s e r e n d i p i t y

*deep breath* oh Leweus 🚬🚬🚬

Strawhats + believing in Luffy becoming the King of the Pirates

+ bonus, a proud brother Sabo:

i’ve talked about this with a few people but i want to say it here as well. while yes it’s true that oscar hasn’t been clearly dominating the back half of the season the way he did the first half, i don’t think it has anything to do with the “pressure of the championship” getting to him. if that were the case, he would be driving sloppier (and aside from baku, he really hasn’t gotten sloppy), and he has more than proven his ability to withstand pressure by now. instead i think one of the skills he’s still building up as a driver is the stamina needed to perform strongly throughout the whole season. like look at last year, he was absolutely EXHAUSTED by abu dhabi, and he clearly struggled to hit those performance highs in the last quarter of the year. and it absolutely makes sense when you think about how grueling the current race calendar is. his first three seasons in f1 have had 22, 24, and 24 races, the year before that he didn’t race at ALL, and his schedule wasn’t nearly as packed in the junior championships. he didn’t get to build up to this level at all. he got thrown straight into the deep end, and he’s had to balance such an intense racing schedule with the huge learning curve that comes with starting in f1. i know it’s something that every driver has to get used to, but he’s still the least experienced driver who isn’t a full season rookie - the next most inexperienced driver is yuki (2021 debut) and then the 2019 rookies!! who have four more years worth of experience than him!! that’s INSANE. i think the rookie adjustment period has only gotten harder as the season length has increased and will continue to get harder with the ever-increasing media attention and promotional expectations, so i wouldn’t be surprised if the current rookies also take a couple of years to adjust

now that does NOT mean that i think he doesn’t deserve the championship or that he’s not working hard for it. in fact i think he very intentionally put in the work earlier in the year to solidify his championship bid from the get go because he knew it would only get harder as the year went on. the recency bias is WILD because a lot of y’all seem to have forgotten how insanely dominant he was at the beginning of the year even though there was ZERO hype around him being a championship contender at the start of the season. he waltzed in and tore up the script, putting in banger performance after banger performance and FORCING his way into the championship conversation (and without the tragedy at melbourne he would’ve come out the gates even stronger)

as the year has gone on, he’s been worn down by mclaren’s bullshit internal politics (starting all the way back with a completely botched strategy in imola) and by the length of the season dragging on. it absolutely doesn’t mean that he’s lost his fight. he knew how long the season would be and he knew that he would be actively working against his team for a lot of it (or at the very least going for a title bid without the full team backing that lead drivers like max get). just because he’s exhausted doesn’t mean that he isn’t fighting, so i don’t wanna see ANY doubterism even if he doesn’t fully regains his dominant stride this season. he already put in that work, and now he’s fighting to hold on to it

i also think he hasn’t gotten nearly enough credit for the learning strides he’s made this year alone. remember how at the beginning of the year he had never even gotten a pole position? remember how the h2h qualifying was 20-4 last year? remember how there were still doubts about his tire management lingering at the end of last year? remember how he didn’t stand out as a driver who was spectacular in the rain until this year? remember how he’s nearly doubled his total career points this year alone? remember how he’s more than QUADRUPLED his total career wins? like he has not hopped off that rookie learning curve yet, he has made all of those strides THIS year WHILE fighting for a championship. it’s insane. and that doesn’t even begin to get into all of the lessons he’s learned about rules politics with the stewards and team politics within mclaren, which is a whole other absolutely exhausting endeavor (and on a personal level, i am looking forward to seeing him improve his endurance in the coming years just as i have enjoyed watching him grow in every other aspect of his racing, because i know that even if he wins the championship this year, he’s not going to change his growth mentality)