Hello, and welcome back!!! I’ve been DREADING writing about this team because of the amount of things I could say but just won’t be able to fit into one passion post. I will try my best to talk about the most important aspects, and hopefully make you guys love this team as much as I do, despite the stubborn struggles they sadly go through.

Before getting into the logistic part of this weeks Passion Post I’d like to address a comment I’ve heard hundreds of people make: People tend to debate over who wins races: the car or the driver, though I believe that the car needs the driver as much as the driver needs the car. If you would put me in a Red Bull I would with 100% certainty have no chance of beating even the worst driver on track, though if you put Max Verstappen in a horrible car, he will be able to get himself a few places towards the top. One really cannot go without the other. As we’ve seen with George Russel; a great driver, who used to drive for a horrible team, never scoring any points. Now that he’s driving for Mercedes he never finishes below the top 5.

Before we dive in, let’s learn some new info:

Every season the FIA announces hundreds of rules all teams must follow, one of them being a budget cap. This was only introduced last year in an effort to make the sport more competitive, and to level the playing field for the teams. It’s very obvious that with the sponsoring Mercedes and Ferrari have they have a much bigger budget to spend on their cars than Haas does. The budget cap makes it fair for every team, and puts more weight on performance rather than money.

Enough of all this boring talk, let’s really get to the good stuff. The good stuff is McLaren. McLaren is one of my top 3 favorite teams. My favorite teams, by the way, are Red Bull, Mercedes, and McLaren. McLaren just changed their driver line-up, so this week I will introduce you to 3 new drivers instead of 2:

Starting off strong with the team, the myth, the legend…

McLaren

McLaren’s colors are orange, and a newly introduced baby blue. Yes, I know. Not my top pick either, but in some strange way it looks stunning on their cars. Zak Brown is the team principle, and a former race driver. He is like a father to one of the drivers–Lando Norris. They have such a sweet relationship, though this also makes him favor Lando over the recently dropped driver Daniel Ricciardo. (I hope you guys have been noticing that every team has a favorite driver, which I talked about in my first passion post.) McLaren has its up and downs and is very unreliable. Some races they perform very well and end up in the top 3, and other times they won’t even get passed a Williams (very sucky F1 team, which should be incredibly easy to beat). Though overall a wonderful team, with wonderful people, who definitely have a LOT they still need to work on. Anyways, here is the important part, and the part that gives this team life– The Drivers:

 

Lando Norris

If there’s someone I wish I could be friends with it’s this young man right here. Only 22 years old, but EXTREMELY talented. I have nothing but good things to say about him. He acts like the most normal human when he’s around his friends, he’s super into video games and has his own twitch channel where he streams regularly. He’s also part of a gamer group called quadrant, and always represents them on his helmets as seen on the helmet in the back, the quadrant sign is the weird lines on the circle, in the middle. Lando has been with the team for 3 years now and has had very good races where he shows what he’s capable of. The car hasn’t been the best this season which is the reason his performance hasn’t been as great as in the past season. McLaren is in desperate need of getting their stuff figured out, and then he will be back at the top, competing for the top 4 spots, alongside, Mercedes, Redbull, and Ferrari.

Daniel Ricciardo

Ricciardo is an absolute sunshine of a person. He makes everyone around him laugh and is such a valued driver off track. He did have a pretty good career, though was never really a top competing driver. He hasn’t been scoring many points his past few seasons which is why I’m very unhappy to say that this is his last season with McLaren. I’m very unsure if another team will offer him a spot, and don’t even want to think about not seeing him on track next year. I hope that he does what’s best for him, and I’m a firm believer in “what’s meant to be will be”, so I’m putting my trust in the universe, hoping that the right thing for him will happen.

Now, this kid is the reason I’m just a teeny tiny bit happy about the McLaren spot clearing up:

 

Oscar Piastri

Funny enough Daniel Ricciardo, who is Australian, is getting replaced by another Australian. OSCAR PIASTRI. My future husband. My one and only. My shining star. He finished his F2 season last year and should’ve gotten a spot for the current season, though no good team picked him up, as none of their seats were open. Oscar did not want to low ball himself and join a team he knew he was better then, so he sat out this season, with no F1 spot, and now finally gets to drive with the big guys. I couldn’t be more excited for him. He deserves this more than anyone and I cannot wait to see what he brings to the team and to the track. Lando will have some real competition on his hands, and I know there will be no absence of drama between these two next year. Lando is only a year older than Piastri, though that means nothing when it comes to who will perform better next season.

 

I wish I could go on, I didn’t even get to go over half of the things I originally planned to talk about in this post, but I hope I gave you all an idea of who this team is and in what direction their headed currently.

See you next post with a new team…..