahead of me…very unusual to not finish a race.”

but for now it was Certainly going to spice things up because there was a near instant safety car, meaning that all the front runners, the very people that he had been trying to undercut, were now going to get a quick pitstop And get to keep the spots they had been running in.

mclaren double stacked, but lando got slightly held up because he was show the green light to go before the front jack was removed from his car. but he still made it out and was back holed right up behind oscar piastri, waiting for the restart, closer than they had been all race.

and still in fourth was, you guessed it, isack hadjar

unfortunately, there was one person that this safety car didnt help and it was charles leclerc. because he hadnt gotten to do a lap to get to close in on the people that he was trying to get ahead of so he was losing a whole lot of positions with the safety car. ferrari luck continued to be shit. pasta found in italy.

and also haas for some reason didnt pit, they were still running their hards from the start.

as they waited for the safety car to come in, lando hopped on his radio with a Question for his engineer and it was: how did lewis crash? did he go on the green? the paint? was it slippy?

and yes, aparently lewis did slip on either the paint or the green

and lando said, very calmly, as he always is on the radio pretty much, "right so then you should tell me that because that’s race ending information”

“yep right alright” said will joseph.

so the paints slippy, the safety car is ending, landos going to try to get the jump on oscar, isack is still in fourth and haas havent pitted.

by lap 26, when the safety car was ending, the running order for the restart was: piastri, norris, verstappen, hadjar, russell, leclerc, lawson, sainz, ocon, albon, antonelli, stroll, bearman, alonso, tsunoda, gasly, colapinto, bortoleto, hulkenberg.

max verstappen was on a set of sexy new mediums, everyone else was on hards. because max is, as we know, a little insane.

the safety car went in, the race restarted.

the front of the grid survived, and oscar started to pull away from lando again.

but, a little further back, in the 7th and 8th spots, there was a bit of an Odd sight

liam lawson was going horrifically slowly. probably because he and carlos sainz had run into eachother.

they slotted very unsmoothly into 18 and 19 place. and, in the wise words of crofty “their races were looking promising but not now.” 

and from 18 and 19, they came into the pit lane on lap 30 because liam was missing a tire and carlos needed a new nose on his car. unfortunately for liam lawson, he got soft tires because, well.... ill let karun explain this one.

“lawsons got a long and painful afternoon ahead of him because he was to do 42 laps on softs because they have no other tires left. they’ve used the mediums and the hards”

meanwhile. carlos was decidedly pissed at liam.

"hes just so stupid. oh my god. this guy, its always the same guy."

and while the two of them were down and stuck at the back, george was behind isack, who was still in, yes, you guessed it, fourth, and was playing the role of steward again:

“moving under breaking” george declared on lap 31.

the stewards though didnt seem to agree because they did a whole lot of nothing about it.

and the other mercedes of kimi antonelli was also having a terrible time trying and failing to pass someone, only that someone was still alex albon.

and then! suddenly! a yellow flag! a virtual safety car! because!

“fluttering in the breeze is a very expensive piece of carbon fiber that someone could return to james vowels in grove somewhere in oxfordshire” crofty said as a marshall ran onto the track to retrieve a piece of carlos's williams

and as everyone slowed down here was the order:

piastri, norris, verstappen, hadjar, russell, leclerc, albon, antonelli, stroll, ocon, bearman, tsunoda, alonso, gasly, colapinto, bortoleto, hulkenberg, sainz, lawson

the vsc ended.

and! one car, one very shiny red car, got his elbows out with an absolute vengeance.

charles leclerc, in a very gutsy old school move, went wheel to wheel (literally) down the inside of george russell. and he got past. gaining back the position that he lost from the pit stop and safety car fiasco that lewis had caused.

“lick it, stamp it, post it, send it” crofty said, in a comment that was eerily similar to daniel ricciardo's well known sentiment of "lick the stamp and send it though."

charles, knowing that george was going to hop on the radio and complain about it, hopped on his radio first and said "in turns 11 and 12 he doesnt leave the space. he cannot complain." and then he hurtled on down to try his hand (again) at passing isack who was still in fourth.

george put up a weak complaint that charles was off the track, which he wasnt really but he also might have been off the track and he might have to give the place back.

but who really cared about all that when carlos had just been given a ten second time penalty for the collision with liam lawson?

now, carlos did not think that the collision was his fault. he thought it was liams. the announcers had said it seemed more like a racing incident, but here it was, a ten second penalty for carlos. something that crofty found surprising because both of then had slightly been at fault.

carlos.....well he was not told about the penalty right away.

