As Formula One grows in commercial appeal to a wider audience, we’ve seen more and more high-fashion magazines covering the series and profiling the drivers. I, personally, have loved watching F1 evolve from a niche, masculine sport to a widespread cult phenomenon here in the United States — and few things exemplify that more than a recent feature published in Vanity Fair.
I am not a regular Vanity Fair reader — I generally don’t care much for fashion (to the point where one of the few arguments I’ve had with my husband was why I thought owning a designer purse was stupid while he contended it conveys a certain professional status; he did win that one) or for the kind of celebrity-driven pop culture that a publication like Vanity Fair traffics in.
But a new article titled “Netflix, Drive to Survive, and the New Cult of F1 Fandom” is making the rounds on the internet for various reasons — all of which are incredible.
The article itself profiles five of the young drivers most prominently featured in the new Netflix series Drive to Survive — Pierre Gasly, George Russell, Esteban Ocon, Daniel Ricciardo, and Lando Norris — in order to show what these drivers do off the track and to highlight that they’re real, live people. It’s fabulously written and worth your time.
But it’s the fashion. It’s the fashion that gets me.
If you’re not familiar with Vanity Fair, the publication often outfits its subjects in high-fashion for fancy photoshoots that will be published alongside the article. Normally, that’s fine — most of the folks profiled are celebrities of some respect, many of whom we’re used to seeing donning fancy garb for the cameras, whether on the red carpet or in the glossy pages of a magazine.
We are not used to that in F1. So when the VF article went live this morning, the internet exploded in a flurry of tweets about the absolute fits these drivers are wearing.
Pierre Gasly and Lando Norris look like little sailor boys. Daniel Ricciardo is wearing a fuchsia jumpsuit. Esteban Ocon kind of looks like a fuckboy in one outfit and a professional napper in the next.
We can’t republish VF’s photos here — but I can provide you with my Twitter ratings for each driver’s various outfits.
I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m probably never going to stop thinking about it. I’d expect this kind of photoshoot from someone like Lewis Hamilton, a man abreast of the fashion world’s ever-changing tides. I can kind of expect it from Pierre Gasly, who has been roped into AlphaTauri fashion shoots before. But I simply cannot wrap my head around someone like Lando Norris decked out in a wee leather cap. I just can’t do it.
I can, however, share this iconic shoot with you all as a way to combat the Monday Blues — and direct you to read the full Vanity Fair story, which kicks so much ass.