No Nuance! Reblog Or Comment Yes I'll Follow Everyone

heres a treat for the one (1) other swarm fan out there

okay right let’s get something straight about kevin magnussen in the context of sports nepo babies: kevin does not fit the traditional understanding of it at all. the best you can say is that he is the son of another motor racer - but he has very much /not/ had the advantages that other drivers including: lance stroll, mick schumacher, carlos sainz jr and max verstappen have had. here’s why:

- jan magnussen fathered kevin when he was nineteen. kevin was raised by a single mother and self-admittedly did not have a conventional relationship with his father and describes it as “more of a friendship”.

- jan magnussen didn’t have any money to support kevin’s career. in fact in 2008, kevin had to give up racing and take work as a welder. that’s basically the closest thing the grid has to being working class.

so yeah, kevin’s surname opened some doors for him at mclaren, but that is literally it. in fact jan magnussen’s success (like his le mans win) actually came after kevin’s career in f1 had begun. kevin does not have any family wealth backing him, didn’t have anyone giving him helping him to secure seats or sponsors, and his dad’s name carried very limited weight until after he’d already been dropped by mclaren. he was not groomed from birth to be a racer like some and has never had a safety net.

this really puts into context why he’s such a scrappy little bastard as a racer and why he loves his scrappy little bastard team so much. they may have passed over him in favour of money in the form of nikita mazepin but they were very upset about having to do so to stay afloat and got him back as soon as the opportunity was there. that’s loyalty!

Nico Hülkenberg as the wolf

Mark Webber Lore Masterpost

This is for @percervall who had the good fortune to ask for Mark Lore when I had just finished a massive Fernando Lore post and was itching to balance out my OTP Lore Files.

Disclaimer: I am primarily a webbonso girlie (gn), but I also love Martian (aka Sebmark), Butter (which we are now calling Aussie Cake - Mark/Jenson), and Nicomark, with an occasional dash of Oscarmark though I have Feelings about that (see below on Personal Life).

I was watching F1 for the last five years of Mark's career so his RBR days and personal life are what I know best but even so, I'm not claiming to be an expert so if anyone reads this and disagrees with any of it, please weigh in with your own thoughts! Input most welcome.

CW below for transphobia, ED/eating disorder, and vomiting unrelated to ED

EDITED TO ADD: I CONFIRM THIS POST IS SAFE FROM THE CANBERRA MILK KID ADVERT

Anyway - to the DILF Files!

Racing and Luck

Couple of things on this: Mark is from a town close to Canberra called Queanbeyan that is, according to fans who know Australia, the single most unlikely place in the world to produce an F1 driver. Throughout his book, he constantly comes back to "how can a boy from Queanbeyan get to F1?"

Mark got into racing comparatively late, at 13-ish, and he was tall. Tallness was a huge disadvantage during the era he raced, because of the regulations favouring low weights. Before he got his first F1 test, Bernie Ecclestone dismissed him as "too old, too big." He made his F1 debut at 26 which is *really* late in the modern era. He has said that he "didn't eat for five years" to keep his weight down and that the possibility of weighing more and relaxing his diet was a factor in moving to WEC instead of doing another season in F1.

As @stars-and-meteors wrote in the comments on @percervall's post, Mark was LUCKY in one way (though usually described as an unlucky driver) - he was in at least four major crashes in his career that could have been fatal. Two in Le Mans 1999 (video of his memories here), another flip in Valenica in 2010 which I saw live and nearly puked until I saw his head move. This clip shows the crash but not the aftermath - he threw his steering wheel out to signal that he was OK, and walked away with nothing more than minor bruises, so keep that in mind as you watch because it is dramatic. Then finally, when he was racing for Porsche in WEC after he retired from F1, he crashed hard in Brazil, so badly that his wife (watching at home with her son) assumed he would die. He was injured but ultimately fine.

So how was he unlucky?

