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pls i’m desperate

hey guys, so i saw a logan sargeant edit to the prophecy by taylor swift and before i could save it, my feed refreshed 😭😭😭😭

If someone knows about it, please let me know 😭🙏😔

nico rosberg is a triple threat. haunting the narrative, being haunted by the narrative, and sometimes narrating the narrative (on sky sports)

cl : "i'm sorry, we don't have enough money to buy it..."

mv : "it's okay, don't worry. i will think about something."

ll : "sell the dutch. no more du du du. i crave food, father."

"anti norris" "anti piastri" shut the fuck up those are my babies

carcharlando.mp4 ↳ inspired by this post

Found this edit about how the grid's not going to be the same next year and I actually almost cried. And yes I know, having four new rookies will be crazy entertaining, and that combined with all the team changes will create fun new rivalries and friendships (and maybe more Charles Leclerc adoptions👀) but like. What do you mean next year there won't be Charlos or Haasbands or Britcedes or Pierresteban. What do you mean Zhou and Valtteri are both gone. What do you mean Franco's time in F1 is almost up. What do you mean there are only three races left with this grid dynamic we've all grown to love. WHAT DO YOU MEAN????? 😭😭

literally one of my fav writers on this app, girl turn random bs that I yapped to her about from my dreams to this amazing work of art

♡ Good Luck Charlie - CL 16 ♡

Summary: Best friends since childhood. Feelings grow and confessions are told. It's her or nothing

Author's note: this was requested and i had so much fun writing this one <333

WC: 2k + some instagram posts

CW: fluff, confessions of feelings, happy ending, overuse of song references again

“Thank you so much! I love you all and I can’t wait to see you soon.” you shout into your microphone. You turn to exit the stage, but as you take your last few steps to leave the audience's sight, you twist your torso to look back at them and send them a cheeky little wink, served with a smirk, sending them into a flurry. 

Little do they know, you had already finished your next album, and that it would be released in just a few months. You were especially excited for this album. It was the one you were most proud of, and there was a song or two on it that you had written for someone special to you. 

As soon as you’re off stage, you’re running around like a loose hen. You’re taking off your in-ears and giving your microphone to a crew member, then rushing off to your makeshift changing room and taking off your costume before slipping into some sweats. 

You were on your way to Austin, Texas to celebrate the birthday of your best friend, Charlie. It has been a few years since you’ve been able to see him, both your schedules keeping you booked and bust, there just hasn’t been a good time. But his birthday is coming up, so you decided to surprise him and spend his birthday week with him. You also had a surprise or two for him, should things go right. 

Charles and yourself have been best friends since childhood, always spending so much time together as your families were close. Growing up, the two of you never really had any conflicts, besides the occasional argument over whose turn it was to play on the playstation. 

But over time, you’ve started to fall for him. Even though you rarely saw each other, you would always make time to text or call the other. And every year on your birthdays, you would facetime each other as you blew out the candles on your cakes. It became a cute little tradition the two of you started when you turned 17, Charles was off racing in some far off country while you stayed back to finish your studies. When you were about to blow out the candles on your cake, your phone rang. When you looked at the screen, Charles' name was listed at the top. During that call, Charles told you “I’ll still be there. Even if I have to watch you through a screen, I still want to share this special moment with you. I want to see the reflection of the candles lighting up your eyes. I want to sing happy birthday to you, just as if we were together in person. I wouldn’t miss it for the world and maybe I should really thank technology for allowing me to feel you close to me, even when you are miles away.”

You guess all those small things, little moments that the two of you shared, lead to where you stand now. On a plane to Austin, Texas to watch 20 cars drive in circles… and hopefully confess your feelings but who knows. 

-=+=-

y/n_l/n

Liked by charlesleclerc, lilymhe, and 567,765 others

y/n_l/n thank you all so much for the past 2 years. Your support and love for the album was absolutely insane, letting it stay at number 1 on the charts for 6 months straight is amazing and I couldn’t have done it without you. We sold out every show of the tour and had so much fun seeing you all. Thank you to the band and the crew who helped put the show together and make it work every night. I’m sad this era is over but we’re onto bigger and better things. I’ll see you all very soon 😉

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User23 um, ma’am, what do you mean you’ll see us soon 😀

User54 I WAS AT THE LAST SHOW AND I STILL CANT COMPREHEND SHIT 

lilymhe so proud of you girl! You put on such a show and work your ass off, i couldnt be more in love 

↳ alex_albon LILY?!

↳ lilymhe i said what i said 

↳ y/n_l/n SHE SAID WHAT SHE SAID

wiffygriffy amazing amazing amazing! Thank you so much for the opportunity of allowing me to open for you this tour and I LOVE YOU SO MUCH OMG! ↳ y/n_l/n OMG THANK YOU FOR JOINING ME YOU’RE SO TALENTED AND I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU DO AMAZING THINGS I LOVE YOU GRIFFY

y/n_l/n posted a story

Replies: 

charlesleclerc mon amie, where are you off to?

