i think about it at least once a week anyway but now that brazil is next i keep thinking about brazil 21 and how much of a rollercoaster ride it was the narrative was SO rich that weekend it was better than any script anyone could have written
when after mexico it felt like max already had one hand on the trophy because the points gap was big enough that lewis would have had to win all the remaining races and first the freight is stuck in miami and arrives late so teams can't work as they usually would and the first rumours pop up of lewis taking yet another ICE and it feels desperate because why would they take yet another one but then quali happens and lewis gets pole by FOUR tenths which was one of the biggest gaps we had in quali all season and it's okay because he'd start the sprint from p1 but then the race from p6 and he did a mega lap
ONLY THEN after the session reports come out about the fia checking lewis's car forever and bam lewis gets disqualified because his rear wing flap opened only 0.02mm more than it should on one side and merc fight it immediately and video emerges of max touching lewis's rear wing in parc ferme after rb had been baffled by merc's straight line speed and newey met the fia about it but the stewards refuse to come to a decision that day and it feels like the championship is already over just hand the trophy to max while the merc admin is posting about lewis being the dj in the garage as if nothing's happening so saturday happens and merc lose the appeal and max gets fined 50k for touching another car in parc ferme
lewis starts the sprint dead last and has one of THE drives and gets 4 cars in the first lap alone and ends up p5 on the grid in a matter of 24 laps which sets a record for most overtakes in that amount of time and it kinda feels like you're watching something special like history being made like maybe..... but WAIT!!! he still has to take the engine penalty
so sunday comes around and lewis starts the race p10 and gets up to p2 after a small battle with checo and the car is so fast lewis is catching and catching and on lap 48 he tries to overtake max in turn 4 who doesn't even TRY to turn the car and punts him into argentina basically and the stewards don't even note it and wheatley is on the radio about how it's all about letting them race and hard racing while merc complains and masi tells them they've looked at it from all angles which turns out to be a bold faced lie after the race because they didn't have max's onboard and couldn't see his steering inputs at all and he's not referring it to the stewards and lewis puts his head down and sets it up and gets a beautiful move done 1 lap later the crowd goes absolutely wild and after the last two races in that triple header it feels like this championship is on again
he picks up a brazilian flag from a marshal in the cool down lap and drives the lap with it and brazilian commentary literally chokes up on live air and lewis stands on the podium with the brazilian flag around him and brazil celebrates him like he's their own and call him the boss and it was the most beautiful thing he came back from what was essentially a 25 place grid penalty and overtook every single car on the grid some of them even twice and still WON!!!!!