Getting to F1 so late, with minimal sponsorship behind him - this was in an era where the driver academy systems we have now weren't as strong and he was outside of the bit of an academy system that there was

One early career bad move - went to Williams instead of Renault for 2005 (Renault won the WDC that year)

Finally got a WDC-winning car when he was 34, with a much younger generational-talent teammate (Sebastian) who was intensely favoured by the team (for pretty valid reasons in many ways) - never had good machinery in what could have been his peak years.

RBR and Seb Rivalry/Martian/Sebmark

The best way I can explain Mark's dynamic with Sebastian is that the Vettel grandstand at his home grand prix costs more to sit in than the Webber grandstand.

Here is a brief thematic overview of Martian I wrote in response to an ask. Please know that they once bought matching Porsches together, and that Mark has referred to their on-track crashes as "making love." They are a shipper's dream.

Because Seb is now such an elder statesman of the sport, a lot of people forget that he wasn't always as popular and well-liked as he (deservedly) is today. One of the many links in this post describes Mark as a "fan favourite" and he really was - he was seen as a chill, down to earth, funny bloke. Seb was also popular, but he was popular with a lot of the same demographic that are big Max fans today and he was a similar figure (though not as controversial). Some people compare Max-Checo to Seb-Mark but Checo has never been as popular as Mark was, and Seb was always less controversial than Max. But not a million miles away either.

Mark used to hold the record for most F1 starts without a win, and when he finally won his first race I think every F1 fan was happy for him. He was definitely seen as a safe pair of hands, journeyman driver, not a standout but not bad either.

Anyway, then Adrian Newey built a great car in 2010.

Mark led much of the 2010 season, but due to some bad luck, bad starts and a shocking last race, he came 3rd in the WDC to Seb and Fernando. It went to the last race. Seb won his first title never having led the standings all season, but he was consistent and had good strategy calls, and also he had the backing of the team. The Front Wing Incident led to a classic moment of Mark Lore. The team had a new front wing, Seb damaged his and was given Mark's. The team will say that Mark hadn't liked the wing, and that Seb was ahead in the standings at the time. Mark maintained Seb was being favoured because young, German, RBR Young Driver Programme, Helmut Marko, etc. Mark won the race. Christian came on the radio to congratulate him and said something like, maybe now you'll crack a smile. Mark replied with "not bad for a number two driver," and Lore was born.

(Apparently there was a team barbecue at Christian's house to try and mend fences, involving karaoke. Mark's karaoke song, according to Seb's remarks on the Australia GP podium some years later, is Summer of 69.)

Anyhoo, Mark lost out at the last race in 2010, Seb dominated all over 2011 (in his book, Mark says that the team behaved in 2011 as though Mark had been a second driver all through 2010 and Seb had led the whole season, when Mark had been closer to the title than Seb), and 2012 (Alonso was amazing that season, so it was great racing and not an easy title for Seb at all, but Mark didn't challenge him).

Then came Multi-21. I think it's fair to say that at the time, most people agreed that Seb had been out of line, although some thought so because he'd fucked over Mark and some because he disobeyed his boss. Either way, Seb was apologetic and then wasn't. It's been suggested since that Seb's lawyer letter to the team may have been sowing seeds for him to break his contract and move to Ferrari - he did activate a break clause in 2014 to move to Ferrari for 2015.

Anyhoo, after Mark's retirement he and Seb mended things, they are clearly on good terms now and Mark had lots of nice things to say when Seb retired. But it was acrimonious at the time.

Broadly, I think most people feel like if a few minor things had gone differently, Mark might have been a one-time WDC, but that he never really had the next-level skill of the likes of Seb, Fernando, Lewis, or even Jens or Nico. He's often ranked alongside Felipe Massa as someone who would have been a deserving champion but never an all-time great.

Webbonso

I've done some Webbonso lore masterposts before, so please see this, this and this if it's something you're into. Mark and Fernando seemed to have a falling out in after 2018 (which we call the Divorce Era, and may be linked to Fernando signing with Alpine for 2021 when Mark wanted a seat for Oscar Piastri, who Mark managed) but the Divorce Era was confirmed ended in 2023, with Mark gushing over his boy again, on screen hugs, and Mark sharing a post on instagram with a little red stiletto heeled shoe emoji imposed on Fernando's tiny foot.

