Sainz Sr. Spoke About Lando To Skysports And It’s So Sweet 🥲

In another life,

Maybe the rivalry stayed on track

Maybe each other’s wins didn’t cause a crack

Maybe his words and departure have been enough

Enough for a chance to get each other back.

Okay maybe a bit random but I’m currently exploring the whole brocedes lore more deeply and something I’m curious about, and I wondered if you had any thoughts, was do you think Toto had a clear favourite during the 2013-16 era and if so who? Front what I can vaguely remember at the time as a casual viewer, almost every Lewis fan was convinced Toto was favouring Nico and giving him preferential treatment but I always put that down to their whole victim complex of thinking everyone’s working against Lewis. There were times when Toto gave Nico a proper public bollocking (such as Spa 2014) which definitely wouldn’t indicate he was in any way favoured.

When I look at Toto and Nico now (side note, their podcast together gave me WAY too many brainworms), Toto does seem pretty fond of Nico and definitely lets him get away with so much shit that he wouldn’t let other journalists. However I don’t know if that still necessarily means he ever preferred him over Lewis?

To me it was pretty clear that Niki favoured Lewis imo but I’m still not sure on Toto. Do you have any opinion on that?

short answer to did toto favour nico over lewis? lol no.

longer answer: look at the merc team orders in 2013, where lewis -- who had yet to win a wdc w/ merc yet or establish himself within the team as First Driver and was equal w/ nico -- was favoured over nico for the podium. nico who has been the the team since it's return to f1 in 2010, scored their first points, podium, and team.

longer longer answer: CC'ing @keepthedelta

what do you MEAN lando is out to dinner with carlos’s friends and family to celebrate his win and their 1-2 wHAT DO YOU MEEEEAN

source: carlossainz55 (instagram)

CarLando, bound by the red string - the string may stress or tangle, but it never breaks 🥹

this is all i have left to say.

What wouldn’t I give for a contract announcement that was captioned ‘coming home’

Nico - JB’s greatest certainty and his biggest what-if 🥹🤍

he is the last of your motorhome boys from the summer of ‘08 written by: rosbergs (insp)

(his faith was strong but he needed proof)

Umm, who’s body are we talking about here? Because all three persons he’s being shipped with are turned towards him 😅

his whole body angled towards carlos 🫠

Louder! 🔊

Nico is the one who made it, whether haters accept it or not. He may have been a 2nd driver, but he proved that he deserved that spot which he was deprived of. 🩵

something we don’t talk about when we talk about nico rosberg, and honestly even though it involved being a horrendous cunt, is that he did what generations of drivers have tried and failed to do - he refused to be made second driver and still walked away with his championship.

like think about that. there are so many people in my memory, and many more before that, that fell to that hurdle by accepting their fate or switching teams and making the wrong call, or just never quite getting there. you’ve got valtteri and daniel and mark webber and felipe massa and before that you have rubens barrichello and david coulthard and eddie irvine and so on and so on. and they either had some moment of quiet resignation to it or they let it completely destroy them, sometimes both.

nico rosberg was the part of the foundations of mercedes. he was there since it took the name mercedes and was brought in to play second fiddle to michael fucking schumacher, and then he outdrove him every damn day, when the mercedes wasn’t championship contention material but was outclassing the rest of the midfield. i remember it so well when you had button and hamilton at mclaren, vettel and webber were at red bull, and alonso and massa were at ferrari. you had no idea what was gonna happen with that top six but you could count on one thing like clockwork, nico rosberg would be seventh, making that scrappy little bastard of a car sing.

and then lewis arrived when schumi left and people assumed nico would play that second fiddle like he hadn’t won them the lion’s share of the points with schumi in the other car. no one gave him his due. and then the car was a winning car and he was suddenly a winner, someone no one had ever rated from that stacked as hell grid. and lewis already had his championship. he wanted more, sure, but he didn’t need to prove that he had it in him the way nico did with his dad and everything else hanging over his head.

let’s not beat around the bush, mercedes wanted him to be second driver. toto came in with lewis and didn’t respect what nico had achieved under ross brawn. lewis was already a championship winner even if nico knew the car and the team much better. certainly the management at mercedes were never on his side once toto took the reigns. and lewis must have expected it somewhat too, it’s just how teams work. and his long-standing teammate at that point had been jenson, who had just as many championships and seniority in the sport, which made them as close to equals as possible and also frustrated lewis no end at that time because on some days he was second driver. it was owed to him, at last, to have a teammate whose only job was to prop him up.

