#multi 21

You and Oscar instantly hit it off when he joined Mclaren

He was the cute newbie to your (not so) serious veteraness

Half way through 23 you started dating

To the delight of Sebastian

Now that he was retired, he had committed himself fully into grid drama, even more than before

He was delighted to hear that you two started dating

Mark, not so much

He scolded Oscar for getting too close to his direct competition

Mid 24 you and Oscar began bickering as a result of having more competitive cars

Low and behold, in Hungary, you found yourself leading with Oscar behind you. When told over and over again to give the position back, though, you didn't. Now, this wasn't some irrational decision, you didn't think Oscar would want to be given his first win, and you were the one in the championship battle. You knew you needed the points. And thinking back to everything Sebastian had taught you, sometimes you need to come above the team. Besides, Mclaren was the one who got the two of you into that mess, you weren't going to dig them out

As you crossed the line, you were happy with your win, but a small pang of regret still tugged at you as you turned to Oscar and saw him scowling.

All alone.

Right.

Mark was in England

As you tried to approach him reporters whisked him away, and led you both to your interviews and the podium. He never met your eyes as he showered you and Hamilton with champagne. If you looked close enough it almost seemed like he was crying, but it could have been the champagne.

The second you got off the podium, Sebastian was by your side, shaking your shoulders and crying out that his boy knew how to race. A smile never found your face though, as you followed the others to the media tent to finish the day. Mclaren had already excused you both from the debrief, instead electing to talk about it amongst themselves.

Eventually you finally managed to find Oscar alone, but still, he was preoccupied. You'd found him curled up in a ball next to the vending machines in your team's elevator, seemingly crying while on the phone.

"I don't know what to do, I don't know why he did that" he sobbed out, biting his knuckles to soften his cries.

You could hear a muffled response on the other side of the phone. Some man, comforting him, Mark, you could guess.

"No, I can't give up on him. Just because you and Sebastian didn't work out doesn't mean we wo-" Oscar cut himself short, he'd looked up in the middle of his rant to see you, shocked in the middle of the hallway.

"I'll be right back, Mark"

Oscar quickly stook up on wobbly legs, and brushed himself off, whining his tears away as if he hadn't just been sobbing in the hallway seconds before. As he tried to walk pas you, you grabbed his arm, pulling him close, and wrapping your own around him.

"I'm sorry" It's came out as a rasp whisper, "I'm so sorry. Please, Osc, please let me explain myself."

As tears began flowing from Oscar's eyes again, you started pulling him to you hotel room for a bit more privacy. When on the bed, you effortlessly pulled Oscar onto your lap, threading your fingers through his hair, and whispering how you loved him, and how you were sorry into his ear.

When his breathing evened, and his eyes dried, he looked up at you with the softest eyes you'd ever seen. It almost made you coo, before he asked the question.

"Why did you do it?"

While you explained, Oscar was silent. He mindlessly traced shapes on your chest, mimicking your fingers in your hair, and occasionally humming at your reasoning. When you finished, he still said nothing. He just looked up, kissed you on the lips, rolled over, and began to get ready for bed.

Silently the two of you went through the motions of preparing for bed, showering together, brushing your teeth, changing, and climbing into bed and into eachother's arms.

Now, safe under the covers, Oscar looked at you with those soft eyes once again.

"It's ok, I understand"

And he slipped into sleep.

It took a few more weeks for things to slip back into normality, but by the time that summer break came around and you found out Oscar had a broken rib, he was letting you pamper him to death.

It took longer for things to slip into normality for your respective managers. For Sebastian, things never slipped out of normality, besides the fact that he could use you to tease Mark with, like father like son or something, but for Mark, it was a different story.

He was infuriated at the idea that Oscar's first win was taken away from him in a Multi 21 situation. Despite the fact that Oscar reassured him multiple times that he and you had made up after that night that he had called him crying, Mark hadn't forgiven you.

This seemed to culminate in when both Sebastian and Mark were at the Australian opener the following year, and got into a massive argument in Mclaren hospitality. While you both tried to separate them, and managed to convince them to take it to one of your drivers rooms, it was very embarrassing for the both of you.

Oddly enough, after the race, they were perfectly fine with each other. Sebastian had a smirk on his face, and Mark almost looked sunburnt despite being Australian. Sebastian also had a limp, and neither of them knew anything about how Oscar had spun out or how you had won...

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BACKGROUND

by 2013, sebastian and mark had been teammates for 5 years, and part of the extended red bull “family” for 7.

when they became teammates in 2009, mark was the older, more experienced head. seb was the young wunderkind who already had a race win under his belt, more than mark had.

