I just think Oscar’s neat

this has come up more than once so I kind of want to just dump every thought out here so it can be like a reference ?? I’ll try to link to sources wherever I can but also life is not at all conducive to me doing too much research for a topic I personally don’t have a problem with 

OKAY SO here’s the main thing that will help people who are judging landoscar’s dynamic by other Lando driver friendship dynamics: Oscar - as Lando himself said - is practically the flip opposite to Carlos, Daniel and honestly almost every other driver. he’s an introvert, he’s low frequency (Oscar’s term) he has at no point been a single guy since being in F1 (or a cheater, sorry to get #tooreal) and he only does partying on very special occasions (usually Lando’s bidding). even Max V likes partying and couldn’t be classed as an introvert, he just doesn’t like doing media. Oscar is a very unique being in a sport mostly populated by guys who view having a great time and meeting beautiful women and looking good on camera as the little side benefits to an already fantasy career. and there is nothing wrong with any of that (well there is with cheating but I won’t go into that) but Oscar quite literally is just there for the racing part. he’s not joking when he says that his priorities after racing are sleep, his gf, his family, his friends and in that order lasgsajlfas. 

(there’s also things like Oscar not being super tactile or into PDA (even with Lily) with other people so there’s no deliberate PR yaoi potential for the types of fans who are hopping from 1D or kpop rpf. the times that Oscar has wound himself up to actually touch Lando’s body deliberately are adorable and awkward. and also that Oscar resolutely has never once since becoming known to the public done gay chicken or queerbaity humor. I don’t say that as in drivers who do queerbaity/gay chicken are being offensive - it’s just seen by most men as just part of the arsenal of guy humor that softens their image to girls and women. but Oscar literally just does not do it. when he openly finds Lando adorable he just openly looks at him like he’s adorable. when he flushes and giggles over someone bringing up how attractive Carlos is he’s flushing and giggling and saying he has “great hair” bc that’s how he genuinely reacts. whatever Oscar’s actual attractions to other people are, he both doesn’t change them for public consumption but he also doesn’t make any definitive or specific indications. which makes it even cuter/more of a minx that Lando likes invading Oscar’s space and smacking his ass and holding him by the hips etc.) 

so you’re never going to see Lando being the same with Oscar as he is with the other drivers bc Oscar is an anomaly among the drivers. I’ve always said you should more look at their friendship in terms of Lando’s non-F1 friendships bc those are the guys Oscar gets along with/most resembles best anyway. Max F and Oscar are actually pretty damn similar in personality (Max is just more chatty) and Max also only really parties with certain people and leans toward hanging out in small groups of friends to attending huge events or going to clubs.

and I’ve had more than one person be unaware that Max F and Oscar have kept their friendship going ever since Renault Academy but you only have to look at my piastrell tag to get an overview of it. Pietra has said on a dinner stream that she loves Oscar too. and crucially Max has been the voice of reason during things like Hungary and Monza to calm fans down and mitigate hate towards Oscar from Lando fans bc he’s always rooting for both of them when he watches on weekends. Lando is his obvious priority but he also has no time for Oscar hate.

so the funny thing about ‘it’s just PR’ with landoscar is that landoscar don’t do PR! all the times they or someone else has mentioned them playing padel or having dinner or traveling together to races have never been used for social media or publicity - which is why, unless you follow landoscar content pretty heavily and consistently, you won’t hear about it! landoscar rank probably dead last every single season only behind maybe 2023/4 Alpine for teammate pairings who get the least amount of sm traffic and engagement, while carland0 easily rides at the top every single season bc they are PR gold and they both very actively engage in it.