↳ y/n_l/n no where 😁

↳ charlesleclerc do you ever sleep? 

↳ y/n_ln nope 😁

User33 ehm… where ya off to? 👀

pierregasly everything is going to plan 👍

↳ y/n_l/n thank you so much pierre, you’re a real one 🫶

-=+=-

You landed in Austin the morning of Charles' birthday and you knew he was going to be busy for a majority of the day with stuff for the upcoming race, so you were going to take that time to unwind and get ready for his birthday dinner tonight. 

Throughout the day, you receive updates from Pierre and Carlos. Charles had a bit of a tough morning due to a work meeting but since then, he’s calmed down and he’s smiling more. 

You spend most of the day sending out some emails before getting ready for Charles' birthday dinner. You had bought the most beautiful red dress that hugged your figure perfectly. You didn’t feel like doing much with your hair so you just blow dried it after your shower and gave yourself a bit of extra volume. Keeping the makeup lowkey, you slipped your shoes on and grabbed your bag before heading out the door, ready to surprise your best friend. 

-=+=-

y/n_l/n posted a story

Replies:

User99 omfg where did u get the dress

User76 the billie lyrics, i see you girl 😉

charlesleclerc where you heading? 

↳ charlesleclerc mon amie, ou est-tu?

↳ charlesleclerc why are you ignoring me? Did i do something wrong? 

Carlossainz55 pls hurry up, he’s starting to look depressing…

↳ y/n_l/n im 5 mins away! I’m sorry, he’s been asking where I am and I’ve not been replying 🤧

↳ carlossainz55 as long as you’re on the way, that’s all that matters. I know he’s going to love it 

Iamrebeccad gorgeous! Can’t wait to see you 🥰

↳ y/n_l/n thank you darling ♥️♥️♥️ see you soon 😉

-=+=-

Your uber is pulling up to the building where the party is being held so you shoot a text to Pierre, letting him know you were outside. Pierre told you he’d meet you outside and bring you in when Charles was distracted. 

As you get out of the car, Pierre is already there, holding his hand out to help you stand. The two of you hug and exchange kisses on the cheeks as Pierre compliments you, 

“You look amazing, y/n. Kika is very excited to see you and Charles is dying for a message from you. He’s been pouting all day cause you won’t text him back.”

“Oh dear,” you wince, “Hopefully he hasn’t been too bad? I just didn’t want to give away that I’m here.”

“He’ll be alright.” Pierre reassures you. 

The two of you walk side by side to the room where Charles is, Pierre telling you to stand right outside the door to make sure Charles would see you when you walked in. You overhear as Pierre tries to get Charles' attention, “Charles, we’ve got a big surprise for you.”

“Quoi? Please don’t be something outrageous, I told you I wanted a simple dinner.”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’ll be worth it.”

You listen as feet shuffle and chairs are scrapped against the wooden floors. 

“Come on in.” Pierre shouts, then all that can be heard are the clicks of your heels on the floors. Slow and hesitant, afraid of how Charles will react. You hope he’ll be happy, and that this is something he wants. 

As soon as you lock eyes with Charles, he’s running across the room to you, running into a chair and table, almost knocking them down in his trek to you. In the blink of an eye, you’re wrapped in his arms, breathing in his cologne that you know all too well. Quickly, you wrap your arms around him, holding him close and whispering in his ear, “Happy Birthday, Charlie”. 

He doesn’t say anything for a good moment, just holding you in his arms, as if he’s afraid of letting go. Afraid that this would turn into a nightmare where he would lose you. He breathes you in, smiling as he recognizes your perfume. The perfume being the one you wore when he won his first GP in F1, remembering it because it was his favorite smell on you. 

If it weren’t for the crowd watching the two of you, Charles would’ve held onto you for much longer. If he could say half the things he wanted to, he’d have you. He had been holding back this feeling and he wanted to say some things to you. Maybe today he would. 

The two of you let go of the other, Charles blushing as he realized everyone had been staring and wanted to ask questions. But it was his birthday so they restrained themselves. 

“So, let's get this party started.” Pierre announced, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. Charles shoots a look at Pierre to thank the man for reverting the attention elsewhere. When everyone went back to the celebrations, Charles turned his attention back to you to ask, “How are you here? You were just in Tokyo yesterday.”.

“I finished the show and immediately flew here so I could surprise you. It’s been too long.” you beamed at him. He was truly grateful to have you here. 

“How long are you here for?” Charles asks, leading you outside to the patio so the two of you can have a private conversation. 

“I’m free for the next month. After that I have to get back to work and promote stuff.”

“Ah! So you’ll make it to a race or two?” he asks hopefully. 