(ironically, mark won his first race in germany in 2009. seb wouldn’t win his home GP until 2013. seb has since called mark’s 2009 german gp win as one of the most impressive drives he’s ever seen.)

anyway. let’s go back in time. it’s japan. it’s 2007. and it is raining. it’s lap 45, under the safety car after alonso crashed out. the rain is TORRENTIAL, and mark (red bull) is running in 2nd. he’s so sick that he’s vomiting in his helmet. seb (toro rosso baby. 20 years old) was 3rd. hamilton was leading, and braked quite dangerously. seb was caught out by this, and crashed into the back of mark. both of them had been running in the podium places, and both had to retire. mark called seb a kid without experience fucking it up. seb cried in his garage. this is the first time they crash. mark later referred to it as the first time they made love on track because he’s a freak

fast forward to turkey 2010. they are teammates now, and have been for over a year. fuji 2007 had largely been forgotten. water under the bridge. they are fighting for the championship against ferrari and mclaren. mark got pole, but around lap 40 seb had caught up to him as mark had to save fuel. they “merged towards each other” (generous). mark didn’t give seb enough space, seb was too over-eager. people will have different opinions. unless you’re helmut marko, who will always back seb, since seb is a product of the red bull academy whereas mark wasn’t. mark went on to finish on the podium, seb had to retire. seb was PISSED! (sexy). this is seen as the start of the “rivalry” by many.

britain 2010. aka the mark-webber-slams-water-on-desk moment. seb was given the new front wing from marks car for qualifying because he was a better qualifier because his had broken in fp3. he would ultimately get a puncture in the race, whilst webber with the old wing came first, and graced us with the “not bad for a no.2 driver” radio message.

so, where are we by summer 2010 and spring 2011? fuji was no one’s fault really, turkey was six of one half a dozen of the other, but mark felt the team favoured seb. britain made that feeling CONCRETE in marks mind. then seb won the title in 2010 after not leading until the final race of the season. in the press conference before abu dhabi 2010, seb kept getting asked if he’d let mark past it if would win mark the championship, and he kept evading the answer. see, mark had been ahead in the championship, but he qualified 7th while seb got pole and won. so, come 2011, webber was convinced the team favoured seb. however, seb was by far and away the better driver.

so. britain 2011. an underrated moment of the vettel webber rivalry. mark qualified on pole, with seb p2. seb quickly took the lead in the race. later on in the race after some botched pit stops and drama, mark was close to seb. red bull told mark NOT to pass seb.

mark ignored this team order. he tried to pass his teammate, but ultimately failed to do so. it’s often forgetting in vettel/webber rivalry lore that mark was the first of them to ignore a direct team order. the difference was he just wasn’t able to make the overtake. here are two interesting quotes from just after the race:

and now. brazil 2012. another forgotten multi-21 backstory. it was the last race of the season, and seb was fighting for his third straight championship, only alonso could possibly beat him. mark qualified 3rd, seb 4th, and alonso 8th. seb had a rocky start to the race, which resulted in him being hit from the back & spun around. he pulled off the mother of all recovery drives to win the championship. alls well that ends well right? wrong. horner admitted a few years ago that seb felt that mark was to blame for the rocky start by forcing seb into the wall. horner even went as far as to say that this lack of teamwork was directly in sebs mind when malaysia 2013 came around. that that was seb’s revenge.

conspiracy theorists will say that mark forced seb towards the wall because he wanted his mate alonso to win the championship over his teammate. definitely possible but not confirmed.

so. here we are. malaysia 2013. it’s been 5 years of crashes, ignored team orders (mark), favouritism (seb) and finally an almost championship-ruining shove towards a wall.

seb qualified on pole, mark 5th. but mark took the lead after the first round of pitstops. around lap 46, seb was gaining on mark, who was on old hard tyres. team orders came through for seb not to fight mark. multi 21 literally means that car no 2 should stay in position ahead of car no 1. just as mark ignored team orders in britain 2011, seb ignored them here. the only difference was seb actually got past. mark was furious (“yep that’s good teamwork!”) seb, a bad liar, was hilarious (“i was really scared… all of a sudden he was moving… i had to…”) horner was regretting most of his life choices (“this is silly seb come on.”)

seb won the race. the most awkward of all cool down rooms ensued (“multi 21 seb. yeah? multi 21”) seb chugged an entire bottle of water. poor lewis hamilton just trying to disappear into thin air. underrated moment is you can see a clip of seb trying to explain something to mark and neither of them are having a good time. on the podium interviews after mark said “seb will have protection from the team as always” - harkening back to his long-felt belief that the team favoured seb, yet ignoring his own history of ignoring team orders, and ignoring brazil 2012.

seb would later apologise.

…

three days later seb would rescind that apology.

(“i was racing i was faster i passed him i won.”)

at this stage, seb had been the dominant driver for four years running and some crowds had grown annoyed at him, so used this as an excuse to boo him at basically every race for the summer swing of the season. seb spoke at the end of 2013 about how hard this was for him, and how he was thankful for the support of his family and girlfriend during the hard times. it’s important to remember that seb was only in his mid 20s when all this booing and controversy was happening. it’s a lot to shoulder, especially when you’re only doing what you’ve always done, what you’re being paid to do: winning.

mark would retire at the end of the 2013 season, though apparently he had already made up his mind before malaysia.

seb would stay at red bull for one more year before moving to ferrari.

when asked in 2022, seb said he wouldn’t change what he did in malaysia 2013. and in my opinion, he’s right.

unlike the mclaren clusterfuck of hungary 24, there was YEARS of history between vettel and webber before multi-21. grudges, crashes, hurts, pride, friendship, rivalry, championships lost and won. this was the cumulation of their entire careers to date, all of their mistakes and their motivations for better or for worse.