'he Says I Bring Out The Best In Him, But I Think He's Brought Out The Worst In Me' Is An Agassi Quote

what in madrid open is this scoreline?

Laguna Seca 2008: Valentino Rossi might have entered the eleventh round of the season with the lead in the championship, but he did not have momentum on his side. After a tricky start to the season, he had claimed three consecutive victories... before the tide began to turn against him. The man who had beaten him so easily to the championship the year before, Casey Stoner, had fought Rossi for second place at Catalunya, only narrowly missing out after a race-long battle. It was the start to a worrying trend: Stoner was in the process of bringing his rocky title defence back on track. His Ducati team managed to take the decisive step at the post-race test at that circuit; from then on, Stoner once again seemed as invincible as he had the year before, taking dominant victories in Donington, Assen and Sachsenring. Worse still, Rossi's crash at Assen had made him briefly relinquish the championship lead to Dani Pedrosa and had slashed his points buffer to Stoner. While Pedrosa's crash at the Sachsenring had ensured Rossi retook the championship lead, Rossi was once again frustrated with his struggles in qualifying. Against the fast-starting and clinical Stoner, he could not afford to keep fighting his way through from a long way back. Otherwise, Stoner would keep escaping out front and Rossi's points lead would keep dwindling and dwindling... Something had to change.

Stoner had dominated the round at Laguna Seca the year before, winning by almost ten seconds. It was the only circuit on the calendar save for Misano (only introduced in 2007) at which Rossi had raced and not yet secured a victory. The previous year he had come a distant fourth, the best of the Michelin tyre finishers at a track where the difference between the two tyre manufacturers was particularly egregious that season. His best result had been a third place secured in 2005 - which he intended to improve on that year, this time equipped with Bridgestone tyres to match Stoner's. From Friday morning, however, it looked like Rossi's task that weekend would be one of damage limitation. Just like in the previous three rounds, Stoner set about his business by dominating every practise session. Meanwhile, Pedrosa - still in severe pain caused by injuries sustained at the Sachsenring - faced the prospect of another dire weekend for the Michelin tyres. He eventually made the choice to withdraw from the race, effectively turning the title fight into a two horse race. Come qualifying, Stoner comfortably secured pole, with Rossi managing to at least take second place... but going by the evidence of that weekend, there was no real doubt as to who the winner would be. In press, Rossi joked he would need a thirty second head start to beat Stoner.

The race was supposed to be a fight for second place. It turned out to be something nobody was expecting. Stoner rocketed off the line as per usual, while Rossi got a decent start - briefly ceding ground to Nicky Hayden but managing to hold second into Turn 2. Stoner was already pulling out a few tenths over the field during that very first lap, which felt like a precursor to the inevitable. Rossi clawed back the gap, however, and overtook Stoner for the first time into Turn 8. From there, it was game on. To everyone's surprise, Rossi had managed to find just about enough pace overnight to keep himself competitive against Stoner's vicious pace... not enough to be faster than Stoner, but enough to frustrate him from in front. The battle between the two was at its most frenzied on Lap 4 - with a series of passes that culminates in Rossi's infamous corkscrew overtake in which he briefly goes off the track and only just about keeps the bike upright, bumping into Stoner in the process. Stoner threw himself at Rossi again and again as Rossi took ever more creative lines to keep Stoner behind, to make Stoner's life as miserable as possible. It was an escalation of hostilities from Rossi, who had decided to drag Stoner into a vicious scrap and intimidate him through any means possible. Stoner responded in kind, furiously desperate to beat Rossi - and willing to take some substantial risks to do so, see his overtakes around the outside at the notoriously terrifying blind Turn 1.

Eventually, however, Rossi caught Stoner out, forcing Stoner's error as Stoner ran wide off the track. Caught out by shallow gravel giving way to deeper gravel, Stoner went down in a crash slow enough to be more of a tip-off, effectively ending the fight for the win. Stoner managed to pick up the bike and - as a result of the ferocious pace the pair had been running - managed to finish in a comfortable second place. Still, the damage had been done. Stoner was visibly furious at how Rossi had conducted himself, first refusing Rossi's handshake in parc fermé and then telling Rossi he had lost respect for him on the podium. He would later walk back those words, extending an apology that Rossi accepted, but it still marked a turning point in that rivalry. Worst of all, Rossi had seen his tactics worked - and his rhetoric after the race was dedicated to letting Stoner know to expect more of the same going forwards. It was as clear a message as Rossi could possibly have sent to inform Stoner of just how much he was willing to do in order to win.