“Yes, I’m definitely going to COTA and Mexico but I’m not sure about Brazil yet.”

“I’m glad. I’ve missed you, mon ange.” 

“I’ve missed you too, Charlie.”, you say, holding his hand in yours, “I have a gift for you by the way.”

Charles' disappointment was written all over his face when you removed your hand from his, so that you could open something on your phone. “Quoi?” Charles asks, intrigued now that he sees you messing with your phone. 

You turn your phone screen to him and his jaw drops. Firstly because he was looking at the design for your next album, he swore he’d never seen something so beautiful. The cover was a photo of you, bathed in golden sunlight, letting your natural curls fall down your back. Your curls weren’t something you often wore, as they were too high maintenance and you liked other hairstyles on yourself better. 

“The ring,” Charles mentions, squinting and zooming in on the photo, “Is that?-” 

“It’s the one you got me.” you smile. Truth be told, this entire was practically for him. Sure there were some songs that aren’t about him, but he was your main muse for it. 

“Wow, this is beautiful. I can’t wait to hear the songs. I get to hear them first, right?” he asks, shooting a cheeky grin your way. 

“Obviously, you’re always the first to listen to my songs. But this one, you get to listen to know. It’s part of your surprise.” you say, taking your phone back for a second to swipe on the screen, revealing the tracklist. 

You watch Charles’ eyes roam the screen, reading every track name until he comes across the last one. 

“Non,” he looks up at you, “Is- Is it for me? The last one. It’s got my name.”

“Oui, mon ami. Actually, a few of the tracks are for you or about you.” you confess, afraid of how he may react. He hasn’t even listened to the songs yet. What if he hates them? What if he thinks they're weird. This could ruin your entire relationship with Charles. 

But he’s smiling a lot. 

“Can I listen to them? Now?” he asks, excitement dancing though his body. 

“The whole album or just your songs?” 

“The whole album. I want to get the whole experience.” he says, moving his body rhythmically to really emphasize how serious he is. 

“Charlie, there’s a party in there for you. Everyone is here to see you. You can listen to it later. Go party for now.” you try to encourage him, not wanting to steal him away from everyone. 

“Non,” he says, stomping his foot on the ground as if he’s physically standing on business, “I want to listen to it now. Let everyone inside mingle and talk about how great I am. I wanna be out here with you.” 

You could feel your face heat up, painting your cheeks red. 

“Non, Charlie. I can’t let you stay out here for that long. But I think one song should be okay.” you smile at him, anxious for his reaction. 

“I can work with that. But you have to let me listen to the rest tonight after the party.” he points a finger at you. 

You just shake your head and laugh, pulling up the file for ‘Good Luck Charlie’. This song was written about the childhood you two shared, the days when you two were young and innocent and naive. Now everything has changed. 

You play the song, allowing Charles to listen as you watch his reaction. 

His reactions were quite anxiety inducing. He didn’t express a single emotion the whole time, simply staring out in front of him and just listening. The song ends and he still doesn’t say anything. 

“So, what do you think?” you ask timidly. 

His voice shakes when he answers, “That was beautiful. I can’t believe I get to have a song so amazing for me.” he looks at you, tears threatening to spill from his eyes. 

“Thank you. It’s something I had been wanting to do for a while and I thought now would be a good time. The album will be coming out in a few months then I’ll be touring again. And I’m really excited this time around cause I get to sing this song live, finally. And I’m hoping you’ll make it to a show or two so I can serenade you like the good friend I am.” you laugh.

Friend. 

“Why do you look sad, Charlie?” you ask.

It’s now or never, Charles thought. He either tells you his feelings for you right now, or he keeps them hiding away. He didn’t want to just be your friend, he wanted to kiss your neck and tell you everything he thinks and feels. He wants to share more moments with you. 

“I, um…” he breathes in, trying to gain composure, “I have something I need to tell you.”

“Okay, what’s going on?” concern lacing your face. 

“I love you, y/n. Like, I’m in love with you. When I look at you, I see this light that only you have. Your laugh is the best sound I’ve ever heard. Every time you smile, I smile. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted and I can’t bear to be away from you for more than a year anymore. I don’t ever want to go months or weeks or even days without you. Say you want to be with me too. S’il te plait, mon coeur.”

He’s holding both of your hands in his now, holding on tight and begging you to say yes. 

“Charlie, thank fuck.” you laugh, “I wanted to tell you I’m in love with you. You’ve ruined my surprise.” 

“Wait, really?” He laughs now too. 

The two of you can’t hold back your laughs now, finding it insane that you shared the same plans of confessing to each other today. Not only that, but that you had waited so long to tell each other. How much time was wasted out of fear?

After catching your breaths, Charles comes back to bring his hand to hold the side of your face, using his other hand to wrap around your waist, pulling you close to him. You wrap your arms around him, watching him and admiring the freckles on his face. Many people don’t see them, but if you look close enough, it’s easy to spot them, especially in the sun. 

