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It isn’t like that. Phil isn’t jealous of world champion Daniel Howell. Not at all. That isn’t the problem. Not even because of the fact that Dan is younger than him and has already accomplished the one thing Phil has wanted his entire career, and twice, at that.
Phil could get past that, but now Daniel Howell is going to be a Mercedes driver? Part of his own team? Phil was really comfortable with the way things were. PJ was the best teammate anyone could have ever asked for. And Phil and him spent four wonderful years together as a team. Why does Dan, of all people, too, have to ruin that?
Why couldn’t he just be content at Red Bull? They gave him his two championships, after all. Surely that should be enough to keep him. But no, he had to wreck Phil’s safety bubble. His perfect routine with his perfectly friendly teammate. Everyone knew Phil and PJ were the dream team.
“Phil, listen, we will all miss PJ very much, but don’t get me wrong, kid, Howell’s a world champion. And as good a team as you and PJ were,” the were still stings, Phil thinks “we have lost the constructors championship to Red Bull three years in a row now,” says team manager Toto Wolff. “You should be happy, really, that you were the one we wanted to keep. We respect you as a driver immensely, don’t forget that.”
“They call him England’s Starboy, Toto.” Phil sighs. “Tell me that isn’t embarrassing”
“The only thing that embarasses me at my age is not doing my job well, and Daniel Howell does his very well, so I do not feel embarrassed by him at all, really.” Toto gives him an awkward smile. “Listen, you just have to adjust, give it time, kid” he adds before leaving Phil by himself in a deserted hall at the Brackley headquarters.
“Well, good luck to me, I guess, '' Phil murmurs to himself.
He goes home, after all the news that Howell will be soon moving to PJ’s old apartment next to Phil’s, in his apartment complex, just hit him hard.
This is a nightmare, he thinks. Now he has to share his building and his job, and a lot of his time, with a boy that probably has an ego the size of the Silverstone circuit. Hard not to have one, Phil guesses, when he is the current world champion. But that isn’t Phil’s problem, so why should he deal with it?
As soon as he gets home he phones PJ.
“Ahhh, mate, how are you? What are you up to?” PJ answers the call cheerily, as if there’s nothing wrong in the world.
“I miss you already” Phil fake cries as he lets himself free fall to his mattress.
“Needy, much?” PJ laughs. “You’ll be fine, really.”
“You don’t know that.” Phil whines. “I might just get swallowed by Starboy’s big ass ego.”
“Well, I guess that’s better than just being swallowed by his big ass… period.”
“Does he even have a big ass?”
“This might surprise you, but I really don’t know, Phil.”
“Well, I liked your ass on my team very much, I don’t need his big ass, or his small ass, or his medium-sized ass, in Mercedes, bothering me.”
“I appreciate your… regard for my ass, but truly, he might be a good kid. You don’t know him yet. Or his ass.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right, I’m just not really looking forward to the opportunity.”
“Why's that?”
“I don’t know, I’m kind of scared of him. Being his age, more successful than me… his numbers being so… it’s really impressive what he does. I just feel insecure, maybe. Plus, I was really comfortable being your teammate, I hate this bursting my perfect bubble.”
“You know you’re an amazing driver, Phil”
“Well, thank you. Don’t have much to show for it, though.” Phil smiles, trying to take his friend’s compliment.
“You have plenty of podiums, mate.” PJ says. “Just try not to get your ass too beaten by me this season, now that I’m not your teammate anymore, we are back to being competitors.”
“I’m not going to make it easy for you,” Phil replies.
“Well, same here.” There’s a pause, and then, “I will miss you too, Phil. For what it’s worth. As a teammate, as a friend and as a neighbor.”
“Oh my god, and there’s That too” Phil closes his eyes in frustration as he remembers. “What if he is the loudest, most obnoxious neighbor in the world, PJ? How am I going to survive? You know my sleep schedule is… delicate.”
“You’ll manage, buddy. I gotta go. This move to McLaren is going to be the death of me.”
“Yeah, sorry, good luck. I know you’ll kill it as always”.
“Thank you, see ya, mate.” PJ ends the phone call.