Nico Hülkenberg as the wolf

^what he said

Sebastian Vettel & Lewis Hamilton: 12 years sharing podiums together ✰

new casey podcast have you seen it

https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=ye8wNfrvaPDjtpDV&v=IuwZN6aP8sg&feature=youtu.be

(link to the podcast) yeah I did, cheers!

there's not that much 'new information' per se within this podcast, though there's a bunch of nice tidbits about teenage casey. what stood out to me is how the framing of his journey to becoming a racer is... well, it's kinda new? it's not exactly surprising, because you could get a lot of this stuff from reading between the lines in his autobiography. the question of 'is this your dream or your parents' dream' is a very common one with athletes, and it's often a thin line... but, y'know, this podcast interview in particular is quite a noticeable shift in how casey himself talks about this issue. it's a shift in how he portrays his 'dream' of becoming a professional rider back when he was formulating his autobiography, versus how he's answering questions in this episode. his autobiography isn't free from criticism of his parents - but casey is always stressing his own desire to race. so you do get stuff like this (from the autobiography):

At this point things were getting serious. Dad used to say, 'If you want to become World Champion you can't be that much better than local competition,' holding his finger and thumb an inch apart. 'You have to be this much better,' he'd say, holding his arms wide open. Dad confirms this feeling still today: 'I know it's a harsh way to look at things but that's the difference between a champion and the rest. Just look at the careers of Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo. Dani had Alberto Puig and Jorge had his old man, both of them hard as nails. If you want to make it to the top I think it takes somebody with an unforgiving view on life to help get you there. So I said those things to Casey, particularly when we went to the UK, because to keep moving up a level he couldn't just be happy with winning a race. If he wasn't winning by a margin that represented his maximum performance then he wasn't showing people how much better he was than the rest.' There's no denying that Dani, Jorge and I became successful with that kind of upbringing and sometimes you probably do need it. As far as I'm concerned Alberto was nowhere near as tough on Dani as my dad was on me or Jorge's dad was on him. That kind of intensity and expectation puts a lot of extra pressure on a father-son relationship that isn't always healthy. We definitely had our moments and there were a few major blow-ups to come. But at the time, rightly or wrongly, it was proving to be a good system for us and I was eager to continue impressing my dad and others with my performances on the track.

(quick reminder, jorge's review of his father's style of parenting was describing him as "a kind of hitler")

but in general the emphasis is very much on how much casey enjoyed racing, on how single-minded casey was when it came to racing. he might have been isolated by his racing (again this is from the autobiography, in the context of discussing being bullied by kids in school until he got 'protection' from his dirt track friends):

School life was a whole lot better after that but I still hated it. All my real friends were from dirt-track; they were the only people I had anything in common with.

and he's talked about how other parents misinterpreted his shyness as him not actually wanting to race, which meant they were judging casey's parents as a result (autobiography):

Mum tells me that the other parents thought she and Dad were awful because I cried as I lined up on the start line. She remembers: 'I was putting his gloves on his hands and pushing his helmet over his head. The thing was, I knew Casey wasn't crying because he didn't want to ride or because he was scared. He just didn't like the attention of being stared at by all these people!'

but like. overall racing for him was still something he portrayed as a very positive aspect of his childhood. something he always clung onto, something that was his choice to pursue

so... let's play compare and contrast with some specific passages of the autobiography and this podcast, you decide for yourself. take this from his autobiography:

After I started winning more times than not, and it was obvious my passion for bikes wasn't wavering, Mum and Dad decided that seeking out sponsors could be a great idea to help offset some of the costs of travelling to meets and keeping the bikes in good order.

and here, in a longer excerpt about what a sickly child casey was, what his mother said (autobiography):

'They tested him for cystic fibrosis and he was on all kinds of medication; you name it, he was on it. But Casey still raced, we couldn't stop him.' I know I was sick but Mum was right, I wasn't going to let that stop me.

versus this from the podcast, when he's responding to a completely open question about how he got into riding:

To be honest, I don't know if I was allowed to have any other attraction to be honest. I think it was, you know, you're going to be a bike rider from when I was a very very young age - and I'm not the only one to think that. I think my parents have stated that enough times to certain people and you know I was sort of pushed in that direction. My elder sister who's six and a half years older than me, she actually raced a little bit of dirt bikes and dirt track before I was born and when I was very young, so it was sort of a natural progression to go and do a little bit more of that and I think because at the time road racing was a lot more similar to dirt track. That was our sort of way in.