Actual Personal Life

Mark is married to an English woman named Ann Neal, whom he met when he was 17 and she was 30. She became a friend of his family because of her motorsport connections (she worked in motorsport in Australia), then became his manager, and moved him to England without his family when he was 18-19. He lived in a box room in Ann's mum's house, with Ann, her mum and her son (she was recently divorced), and they shared a car. Their relationship apparently turned romantic when he was 20 and she was 33. (This is all from his autobiography). @lightningmickqueen wrote a great summary of this which is worth reading. Basically - problematic AF and it's hard for me not to think of him as a victim though he does seem very happy.

This is also why Oscarmark is never a simple ship for me. I love their dynamic, I like them both as drivers, but because I feel like Mark is a grooming survivor and there is both an age gap and a power imbalance between him and Oscar, I don't think I'll ever write an explicit fic about them. Any I've written before are very much on the yearning side.

No serious allegations of cheating on his partner have ever emerged. He did a series of photoshoots and videos with Maria Sharapova for Porsche and a lot of people joke about their "affair" but nothing at all to suggest its real.

Controversy (esp transphobia) and Views

Well one big controversy is the fact he was groomed as a teenager, but no one in motorsport talks about this, although the fandom is pretty switched on about it all.

But the biggest is the transphobic tweet. I won't link to anyone else's blog here because I have been told that posting about Mark's transphobic tweet can bring out trolls with both pro-trans and anti-trans views (fyi: I do not believe it is possible to be anti-trans, you cannot be anti-people, it is simply not allowed, but I refuse to use the terms that bigoted people invent for themselves and reclaim and weaponise).

In short - Mark retweeted a tweet from a news channel about young trans people reverting to their assigned gender at birth with the caption "Now it's called Detransitioning" and a laughing emoji. (Ugh). Then he doubled down when called out and said it hadn't been meant to be funny, he found it hard to keep up with terminology and he is a "proud heterosexual" with "gay friends of both genders."

And he has never apologised.

Of course, the meme potential of proud heterosexual Mark Webber is endless, but trans fans have asked people not to use it jokingly because it is a reminder of a transphobic incident and can be upsetting to encounter.

Basically, Mark can be Gen X all he wants but he has the brain of a Boomer.

He's generally conservative. A big believer in pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, "common sense", and "old fashioned country values" from his "traditional upbringing." That said, and I'm not suggesting this is a defence for the ways in which he is terrible but it belongs here, it seems these views don't extend much to racism, as he is a big, vocal fan of Lewis Hamilton although doesn't comment much on his activism except to say he is an all-round class act.

Mark was also managed by Flavio Briatore for most of his career and Flavio is dodgy AF and was literally banned for his role in race fixing, so. There was brief talk after Crashgate of suspending the superlicence of any driver who was repped by Flavio. Mark and Fernando were among them and held firm and the threats weren't carried out.

General Unhinged Lore

His almost-WDC in 2010 was achieved with a broken shoulder

He has Questions about Fernando Alonso's leg waxing

He coined the nickname Britney for Nico Rosberg by saying "don't think so mate, Britney's in the wall" when he was told not to enter the pits in favour of Nico before the pit wall realised Nico had crashed

He is ridiculously handsy with other men

Gifs of Mark making an oral sex joke on Ziggo Sport

I have a whole tag of Mark being unhinged - including his "fully expected sec-sex-sections" interview about Seb, the Piping Hot Dickstickers interview, and the buying matching Porsches story.

He is known to be obsessed with red wine, chocolate, tennis and dogs.

He always has two dogs, usually with S names. He's had Shadow (RIP), Simba (RIP), Saxon and...others I don't know. He lived in England for most of his career (unusual) and moved to Monaco when he retired.

When he first won the Monaco Grand Prix, he hadn't packed a tuxedo and had to show up in jeans, a sweater and deck shoes. He says no one minded. this definitely bolstered his 'down to earth guy' image.

He once continued driving while literally being sick in his helmet. (This is GROSS).