and the only story of them not interacting while together was that satire “gossip” acc that said their parents didn’t see Lando and Oscar greet each other at a restaurant fully 15 minutes after just being together in team debrief at a restaurant where they were split off to their own garage debriefs. that was not actual gossip aslfgsjlaf and what’s funny is that McLaren is known specifically for having an open door policy between the garages so it’s not even one of these cases where the drivers’ teams would be ignoring each other/hostile etc

but even funnier about that whole thing is this is what they were actually like at Barcelona - literally they couldn’t have been cuter and omg if you compare the lowkey energy of this to carland0 and dand0 videos like howwww do ppl look at landoscar and go oh yea THOSE guys are the ones playing up for cameras to sell a bromance ??? in what world does Lando murmuring that Oscar smells like his deodorant and Oscar blushing and stuttering that it’s chocolate flavored scream “strategic PR” like who out there would be whispering to them to very awkwardly giggle and mumble about how Oscar smells different to usual like what strategy is that

and just as an example of what all these guys are like together when they don’t know they’re being filmed or are far from fans - and they’re not my photos to share and aren’t public - but a friend of mine shared some pictures her friend took behind the fanstage that same weekend way at a distance: Lando is on his phone and typing/focusing hard and “ignores” Oscar and Carlos and only talks to Alex (he actually is smiling up at Alex while offhandedly fist bumping Carlos). which hey! if someone wanted to obsessively twist every bit of downtime in a stranger’s life, could easily be made into him hating Carlos AND Oscar and his only REAL friendship being Alex !! but instead it’s that in real life we don’t have to obsessively perform friendships for them to be real and our friendships don’t live and die based on if our interactions would perfectly fit fan fiction. it was Lando being relaxed around three friends of his bc he had stuff to do on his phone and he doesn’t have to continuously offer verbal and physical reminders to them that he does in fact like them just as much as the other day or ten minutes ago when he saw them.

(but also there would be precedent for Lando somewhat preferring Alex over anyone like no one will ever match his first love lbr)

and as someone who is embarrassed at how much gossip I consume I can assure you any other “examples” someone who dislikes landoscar is claiming to have heard about aren’t real. everyone except landoscar fans actually do want Lando and Oscar to hate each other so trust me if there was a verifiable instance of them actually being hostile or avoiding each other I would’ve seen it already bc I’m trash and I follow wayyyy too much gossip ((: 

(I also follow an extremely wide selection of blogs on tumblr and race weekends are wild bc the reactions are all completely different - and more than one either hates McLaren or hates landoscar (they don’t hate constantly it’s just one of the things they don’t like) so yea trust me any valid instance of landoscar tea would show up somewhere I would see it)

again, they don’t play up a big bromance for PR so they don’t have to pretend to like each other to keep up any kind of facade. so when you see them laughing together and chatting off alone and choosing to spend the intervening week in Bahrain after the race together playing padel or playing a game of padel in Monaco during a break or Max F or Lando brings up Oscar during a stream then it’s bc they want to. when Lando complained to a room full of fans at a Jack Daniels m&g that he doesn’t spend as much time with Oscar as he does his other driver friends bc Oscar won’t get into a sport Lando likes, he didn’t do it to a huge audience or to the media and there was just one video of it. and when Oscar almost immediately started learning padel and even kept practicing in Australia during the winter break, it wasn’t used as PR or to push the bromance at all. hell, we never even got the Williams vs McLaren padel match that people asked for and Alex volunteered for. 

all these interactions and developments of their friendship gets them absolutely zero PR benefit and never travels beyond landoscar fandom bc we don’t have any of the rpf crazies to go out and flood comment sections and make millions of posts declaring in full insane seriousness that these two men would be married with babies if only those pesky real life partners would just disappear etc etc 

and this is a big thing: landoscar fandom is not what most other rpf fandoms are. not in a stupid elitist fandom way askfgsjkagfa I mean as in it’s entirely based on two guys who have been very slowly and gradually growing closer together but who provide absolutely zero targeted ship content. there are some very intriguing threads of fate there and Oscar’s social media history regarding Lando is what most people pretend the few pre-F1 interactions of drivers were - but the whole fandom is people who are enjoying watching a friendship and bond in real time and with no PR narrative being presented to us. especially that so much about landoscar was perfectly prepped for them to be in their innermost friend circles but that contrary to other ships, being teammates actually has made things more complicated and difficult. they’re so easy to write as a pairing bc in every way they fit their existing private lives and closest friendships perfectly. but they’re even more compelling in reality bc they’re taking their relationship as teammates SO incredibly seriously and passionately that their baby steps into friendship have been so unusually cautious and careful compared to how teammates usually are. 

