Louder For The People In The Back

Can we normalise not having a favourite team? I just go wherever my favourite drivers do I have no concept of team loyalty

Monaco24 - Qualifying

P20-15: Zhou, Bottas, Perez, Sergeant, Alonso

P15-11: Magnussen, Stroll, Ricciardo, Hulkenberg, Ocon

P10-1: Gasly, Albon, Tsunoda, Hamilton, Verstappen, Russell, Norris, Sainz, Piastri, Leclerc

Verstappen hits the wall on his final lap, goes slower on all sectors

Albon gets William's first Q3 entry of the season

Logan Sargeant outqualifies Perez in the Red Bull without upgrades 🔥🔥

Oscar Piastri to start P2 after losing his front row position in Imola (penalty for impeding)

So much traffic in Q1-2...

List of impeding incidents being investigated after the session:

Hulkenberg on Ocon

Albon on Sainz

Zhou, Bottas on Ricciardo

I spent too long on this so I figured I’d post it here! Just smth I made for fun. I’ll probably make one for the GP itself but no promises lol

Miami ✅

Absolutely insane race, I still can’t believe Lando’s got a win now but it makes so much sense that his first would be in Miami lol

Anyways I couldn’t fit in in here but congrats to RB for getting double points this weekend!! So deserved 💙💙

I also forgot the incident with Perez locking up and going wide losing his P3 spot and !!almost!! hitting some drivers at the race start

it goes without explanation with zhou's new helmet is dope as hell. i will provide explanation anyways.

(above, zhou's helmet design as posted to the KV design twitter)

the central design on zhou's helmet is almost certainly inspired by the traditional craft of mother-of-pearl inlay in lacquerware, a practice which originated in China over 6 thousand years ago, and which has been developed and practiced in discrete forms historically in Korea and Japan alike. (continued under the cut!)

(on the left, a korean (goryeo dynasty) lacquerware stationery box; on the right, a chinese (song dynasty) lacquerware lidded bowl for cosmetics or incense. both photos via the met museum website)

traditionally, lacquerware is created through the refinement of a toxic plant sap into a naturally deep and glossy adhesive coat that is built up and polished often on top of wooden furniture and decorative items, such as chests and jewelry boxes. in the above examples, you can see two types of lacquerware practice.

on the left is mother-of-pearl inlay, which is created through the careful grinding down of tortoise or abalone shell into thin iridescent sheets which are then carefully cut into shape and imbedded into the coats of dark lacquer, being repeatedly covered and then polished down in the lacquer until the shiny shell surface is level with its surroundings. it's both visually stunning and incredibly labor-intensive: for a case like this, there would have been separate artisans making the wooden base box, making the metalware (hinges and clasps) for the box, applying the base layers of lacquer, and then completing the inlay itself.

on the right is (what i understand to be) a predominantly chinese lacquer practice, which is carving into the layers of lacquer to form images in relief. while this practice is not replicated on zhou's helmet, the image selected does display the pattern of the peony flower, which i believe to be the flower depicted in the inlay! the striations of the central petals seem to match zhou's. of course, this is speculative and only based off an amateur's eye, especially considering the motif of scrolling foliage is fairly ubiquitous and somewhat generic in east asian decorative art.

(on the left, zhou's 2024 helmet (detail). on the right, a detail image of a korean chest decorated with mother-of-pearl. zhou's helmet via twitter, right image via the met museum website)

the 'metallic' or 'holographic' effect a lot of people have recognized is a natural property of polished mother-of-pearl: look at the iridescence of the design! while it has been exaggerated to some extent on zhou's helmet (for good effect, i must say), you can clearly see the inspiration when compared side-by-side with a more predominantly mother-of-pearl composition: the variegation between blues, greens, and warmer peachy-reds is mesmerizing.

i really want to drive home how brilliant of a design this is and give the due appreciation to KV Design, who made this helmet for zhou. clearly a lot of thought and creativity went into it, and I can't wait to see it in action. >:D

Got AusGP tickets this week and was excited for Melbourne walk since I wanted to get Zhou's signature before I remembered he probably won't have a seat for 2025... 🥲🥲

All I'm hoping for this weekend is a Max Verstappen win so we can finally see him jump into that pool 😔

I'm dying 😂😂

Daniel Ricciardo's "I respect him as a driver and a person" VS Mark Webber's "while he respected me as a driver...he had no respect for me as a person"

Something something RBR Aussies and their younger multiple time WDC winner teammates