i’m not saying if it was the right decision, or the ethical decision, or a decision that he doesn’t deeply and intimately regret, but the point at which nico had to say to himself no, lewis isn’t allowed to do this to me, no i won’t be second fiddle, not even to my best friend, must have required such strength of conviction like sport has never seen. and yeah it’s sad to think that a championship ended a friendship that old and that caring, but reframe it for a moment. what must it have felt like to escape out from under the thumb of schumacher who was never ever going to support nico, who could be affable outside racing but had a long history of being the meanest of sports on the grid, and think finally, a friend, someone to support and care for me, someone who wants me to win just like i want him to win, and be told no, it’s just the same as it was. like yes this is work, but imagine what that would do to you in any career - a fellow artist, a fellow businessman - to be told that your friend, in any context, sees you as an obstacle to overcome, or even worse just a tool to get ahead.

like we make fun of that - look at the man that sold his soul for a championship - but so did everyone else, so did lewis even. we have no idea who went first in sacrificing the friendship to the flames but we do know it was the first time nico ever fucked someone over in the sport. he’d never driven a winning car before. lewis had, and lord knows he learnt well enough from fernando, from jenson even.

nico had never had the opportunity to do it, and even when he was teammates with schumi, it was a noticeably sedate schumi racing in a midfield car. there wasn’t a championship for him to snatch at like he had done before. and that must do damage to you, as someone that’s never been at that kind of desperate infighting team before. and to have someone who is supposed to love you more than anyone else on the grid right there in it, in your first true experience of it? ooft.

then you think about him retiring, right after he’s finally done it. he must have wanted to step away before hand but imagine that friendship up in smoke and to go away empty-handed, with nothing to show for it. so he says no, i have to have this championship. all this had to have been for something. think about keke, who won one world championship pretty much by accident. how he won because the front runners on the grid that season died in those cars. and what had just happened to poor old jules. and how keke has always insisted that nico is his greatest achievement, not his championship, his son. and nico has just become a father. think about how important his daughters are to him, how much he loves them. how he was burning down his relationship with vivian too just to get this stupid title, these stupid trophies.

and maybe some part of him thinks i can fix this, i can have lewis back if i just put the weapons down, if i walk away. but lewis doesn’t see it like that - he sees it as cowardly, that nico took something from him and didn’t give him the chance to get it back, even though held already proved over and over and over that he could beat nico, that he was definitively the better driver. but nico only had to be better once - keke won his championship with a single race win to his name that season and it was enough. goddamit it was enough. and even if it hurt him to give up being in that car, nico had things that were more important. just once was enough for him in a way it never could be for lewis. lewis has nothing else, no partner, no children, no real friends at that point. of course he could never understand. maybe he envied nico in that moment, for once to be enough, but lewis never had that luxury.

god it’s so tragic, but nico really did achieve the impossible.

#agreed, but say his name #NR6

Talk later ✌🏿

Why don’t people consider that Nico and Lewis’s falling out had to do with events or behavior around the championship competition and not the outcome? “Lewis hates Nico for beating him” just doesn’t seem to fit the way Lewis treats…everyone else who’s beaten him.

It’s not the title, it’s what winning it represents, which is everything you had to do to get there. You have to love someone a whole lot to be that angry with them, and I mean that on both ends. They treated each other like any other competitor, but this isn’t a sport where you make friends easily, and if we treated our friends the way we treat our competitors then none of us would have them.

The way I look at it is, without knowing the exact particulars, which we probably never will, is that things got all fucky around 2014 (I won’t go all the way to the end of Brocedes, there’s nothing additional to add really after that year). The timeline of that looks like this:

Pre-2013 season:

- Lewis moves to Mercedes from McLaren. Everyone except Eddie Jordan, only man to predict it, is completely astounded when this move is announced. Sure Red Bull have won back to back to back championships and Seb’s closest rival is his teammate Mark, but this is nowhere near the Red Bull domination we see today. In those seasons, everyone from McLaren and Ferrari would also take wins, probably multiple, and Nico himself even pulled one out in the Mercedes which was slowly improving. The move to Mercedes makes no sense?

If Lewis were unhappy at McLaren the sensible move would be to attempt to edge out Massa or Webber for their seat. Okay, maybe not Massa given Hamilton’s fairly recent at this point history with Alonso, and maybe Webber is gonna be hard to shift and he doesn’t want to play second driver to Seb at Red Bull, okay aaaaggghhh the best move is probably to stay at McLaren because Jenson, even if they don’t quite get along, is as affable a teammate as you’re ever gonna get at a front running team and who is second driver depends on the day and also there’s no way to tell which of those three teams is gonna produce the best car. It’s a gamble, better the devil you know.