this was one of the very first questions in the interview, it basically just consisted of asking casey how he got into biking in the first place - whether it had come through his family or whatever. casey chose to take the response in that direction... it's not an answer that is just about his own internal passion, how he loved riding the second he touched a bike, how he loved it throughout his childhood etc etc (which is how it's framed in the autobiography) - but instead he says he wasn't allowed to do anything else. he says that he was pushed in that direction, that his parents have openly said as much to others. that he feels vindicated in the belief he was never given another choice

let's play another round. here from the autobiography:

Mum and Dad used to stand at the side for hours on end watching me practise at different tracks. They'd sometimes clock laps with a stopwatch as I went round and round. Other parents couldn't see the point in taking it so seriously but they didn't realise it was what I wanted. I was having fun. Working out how to go faster was how I got my kicks and I couldn't stop until I had taken a tenth or two of a second off my best time on any day. If another kid came out onto the track with me I would be all over them, practising passing them in different ways and in different corners, but most of the time they avoided riding with me and I would be out there on my own, racing the clock.

and this (autobiography):

I enjoyed racing so much that even when I was at home riding on my own I would set up different track configurations to challenge myself. I'd find myself a rock here, a tree there, a gatepost over there and maybe move a branch and that would be my track.

versus here, in the podcast:

Q: And did you realise at the time that you were - not groomed, is not the word but well you were being groomed to be a professional motorcycle racer, or obviously that was your only one reference point, that was the norm. Did that just feel the norm or did you think actually this feels a bit intense or how did you feel about it? A: I think it's hard, it's not until I sort of reached my mid teens where I started to have a bit of a reality check on what I was actually doing. Before then, you know I was competitive. I'm not as competitive as people think, I'm a lot more competitive internally rather than externally versus other people. I always challenge myself to things, so all those younger years was just getting the job done that I was expected to do. I enjoyed winning, I loved it, but you know I enjoyed perfect laps, perfect races, as close as I could get to that and you know from a young age I always sort of challenged myself constantly to be better. So I didn't just win races, I tried to win them - you know, if I won races by five seconds in a [...] race I'd try and win, you know I'd try and get to double that by the end of the day if I could. So you know that always kept me sharp and it stopped me from being sort of, you know, complacent in the position I was at. And it wasn't until sort of you know 16, 17, 18 that reality kicked in. I'd had a couple years road racing in the UK and Spain, been rather successful and then you get to world championships and you know maybe an engineer that was sort of - didn't have your best interests at hear. And, you know, I nearly finished my career right there after my first year of world championships just because of the reality of how hard it was in comparison to everything else I'd experienced up to that point. And, you know, it was a real reality check for me and I think it was then that I started to - you know consider everything around me and consider how and why I got to the position that I was in and that's when the mind started to change a little bit and realise that you know I really was being groomed my whole life just to sort of be here and be put on a track and try and win. And, you know, that was my seemingly most of my existence.

in all the excerpts, he stresses how much he enjoys his perfect laps, how much he enjoys riding, how there is genuine passion there, how dedicated he is to this pursuit... but then in the podcast, he's adding something else - how he'd been groomed his whole life into that role of 'professional bike racer'. that it was only in his late teens (when he was in 125cc/250cc) where he had this moment of 'man I never really had a choice in all this'

and another round. here's him talking in the autobiography about how all the money he got through racing went back into racing - but it was fine because it was the only thing he cared about anyway:

I don't remember seeing any of the money I earned because it all went back into my racing, although I guess at the time that's all I really cared about anyway. I didn't know anything else. Mum and Dad always said to me: 'If you put in the effort, we'll put in the effort.'

and here in the autobiography on how he just wanted to ride all day:

I couldn't ride my bike all day, though, as much as I would have liked to.

and him talking in the autobiography about his parents encouraging him and his sister to 'chase their dreams':

Mum and Dad encouraged both Kelly and me to follow our passions and work hard to chase our dreams. That might sound strange when you are talking about a seven-year-old but I don't think you are never too young to know that if you want something you have to earn it.

versus this in the podcast:

