Several Defector idiots spent a large portion of Friday morning sorting Formula One drivers into two categories. There are Sweeties, who cause a feeling of butterflies in tummies and would drive a person to shout "awooga" upon encountering them in person, and there are Enemies, who for one reason (that they are unrelenting shitheels with resting asshole face) or another (that they are the smirking and infuriatingly coiffed string attached to the tens of millions of dollars thrown around by an obnoxious preening Canadian billionaire) make us want to puke. Driving skills have little to nothing to do with it. Pierre Gasly, for example, is solidly a midfield performer driving for a midfield constructor, but if he presented us with a handwritten valentine on Valentine's Day, we would simply immediately take a knee and propose marriage.
Perhaps you find this breakdown vague or confusing. It will all make sense to you when you hear Charles Leclerc of Ferrari pronounce "soy sauce" in this video:
Leclerc is captain of the Sweeties. It's a powerful group. No person can lay eyes on Carlos Sainz Jr. without immediately thinking of bringing him a mug of hot chocolate and smooching him on the forehead. Lewis Hamilton was described by one Defector staffer as "like if you had to CRISPR-design someone cool enough to date Rihanna." Alex Albon manages to bring a measure of happy-go-lucky dignity to Williams Racing, for crying out loud. You simply cannot deny that you would hurl yourself in front of a speeding Formula One race car for any of these adorable lads.
Just as there is a midfield in Formula One racing, there is a midfield of our hearts. It is the domain of inoffensive also-rans (Esteban Ocon), as well as dynamic personalities about whom we are deeply divided (Daniel Ricciardo). Some midfielders are on the Sweetie bubble (Kevin Magnussen, Yuki Tsunoda); others are very nearly Enemies (George Russell, Niko Hülkenberg), except that they are simply too bland to excite our full wrath.
And then there are the Enemies, characters so loathsome that however much you may respect their driving abilities you would still feel honor-bound to challenge them to a duel if you saw them at the local shopping mall. This is an even more exclusive tier than the Sweeties, for the simple reason that a person has to work extremely hard to be truly odious while also being one of the 20 or so best drivers on the planet, a designation that automatically confers an awful lot of coolness.
Without further ado, here are the Formula One Sweeties and Enemies:
Formula One Sweeties
Charles LeClerc
Carlos Sainz Jr.
Lewis Hamilton
Valtteri Bottas
Alex Albon
Pierre Gasly
Formula One Enemies
Max Verstappen
Nicholas Latifi
Lance Stroll