“Can I kiss you now?” Charles asks, rubbing his thumb against your cheek softly. 

“Yeah, you can.”

In the twinkling of an eye, Charles connects his lips with yours in a gentle kiss. His lips feel soft and warm, like caramel on a summer day. He takes his time with it, not feeling the need to rush. You two stay like that for some time, not wanting to part just yet, but you do. 

Charles doesn’t pull far away from you, just enough so you can breathe again. He’s frowning again, leading you once again to ask what was wrong. 

“I don’t want you to leave again. We both have such crazy schedules and I can’t do this without you anymore.”

“Well, we don’t have to worry about that, gorgeous.”

“Quoi?” 

“So, about my next tour…. The tour dates and locations align with the F1 calendar for next year. So we’ll be okay.”

He’s practically beaming with joy when you say this. 

“Really? We’ll get to be together?”

“Oui, mon ange. Nothing's gonna keep us apart now.”

“Be my girlfriend.” He just spits out.

“Charlie, what?”

“Be my girlfriend? Please?” 

“Not even 2 minutes after our first kiss and you’re already skipping steps. Can’t believe it.” You joke.

“Okay, well. I think we’re allowed to skip a few. Plus, I want to take you on a proper date tonight. After the party we can go to the park and get some ice cream? I can properly ask you to be my girlfriend then.” “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

-=+=-

y/n_l/n

Liked by charlesleclerc, pierregasly, 893,473 others

y/n_l/n so excited to announce my brand new album ‘will you fall?’ will be out on 11/15!

I’m so proud of this album and it is by far my favorite I’ve ever made. Thank you to my producer and to the band for helping make this album what it is. Also thank you to the fans who allow me to continue doing this for a living and allowing me to enjoy every second of this.

Lastly, I would like to thank my main muse for this album. This is about you, you know who you are, I love you. 

Tour dates announced soon!

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charlesleclerc so excited for the new album. Totally haven’t heard any of it yet 😋

↳ user98 dont be shy, share with the class 🥰

↳ charlesleclerc no ♥️

francisca.cgomes amazing work! Can’t wait to blast this 24/7 😘 love you, beautiful

↳ y/n_l/n i love you so much! PLEASE MARRY ME

↳ francisca.cgomes yes!! A thousand times yes. Tell me where and when and i’ll be there 🫡

↳ pierregasly eh, non. y/n please stop stealing my wife

↳ y/n_l/n no ♥️

↳ user32 pls y/n and charles always speak the same, you can tell they’re besties

↳ carlossainz55 or more… 👀

↳ user56 WHAT

↳ y/n_l/n WHAT

↳ charlesleclerc WHAT

↳ landonorris WHAT

↳ user09 lando?! ↳ landonorris hi, i wanted to feel included 😁

If I am about to get a Ferrari 1-2 I might have a deadly serious Forza Ferrari aneurysm. Seriously. FORZA FERRARI FORZA CHARLES LECLERC FORZA CARLOS SAINZ FORZA CHARLOS FORZA C SQUARED OHOHOGOFDSDIFDSHSAJWMSNAFHSM

oh, simple thing— c.sainz

"the earth laughs in flowers" pairing: carlos sainz x female reader wc: 4.1k notes: guys remember when i used to write? back in january? crazy times. anyways.

You were five years old the first time you proclaimed that you were going to marry Carlos. It came, of course, after the implication that you would also be marrying Prince Charming (as long as he didn’t keep your glass slipper–shoes are a woman’s best friend, your mom had told you once and you never forgot it) and the gym teacher at your primary school, whose crush you’d never admit to anyone but your mom. Can you imagine the teasing? Thinking a grown-up is cute? It’s completely preposterous… or, when you were five, super-duper silly. 

All three of the loves of your life were completely coincidental, coming to your brain while your mom read you a bedtime story completely coincidentally. You’d had gym class that day, of course. Played with the rolling scooters and argued with the older kids about getting a turn on the tube slide. Scooter day was always your favorite, so it was no surprise your teacher was in your good graces that evening. A

After dinner, while flipping lazily through channels on the big square television in the family room, your dad had clicked on the Disney Channel by mistake. Cinderella was halfway through and you threw a fit every time he tried to change the channel. You just thought she looked so pretty, in her big princess dress dancing at the ball. 

Carlos, what had Carlos done to be in your good graces that day…? He wasn’t in your class, so you couldn’t enlist him in the war of the slides or crash into him on the scooters. He definitely wasn’t running around your house after dinner. If he was, your Mom would still be cleaning up after him somewhere in the house. Carlos, Carlos, Carlos… what had he–oh! That’s right! The flower on the way home from school. How could you ever forget the first flower? He’ll give you shit for it later. 