His team radio on his first win is legendary.

And finally. YOU MUST hear his scream in commentary at Azerbaijan. It is amazing.

Hey. Hi. Hello. Today I learned about the existence of 15th century Welsh poet Gwerful Mechain and that she apparently has a surviving work of erotic poems.

Please. For Christmas. For Yule. Please tell me more because I can't read Welsh.

Heh heh. Oh, Gwerful Mechain is the absolute best.

(Quick housekeeping to keep the post manageable - I previously wrote about things like cynghanedd and cywydds and englyns and such here, so check that if you need an explanation.)

What's fun is that we don't know a ton about her, because not a lot got written down about people in her time. Her surviving work covers a 40ish year span at the end of the 1400s to just into the 1500s, but we don't know when she was born or died or anything like that. We know her parents' names? And that she was from Mechain, hence the bardic name. And that she married a guy and had a daughter, something which actually does mark out her body of work as different from her contemporaries; being a wife and mother, she couldn't do the usual bardic role of travelling the country to spread news and play at courts. This means she doesn't have any of the praise poetry that a lot of male bards produced about the lords that hosted them.

But, there's stuff we can piece together about her. For one thing, she was not just literate (not a universal skill for anyone at that point, but especially for women), but she was astonishingly well-read and had what appears to be a classical education, given her poetic references and traditional Welsh meters. For another, her work often had recurring themes of religion, sex, and women's rights, sometimes all at the same time.

At the point Gwerful was active, Welsh bardic culture heavily featured ymrysonau. An ymryson is like... well, I hesitate to say "sort of like a rap battle" after the way everyone and their dog now thinks that's what the Mari Lwyd does, but they were like a cross between a rap battle and the publication war between two rival academics. A bard would write an englyn and publish it in the local parish newsletter. Another bard would see this, and write their own englyn about how stupid the first bard's englyn was, and publish it in the same newsletter. The first bard would see this and retaliate. The second bard would retaliate to that. And on and on it would go, like a printed tennis match for all the parishioners to enjoy, until someone wrote a conclusive verse OR until someone went "Lol, you got me good there" and bowed out with dignity. Sometimes, these things were fucking vicious; but other times, they were just banter between two bards who knew each other and were enjoying the chance to keep their poetic skills in tip top condition.

Now, Gwerful was an active and enthusiastic participant in ymrysonau. We have many examples of her work from these. There are two of particular note that I'll list here, each against a different bard:

Dafydd Llwyd o Fathafarn. Mathafarn and Mechain are not so distant from one another, so no real surprise that these two locked horns a lot, but the impression I always got from their ymrysonau is that they were good mates, actually. These fell into the 'banter' category more often than not. Dafydd was a Welsh Nationalist who was hoping for a Welshman to rise up and throw off the yoke of English oppression, and most of his work is about that, but he turned up the filthy erotic shit for any ymryson with Gwerful because BOY HOWDY was that her specialty. IIRC she did occasionally poke fun at his Welsh Nash leanings, especially his obsession with Mab Darogan (OLD Welsh idea that translates to the Son of Prophesy - the Arthur-style figure that will one day drive out the English overlords), but mostly their ymrysonau were incredibly beautifully-written odes that could be summed up as "Dafydd, my man, my good friend, I mean this sincerely: suck my entire clit".

She often won.

Ieuan Dyfi. God, what a fucking asshole. This one was not banter. Gwerful played for blood with this prick.

We actually would know nothing about Ieuan Dyfi if not for Gwerful Mechain, because it was her poetic response to him that meant his only surviving poems made it to the modern day; that, and the record of him being brought before a church court where he admitted adultery with Anni Goch, a married woman. Oh, and the record of him being brought before the law courts at Liverpool, accused of domestic abuse and gambling? If I remember right?

Two things to know that set the scene for what came next:

One of Gwerful Mechain's surviving poems is an englyn considered to be possibly the oldest extant poem about domestic violence written by a woman: I’w gŵr am ei churo (To the husband who beats her)

Dager drwy goler dy galon - ar osgo I asgwrn dy ddwyfron; Dy lin a dyr, dy law’n don, A’th gleddau i’th goluddion.