but that’s also why the fandom doesn’t spread and doesn’t attract any of the die hard rpf delulu ppl. nobody wants to augment reality and nobody wants Lily to disappear and nobody has a problem with keeping fic writing and discussing real life separate. we will just never do numbers the way carland0 and dand0 do where they’ve got armies of women determined that girlfriends are all fake and beards and will go to any lengths to remove them so that their yaoi dolls can get smooshed together and have a gay relationship in spite of these men irl bro coding each other and doing queerbaiting precisely bc they feel safe and comfortable in their sexuality and aren’t among the terrified actual gay male athletes who stay in the closet until they retire and often long afterward.

now let me make a quick note abt something relevant !

so most ppl seem to be using PR completely wrong and think that it refers to some nefarious big brained 4D chess plot to fully dupe the public and cover up something that’s the opposite of what’s presented. the terms for that are whitewashing, spin etc which yes technically falls under the umbrella of public relations but most public relations do not involve stuff that dark.

that’s not how PR works for these drivers or for most lesser known celebrities. PR is how and what a public person chooses to present based on knowing that it will get engagement and interest from the public that will increase focus and attention on the person. when someone hires a “PR person” it’s the same as hiring an administrator for thinks like finances or filtering emails etc. they’re just helping out with the controlled image that a person already has cultivated. it’s not a pack of lies but it’s also not fully honest or authentic either. the driver friendships using PR are absolutely based on real friendships! but they’re also very deliberately engaging with fans and media in whatever way will sell them more, even if that just means doing some excessive PDA or always making sure to take pictures or video when they hang out or hanging out in places where they know they’ll get seen. it’s not dark sided or sinister or even all that cynical, it’s just how most of these guys incorporate things into being public figures and having sponsors etc!

but what’s so funny to me as someone who has had F1 in my peripheral life forever bc of my relatives who are lifelong fans is newer fans thinking that teams give a single fuck about driver PR outside of don’t do anything openly illegal. men in this sport are actually expected to be playboys and the whole social level where it exists is one of elitism and excess and indulgence. it’s not American team sports, it’s not pretending to be wholesome or originating from salt of the earth or bootstraps etc etc. 

and they sure as SHIT do not care if two teammates make for good PR or not. if they at all cared about that then a very openly struggling team like Alpine wouldn’t have had Esteban and Ocon together. 

media day is one day and PR day at the factories is one day and provides enough content to be spread out for weeks. if the content is plentiful and engaging then it’s purely bc the drivers themselves choose to do it and are wanting the PR for themselves as well. the teams have so much more to focus on than if people are squealing over the latest challenge on social media !!

but what’s even more hilarious about ‘landoscar are PR’ is that McLaren actually dropped almost their entire socmed dept not long after Oscar got his seat - this is the team that right up to Daniel leaving would release bromancey big production long form content almost daily and made beautifully edited Unboxed episodes and liaised with Lando and Carlos and Daniel’s personal PR teams so that they could coordinate releasing content on their own social media as well. oh and Carlos (and Daniel until his retirement) will still work with F1 and McLaren to create bromance content or make sure to be at certain places and times and even Adam uses carland0 content and Carlos Sr to promote his scooters. 