Your mom and Carlos’ mom had been best friends long before you and Carlos burst into the scene. They liked each other more than just about anyone, and you never did understand how Reyes never tired of your Mother’s antics. She was always bossing you around, forcing you to clean up your toys and read your books. Carlos got away with whatever he wanted, his parents would even lie for him on his reading logs. Anyways, stay focused. Because your parents were such good friends, you and Carlos grew up side by side. Parallel play or bust, since neither of you were particularly apt at sharing. Everyday on the walk home from school, your moms would catch up on the gossip from the night before while you and Carlos tried to kill each other with various objects found on the sidewalk. This day, there had been eleven pebbles, two rocks, a stick, and Carlos’ metal water bottle (the one with the HotWheels logo on the side). Now, Carlos was charging at you with… a flower? A bluebell, one he’d picked straight from the ground, root and all hanging from his fist. When he held it out to you, you scowled. There wasn’t anything wrong with it. In fact, it was about as perfect as a bluebell from the sidewalk can get, but, you’re a little shit. 

“It’s dead,” you said, took it from him and tossed it aside. “It’s not nice to pick flowers, Carlito. It kills them.” He burst into tears and your mother scolded you the rest of the way home, even though it was her who always told you to leave the wildflowers wild. After some time and consideration (a plate of dinosaur nuggets, half of Cinderella, and a bedtime story) you’d decided maybe Carlos was right to cry about the dead flower. 

Carlos, it seemed, had gotten over the dead flower incident pretty quickly because, the very next day, he was already making a joke of it. He’d held up the walk home for fifteen minutes while he searched through a field in the park. Both of your mothers and Blanca had already shown him what had to be a hundred or so healthy, perky flowers. Carlos shook his head at each one of them, typical. You sat on the curb of the garden and played with the ants that had built a sandy hill beside your foot. You resisted the urge to stomp it, only because you knew you’d be lectured about leaving the bugs alone in the same way you were about leaving the flowers alone. After a lifetime–or enough time to have an after school snack–Carlos finally settled on the ugliest, most wilted flower you’d ever laid your eyes on. He presented it to you with a laugh and, because you’re just as stubborn as he is, you accepted the gift graciously and let it sit vaseless on your dresser for three days before someone threw it away. 

Truthfully, though, the real reason you probably proclaimed your intent to marry him that night wasn’t some flower. It was that Blanca had defended you from his water bottle strike with a pebble to the back of his head, and you thought that would be a good kind of person to have as a sister. 

Carlos was seventeen when he figured he’d probably end up with you eventually for the first time. There wasn’t anything romantic about it. It was more of an ah, fuck. It’s gonna be her, isn’t it? 

Your families were in Mallorca, touring some vineyard–well, your parents were touring the vineyard. You, Carlos, and all of the siblings had snuck off from the group one by one and met up in the grove just outside the property. Carlos was bumming a cigarette from Blana when Ana finally turned up, stomping her way through the grass and wildflowers annoyedly. Carlos takes a puff of the cigarette and passes it over to you. 

“You’re going to start a wildfire, you know?” Ana says, crosses her arms over her chest and pops out a hip all bratty. 

“Ana,” Carlos groans, “shut the fuck up.” You exhale a puff of smoke through a laugh. 

“If you’re going to be mean, I’m going back to Mom and Dad.”

“Okay,” he says, “have fun.”

“I will,” she proclaims, visibly annoyed that she isn’t drawing a reaction from her big brother. She loves to piss him off, everyone does, because it’s just so easy. “I’ll have sooo much fun telling them about how you’re all in the woods smoking. I’m sure Dad will love that, don’t you think, Carlos?” Blanca rolls her eyes. Sometimes it’s fun to mess with Ana, and sometimes keeping her humble becomes more of a chore than anything else. 

Ana stomps away, her whole sneaky journey wasted, the group’s entire smoke session ruined by the pesky baby sister who can’t decide if she wants more to be included or to be a tattletale. “Don’t kill any more flowers on the way back!” Carlos calls after her, passes the cigarette to you again for one last puff before the lot of you have to make your way back to the winery, to the bathroom you’d all claimed to need to use over the past hour. Ana turns on her heels to make sure Carlos can see her eye roll. He just smiles, and you think if Carlos was your brother you probably would have killed him with your bare hands a long time ago. 

You squat down to put the cigarette out in the dirt and Carlos digs a hole with his heel for you to drop it into, kicks the dirt back over it and stomps on it a couple times. “Fuckin’ snitch,” he mutters under his breath. 

He snatches up one of the stomped on flowers, pulls it from the ground–root and all–and presents it to you. “You really are such an ass,” you say, take the flower and link your arm through his for the remainder of the walk back. “I love you,” you add, “but you’re an ass.”

