[commentary] lights out

[grainfall]

lights out / seokgyu / 2.7k / f1 au

one train is svt. one train is f1. you are me standing beside the lever in the trolley problem and watching the two trains crash into each other at top speed

LINE BY LINE

> When the roar erupts from the garage two doors down as Seokmin rounds the last corner, he ducks out of the Red Bull garage to watch the mass exodus of the McLaren pit crew to the metal fences on either side of the track, see them shout in pure triumph and leap into each other’s arms. It’s a perfect weekend for McLaren: a one-two finish, a fastest lap, their first race win in nine years. 

this race result is pretty much what happened at the italian grand prix 2021 in monza! mclaren’s two drivers daniel ricciardo and lando norris finished first and second respectively. it was really glorious bc mclaren is one of the oldest and most successful teams in f1 but has been Going Through It for most of the 2010s BUT under new management has been making a resurgence this year. seokmin is meant to be a reference to daniel….i thought about making chan lando but i think in an f1 au he would be george russell actually.

> “Thank you!” Seokmin has enough time to shout back over the cheers of the crowd, before his pit crew’s there, pressing against the barricades, swallowing him up with hugs and slaps on the back, joy hanging thick in the air like honey. 

for an idea of the celebrations: 22:00 onwards of mclaren unboxed for monza 2021. 

> Depending on who you ask, three years after he left Red Bull Racing, Lee Seokmin is at best an experienced veteran who’s just yet to come to grips with his new team’s car, at worst a washed-up driver past his prime doomed to being outshone by his younger, more talented teammate. 

this entire segment is just things the media Have said about danric! for context daniel joined mclaren this year and for most of the season was consistently outperformed by lando norris (been with mclaren for years, very young, very talented). it was like a Bad Throwback….there were a lot of people hoping that he just needed to acclimatise to the car to return to form but there were also a lot of people saying that he was no longer as good as he used to be

> Depending on who you ask, three years ago, in his last season with Red Bull, Lee Seokmin was a serious contender for the driver’s championship, might even have stood a shot at winning if not for a string of retirements in the later half of the season as the team started to structure itself around Kim Mingyu, racing legacy, boy-genius.

long-story-short version of the maxiel red bull saga (mingyu is meant to be max verstappen). for context how formula 1 works is that teams of 2 drivers compete in races over the course of a year. you get points based on your finishes in each race (ie 1st gets 25pts, 10th gets 1pt) and at the end of the year the driver with the most points wins the world drivers’ championship + the team which accumulates the most points from both their drivers wins the constructors’ title. so this often results in complex intra-team relationships which are So Delicious To Me.

> Couldn’t muster up any real hatred beyond grouchy antagonism because Seokmin kept matching him on track and off, kept beating him in the same car, kept being so likeable, easy and effortless in a way Mingyu had always wanted to be. The string of short-lived teammates that tried to fill the second Red Bull seat in Seokmin’s absence never quite lived up to his performance on track either […]

seokgyu thesis hehe. also to this day danric is still the only one who’s beaten max in the same machinery….red bull chucked pierre gasly + alex albon into the seat for the first and second halves of the 2019 season (which is a whole other saga) and while pierre is one of my favourite drivers they were solidly outclassed by max (although, to be fair, rbr is pretty much a toxic workplace environment for anyone that isn’t max.) this year they’ve put checo perez (an older and more experienced driver) into the seat and he’s still posting solidly mediocre results as compared to max….makes you wonder 

> Together on the front row once again. 

drivers compete in qualifying to determine the order in which they line up on the grid for the actual race, and the front row is basically the first two places on the grid! not going to lie when max and daniel ended up P1 and P2 for the monza start i had to do a double take bc the last time it happened was probably in 2018 

> LEE: Thank you! [smiles] And now I can say it—I never left. I just moved aside for a little while. I’m back now. 

this is adapted from one of daniel’s actual interview answers! 

> Cycling each other around the circuit in a trishaw, Mingyu glancing at the lean muscle of Seokmin’s calves as he pedalled, looking away just as quickly. Mingyu cracking a crab leg open, scooping out the white flesh, feeding it to Seokmin with fingers sticky with chili sauce, watching his expression of bliss as he chewed.

as a singaporean the red bull press videos for singapore are all so funny….these are the videos in question (to be fair i do think mingyu and seokmin would enjoy chili crab a lot) 

> Seokmin arrives on the hotel’s rooftop deck well after midnight. Mingyu’s soaking in the infinity pool and staring out at the lights of Marina Bay fifty stories below when he hears the clear timbre of Seokmin’s voice, bright with a smile that Mingyu can picture even without turning around. 

the hotel here is marina bay sands (The Luxury Hotel in singapore.) it actually has a rooftop infinity pool and the view is so gorgeous, especially at night

> Then he’d just leaned against the side of the pool and enjoyed the refreshing night air, as cool as the atmosphere in Singapore was going to get—a welcome change from the humid sauna of an hour he’d spent in the cockpit during the race. 

usually the singapore gp takes about 2 hours to complete, but mingyu crashed out roughly halfway through. singapore is also Very hot and Very humid so conditions inside the cockpit are hellish during the race…drivers lose tons of water through sweat. in comparison the marina bay sands rooftop deck is probably the coolest air you’ll get bc it’s so high up that the wind is strong + the temperatures in tropical countries are fractionally lower at night

> “There’s nothing you could have done about it,” he says, and Mingyu can feel his gaze, the thoughtful weight of it. “The slow pit stop wasn’t your fault. The crash, too. From where I’m standing, it just looked like a racing accident.” 