PR at McLaren used to be a MAJOR machine for literal decades in no small part bc their drivers were so shit hot at it - and when it comes to carland0 even after him leaving, it’ll still rev back up along with all Lando and Carlos affiliated accs to milk everything possible out of them being in any physical proximity or interaction

but it all started tapering off after Oscar joined McLaren - to hilariously minor fanfare might I add, they do more for new F2 drivers - and the longform stuff had all but ended by Austin 2023. as of the instagram wipe in 2024, Unboxed was scrapped and all socmed videos were filmed in short bursts on phones and the video length almost never exceeded 2 minutes. there might be some props that can be borrowed but usually it’s just having them read questions from cards or prompts 

(and the one rumor that Unboxed was ending bc of DTS makes no sense bc DTS has been going as long as Unboxed since 2019 and no other team or driver has been told to drop their long form content)

part of this absolutely came from the fact that Oscar didn’t want to do the whole PR thing with Lando (remember that McLaren made an entire dramatic production out of Carlos leaving after just two seasons and Daniel straight up said ‘landan’ would be bigger than carland0) and he doesn’t have the personality/stamina for the Carlos and Daniel level of publicity. so all the cute little interactions between him and Lando on twitter or instagram have always been unplanned and sporadic and natural. (Oscar has gone almost entirely over to a private acc since we can’t even see his likes in the wild much anymore and Lando has started to do the same) when Lando posts Oscar on his jpg acc or we see him taking video and pictures of Oscar it’s always just bc Lando thinks Oscar is neat! he posts him like one would an often elusive but beloved neighborhood cat.

and tbh there has been more than once (getting to that in a minute) that having a big public bromance creates totally unnecessary and distracting tension when two drivers are inevitably clashing on track and rrrrreally do not feel like dancing around so everyone can have their bromance feel good moment. so to whatever degree the team/Lando/Oscar felt that yea this new teammate pairing has strong legs to it, it would make logical sense to also say yea let’s just drop the whole bromance angle and let them focus on their jobs and the whole friendship thing will be up to the two of them.

and as someone who got sucked into F1 fandom literally bc of carland0 and dand0 PR being truly outstanding, it’s also worth mentioning that the way Lando’s relationships with Carlos and Daniel started was also completely different to with Oscar:

Carlos’ first season with Lando was Lando’s first season in F1 and it was absolutely perfect bc Lando needed a big brother figure to lean on and Carlos had been that for Max already - and Carlos himself always tries to have a great rapport with his teammates and is still close to all of them even now

Carlos spent his last season with Lando during COVID and Daniel spent the whole of his time with Lando during COVID, so there were whole periods where they existed in a bubble and quite literally had nowhere else to go and no on else to go to. again, thankfully they did actually get on very well but in a normal situation yes they would’ve chosen to spent a lot of that time with their friends and family

Daniel was already known to Lando through Max and mutual DJ friends so there was already a friend group they both belonged to

and I don’t want to focus on the bad times with carland0 or dand0 so I don’t go around storing up every instance of them fighting or tense/awkward moments where they could be classed as “ignoring each other” so just pulling from memory with these: Lando said here and multiple other times that he “hated” Carlos and Daniel as his direct competitors, especially because they had so many years of experience on him. and as he said here he felt very isolated and was even worrying if he could continue in F1 because Carlos was so far ahead of him. then of course there’s the famous moment when Carlos said something so out of pocket that Lando looked him up and down in disgust and straight up walked wide of him even when Carlos was clearly trying to smooth it over. I think their personal teams scrambled to arrange a golf date not long after this to keep fans and media happy asgdlsjagd. there’ve been more than a few times where Carlos has had to hastily say to media that “carland0 is okay” bc contrary to fan theory, Carlos and Lando have always raced each other same as they do anyone else and that means clashes sometimes. then Lando’s first win last year Carlos angrily asked “so he won it then?” over radio and in all his interviews with media said that if he’d had Lando’s luck with the SC then the win could actually have been his and while he made sure to do a big public hug, he opted out of celebrating with Lando after and chose to have dinner with Nico instead. bc yea he’s happy for Lando bc that’s his friend and former teammate BUT he was also wrestling with his last season for who knows how long being able to even fight for podiums and these drivers are literally paid to try to win and that’s what they want more than any type of friendship with another driver (I could also point out how Carlos “almost entirely ignored” Lando at the F1 movie premiere and “barely showed interest in him” at the big filmed Stefano dinner this weekend - quotes being bc if someone wanted to read into it with a slant against carland0 the way they do against a ship they dislike then it would be very easy - but the reality is that it’s perfectly ok to be a veteran driver who got dropped from Ferrari and is stuck in a car that’s exploding while your younger former teammate who used to look up to you now looks set to get the WDC before you - it doesn’t mean you don’t love your buddy or that you’re mad at him it just means it’s hard to do ride the PR chuckle bus as expected of you sometimes and that’s okay!!)