so carlos was in the trenches, liam was in the trenches, charles leclerc was once again putting his shit box in places it didnt belong, lando was getting told that he was not being brought in again for new tires so if he wanted to get oscar, he just had to "go get him" flat out racing and fernando alonso was once again fighting demons on lap 37:

he was trying to pass yuki for 12th place and actively failing.

and then he came back on the radio to say "let’s undercut these people i don’t know do something!?”

karun was wholly unimpressed with this radio message. “and do what? most of them are running to the end…“what he needs is for tsunoda to get on with it or he needs to pass tsunoda…if he did put again he’d be at the back of the field.”

george, who on lap 40 was still running in fifth behind isack hadjar who was still running in fourth, had some damage from the whole charles leclerc elbows out overtake situation. and kimi had at some point gotten past alex albon and was now closing on george. so mercedes hopped on the radio to give george the cheerful news:

still, george was a good sport, hurtled past george and went on to chase charles leclerc.

and on lap 42, here were the standings: piastri, norris, verstappen, hadjar (still in fourth), leclerc, antonelli, russell, albon, stroll, ocon, bearman, tsunoda, gasly, colapinto, bortoleto, hulkenberg, alonso, sainz, lawson

and the charles and george situation, the one that resulted in george's rear end (heh) boinking and bouncing (hehe) and sparking off the ground, dropping it like its hot unsexy style, was going to be investigated after the race ended.

meanwhile, lando had the gap to oscar down to 1.2 seconds. he was going eight hundredths faster than max, who was still behind him. it was looking like he might bring the fight to oscar after all.

and, even more surprisingly, Fernando alonso had taken the fastest lap. because aparently he had been pitted for hards, the aston crew had "done something" after all. though he was still stuck down at the back and had a lot of people ahead of him to overtake.

and down at williams, they finally decided to tell carlos about his penalty for the liam lawson incident.

crofty was in agreement with carlos. “i need an expert to analyze that in the sky pad. it’s up there in top five baffling things for me” 

“i wonder what liam will say, if carlos deserved the penalty” karun wondered.

among other baffling things was the fact that haas still hadnt pitted and had basically guaranteed themselves a last place finish because everyone else had already pitted and they were running 10 and 11.

un baffling was that mclaren were on their way to their fifth consecutive 1/2 finish.

and of course there was still fernando alonso, who had passed hulkenberg for 16th. “one down six to go, he might get some points” crofty said. to which karun pointed out that he really only had to pass two more people because haas still needed to pit.

but instead of haas coming into the pits, instead in came kimi antonelli on lap 52.

“antonelli has pitted, that’s interesting” karun said as he put on his soft tires. he came out eighth, behind alex albon and george. the thought was that all he would have to do was get past albon before mercedes would let him past george again and then he could undercut charles.

but then Charles pitted on the lap after him. also for softs.

it was going to be tight, charles exited the pitlane just as kimi was coming back around, and charles came out just ahead of him.

but kimis tires were warmer and he was right on charles's gearbox and

“oh dear charles lexerlc, really really unlucky, managed to muscle past one mercedes and tried to muscle past the other and spun into the wall," crofty said.

charles was, obviously, not pleased about these happenings. and, to the surprise of no one, he blamed the ferrari strategy:

(as in, he was like, why the fuck did we pit???)

“ferrari head to their home race off the back of a double dnf in a fight for second on the constructors title," crofty said, alluding to the next race, monza.

so now we had both ferraris out. kimi antonelli got a puncture and had to come in, completely negating his fresh soft tires. and also his floor was on fire. and we had yet another safety car.

which meant that we had another round of pitstops. including that of lando and oscar.

and with those pit stops, karun had an announcement: “guess who’s snuck into the points? gabriel bortoleto”

meanwhile though, liam lawson, who was at the very back as we know, nearly rammed head first into the crash and he would have had it not been for his race engineer

and by the time we were ready for the restart on lap 55: piastri, norris, verstappen, hadjar (still in fourth), russell, albon, antonelli, gasly, alonso, bortoleto, bearman, stroll, tsunoda, ocon, colapinto, hulkenberg, lawson, sainz

and then the cameras cut to charles, who was having a depressing photoshoot in the sand dunes like a regular old pretty princess. no, im not kidding:

see? the photographers were all dispatched to photograph him.

and photograph him they did

on lap 57, and still behind the safety car, yuki came on the radio abruptly to yell that “i do not have power at all!”

and the response that he got was not at all helpful:

“you have 40% power..we cannot fix it on the track try to get used to it under the safety car”

kimi received a 10 second penalty and also sped in the pit lane. so he was certainly in for another 5 second one, which would definitely screw his race.

and haas, unbelievably, did their pit stop under the safety car. carlos served his penalty, and somehow feranando alonso managed to get into ninth.