You were twenty the first time your friendship with Carlos became a threat to one of your relationships. It wouldn’t be the last time. You’d been together for seven months, you and Mateo, Mateo and you. Met at a club in Barcelona and the rest was history. It was a simple conflict of interest, a scheduling woe. You were forced to make a decision. Your boyfriend’s grandma’s birthday party… or Carlos’ debut in Australia. To you, it seemed like the easiest decision in the world. His grandmother isn’t even that old–she’s got plenty of birthdays ahead of her, ones that you’d be happy to celebrate. But Carlos’ debut? Really? That’s once in a lifetime. It’s the shit you just don’t miss, even if you’re in the hospital or literally on your deathbed (which Mateo’s grandma is NOT, by the way. She lived seven more years according to recent Facebook posts). 

“You’re going to Australia?” He’d scoffed when you told him, mentioned it so nonchalantly over dinner. When I’m in Australia, don’t forget to water the plants, or something along those trivial lines. He was just as offended as you were utterly confused. There’s no way he thought– “What about my abuela’s birthday?”

You’d laughed. The wrong thing to do, you know, but it was an action done without thought, without intention. “What about it?”

“You’re supposed to come with me.”

“I never said that,” you shake your head and he pulls a face. You set your silverware down and prepare for the coming argument. Normally, you’d just back down, but this is Carlos we’re talking about. Carlos, and his dream. Carlos, and his reality. “I didn’t,” you reaffirm. 

He leans forward onto the table, elbows shaking the entire thing, rattling the wine glasses and ceramic against the wood. “I assumed you–”

“–I don’t know why you would assume I‘d be doing anything except supporting Carlos,” you say, more defensive than you intend to be. It’s just, you can already see where this is going, even if it’s never gone there before. You’ve watched the girls Carlos brings home look at him the same way Mateo is looking at you right now, or more importantly, how he doesn’t look at you. 

“You know, I don’t either.” He nods, but it’s more of a full body movement, like he’s rocking forward, lips pursed and jaw tight. His eyebrows raise like he’s going to shrug, like he’s surprised with himself. You doubt you read the emotion right. “It’s always about Carlos, isn’t it?”

You lean back in your seat, cross your arms over your chest, close your eyes just long enough to hide the eye roll, and then you’re piling the silverware and the napkin onto the plate and moving the party to the kitchen sink. “I’m not doing this right now,” you say when you grab the wine glass carelessly. 

“Oh, so you know what this is about, then?” He calls after you, gathers his things sloppily and follows you into the kitchen. 

“You just said it’s about Carlos,” you say, slamming the sink on and clattering the plates into the bowl. Carlos had told you about these fights, about the ones he’s had with his girlfriends. You’d laughed about them, always thought it was so funny–the idea of someone left fuming by your friendship. The crazy assumptions, they couldn’t be more wrong if they tried. You and Carlos are nothing but platonic, you’ve always been platonic, you’ll always be platonic. When you know someone as long as you’ve known Carlos, they just become a part of you, build this little home in your soul that blends in so perfectly you could never cut it out with clean margins. It’s not just Carlos, either. It’s Blanca and Ana, too. Hell, it’s even Carlos Sr. and Reyes, but nobody ever seems to understand that. 

“It’s my Abuela,” he says, like you’re supposed to be moved or something, and he sets his dishes in the sink on top of yours. “It’s her birthday, and you’re supposed to come with me. I told my family you were coming.”

“I don’t understand why you would do that,” you start scrubbing the first plate with far more aggression than required. You’re not a good fighter, you get mean, and you get mean quick. “I was never not going to Australia.”

He laughs, leans against the counter with his arms crossed, staring at the ground, at the crumbs waiting to be swept up. “Because you’re never going to choose me over Carlos, right?”

“Mateo.”

“Answer the question.”

You freeze, squeeze the soapy sponge in a fist until there’s nothing left to ring out of it. “I’m certainly not going to choose your Abuela over my friend. Over my brother.”

“He’s not your brother.”

You sigh, go back to cleaning. “He’s like my brother.”

“Yeah, if you wanted to fuck your brother,” he says, and meets your eyes with wide, proud eyes like he’d done something, caught you in some illicit love affair. You resist the urge to grab the wand from the sink and spray him with a jet of water. 

Instead, coldly, you’d replied, “get out,” and pointed to the door. 

His hands shot up in some great defense. Or maybe it was offense, you really never could read him that well. “I see how you look at him.”

In. Out. In, and then out. Deep breaths. “I said leave, Mateo.”

“Because you know I’m right.” In, then out. “You know how fucked up it is that there’s three people in our relationship,” in, out. “Four, if you count Carlos’ girlfriend! What do you think she thinks about all this? You looking at her boyfriend like your favorite candy?” In, then. In, then–in, and then you slap him with a wet hand, the contact reverberating into a splash, coating the walls and the ceiling and the entire fucking room in anger. Anger, and dirty dish water. 