the majority of the DTS rewatch with Daniel was full of uncomfortable moments where they try to joke thru obviously being annoyed at each other - especially when Lando started laughing when DTS Lando got a little bit savage and wouldn’t back down so Daniel started making jokes about his hands or smth? there was also the I think Unboxed moment or post race debrief where Daniel’s win overshadowed Lando’s best result in F1 to date and Lando was very openly annoyed by it and Daniel was super awkward with how to deal with that. and it’s pretty well documented that Daniel was very unhappy at McLaren and his and Lando’s experiences as teammates diverged heavily even tho they were able to still have a laugh.

and all of these instances of tensions or fighting are normal and part of friendship and when you don’t try to pretend that these friendships are “special” or romantic then you won’t be upset by them !

speaking of which, the big things people say make carland0 and dand0 more special than their other friendships are

a quick visit to Daniel and his friends in Perth that Lando said was “never planned” and was “just to get out of the place he was currently in” and this was during one of Lando and Martin G’s solo world journeys over the winter they sometimes do. Daniel and Martin are also tight so this really was not some deep pre-planned dand0 bonding experience it was riding dirt bikes and watching NFL games askfskahgf oh and Lando making breakfast for the group who didn’t eat it and made him do the washing up r u d e

Lando going to Carlos’ sister’s wedding was again, not some deep bonding moment at an intimate family event it literally involved press photographers and interviewers ?? I read a whole post on ig last year (the page is private now so I can’t find it again to link to it) that basically detailed how these types of huge society weddings among old money classes always involve inviting famous friends - and also that Carlos Sr 100% sees the strategic benefit of carland0 and having Lando as part of the family’s very carefully controlled and honed publicity. so it’s not to be compared with say Lando attending P’s birthday parties where it’s mostly family and just a few intimate friends and no press involvement. was the invite bc Carlos and his parents are fond of Lando? yes! was the invite done with a lot of publicity benefit involved? also yes! that’s fine!

this also goes with the times ppl thought Carlos and Lando were flying together or at dinner together just them but Rebecca was there too and was still hiding from being in pictures (Pierre’s the one who accidentally posted her first then edited it) and Mexico this year was Lando being invited along as a little brother with the huge group who had come to support Carlos - and he quickly left the grown up club they all went to after dinner to go party as the single young guy he is

I won’t get into it bc it’s gossip and in the past and Isa is happy and moved on but yea a lot of those ferda trips Lando took with Carlos and some friends were absolutely not for “guy bonding” so we should just… ignore those in terms of wholesome friendship moments el oh el

side note to this a lot of ppl are like Sainz Sr loves Lando and yes! he does! but Sainz Sr also is like that with multiple drivers and people on the grid bc he’s been deep into that world since long before Carlos was born! and just to say that Charles used to play padel with Sr and Carlos and that even with all the huge ups and downs Charles has had with Carlos and his family, literally still to this day Carlos Sr seeks Charles out specifically (even at his own son’s home race) to show affection and support. again it’s the fact that carland0 fandom is so insanely massive and the ship gets so much corporate socmed interest is why so many ppl think it's only Lando or especially Lando that gets on with Carlos’ family. 