Q: And I've never asked you this before, but did you want to? A: Um... I think I'd been convinced of a dream I suppose. You know, yes I loved riding bikes and you know I really did enjoy racing... but there was lots of other things that I - I really enjoyed as well but just never had the opportunity or never was allowed to do anything else, so... You know, motorbikes for our budget everything fortunately dirt track was probably the cheapest way that you could go motorbike racing. You could survive on very very little in dirt track and show your potential in other ways. You know, yes, having good bikes and good tyres and all that sort of thing made a difference but it wasn't the be all end all, you could always make a difference in other ways, so... I think it was, you know - the best thing we could have done, racing through that. Like I said I enjoyed it, it wasn't until late teens, early 20s where I sort of was like, I don't know if I would have been a bike racer had I actually had a choice.

was riding really all he cared about? or were there other things he was interested in, things he just never had the opportunity to pursue? things he wasn't allowed to pursue? from the autobiography, you get the sense that his parents always deliberately portrayed it as casey's dream, something he was expected to work hard for in order to be allowed to fulfil. in the podcast, casey says it was a dream he was 'convinced' of. without wanting to speak too much on the specifics of this parenting relationship we only have limited knowledge of, this kinda does all sound like athlete parent 101: getting it into their kids' heads that this is the dream of the child, not the parent, before holding it over them when they fail to perform when their parents have invested so so much in their child's success. casey's family was financially completely dependent on his racing results when they moved to the uk - he was fourteen at the time. he was painfully conscious of his parents' 'sacrifice' to make 'his dream' possible. can you imagine what kind of pressure that must be for a teenager?

to be clear, this isn't supposed to be a gotcha, I'm not trying to uncover contradictions between what casey said back then and what he's saying now. obviously, this is all very... thorny, complicated stuff, and casey has had to figure out for himself how he feels about it, how he feels about how his parents approached his upbringing. but it is worth pointing out that this isn't necessarily just a question of his feelings changing over time - if the internal timeline he provides in the podcast is correct, he was really having that realisation in his late teens, early 20s, so on the verge of joining the premier class. that is when he says he had the thought "I don't know if I would have been a bike racer had I actually had a choice"... which is a pretty major admission, you have to say, especially given how rough those premier class years often ended up being on him. but then that realisation would have already come years and years before he wrote his autobiography, it would've been something he carried with him for most of his career. given that, you do look at his autobiography and think that he did make the decision to frame things pretty differently back then, that he decided to exclude certain things from his narrative. if this really is already something that's been festering within him for years, if he does feel like he wants to be a bit more open about all of that now than back then... well, hopefully it shows he's been able to work through all of it a bit more in the intervening years

(this is somehow an even thornier topic than his relationship with parents, but relatedly there is a bit of a discrepancy between how bullish he is in his autobiography about how mentally unaffected he was by his results, versus how he's since opened up since then about his anxiety. again, I want to stress, this is not a gotcha, he's under no obligation to share this stuff with the world - especially given the amount of discourse during his career about his supposed 'mental weakness'. it is still important in understanding him, though, how he consciously decided to tell his own story in the autobiography and how he's somewhat changed his approach in the subsequent years)

this is the rest of his answer to that podcast question I relayed above:

But at the same time you know I felt that no matter what I would have done, I sort of have a - my mentality of self-punishment, you know, of never being good enough that always drove me to try and be better and any single thing that I did, I didn't like it when I wasn't not perfect. I don't believe in the word perfect but I really didn't enjoy when I wasn't, you know, in my own terms considered a good enough level at anything I did so I would always sort of try to get up as high as I could regardless of what for.

at which point hodgson says exactly what I was thinking and goes 'god what a line' about the "mentality of self-punishment" thing. it is one hell of a line!

what's really interesting about this podcast is how these two big themes of 'this wasn't my choice' and 'self-punishment' end up kinda being linked together when casey talks about how the motogp world reacted to him... so again I'm gonna quickly toss in a bit from the autobiography (where he's talking about casual motorcycling events he went to as a kid), because it does read similarly in how for him the joy and competitive aspects of riding are closely linked:

It was a competition but it wasn't highly competitive; it was just for fun, really. Of course, I didn't see it that way, though, and I had dirt and stones flying everywhere. I don't think anyone expected the park to be shredded like it was. When I was on my bike, if I wasn't competing to my maximum level then I wasn't having as much fun.

and back to the podcast:

And also because people truly didn't understand me, that I'm not there just to enjoy the racing. As we're explaining, before that, you know it was sort of a road paved for me... And so the results were all important, not the enjoyment of it. And then you cop the flak for everything you do. I'm also very self-punishing, so it was kind of a - just a lose lose lose and it was all very very heavy on myself, so... It, you know, it took me till my later years to realise I could take the pressure off myself a little bit and go look you've done all the work you've done everything you can, you got to be proud of what you've done, so... Not necessarily go out there and enjoy it, because I don't believe you should just be going out in a sport where you're paid as much as we are expect to get results and just - you know - oh I'm just going to go and have fun it's like... yeah, nah, if you're just going to go and have fun then you're not putting in the work. And that's when we see inconsistencies etc. So I was very very harsh on myself and so even when I won races, if I made mistakes or I wasn't happy with the way I rode, well then yeah I'm happy I won but there's work to do. There was more to get out of myself and so that's where I copped a lot of bad... um, let's say bad press because of those kind of things and then they sort of attack you even more because they didn't like the fact that you didn't celebrate these wins like they wanted you to they expect you to I suppose treat every victory like almost a championship and you know it's not that I expected these wins but I expected more of myself and therefore maybe I didn't celebrate them as much as you know other people do.

kind of brings together a lot of different things, doesn't it? this whole profession was a path that was chosen for him... which he links here to how the results were 'all important' for him, how it just couldn't ever be about enjoyment. he always punished himself for his mistakes, he was under constant pressure, which also affected how he communicated with the outside world... he was so committed to self-flagellation that he made it tough for himself to actually celebrate his victories, which in turn wasn't appreciated by the fans or the press. so on the one hand, casey's obviously still not particularly thrilled about how much of a hard time he was given over his particular approach to being a rider. but on the other hand, he's also describing how all of this can be traced back to how becoming a rider was never actually his 'choice'. he's detailed his perfectionism before, including in his autobiography, including in discussing his anxiety disorder more recently - but this is explicitly establishing that link between the pressure he'd felt during his childhood to how he'd been pushed into this direction to how he then had to perform. he couldn't afford to be anything less than perfect, so he wasn't, and at times he made his own life even tougher as a result of his own exacting standards. this just wasn't stuff he's said in such straightforward, explicit terms before... and now he is

my general thing with casey is that his reputation as a straight shooter or whatever means people aren't really paying enough attention to how he's telling his own story. like, I kinda feel the perception is 'oh he used to be more closed off because the media ragged on him but since retirement he's been able to tell it like it really is' or whatever. and I'm not saying that's necessarily wrong, but it's not quite as simple as that. because he's not a natural at dealing with the media, he's put a fair bit of thought into how to communicate better with them (which he does also say in the podcast), and he's explicitly acknowledged this is something he looked to valentino for in order to learn how to better handle. because casey has felt misunderstood for quite a long time, he's quite invested in selling his story in certain ways - and it's interesting how what he's chosen to reveal or emphasise or conceal or downplay has changed over time. which means there will be plenty of slight discrepancies that pop up over time that will be as revealing as anything he explicitly says... and it tells you something, what his own idea of what 'his story' is at any given time. this podcast isn't just interesting as a sort of, y'know, one to one, 'this is casey telling the truth' or whatever - it's reflecting where his mind is at currently, what he wants to share and in what way, and how that compares to his past outlook. the framing of his childhood was really something that popped out about this particular interview... it's not like it's exactly surprising that this is how he feels, but more that he decided to say all of this so openly. some pretty heavy stuff in there! hope the years really have helped him... man, I don't know. figure it all out, for himself. something like that

I’m not sure if you’ve answered this before but if not could you explain the Casey / Marc Honda beef 😭 I didn’t even know that existed & then I was listening to a podcast the other day that said in 2015 Marc blocked Casey from a wildcard ride to replace Dani for one race when he was out injured??? Like omg!!! And they said Casey even tweeted confirming it (lmao ofc he did) like damn!! Marc comments on his instas sometimes so I thought they were always buds, this surprised me!

