They Could Never Make Me Hate You

And THEN they kissed

Kevin Magnussen on the grid in Abu Dhabi with his wife and daughter ahead of his last race in F1

I think about that moment every day

These new rookies will never know the true terror an fe debut should be, for example, Jake Hughes, that post race drivers in a box moment where he looks absolutely traumatised by what happened to him in the race (Andre) and the elders of fe just laughed and went ‘welcome to formula e’ will live rent free in my head forever and it’s tragic that we no longer can traumatise the newbies in quite the same way

Pour one out this patriotic weekend for Logan Sargeant 🫡

He’s not dead but Williams is making him drive a livery with a Union Jack on it during 4th of July weekend so he might as well be 😞

Always There, Women in Motorsport: The fast women of la belle époque

Women's history in motorsport is rich, and that has always been the case. Most of these stories however aren’t well known and aren’t spoken about enough. Women have always been in motorsport and always will be.

Three French women, Hélène van Zuylen, Camille du Gast, and Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart are some of the fastest women from France’s La Belle Epoque (circa 1880-1914).

In 1898 Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart (1847-1933) (also known as the Duchess of Uzes) became the first woman in France to obtain her driver’s license. While getting out of the car she announced with delight that woman had just overcome a new barrier. Not long after she also became the first to be caught speeding for which she had to pay a five franc fine.

in 1926 she founded the first female Automobile Club, L'Automobile Club féminin de France (ACFF)

The Duchess of Uzes in 1927

Hélène van Zuylen (pictured on the cover image) was a French author but also the first woman to compete in an international auto race. Baron Etienne van Zuylen, her husband, was the President of the Automobile Club de France

She entered the 1898 Paris–Amsterdam–Paris using the nickname Snail, while her husband used the nickname Escargot. She successfully competed the trail and entered the Paris-Berlin race in 1901 but was stopped by technical failure.

That year Hélène, a lesbian, would meet Renée Vivien with whom she would have an affair. Vivien's letters to a confidant revealed that she considered herself married to Hélène. Most of Vivien's work is dedicated to "H.L.C.B.," the initials of Zuylen's first names.

Just over a decade before she died, Hélène van Zuylen created the Renée Vivien Prize, Honoring the woman she loved and intending to give encouragement to female writers.

Hélène van Zuylen - Nouvelle Revue internationale illustrée, December 1908

Camille du Gast (1868-1942) finished 33rd (19th in class) out of 122 participants in the 1901 Paris-Berlin race. Du Gast, achieved the results despite driving her husband's 20CV Panhard-Levassor which was not designed for racing. She had to start the race in last because she was a woman. The race did mark 2 female competitors with du Gast and van Zuylen. She loved several extreme sports such as mountaineering, parachuting and frencing.

In 1902 she competed in the Paris-Vienna race and also wanted to compete in the New York-San Francisco but was refused entry because she was a woman.

In 1903 she would start the Paris-Madrid race. Which she would enter with a proper racing car, a works 5.7-litre de Dietrich car. It was a chaotic race with 207 competitors which unfortunately saw several deaths. Camille started in 29th and gained 9 positions in the first 120 km. She had climbed up to P8 before stopping to give medical aid to a fellow driver, Phil Stead (also driving a de Dietrich) involved in a near-fatal crash.

Camille du Gast in her 30 hp De Dietrich with starting number 29 during the 1903 Paris-Madrid Race

Later one of the leading drivers at that time, Charles Jarrot said that if Camille had not stopped Stead likely would have died. After an ambulance arrived she continued the race eventually finishing 44th or 45th in the shortened race.

The French government would stop the race at Bordeaux, as over half of the field (275 cars) had either crashed or retired and several drivers and spectators had died.

Open road racing was banned, so in 1904 Camille wanted to participate in the French elimination trial for the Gordon Bennett races, as the Benz factory team offered du Gast a race seat. But the Autosport Club France (ACF) banned women from racing. Du Gast published a letter in protest but the ban was defended as the ACF could not risk a woman getting injured or killed in a racing event.

Because of this she ventured to boat racing. One of those races was caught by a big storm which saw most competitors either abandon their ship or they sank. She was rescued and later declared the winner of that race.

Eventually she had to put a halt to her adventurous life when she survived an assassination attempt by her daughter. Nothing was ever the same for her after that. From that point she devoted herself to animals. She would serve as president of the 'French Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals'

NEXT UP > More female racing drivers from the early 1900s

always funny about it

what's the context about david malukas?

ok quickfire recap:

david malukas signs a contract to drive the #6 car for mclaren this season

david breaks his hand in a cyling accident before the season starts

callum ilott fills in for him for the first two races

david's injury is worse than expected and the recovery is taking a while

callum has a wec clash so théo pourchaire fills in and does decently well

david still has not recovered and there is a clause in his contract that mclaren can fire him if he misses a certain number of races. mclaren takes that out and fires him

théo signs with mclaren full time for the rest of the indycar season (except the indy 500, which callum does), dropping out of super formula

théo has an incident with agustin canapino on track in detroit, gets hate messages and death threats, mclaren rallies behind him and publicly stands up for him and ends a business partnership with JHR, agustin's team

JHR suspends agustin for a race, nolan siegel races road america for them instead

david malukas finally recovers from his injury :) and signs with meyer shank for the rest of the season, starting with this weekend

nolan siegel wins le mans in the lmp2 class with united autosport (which is owned by zak brown)

yesterday: théo tweets about how excited he is to race at laguna seca this week

today: mclaren announces that nolan siegel will drive the #6 car for the rest of the season starting this weekend AND that nolan has a multi year contract

which leads us to david malukas's tweet which was deleted within less than 10 minutes

basically it's a response to mclaren putting a 3rd replacement in the car when david is already back on track himself

also edit: IMPORTANT CONTEXT, théo was not doing badly for a rookie and it does not seem like there is any reason to replace him from a results standpoint at this point

spot the difference

Max is the real idgafer. He is the only one without the Senna shirt 😭😭

HP title sponsorship i never said anything bad about you thank you for funding newey’s salary