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#tldr: nearly every round of the 2020 season had smth traumatic happen
raceweek · 10 months
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Hey what happened in the 2020 season with Alex? (Sorry new fan and still learning)
omg you never need to apologise to me for not knowing things i literally know nothing
the 2020 season from the alexnation perspective was like being in a hamster ball being hurled around for 5 months straight basically but here’s the breakdown:
so for context 2019 was really really good for alex he was promoted as a rookie and he shunted a fair few times and most of the time wasn’t on maxs quali pace but red bull were the third quickest team so he wasn’t expected to win or anything. alex ultimately beat pierres points tally from his 12 races in the red bull within 7 as a rookie so like. whilst it was insane behaviour for red bull to promote him in the first place he did perform phenomenally
then we turn to 2020 pre season testing. mercedes was dominant as per (dreamy sigh) and the red bull was quick but looked. edgy. for both alex and max but ferrari were fucking nowhere so it was still like really positive for red bull bc it was basically two extra places gained and then. global pandemic. and then as a footnote to the whole you know. global pandemic. sebastian vettel was dumped from the love island villa (ferrari (everyone gasped))
and then! triple header one and the first race in austria had max running an upgraded front wing and none for alex and it was like understood i think like it wasn’t a big deal at the time
and then everything that could have possibly happened. happened. in the race and alex and lewis…yeah. but the world did in fact keep spinning!
and then alex got p4 in the second austria race (altho. significantly off of maxs pace in p3 for sureee) and everyone was like if only max had a rear gunner (wistful) which in my opinion is an insult to lewis and the w11 but whatever. nothing else really happened here other than horner and marko making kissy faces at seb during this time but that’s just contextfkdkd
so then the next race in hungary alex qualified p13 and even though max only qualified p7 and it was the third race of the season alex was getting eaten alive and george was on live tv like red bull are making him look like an idiot and he’s not an idiot and they need to fix it for him and it was like fucking hell what is going ONNN we haven’t even made it to the third race yet (like imagine anyone coming out and declaring this after australia quali this year like. wild scenes)
so then one week break and then triple header two started and during the races at silverstone they start talking in the media about when the best time to demote alex is even though the only times he’d finished outside the top six was brazil 2019 and austria 2020 which. pls consult youtube if you need further info here
they also changed alexs race engineer in silverstone so More turbulence altho completely welcome this time (simon rennie come back we love u, ur so sexc haha x)
then during the final triple header 2 race in barcelona he gets put on the most ass strategy known to man like with context this was criminal behaviour actually
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and then one week break and then triple header 3 starts (do you feel like a hamster yet) at spa and unbeknownst to us all at the time but later confirmed by will buxton and dts horner is in the mf pitlane in spa propositioning seb like one more year and then you can come home which. have some decorum alex is behind you in the garage. but anyway in the general media everyone was gagging for pierre’s red bull return so there were bigger fish
anyway. SPA. they did this to my boy
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and alex made the best out of it but as per the comeback kid episode of dts that everyone loves (🙃) alex was made out to be useless and it was like. wtf did you expect
THEN between spa and monza helmut marko was like oh btw alex hasn’t actually had the same parts as max for most races this year okay bye and alexnation was like…wtf. but then no one else really cared and it was like UMMM OKAY
and then monza happened and alex was in a first lap sandwich involving pierre and then second lap crashed into grosjean (alexs fault - live laugh love x) and had a huge chunk of his floor missing so finished p nowhere and then. pierre won and good for her i guess but then ex drivers were on live tv demanding alex step down for pierre which like no one has ever done this in the history of the sport as far as im aware so it was fucking savage especially when this was the first race alex had finished outside of the points for red bull in (with the exception of the two aforementioned events)
and then mugello wooooooooooooo!! alexs first podium!!!!!! i was gassed at the time but it was sort of sad looking back like if you listen to his team radio across the line from getting p7 in canada and then compare it to his first podium in mugello it’s. yeah! we were enduring it!!
and then sochi happened in its own weird bubble and alex was nowhere really got caught behind carlos hitting the wall at the first corner after a poor quali and that was that
then. triple header number four starts with horner giving alex an ultimatum of we’re backing you but we want results in the next three races or ur finished hunny which. okay
then first race of the triple header max ends up blocking alex in his quali run (live laugh love 2.0 x) and then:
YEAH
nurburgring was the they race me so hard incident. available to view elsewhere bc god knows im not reliving that!!
imola was again nightmarish. red bull media team said alex was working with a mental coach (patrick his trainer had got mental health qualifications basically) and was supporting him etc which. here comes paul di resta live on air laughing about how max wouldn’t need mental support. it was once again. brutal. especially bc he was getting a load of xenophobic abuse online already like fuck off
back on the track alex basically spun on his own but thought he had been hit and no one thought to tell him before he went into the media pen that he hadn’t actually been hit so it was fucking awkward and yeah twitter was brutal again
then istanbul happened. red bull looked promising but both max and alex finished well off so it was just whatever really lewis did a madness no one really cared about red bull
then final three races of the season started with the grosjean crash in bahrain which ended with alex on the podium and then checo won sakhir and alex wasn’t really there and then we were at the final race in abu dhabi where red bull officially signed checo (as confirmed by will buxtons analysis of the curtains. god i can’t believe this season was real)
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but alex didn’t find out for like two weeks later when the season was well and truly over and was taking drinks to the factory for everyone and it was heartbreaking and then he didn’t have a seat and spent the next year saying it killed him so. yeah…TA-DA
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