well, 'buds' I think would be pushing it. but yeah, not only is this something I've answered before, it's actually the 2nd/3rd asks I got about motogp on here! see here for the 2015 beef and a follow up to that post. I only recently remembered the tweet myself lol... he really was Not happy

this is so passive aggressive I'm crying. really mastered the art of using the :)

to be clear, we don't actually KNOW marc blocked casey. we know that casey BELIEVES marc blocked him, but that is not the same as confirmation that it happened. for context, here is what suppo said at the time:

after 2015, casey left honda - and claimed both that Someone hadn't wanted him to race AND ALSO that marc's camp had pushed him out as a test rider because they'd felt threatened by him. casey has form in accusing his rivals of wrongdoing by Heavily Implying something rather than outright stating it, cf him in his autobiography suggesting Someone inside yamaha hadn't wanted him there,, who knows who that could have been :) *wink wink nudge nudge*

by that point in time, his rhetoric about marc was... idk, warm-ish? without being particularly glowing either. included in one of the above posts, but see this from 2013:

as the local casey translator: from him that's a pretty weighty accusation and the kind of thing he does not look kindly on At All. also appreciated this little two-in-one from 2015, like sure get both of them from me --

-- but yeah. given that he's Retired, casey isn't actually going to start a war over the honda thing - and in a way it's already remarkable and extremely casey that he went as far as he did. him and marc have a fairly respectful and cordial relationship because they weren't ever rivals. casey has no reason to not be polite about and to marc, even if he has his reservations. and a grudge

and again, fwiw we don't KNOW to what extent marc was involved in chasing casey out, if at all. I mean, maybe? we know from marc's own testimony that he is a nightmare of a teammate, we know he's no stranger to honda internal power struggles... but then again, why bother? at most casey could have mildly embarrassed marc (and given that it was cota, even that is.... unlikely). given that casey was simply never going to return to motogp full time, why would you feel threatened by him? there is a lot of he said she said surrounding this entire situation... again nabbing this from the original post, but this kind of thing --

-- you just have blatantly contradictory information, because CASEY was saying that he was on dani's sepang pace in his early 2015 test. I mean, vibes-wise I suppose I'm not sure I'm convinced that casey was so off the pace in 2015 that he was useless as a test rider and unfeasible as a wild card rider. vibes-wise I also don't think that sounds like the kind of thing casey himself would be completely deluded about? he wouldn't want to compete if he was slow... suppo saying that casey has never raced at cota anymore is?? it's casey, it's not like it really matters that he's unfamiliar with the track - and suppo of all people should surely know as much. as for hrc saying that he was a second off the pace at sepang early in 2015... idk man. if that's true, I just don't quite buy that casey would have wanted to race in the first place

and we do actually have a piece of evidence that at the very least sits uneasily with the assertion of everyone at honda that casey was Simply Too Slow in 2015. upon leaving honda casey became a test rider at ducati - and in his expanded role actually immediately took part in like,, a proper test where he shared the track with other riders in early 2016. and where else could this happy on-track reunion have taken place - other than at sepang

now, look. I don't know either way. I'm just presenting the evidence here and you can make up your own mind. it is possible that casey - the man who was renowned for being fast the second he touches any bike, still only 29-30 years old, not suffering from any acute physical issues at the time - was too slow to be competitive in 2015 on the honda he had helped to develop and had been riding since 2011. (worth pointing out that test riders also do not need to literally be on the pace of the full time riders to be useful in testing.) it is also possible that casey then went to ducati and was immediately quicker than his fellow ducati riders, a well-respected set of riders in their own right, on a bike he had not ridden since 2010... despite having been useless on the honda. it is possible. you can decide for yourself if this is likely. who knows. and if you decide that it isn't likely - regardless of what happened within honda during 2015, it does feel pretty poor form that various honda officials were so keen to whisper to the press about how slow casey was. but hey! who knows!

though for the sake of fairness, obviously there is also a certain amount of opportunistic 'jumping on honda's grave' to casey saying stuff like this in the year of our lord 2024:

very much playing into the narrative that marc led honda down the wrong path, aka that marc is responsible for their current malaise. casey's not QUITE saying that, but it's the obvious implication - and he KNOWS that. he knows what he's doing here!! and it's been like,, eight years, he's clearly not exactly Over It, is he. you cannot convince me that casey has not felt at least a little bit of schadenfreude about honda's current plight. come on

in conclusion. who knows what really happened back in 2015... wish I did. look, casey has a tendency towards paranoia. he's a suspicious bloke, he often sees the worst in others... and he's also extremely petty and slow to forgive. this entire thing manages to play into some of his most persistent neuroses - about not being valued, about others playing politics behind his back, about being excluded from another club through no fault of his own. about not being shown the loyalty he felt he was owed. no wonder he took it poorly, no wonder he's still at least a little sore about it in 2024. it shouldn't escape your notice that he made quite a few of these accusations about marc in early 2016, when marc already had rather a lot on his plate. but casey doesn't care! if anything, he'll have been fully aware that the media at the time would be pretty open to a nice little side swipe at marc marquez - it's a receptive environment to casey's narrative. casey's hardly shy about taking advantage of that kind of thing

