a moodboard of sorts!!
i have spent the last 2-3 weeks writing a short story about these two fictional characters, 37-yr old Maltese driver Nino Schembri and 38-yr old half-Italian driver Rory Utley, who were teammates and rivals at Red Bull from 2009-2016. Rory is a three-time World Champion whereas Nino only has one. Nino retired in 2019 to drive in the WEC, and would eventually become teammates with Santana Marsh in 2021 where they would win the LMP2 Class Trophy as well as the 92e 24 Heures du Mans LMP2 Class Winner. After such a successful season, Nino endorsed Santana to the Scuderia Ferrari F1 team which was one of the main reasons Santana received a seat in 2024.
Nino and Rory have not spoken to each other since 2015. Rory definitely sees Santana as a proxy of Nino.
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I think the main reason why this story came to be is that I wanted to build on Santana and Logan's stories and so I started thinking about their mentors and the drivers that came earlier. The great thing about sports is that you can make very organized timelines, and oftentimes the relationships between people can be correlated with the raw data and points. I also think there have been some interesting teammate moments this season (Lando and Oscar.. especially after last race) and so it really seems like tensions are inevitable in this sport!
I really don't know if I'll publish the full story because I'm not confident it'll come together, but I already have over 10,000 words. usually with these stories i just show them to one close friend and then I move on LOL