You have to think, well, why does Lewis move to Mercedes? Yes, it’s been slowly improving and shown it can win a race on its day, but so can a Ferrari now. It’s not good enough. Ross Brawn is deeply admired in the paddock as a team principle but he is in the process of retiring and they’re bringing some new guy in. Schumacher’s retiring too, so he doesn’t do it to benefit from being teammates with him. No he does it for Nico, because Nico’s faith in that car is strong enough to sell it to Lewis, because they can have what they promised each other as kids if this gamble pays off. And it’s a risky choice, but Eddie Jordan’s really smart about stuff like this and Eddie Jordan likes it… Better the devil you know? Or better Nico, who you know even better?

2013 season

The gamble pays off! The Mercedes is looking good which means at least Lewis is in as good a position as he was before, maybe better, within a teammate he loves. This season passes mostly without incident and they finish fourth and sixth in the championship (Lewis fourth, Nico sixth). And really what’s the difference between fourth and sixth? Nico even wins two races! Which is one more than Lewis, even if Lewis finishes higher in the standings. Nico’s playing with the big boys now.

However, there is one race where Nico gets a team order. At Malaysia, the second race of the calendar, Mercedes orders him to stay behind Lewis. That’s not fair. They’re only two races in, neither of them has a clear bid for the championship yet. Lewis even says after the race that it wasn’t fair - that Nico deserved that last spot on the podium and not him - see Lewis bas his back!

Nobody really picks up on it because of Multi-21 at Red Bull. So he gets grumpy and at his home race in Monaco (the sport has a horrible history of pulling out team orders at a driver’s home race, the one place it’s supposed to be his race) he leads every lap start to finish so it can’t happen to him there. He wins Silverstone too and gets so many points that everyone can’t help sit up and take notice. Nico’s not a one hit wonder, he’s the real deal.

2014 season

They’re the favourites now! Mercedes looks amazing at testing now turbo-hybrid engines are mandatory and the real question is will it be Lewis or Nico? And Nico wins the first race in Australia. If that isn’t a statement of intent, nothing is. But Lewis gets him back in the next race in Malaysia. They’re just as good as each other really. (Although, Lewis did have to retire in Australia - are they really as good as each other?)

Bahrain and Spain

Bahrain is where it all goes wrong. They’ve been fighting all race and then late in the game a safety car comes out and it benefits Nico. (Happens all the time - sometimes you want a safety car, sometimes you don’t, it’s like rolling the dice… Or is it like getting help?) They race wheel to wheel on the restart, like you can’t do with anyone you don’t trust, and they kept it clean. Lewis wins and they have a silly play fight in park fermé and it’s fine really…

Until Lewis finds out that Nico used a spicy engine setting that Mercedes told him not to for those last couple of laps to give him extra power. Why would you do that? That’s cheating, isn’t it? But if it’s such a clear advantage then why aren’t Mercedes having them both use it? Like it’s not illegal, Mercedes just gets cross when they use it racing each other. But then aren’t you supposed to give it everything you’ve got when you’re really truly racing, like you want to be with your best friend, and Lewis could have used it just as easily. But Lewis still won without it - didn’t need it.

And to make it worse, Mercedes have a study they’re showing Nico about Lewis’ racing - Lewis doesn’t have one on Nico! Cheating! (Well, yes, it is from Malaysia where Lewis finished seventeen seconds ahead and in Australia it didn’t matter how Nico drove because Lewis DNFed and Lewis qualified better anyway - like this is perfectly normal behaviour within a team when you think about it, even the kind of behaviour you would expect if they’d decided already that Nico is second driver, but that’s NOT THE POINT - this is the kind of weird evil shit Fernando would do at McLaren!!!) Lewis gets a document about Nico’s driving too but the suspicion is already there. In the next race in Spain Lewis also uses the spicy engine setting, but he stays ahead. He wins with it.

Monaco

In Monaco, the next race, they’re qualifying and Nico’s got provisional pole with Lewis close behind. On the last chance lap though, he fucks up, runs wide and goes off (it happens when you’re trying to get that perfect lap - and Monaco is his home GP, which he’s defending, he needs this more than any other race) but Lewis is on a fast lap he has to abort and the yellow flags fuck him. And Lewis has always been bitchy right after he gets out of the car when things haven’t gone his way and it’s not him saying well wasn’t that convenient for Nico, it’s some of the less scrupulous pundits. And they’re asking him if he thinks it’s suspicious and he says “Potentially. I should have known that was going to happen.”

But what does that mean really? That Nico really wanted it and the chances of a mistake were sky high? That he will throw everything he has got at it to beat Lewis? Or that Nico’s a dirty cheater like the engine setting he promised he wouldn’t use, even though he could, and the spies he has in the garage. Yeah, it’s just like Alonso, who had his teammate crash at Renault to win him a race (though officially that was all Renault, Alonso knew nothing about it and was appalled) and wasn’t that another good friend of Nico’s? Nelson Piquet Jr. who will never be welcome back? Because he’s a dirty dirty cheater (even if he was pressured into it by the team threatening to end his contract). Or maybe he means that Nico’s just like his idol, Senna, who crashed a car just as on purpose and came away with a championship.