There are a lot of translations for this one to try to keep its poeticness, but this one is pretty good:

Through your heart’s lining let there be pressed, slanting down, A dagger to the bone in your chest. Your knee smashed, your hand crushed, may the rest Be gutted by the sword you possessed.

She has others, too, that deal with sexual assault, and something scholars often note about Gwerful is her remarkable knowledge of the law as it pertained to women's issues. So she was not, you see, a woman with a high view of a man accused of domestic violence anyway.

But then Ieuan Dyfi wrote five poems about Anni Goch, the married woman he'd fucked, each more "Wow dude, she said no" than the last, culminating in I Anni Goch; a full cywydd of misogynistic Medieval-incel bullshit about how false and evil women are, which listed all the false and evil women of history including classical and mythological figures.

And. Well. Gwerful had some views.

Her responding cywydd - I ateb Ieuan Dyfi am gywydd Anni Goch - basically blasted the guy back into his own impact crater and disintegrated him. What she did with it, essentially, was to mirror his cywydd. Where he'd gone "Isn't it so true how great men throughout history have always been brought low by women, amirite lads? Here's examples", Gwerful went "Isn't it so true how 'great men' throughout history have behaved appallingly and fucked up through their own actions and then somehow managed to blame women, amirite lads? Here's examples." Where his examples had been historical figures, so were hers. Where his had been classical, so were hers. Where he went Biblical, so did she.

And what's so interesting about that last one is how pointed she was with it - for some reason, in his big list of evil women, Ieuan Dyfi did not go for the most obvious and low-hanging of fruit (no pun intended) - he doesn't cite Eve. In response, Gwerful also sidesteps the most obvious and low hanging of fruit - she doesn't cite Mary. In so doing, she makes it clear that she doesn't even need to.

There is no record of him responding to her. IIRC, there is a record of him doing three years in prison.

But! Outside of all of that, the big thing Gwerful was known for was her erotic poetry. You'll be unsurprised to hear that it wasn't written for shits and giggles - much like today, women of the time were told that most of their value was in their looks, and they had plentiful insecurities about their bodies. Gwerful wrote her erotic stuff to confront those insecurities and shine a light on the issue. There are so many examples of this, but far and away the most famous is definitely Cywydd y Cedor - roughly translated, 'Ode to the Vulva'. Though I have also seen it titled Cywydd y Gont - Ode to the Cunt. It's such a shame that the English language is literally, physically not capable of cynghanedd, because it means unless you learn Welsh you will never understand the beauty and the lyricism of the piece, and how it elevates and undercuts the content at the same time; but it's a joyful, masterful, irreverent work that uses the fancy language male poets were forever dedicating to the rest of a woman's body and applies it squarely to the vulva. In fact it basically opens with "Men are cowards, describe more cunts or gtfo" before launching into its main subject matter. The last line is pro-pubic hair, too, like I really must stress how much Gwerful Mechain would have to offer Tumblr if you could speak Welsh. This is probably her most widely translated piece, though, you can definitely find English versions. Although you can tell how blushing and reticent the translator is - and therefore how sanitised their translation is - by whether they've called it Ode to the Vulva/Cunt, or Ode to the Pubic Hair.

Needless to say, the original is not sanitised.

(Actually, I should also say - this one is also a response piece, probably, but in this case to a bard who lived a century earlier - Dafydd ap Gwilym, the absolutely legendary and uncontested king of Welsh romance poetry. He wrote a poem called Cywydd y Gal - Ode to the Penis. I have only just put two and two together on that.)

As a final note, I should say that my personal favourite Gwerful Mechain poem on this subject, mind, is actually I'w morwyn wrth gachu - to the maiden who is shitting. It's an englyn written in Gwerful's customary high poetic form, but it is what it says - it describes a woman taking a shit, and farting as she does. Beautiful and magical and disgusting and banal, all in one go:

Crwciodd lle dihangodd ei dŵr - ’n grychiast O grochan ei llawdwr; Ei deudwll oedd yn dadwr’, Baw a ddaeth, a bwa o ddŵr

Funnily enough, it's hard to find a good translation for this one lol.