the safety car ended, and surprise surprise, oscar managed to once again stay in front of lando. but max was now on softs and also pushing lando.

and ollie, in the haas, with the new tires, had managed to pass gabi for 10th and was ack in the points. a position that he might actually be able to keep this time.

and oscar was already 1.2 seconds clear of lando. not looking great for him.

alonso was fighting pierre which have helped antonelli if they held eachother up to create a gap so kimi, whos ahead of them, can keep his place with the penalty. but remember that he’s under investigation for speeding in the pit lane. so that probably wont mean anything and i just read you a confusing sentence for no reason.

by lap 60, lando had finally gotten into oscar's drs.

and Charles was still sitting on his hill. though this time someone had given him his phone and he was watching the race. “i don’t blame him i wouldn’t want to take my eyes off this race!”crofty said.

this also implies that someone from ferrari turned up and was like hey man come back to the pits and charles was like haha no ❤️ phone? pls?

well. at least hadjar was still in fourth.

kimi though was even more in the trenches. “five second penalty for kimi antonelli who was found guilty of speeding in the pit lane," crofty said. this sealed his fate. he was now unlikely to get points despite being in seventh.

and in case you were wondering about verstappen, he was having a bad time. “yeah ride is now completely fucked” max said on lap 62. he had the same lap times as hadjar now, who was still in fourth.

ten laps! to go!

piastri, norris, verstappen, hadjar (still in fourth), russell, albon, antonelli, bearman, gasly, stroll, alonso, tsunoda, ocon, colapinto, hulkenberg, lawson, sainz, bortoleto

there were 1.7 seconds between the two mclarens.

lance had somehow passed gasly for ninth.

and it might also rain again!

plenty happening for sure.

and then. there was more. because if you remember, the title of this post is "the dutch grand prix: an epic tale of three safety cars"

lando was out. on a mechanical failure. an oil leak.

prior to this race, if you'll recall, the gap between lando and oscar was eight points. if lando had managed to win the gap would have been two points. and now the gap is 34 points.

and lando sat in the sand dunes, recreating the photo of him from when he was a kid in karting.

and crofty speculated that he was probably "thinking what did i do to deserve this? the answer is nothing at all”

there was then another immediate pan to charles who was still sitting in his own sand dunes.

“that’s taken the sting out of this race and also the champion battle. we never want the champion battle to be decided on a technical failure” crofty said. he then went on to reference Malaysia 2016 where lewis hamilton's engine blew up and gave nico rosberg a slight edge in the championship and he went on to narrowly win that championship when it went down to the last race in abu dhabi

"you were fast today" lando's race engineer said.

 “doesn’t matter” lando said.

and we were still under safety car

but. in the wise words of crofty: "where there’s a yin there’s a yang and the yin to lando’s yang is isack hadjar”

because here was the order on lap 67: piastri, verstappen, hadjar, russell, albon, antonelli, bearman, stroll, alonso, gasly, tsunoda, ocon, hulkenberg, colapinto, lawson, bortoleto, sainz

because isack hadjar had held onto fourth for 67 laps and that had finally paid off because with lando out due to mechanical failure, he was now in third.

thats right! we were getting a rookie on the podium! as long as everything went well!

and! ollie bearman (somehow) was on track for a career best sixth place finish!

george was now in fourth, with alex albon behind him. james vowels popped in briefly to say that if alex wanted to pass george he could "go fast and overtake"

and it was drizzling.

but the safety car was ending on lap 68.

“so much has happened in this race” crofty said. and boy was that the understatement of the year. “now oscar has survived two safety car restarts with his teammate behind him but not max verstappen”

well. oscar did survive. “and oscar piastri dare i say migjt break out into a very broad smile at the prospect of another win” crofty said. “first time that he’s started on pole led every lap and won the race!” 

and so. the final standings:

p1: piastri p2: verstappen p3: hadjar p4: russell p5: albon p6: bearman p7: stroll p8: alonso p9: tsunoda p10: ocon p11: colapinto p12: lawson p13: sainz p14: hulkenberg p15: gasly p16: bortoleto p17: antonelli

crofty speculated about whether of not isack and max would be teammates next year and somewhere in the world i felt nico rosberg scream in rage.

and then isack, in his excitement, and like a true podium finisher, managed to break his trophy. it was only his 15th race. and he was now the fifth youngest podium finisher

“Yes, doing it. You did not want the world to know you are doing it with him.”

Alex stares.

Carlos chews his lip. “Are you doing it with him or are you not doing it with him?”

“Okay. To be…quite clear. You saw all that and your takeaway was that I’m…fucking…Oscar Piastri.”

“No, no, no. Alex, no. No. No. I am asking if you are fucking Piastri. I am not sure.”

