#this is very much not intended to blame the girls involved personally

[yesterdayiwrote]

Honestly I couldn't care less about the relationships that the drivers are in. I 100% agree with you regarding the 'couple goals' and it's mostly a picture of them standing next to each other - the prime example being Carmen posting a picture of her and George standing next to each other on their holiday and that phrase was all over my dash. The women are obviously going to post themselves with the driver as that it what gets them attention. Kelly Piquet does it when theirs rumours she and Max have split up, and the same with Charlotte for her and Charles.

'Couple goals' always seems to be thrown around when the girlfriends are pictured at the races with their drivers, and they are dressed by a stylist to do so, and make it seem like they are supporting their boyfriend. Maybe sometimes they will sneak in and avoid the press, but I do think that there is often a genuine relationship (I don't know why, but Carmen and George's in particular does seem so) but I am skeptic. The girlfriends are a part of their boyfriends image and everything is carefully managed, but at the same time, they deserve a private relationship and some fans do not grasp that prospect. F1 seems like the type of sport where the drivers have to be seen to have a certain image and that means straight, and having a girlfriend.

I hope the drivers have someone in their lives that are genuine as the sport is brutal and seems lonely at times. We only see a snapshot of the drivers lives, so who knows.

PS. I apologies for essay, I obviously have a lot to say, and I hope it makes sense.

So, I don’t really want to comment on specific relationships because that really wasn’t the purpose of my original post, but I agree with some of what you’ve said here.

One thing I will say is, ‘WAG’ culture is in no way ‘real life’, and it’s turned into a kind of performative beast since the advent of social media. It’s a weird little bubble that has little to no real connection to anything that occurs in most people’s everyday life.

There’s no other job where you would turn up to your s/o’s place of work, dressed to the nine’s and traipse across the car park with them on a Monday morning. You probably wouldn’t do an IG post congratulating your partner on making a great sale in the office or commiserating them for missing a target. In the real world you don’t invite your loved ones in for moral support, heck, you’re probably lucky to even get an invite to the Xmas party.

The whole thing now is a bit of a performance and a side show. Why do we judge what these women wear? Why are we interested? Why do they feel they have to try and sell us something? What is the whole thing achieving, and isn’t it somewhat missing the point of what they’re actually there for? If we’re being REALLY truthful, they’re not there to contribute anything either so why are we putting them on pedestals? The whole thing becomes a weird vicious cycle where each side’s actions kind of encourage the other and it just turns into utter lunacy.

The entire circus is very ‘ingenuine’, so who knows how that impacts on the relationships at the heart of it. It’s definitely not the healthiest of environments to try and build a relationship within, I’m sure!

#this is very much not intended to blame the girls involved personally #I think they all feel a pressure to be a certain way #then the weird obsessive fans take an interest #so then they feel a pressure to keep it up and go further and further #until the whole thing is so removed from reality it must be hard to keep your feet on the ground #it’s hard to explain without examples but I don’t want to make it personal