then again, while I do believe casey could have just cooked this whole thing up in his head with minimal evidence, I simultaneously buy that marc did actually block casey. marc's camp certainly did do a lot to assert itself within honda during that time (famously power-hungry drama-happy manager in the shape of alzamora, lest we forget). so, y'know. maybe this was another way of asserting internal supremacy - and maybe marc really didn't want casey interfering in developmental work. the boring answer is that the truth might lie somewhere in the middle, that marc's camp did try to make life unpleasant for casey within honda without like,, actively forcing him out or vetoing the wild card. it's certainly a very in-character episode for everyone involved. very much the ships that passed in the night of feuding... of course casey would have despised marc if they'd ever been actual teammates, but they both just about managed to avoid that particular bloodbath

popping in to spread a little love<3 you are loved. you are wanted. you belong here.

Wait who is Ann Neal?

tw for grooming!!

ok anon i fully typed this up in the notes app. please keep in mind this is an opinion based off years of watching f1 and we don't know either of them personally but also it's fucking weird

Ann Neal is Mark Webber’s wife/manager/questionable person. Almost everything I’m going to talk about next is from Mark’s book Aussie Grit which everyone should read

She is 17 years older than Mark (as per the public info on their company’s registration), which maybe wouldn’t be a problem if they started dating at their current ages but they first met and got together when Mark was 17. She was also his manager during the early part of his career. more below the cut now!!

In his book Mark talks about how their relationship went from professional to personal during the FIRST trip to Europe. Please keep in mind this was his FIRST attempt to grow his career, his first time away from home, and he knew nobody but her, his manager, who is like 17 years older than him and should know better. 

Like this woman was in a position of power, had his career in his hands, and was on a separate continent where literally the only person he knows is her. 

Mark said in his book that even his mum wasn’t happy about it, and also that Ann’s kid views Mark as a big brother…like ok

In Aussie Grit Mark literally wrote Ann’s first impression of him. Please keep in mind he was SEVENTEEN (17) and she was 34. 

“I liked how bold and cheeky he was, and how mature he seemed. When I asked someone how old he was, I was shocked when they said 17 - he was confident beyond his years.”

LIKE?? The fact she went from thinking and saying this about a 17 year old to becoming his manager and then very quickly starting to hook up with him to having a relationship is CRAZY. She also apparently remembers what he was wearing that day - like girl why were you looking so hard?!?!

They moved to England then and didn’t know anyone else and became codependent and Mark has said she was the only one, other than himself, who believed that his F1 dream could happen. It’s very cute in that it obviously ended up happening, but please keep in mind that this is still his manager and a woman almost two decades older than him.

Mark said his parents’ weren’t happy with the relationship, and at one point he went back to Australia for a break (from racing and a temporary break up with Ann because it got too serious too fast) and got a new management company and started dating someone else. Ann wasn’t happy, and Mark said she “wasn’t prepared to hang around and watch young love undermine all we’d worked so hard for”

Like. This is now not just his former manager, but also his EX GIRLFRIEND. He’s got a new girlfriend now and a new management and Mark then decided his personal life was now affecting his driving, so he broke up with the two newbies and went back to Ann because Ann wasn’t happy.

So six months after the break up and Mark groveling, saying “I want to come home,” Mark left Australia and moved back in with Ann and her son in England. Like at this point he was what? 20? And he’s basically settled down for life with a much older woman and her kid (sound familiar). 

Obviously I do not know Ann or Mark but the way this reads to me and probably anyone who’s read the book is that she was looking out for herself and herself only. She had an opportunity and she took it while manipulating an 18/19 year old man who did not know any better and whose career she held in her hands!!! LIKE. 

Anyway here are some pics of her looking old as fuck . Credit to motorsport images for keeping pics up for 50 million years so we can always find the good shit

ann with mark in october 1996. mark was 20, she’s 37

ann with mark's dad in 2004

ann with mark and the fam in 2006 - mark's 30th birthday. ann is 47

july 2009 - mark was 33, ann was 50

nov 2010 - mark was 34

in 2018 - mark was 36/37 (i forgot what month this was taken)

thank u to @brakingpoint and @multi-twentyone for their assistance in this research project

descending toward devotion

Devotion - Ocean Vuong