“Oh my god. I didn’t know it was his! Obviously I didn’t know it was his. Mate, what is wrong with you?”

“I don’t understand. You just tackled a strange GPDA meeting goose not knowing whose it was?”

“It”—Alex gestures wildly in his best imitation of a plumaceous explosion—“appeared in the empty seat between me and Oscar. I thought it was mine! And it was”—he gestures again to the lectern at the front of the room George and Carlos were standing at when the climacteric occurred, calling them to imminently-obliterated order—“going to charge!”

The goose had bowed its head and spread its wings, throat maliciously clicking, serrated tongue wagging, locked onto—surely it had been locked onto—unless it—

Carlos places a warm hand over Alex’s shoulder that may have become dislocated in the goosian tussle, something he can only imagine from the outside looked like a spinning dust cloud with limbs and wings sticking out, @#$% swearing symbols floating above. “Alex…do you…do you want to do it with me?”

𓅬

George finds Alex in the paddock before practice. He’s pale, sweating and swallowing too much, long throat constantly dipping down and up like the Eiffel Tower lift. “They, er, got a containment box for it. So you don’t need to worry about Oscar’s goose seeking revenge or anything.”

Soulmate geese are supposed to be insuperable, unstoppable and uncontainable. “How did they—”

George leans closer. “Rumour is the box is made of other soulmate geese.”

Alex laughs. “That’s vile. That’s heinous.”

“Yeah, dreadful. Really appalling.” But George is smiling, finally looking a little more like himself. “Why did—did you—did—”

“I’ve got to go, yeah?” Alex pats George’s shoulder like he’s cosplaying Carlos Sainz thinking everyone wants to fuck him. “Stay groovy.”

By the end of FP2, Alex, George, Carlos, and Oscar will have all crashed out. No one’s groovy.

𓅬

Before FP3, Alex catches Carlos using an engineer’s computer to visit what looks like a Paleolithic Geocities page called WILD GOOSE CHASE. When Alex sneaks the URL into his own phone, it fails to load. He has to request the desktop version, something Carlos clearly failed to do. Not unexpected—he keeps trying to tap the screen of the engineer’s computer like an iPad.

The website provides advice for 13 year olds in 2008 on how to attract someone else’s soulmate goose. One of the tips is to imitate a goose call when nearby. They recommend buying a wooden birdcall, but as their team walks by the McLaren garage, Carlos makes a startling ululating sound from his own mouth that causes a passing Ollie Bearman to leap out of his skin. Carlos explains it away as, “Spanish for good luck.”

𓅬

The next day, Carlos asks to borrow Alex's phone right before they head out for the anthem. He googles ‘what do geese eat’ and ‘granola bar ok for goose to eat.’ Reading the search history immediately after getting his phone back, Alex says, “They’re keeping it in a cage of dead geese. Do you think a granola bar would—”

“What! They—why would they!” Carlos looks utterly appalled.

“Mate, it’s McLaren. They’d keep you in a dead goose cage.”

“I will fix this,” Carlos assures with the misplaced confidence of someone who can use incognito mode. “Alex, I will fix.”

“I know you will,” Alex simpers back.

Carlos rubs his own neck. “I am flattered, Alex, but you must know that object of my affection is—”

“Oh my god, I’m fucking with you!” Alex raises his palms, shoulders at his earlobes. “Literally, why are you like this?”

Carlos grins. “I will fix.”

𓅬

Carlos doesn’t show up to the anthem.

It’s—brave. Alex will give him that. It’s stupid, but it’s brave.

Beside Alex, George’s is getting sunburned, giraffe throat turning pink. Alex should have brought an umbrella or something. A parasol. He should be George’s parasol bitch. If Carlos can free an evil soulmate goose from a trap of goose corpses, Alex can carry some fucking sunscreen. And he can tell the truth of the GPDA meeting anserine attack. He can say it.

George says, “Reckon Carlos’s got diarrhea again.”

The goose, freed from its morbid confinement,  flaps to the paddock squawking like a beast from hell.

Oscar says, “Oh fuck.”

Alex cheers, fist pumping.

Its jagged bill clamps around Oscar’s ear. It drags him away, wings flapping.

“Did those look like granola bar crumbs on its claws?” Alex wonders.

George blinks in the direction of the goose’s snarls and Oscar’s Oh god, please don’ts. “I think it’s a carnivore.”

Alex says, “I want to protect you from the sun.”

George turns to blink at him. He laughs, “Thanks, mate.”

“No…until the sun burns out or something.”

“Like…photostable sunscreen,” George offers. “Good from dawn till dusk.”

“That’s in no way what I mean. You’re incredibly wrong.”

George smiles, bemused.

A goose honks happily somewhere in the distance.