> again actual events at monza: max had a really slow pit stop which ended up putting him wheel to wheel with reigning world champion lewis hamilton going into a corner and neither of them backed off = crash that put them both out of the race. Opinions Expressed Here Do Not Reflect My Views On The Actual Crash

> “Tough luck,” he says. “I think you can afford a few more bad races than me.”

i don’t think i elaborate on it much in the fic but the implication here is that mingyu is having a very good season, one where the drivers’ championship is pretty much his to lose. he actually can’t afford more bad results lest he lose the lead, but in the context of their conversation seokmin’s saying that mingyu wins so often as compared to him that he can stand to feel the dissatisfaction of a DNF/poor result a couple more times, to feel what seokmin felt for most of the past three years 

> Despite an engine malfunction early on in the race, he’d dug his claws in and fended off half the field with a limping car and somehow, miraculously, implausibly, he’d won.

danric winning in monaco in 2018 might actually be one of the best things that has ever happened

> Monaco was a boring circuit, kept on the racing calendar more for its history and prestige than for its excitement, but the city was dripping in jewels: from down in the marina, where he was drifting gently on the yacht, Monte Carlo was alight, blazing. 

All Views Expressed Are My Own…..i think the circuit is iconic and the city is gorgeous but it is so boring because you simply Cannot Overtake on track. 

> Seokmin, for all his warmth and amicable smiles, is equally as hungry as Mingyu, ruthlessly perfectionistic to a degree that even Mingyu isn’t: he just hides it better. 

applicable to both danric and seokmin tbh

> Do you miss me? Seokmin had asked, the season he'd first left, in the middle of a post-race interview they'd been doing with Fox News. 

also adapted from an interview that actually happened. idk where the video is but i do think the push-pull is very seokgyu 

> And as much as Mingyu gives, as much of himself as he puts into Seokmin's hands, Seokmin always gives it back. 

mingyu is SUCH a giver and the only other sebtin who Gives so much is seokmin!!! when they’re together it’s just like. [wailing noises] a feedback loop of self-recognition and antagonism and generosity

> Above them the cloud cover gathers, blankets the sky in shades of indigo and grey, and you can’t see stars in Monaco or Singapore but Seokmin kisses him and kisses him and Mingyu’s not thinking about stars anymore, just the one, just the space between them, the golden light. 

you actually can’t see stars in both these places because of the terrible light pollution from the city. 

> “I’m here,” Seokmin says, quiet. Of course he knows what Mingyu needs. “I’m here. I never left.”

shoutout to danric’s post-race radio and interview answer for being the running backbone of this entire fic.

GENERAL THOUGHTS

the whole reason this was written is because i got into the rpf side of f1 a month or so ago….i’ve been watching f1 since i was quite young (bc of the singapore gp) but a couple months ago i read a few really good fics and the seokmin = danric brainrot clocked me across the face and i was like Oh No….if seokmin is danric then mingyu is max….and then monza happened and i was so happy for danric’s win that i was like well. now you have to write the idea you had! you can even do it for rarepair fest! and then i didn’t do it until the last day of submissions.

title is from the ever-iconic phrase “it’s lights out and away we go” uttered by crofty at the start of every race. plot-wise most of the race results/events mentioned are accurate to real life. setting-wise not so much: the last time the singapore grand prix was held was 2019, it was on the calendar for 2020 and 2021 but covid ruined that plan. it’s one of my favourite races (no homeground bias i promise <3) bc of 1) the atmosphere!! it’s held at night bc singapore is such a fucking hot country that if the race was held in the afternoon like most others are i think all the drivers would just pass out instantly. but anyway the night atmosphere is really so fun bc singers are always invited here on race weekends to perform…in 2017 it was like ariana grande and the chainsmokers and in 2018 it was dua lipa and jay chou i think. i was able to attend qualifying in 2018 and the energy levels were just through the roof. 2) the circuit itself!! many corners = lots of excitement. the safety car ALWAYS appears. for one of the most ridiculous crashes that happened here watch this video of the start of the 2017 gp. it’s ridiculous.

also it’s a street circuit (similar to monaco) bc we’re a tiny country and we don’t have the space to have a permanent track like other countries do! we block off a couple of roads to create the track but the segment of track near the pit building is actually permanent and a really picturesque stretch of road to cycle through bc it’s closed to cars. 

here’s a pic i took of it from when i went in late 2020….the pit building’s on the right! this part of track basically curls around the corner and goes past the singapore flyer. it’s really windy especially in the late evenings. i’ve eaten takeaway for dinner with my friends on the benches at the sides before bc we passed through the track halfway through our cycling route

so yes! i wanted to set this in singapore because i like the race but also i thought about it and while the events the fic is based on did happen in monza there was no need for the setting to stay the same. i think i read a lot of american/european settings for aus in fic when i was younger, and i do like most of the european circuits, but there’s literally a race held here and i’ve always wanted to write a setting that i could create from memory and experience instead of having to research things to make it believable….so this fic was like two birds with one stone: au of another one of my fixations+ fic set in singapore. thank you f1

i wrote most of this in one sitting even though i am Notoriously Bad at writing things in one sitting because i wanted to get it out in time for the rarepair fest. for me the problem with writing fics for fests is that i always procrastinate on submissions, so i end up having to rush everything out and i’m not satisfied with it bc i don’t think i allotted enough care to what i wrote. but without fests i would never have the resolve to commit to finishing ideas to post. the solution is thus to stop procrastinating working on fic ideas...

not the proudest of this, but i knew as i started to write it that it would be the fic equivalent of a guilty pleasure cheesy romance movie for me because the irl f1 parallels i was drawing made it so self-indulgent. for something that was short + written in a pinch i think it’s fine and it captures what i wanted to capture about a seokgyu f1 au: the potent dynamix in the sport + the appeal of be gay drive fast cars B)

thanks for reading :]