The anger is deafening, the room so quiet that the sink makes the kitchen sound like it’s directly behind a waterfall. 

He storms off into the living room. You return to the dishes, hear the jingle of his keys, the door opening. “Fuck you!” You call after him, but what you really mean is Fuck Carlos. 

When you get the breakup text a few days later, you’re not surprised. You put on your best face and pretend you never read it because while your boyfriend did just break up with you in a seven word text, you’re sitting out the back of the Toro Rosso motorhome watching Carlos pace.

You’ll tell him later, you think, after the race. And then, you don’t dare ruin the celebration, ride the high out until it can’t be ridden any longer. By the time you do get around to telling him, you’re all but moved on, mentioning it nonchalantly amongst the chaos of his first season. It falls away to the backburner, into irrelevancy, and Carlos never does ask what happened to sour the relationship. He does, however, have a wilted arrangement of flowers delivered to your front door with a handwritten note–ugly and dead, just like your relationship. You’d laughed for maybe twenty straight minutes. 

Carlos was twenty-four when he realized he was in love with you, that maybe he always had been. He’d just broken up with a girlfriend, one whose name he hardly remembers now. Alessandra… Alena… Adrianna–oh, screw it. It was definitely an “A,” and if it wasn’t, he’s sure it was a vowel. Not the point. He was twenty-four and had just dumped whatever her name was because it just didn’t feel right. (What does right feel like at twenty-four? And how do you know it when you see it? The world may never know). 

It was three races into the 2019 season, and he’d been having a particularly unlucky start with his new team. He’d spent the offseason relatively alone in Woking, finding his footing in a new place, a new team, a new car. Everything is gray, you’d told him the night he announced his impending move, scrolling through your phone at Google search results for the town. “It’s not gray,” he said, and without needing to say anything or flash him a look, he backtracked. “Okay, it’s a little gray.”

Three races in–an engine fire and two first lap collisions–in, and everything is feeling pretty gray, not just his rainy apartment (flat, he’s been taught to call it) in Woking. The cards felt stacked against him, and reluctantly, he’d called in reinforcements to Baku, a couple of good luck charms in the form of the people he loved. You, Ana, and Blanca flew in together and made Carlos come pick you up from the airport himself. 

You climbed into the backseat and were anything but gray. You were glowing, completely and utterly sunkissed, and your hair was messy from travel but it reminded him of what you’re like after a good nap. Groggy and sleepy and desperate to stretch out like a cat. He hates that he knows how you like to stretch after a nap, the exact pattern of movements you do. Do you know how much time you have to spend with someone to memorize their post-nap stretch routine? Too much time, that’s how much. 

You got into his car, all bright and sunny, and sure, his sisters were there and he loves them so much. But, you’re here, and you’re bright and sunny and everything feels just a little less gray. He pulls out from the airport and while he doesn’t realize that he loves you just yet, he knows something in him has been chemically altered by your smile, irrevocably so.

It’s Sunday when he realizes, somewhere between the checkered flag and the team debrief when you and the girls appear, practically crash into him like you’d been dropped down into the garage right from the sky. He hugs you, and you smell like sunshine. He wants to bash his head into the wall of his driver's room, to lay in front of Lando’s car and ask him to run him over because he’s not supposed to take note of the way you smell (unless it’s to call you out for smelling like shit). 

You kiss his cheek and shove his shoulder because you’re so happy for him, because you’re always so happy for him. He doesn’t think it’s fair for someone like him to always have someone this happy for him. He loves that about you. He loves everything about you. He loves you. Fuck, he’s in love with you. 

Lando nearly pees his pants over a tweet the next day. Carlos has reached a new level of Carlos-ing, it read, with a picture of him visibility distracted while being fed to the media pen. He can’t tell his teammate that the reason he’s so distracted is because he’s internally debating the pros and cons of ruining your friendship forever. 

You’re twenty-four when you and Carlos start dating. The two of you drag it out for as long as humanly possible, stretch the patience of everyone around you so thin they won’t be surprised (or concerned) at the idea of you and him getting together. It’s scary. Really, really scary to admit your feelings for each other, to tell the rest of the world about it, but Carlos keeps bringing you these mis-shapen flowers, ones where the dye is soaked up poorly or they’re a couple days too wilted. It’s our thing, he would always say, and kiss you while you cut the stems to fit in your favorite vase. 

He was right, it was something that was just yours. There was nobody else actively searching out dying flowers in the shops or carefully picking the dirtiest wildflower from its root on an evening walk through the city. That was just the two of you, and nobody else understood it. 

“It’s gross,” a friend told you, twiddling one of the half-dead flower stems between her fingers while you shared gossip over glasses of wine. “You got these today and they’re ready to be thrown in the bin.”

“You don’t get it,” you’d swatted her words away. The dead flowers weren’t understood, and they didn’t need to be. They were special to you and Carlos, and when it came down to it, nothing else mattered to you. 