My attempt:

She crouched where her water escaped - creased From the cauldron of her heat; Her two holes were arguing, Shit came, and a bow of water

Eh. It's so bland in English. Honestly, if you could read Welsh...

Anyway, if anyone reading this can read Welsh and wants to read some of Gwerful Mechain's stuff - including some of the pieces she was responding to in the ymrysonau - you can find a load here. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed!

George, I need you to start Russelling like you never have before and make the PowerPoint presentation of a life time.

der patriarch x the downfall of red bull

can‘t believe that I completely forgot to post this?? apparently I only put it up on my instagram 💀

tag list (comment/dm me if you wanna be put on/off): @ellearts @allphatauri @starlightiing @penguinotaku @mclarengremlin @reyzorblade-png @synnamon-rolls @unhookedcandles

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

What Changes Were Made in the FIA Sporting Code regarding Driver Conduct penalties?

I want to clarify a few things regarding the new regulations the FIA published with regard to penalties for driver conduct.

None of the written rules were changed. All of the listed points were in the rules starting 2024(some prior, these have been an ongoing encroachment on conduct within the sport)

What has changed is 2 things.

The actual name and nature of Appendix B

The penalty system outlined for breaching these guidelines

Formerly Appendix B was the "Code of Good Conduct". Now it's the "Steward's Penalty Guidelines"

Here is what the former code of good conduct looked like (It has been removed from the FIA website and replaced with the current new document)

Now you can find all of these rules for driver conduct and the FIA stating that these are punishable actions under the article 12 of International Sporting Code of the FIA. None of these rules are new.

What is new are the specified penalties to be handed out for infractions of these rules of conduct. The new appendix outlines specific scales of punishment that should accompany these specific infractions. The outlining of fines as well as further punitive measures required if a driver is found to be in violation of the regulation by the stewards is what is new.

Specifically the amount of fines, as well as the requirement for an apology, points deductions and race bans are all new.

In addition to the stipulation for a 2 year time period on these accruing penalty levels.

You can find all of this at the FIA regulations page. However the old version of Appendix B is unavailable and is hard to find online since it's been replaced.

Article 12 in the ISC deals with the scale of penalties.

Appendix B is the Steward's Penalty Guidelines

Appendix L chapter 4 is driver conduct guidelines

Hopefully this clears some things up about what has changed and what it means for driver conduct and how drivers may be penalized this year.

Note: I am against these changes and this penalty structure.

Hii! I was wondering if you could maybe explain the bus bros fallout or p2p gate or pretty much all of the McLaughlin-Newgarden lore to me since I'm only getting in to IndyCar now and I want to be caught up before the 500. I understand this is a big ask but I've seen that youve posted about it and I just NEED to know. Any links to other pieces of lore would also be much apreciated. Completely understand if you don't want to write anything though so thank you so much I advance!! <3

YES ABSOLUTELY I WILL EXPLAIN! this is my special interest dw i could write an 18 page essay about their lore.

SO basically scott came into indycar from supercars in 2020-2021 ish and him a josef started getting along like super well, which is honestly a bit odd bc josef is known to not really let people get so close to him, so scotty is a bit of an outlier in that respect.

eventually! they make bus bros!!! wooooo everyone loves it etc etc they have fun making it…. until they don’t! leading up to their breakup there were QUITE a few clues that they knew it was gonna end in flames like scott talked about it on off track (see audio excerpt below) and on hot seats with hinch if i remember correctly?

there’s also a fair share of articles that mention it. they basically knew it was inevitable but i don’t think anyone thought it was gonna happen so quickly??