I should also bring up the fact that Carlos and Ollie have developed a completely spontaneous bond outside of F1 that would have carland0 fans in seizures over if it was happening with Lando - but bc it’s not the popular yaoi the fandom reaction to it has stayed realistic and calm. but yea Ollie is straight up in Team 55 and Carlos’ life away from F1 in a way no other driver has been and it’s not at all publicity helpful or strategic and I find it so sweet <3

and I’m not going to go too deep into the charlos of it all bc I haaaaaaate rpf ship competitions and there are still ppl who deny Charles and Lando having a solid friendship that’s nothing to do with Carlos butttt it’s worth mentioning that Carlos himself is the one who has said he and Charles spend a huge amount of downtime and social time together, have meals together and that they “talk about anything, every subject you can think of” and that their girlfriends are even bonded in friendship - charlos are definitely a friendship of equals and contemporaries compared to the big brother/little brother age divide that Carlos has with Lando. so again, no point comparing bc the relationships are totally different.

and I have to say again !!! I never like having to do these bc when people delulu these things it means that reality seems “worse” but it isn’t !!! Lando was yes on a very lengthy invitation list and happened to be available where other drivers weren’t BUT he was still a friend that Carlos asked to come! if no one tried to turn it into something that shits on every other friendship Carlos has with other drivers then it could’ve just stayed as this super sweet thing and no one would have to like be talked down from the rpf ledge. for example, I use carland0 lore to create a super emotional doomed romance storyline for them in my royalty au bc I understand that taking reality and manipulating it for fic is fun but also not reality ! and then I enjoy reality as two guys who are good buddies and have perfectly matching sense of humor who no, don’t hang out as much as they used to but still hang out a lot! and they also hang out with a lot of other drivers too! and shouldn't that be enjoyed rather than turned into an insane competition among fans!

and god, Daniel and Lando couldn’t be more your typical extroverted fun-loving ferda type friends. they don’t do “deep and personal” they’re just bros. which again is really cute and fun and is only considered disappointing by ppl who take the PR and run with their imaginations to pretend it’s super "special" meaning want to pretend it's ~real life rpf~ (and omg the rages these ppl exist in when maxie| happens again or oh no norstappen is what ppl want carland0 and dand0 to be !!) 

whereas Lando and Oscar are jointly committing to McLaren over and over again and saying things like “we’re going to grow old and gray together” “we’ll be the strongest and longest running partnership” “we want to have this for as long as we’re in F1” about each other as teammates even as they’re still developing and feeling out their friendship !! 

it just has zero comparison at all to not just any of Lando’s other teammates but honestly to any other teammates at all. so trying to find the PR yaoi will never work and yea unless you follow pages or blogs that are heavily landoscar, you won’t for instance have seen the one grainy video of Oscar saying how he played padel with Lando and one of Lando’s friends (we all think it was Ed) bc while we in landoscar fandom love hearing about that, we’ve gotten fully used to the fact that neither Lando nor Oscar shares that stuff on social media or with McLaren PR. 

ironically the only comparison that can be made in terms of how they both approach their relationship and how we should too is Oscar and Lily salfgsjalfgslaf “private but not secret” we know literally nothing but the basics about their relationship and get very sparse amounts of actual coupley content of them and they're never actually spotted out and about except from someone mentioning it and honestly if Lily didn’t use her phone camera and Sarah Oscar’s socmed person didn’t liaise with her then we wouldn’t even have most of that ?? which we all FULLY respect and honestly love that they don’t want their relationship out where people can analyze it and pick it apart and project nonsense onto it.

that’s very clearly what Lando and Oscar are doing with their developing friendship. it’s not there for all of our benefit and they don’t have anything to prove to any of us. they’re also not liars and they’re blatantly not doing anything for publicity. 

if you want to enjoy landoscar then just bear in mind you won’t be spoon fed anything and they won’t be giving you a load of “content” to freak out over, you’re just going to be enjoying them having little private in-jokes they never fully explain and drawing close together when they feel under threat and using soft little private voices with each other when they’re tired or feel comfortable. it’s so genuine and soft and vulnerable and they have everyone telling them they’re going to fall apart and their response is to say they want to stay together long term and they want to never fall into the self-destructiveness of toxic competition with each other.