“Seriously, though,” she’d continued, “It’s… I don’t know. Dead flowers, it’s just weird.”

Carlos is twenty-six when you break up. It’s mutual, it is. Even when it doesn’t feel like it’s mutual, when either one of you desperately searches to blame the other for the pitfalls, it’s still mutual, still two people who love each other. Who just aren’t in love with each other anymore. 

There’s a lot of reasons if you want to get into it, but his new drive is the catalyst for pretty much all of them. Carlos is with Ferrari now, which is the dream, but it's also the nightmare. McLaren is iconic and historic but Ferrari… well. Everyone knows the Vettel quote, everyone knows the kid’s car is red. Ferrari’s Ferrari and you’re just… you. Time runs out, patience runs thin, and that’s the end of it. 

You’re twenty-seven when you see him for the first time post-breakup. It’s a setup by your parents. Mallorca and the vineyard, again. You don’t think anything of it, so much has happened in the last decade and Mallorca is half of Spain’s favorite vacation destination. 

He’s sitting with his family at the bar, the whole clan of them sipping from a wine-tasting tray. His eyes shoot up to meet yours with the loud creak of the old, heavy doors. He does a double take, and your stomach turns into a ball of knotted necklaces. 

During the same tour you’d been on all those years ago, you sneak off with the same excuse you’d used. Blanca and Ana don’t follow after you to debate the environmental damages of bumming a cigarette in the grove or to threaten to snitch on you to your parents. They stay behind and listen and you stomp through the wildflowers to get some air. You’re already outside, Carlos would say if he were there. You’re my dirty air, you’d tell him, and he would roll his eyes, shove his hands deep in his pockets and rock on his heels. 

He knows you’re not in the bathroom, there isn’t a single nerve in your mind that thinks he doesn’t know exactly where you are. He doesn’t sneak off behind you. You gather your thoughts in the grove by yourself, leant against a tree older than you’ll dream of being. You pick a wildflower, one that looks picture perfect, snap it carefully from the root and stick the stem behind your ear. 

When you return to your party, they don’t notice you’ve been gone for far too long to use the bathroom or that you’ve got a flower in your hair. Well, all of them except Carlos, who slows his walking pace to drop to the back of the group next to you. “Nice flower,” he comments quietly. 

You nod, watch your feet as they move in synchronized steps with him on the grassy path. “Thanks.”

“It’s dead,” he adds, and you smile dimly. “It’s not nice to kill the flowers.”

Carlos is twenty-eight when he’s perusing the birthday card section at the local gift shop. He’s trying to find one that perfectly sums up his birthday wishes for you. It has to be sunny and happy and so, so sorry for everything (even when it’s nobody’s fault). It has to say, I’ll always love you without saying I am still terribly in love with you. It has to be subtle and obvious and endearing and serious and funny. It has to be everything his words can’t be. 

He eventually settles on one, tucks it into the yellow envelope and licks it shut. He handwrites your name on it messily, like you could get confused about who it’s for and need a label, or like he has a stack of yellow envelopes for dozens of other people sitting sealed on his kitchen counter. He goes to the florist next, picks out a stock arrangement from the fridge and a package of flower seeds. The final stop on his city tour is your apartment. Three knocks on your door, and then you’re undoing the deadbolt. 

“Hi,” you say, confused by his presence on your welcome mat. 

“Happy Birthday,” he smiles. “This is the last time I get you dead flowers.”

You and Carlos are thirty at your wedding. He cries when you walk down the aisle and there isn’t a single real flower in your bouquet. It’s all fake, and one of your friends asks if you’re worried it might look tacky or cheap. Anyone who thinks that shouldn’t be at our wedding, you’d told them. 

For the people saying the McLaren is illegal... Just a little reminder of what F1 technical side is about.

F1 technical rules are enforced through tests and inspections of the car. If a car passes the tests and inspections, it's legal.

Teams have ALWAYS worked to find the limit of the regulations. Most of the time by going the closest to the limit or finding loopholes in the rules.

All the teams have, at one point, been caught either going over the limit or doing something that wasn't prohibited but didn't fit the "spirit" of the rules. It will happen again.

F1 is first and foremost a technical sport! Finding the limit and loopholes is what teams are meant to do, especially if they want to beat the others and have the money to do so.

FIA has always implemented new rules or asked for adaptations based on the loopholes found by the teams.

All these elements make what is happening with McLaren more common than some seem to believe.

McLaren respected the rules but they found a loophole. FIA learned about it and considered that, as much as the car was respecting the rules (and was LEGAL), it wasn't following the spirit of the rules.

That is why McLaren is asked to change his car and is not receiving any penalty! So if you're anti-McLaren and you want to rejoice about that, fine. But for me, it's important to understand the difference between an illegal element and one that is "at the limit".