The stewards say Nico did nothing wrong. Toto, is insisting that Nico did nothing wrong. How could that possibly benefit Mercedes? It’s bullshit, it’s a conspiracy theory, it’s paranoia. But it doesn’t matter, Nico ruined his lap, the lap that would definitely have got him pole and he can’t touch him during Monaco, the track Nico knows the best in the the whole world, where overtaking is notoriously difficult without a safety car or a pit-lane leap frog. Nico wins without really giving Lewis a chance to compete. By the time Lewis gets out of the car, they’re not friends anymore in Lewis’ head. And he tells the fucking world, maybe even before he tells Nico.

Hungary

Lewis gets a team order. The team are on Nico’s side, conspiring against him and this proves it. (Or does it? Lewis had never had a team order from them and Nico had, and Nico had played nice, even if it was last season, and missed out on a podium. There’s a balance that needs to be redressed and he’s on a different strategy, on fresh tyres, and Lewis has a pit still to go, Nico will overtake and they need it to be clean and to do as little wear on either car as possible).

But Lewis isn’t moving. Says Nico can have it if he overtakes. Lewis is not even racing for first, it’s third place, just like last time. Not enough points to change who leads the WDC. And Nico’s racing for the win, for fuck’s sake. Lewis holds position, they finish third and fourth and Lewis gets a dressing down afterwards because Toto and the team think Nico could have won. (Why don’t they think Lewis could have won, even on completely the wrong strategy? Look, Niki Lauda has his back, even if he’s an old mad and a racer too who knows a true racer never yields). There’s no disciplinary action, not with Niki backing Lewis, it’ll look too much like fighting in the ranks and Toto has to stay in control.

Belgium

They touch. The greatest sin you can commit on the track is crashing with your teammate. Sure, you can crash with anyone else, especially if they’re you’re rival, but not him. It doesn’t matter if you’re racing hard for a championship. What’s worse - they’ve never done this before. They’ve always trusted each other racing wheel to wheel - that’s how you keep it clean. But they don’t anymore. Nico leaves his nose in, insists he won’t be bullied (and that should be fine, Lewis isn’t a bully on the track, not like Schumacher, or Max is now, not really, he’s a good, clean driver who knows when to back off). Except Lewis doesn’t back off heading into Les Combes and he breaks his front wing and punctures a tyre and he spends the rest of the race limping round the track. Nico comes off better and finishes second but Daniel Ricciardo wins, taking advantage of the chaos. And Lewis is insisting he did it on purpose but that’s how Lewis gets when he’s losing and he’s mean (he’s done it with every other driver who’s crossed him on the track, with the FIA when they give him penalties. He grows of it eventually, sort of, but he’s a real mean loser and even the pundits have noticed.)

Nico’s booed on the podium. By now the world is certain that he’s a dirty dirty cheater, even if the FIA doesn’t think he is and the team doesn’t think he is and the other drivers don’t think he is - Lewis thinks he is and the world is on Lewis’ side. To make things worse, Toto makes him apologise (yes he should have left some room, but wouldn’t that be more disrespectful, to let Lewis have it without fighting back? And he was sure that Lewis would back off, would know when it was Nico’s corner fair and square) and then he disciplines him anyway. He disciplines him for a racing incident when he wouldn’t discipline Lewis for calling him a cheater in front of the whole world. The team has never had Nico’s back, has never wanted him to be anything other than a second driver, a performing monkey to do what they want. And after all that Lewis still won’t forgive him for the thing he never even did.

Abu Dhabi

The rest of the season passes without incident. Lewis wins some, Nico wins some, everything’s clean and they’re not talking. They’re changing the scoring system here, from 12 points for a win to 25. Double, in every position and points for ninth and tenth now. Kinda silly to introduce it in the last race, surely they could have waited for next season? It’s a real unfair advantage in the championship if you do better than your rival here.

Nico qualifies on pole, but Lewis gets that perfect start and passes him. And he wins, because Nico’s car has a problem and he gets stuck in fourteenth. Toto’s telling him to retire but Nico refuses, says he wants to finish this, limps the car home to score nothing. Lewis won fair and square and that’s that. He goes into the cool-down room to congratulate him, even though he’s not on the podium. And later Lewis says that at least Nico is gracious in defeat. Doesn’t that hurt?

Lewis takes the title early next year. Nico spends 2015 planning 2016.