so then the winter break leading into the 2024 szn happened! this is about when i started getting really into bus bros and was honestly pretty present for some of this shit (i was at the daytona 24 and st pete so i’ve got some first hand evidence but we will get to that later)… anyways so the rumors start going around that bus bros is over around?? st pete time i think??? a little bit earlier. which is odd given that they seemed okay with each other at the daytona 24, even though i thought it was strange that they weren’t both on tower motorsports anymore cause josef switched to penske porsche but GENERALLY it seemed okay (although based on this pic idk their relationship seems a little charged atp but it’s all speculation really)

then after the rumors come out i think it was jenna fryer’s article that did it in? (idk it has a paywall on it for me right now and i don’t care enough to find it here but there’s definitely excerpts floating around) now i do recommend to take anything jenna fryer says with a grain of salt bc she is essentially a gossip columnist for all intents and purposes. but the article basically said that josef and scotty were done and scott wouldn’t answer any questions about it and was only saying that they’re fine or to ask josef about it (tea from todays 100 days to indy episode actually…). they promptly took down the bus bros merch site and have been relatively quiet since then. at st pete they talked on the podium and didn’t seem too bad but i’ve seen other clips where they won’t even sit next to each other or speak to each other so take that as you will. podiums are pretty much just publicity, cameras everywhere, you’d probably want to seem at least cordial with your teammate.

(pic 1 is mine, pic 2 is a pic of my tv from todays episode LMFAO)

so heres where most of the speculative stuff comes in. Josef dissolved his media company, unfollowed everyone, and cancelled bus bros leading into the 2024 season because he wanted to “get rid of distractions”, and really we could leave it at that, but i find it hard to believe that that’s the only thing that happened.

Josef is the dictionary definition of Penske Perfect, you won’t get any closer to it than him. he’s fucking OBSESSED with this idea of being perfect. perfect season, perfect body, perfect car, perfect team. obviously this isn’t feasible, but scotty seemed to have broken through that block in his little Penske Perfect brain and got him to LIGHTEN UP A BIT. and then the 2023 season happened. sure, josef won the indy 500 but it was one of his worst season finishes in a while and, to make matters worse, scott BEAT him. little scotty mac, supercars champion transplant from 2021 beat josef newgarden at his own fucking game after breaking down his walls and making him soft. i can see how that scared josef honestly. so he ended it. Scott doesn’t see things on a plane of winning/losing imo, everything is just experience for him. hell, he didn’t even know if he would end up in indycar and he sure as hell didn’t think he’d win races so soon AND beat his teammate. to josef, it’s JUST winning/losing. if he’s losing, he needs to be better. and he lost sight of that for the 2023 season. that’s why he had to come back and put an end to the shenanigans bc he knows scott makes him soft.

but that’s just my speculation!!!!! literally could just be nothing. maybe it is to josef, but i know for a FACT it isn’t to scott.

OH and with the p2pgate stuff! basically they had a component in their car that. was not supposed to be there! that prevented race control from turning off their push to pass like normal. (marshall pruitt has a rlly good article explaining it all here) and they were caught in long beach when race control forgot to turn on the push to pass during the sunday warm up and HMMMMM why do the penske cars still have it???? when has this happened before??? oh ok st pete! now they’re disqualified. josef used 9 seconds of p2p when it was not enabled and scotty only used 1.9 and will used none. so i’m led to believe that it was a josef-centered choice IF it was intentional to use the p2p when it was supposed to be inactive.

now josef really laid down the water works for that press conference at barber to the point that i was having a VERY hard time watching it. i felt bad for the guy. he seemed really fucking upset and i almost believe that it WASNT on purpose but. it’s just too good to be true right?

honestly i think this all could tie back to the downfall of bus bros in that scott maybe didn’t want to do the p2p thing but josef was willing to? and maybe that caused some sort of divide between them bc then again for josef it’s about Winning No Matter What, and yes scott wants to win but cheating isn’t the way for him. idk.

for more of their lore when they WERE friends, watch bus bros (duh), admit one, 100 days to indy, scott learns america: nashville, hot seats with hinch, and listen to scott’s episode on off track with hinch and rossi! also there are some very brief interactions between them on some older penske games videos before bus bros was even a thing but it’s not much. there are more but i can’t think of them rn…

sorry for rambling, if you have any more qs feel free to ask!!! i’m always available for brain picking :)