After hours of trying and failing to fall asleep, Phil finds himself sitting on his green comfy couch in front of his big TV screen watching YouTube. He doesn’t even know how he got into this rabbit hole of Daniel Howell’s F1 Best Overtakes of 2023. But never mind how it happened, it did and now it’s like he can’t look away.
I have to admit, he’s really good, Phil thinks to himself, eyes glued to the screen. But the realization just makes him more scared. He has spent years working really hard on Mercedes, and now, he can’t help but think, he will inevitably fade into the background. How could he not get outshined by the Starboy? No matter how hard he has worked or how good the relationship with his team is, he just isn’t a world champion. Everything is going to change, and now he will soon become Designated Driver Number 2.
It just really sucks.
He has met Dan in passing, exchanged niceties and congratulations, they even splashed champagne on each other’s bodies a couple of times. Not in a sexy way, though. Not that Phil would want it to have been in a sexy way, don’t get any ideas. It was in a “we’re both on the podium, and this is what we are supposed to do right now” type of way. Which was an exciting way but not quite as exciting as it maybe could have been, for… someone else. Not Phil, though. Let’s make that very clear.
But they’ve never had prolonged conversations, really. They have never had intimate talks, or anything of the sort. It’s like Phil is just another one of Dan’s spectators, as far as really knowing him goes. He doesn’t.
And yet, there it is, a new video it seems, on his TV, titled “Dan Howell talks move to Mercedes and future teammate Phil Lester”. It appears to be some sort of interview, it was uploaded 4 hours ago.
Phil can’t help it, he is very curious. What does Dan Howell even have to say about him? Probably some general statement, he guesses, but even if only that, Phil has never clicked on a video so fast.
Dan appears to be in the inside of a car, sat on the backseat, Phil guesses he stopped to take some questions from the press on his way somewhere. He’s wearing dark sunglasses and some black button-up shirt that’s probably even more expensive than Phil’s entire wardrobe. He does look cool though, Phil can’t help but think.
“Dan, can you tell us a bit more about your unexpected move to Mercedes? Why leave Red Bull after such an exciting season?” a man with a small microphone asks, then proceeds to move it closer to Dan’s face.
“Yes, sure. Okay, well, I loved my years with Red Bull, and I am extremely grateful for everything we achieved together. It wasn’t that I was done with Red Bull, it was that I was too comfortable, and I don’t want to get comfortable. Scratch that, I need to not get comfortable in order to continue to be as competitive as I have been, to continue to achieve more,” Dan replies. “Whether that says something about how comfort makes me uncomfortable because I never had it in my childhood is for my therapist to say, for me to fix if true, and for you to not think about.”
A short pause takes place, you can tell the interviewer doesn’t know whether to laugh or not. But Dan smiles oh so charmingly and makes it all very warm and comfortable again. The man laughs, like a schoolgirl even.
“So you wanted a new challenge, is what you’re saying?”
“I’m saying I need a new challenge,” Dan says. “I already know I can win with Red Bull, I have done it, and twice. I need to see if I can still win when it’s not with the same car.”
Phil can’t help but roll his eyes when Dan mentions the fact that he is a two-time world champion. We all know it, buddy, no need to bring it up all the time, he thinks.
“I understand, but why Mercedes?” the interviewer asks now.
“Why the fuck not Mercedes, mate?” Dan laughs. “They got really close to us, to me specifically sometimes too, last season. I think they were second best last year”
“So you’re saying, you, Dan Howell, are ready to make second best the only best this year?”
“Oh, absolutely.” Dan smiles. Phil, once again, rolls his eyes.
“What about Phil Lester? How big a factor was he in this decision? What do you think about this driving?”
“Well, I don’t know Phil too well, to be honest. So not that big of a factor, not really at all. But I’ll tell you this, although he has been struggling to find consistency, I really do think he’s got the potential to turn it around” Dan replies. The video soon ends, but Phil isn’t paying attention any more.
Not that big of a factor? Not really at all? Sure, Phil didn’t care, whatever that meant.
Struggling to find consistency?!
Potential?!
Phil hated that word, it still haunts him sometimes because he has been hearing it his entire career. When he was in karting, and in F3, and in F2, it was always about how he had so much potential, but not quite the discipline, or the skill, or (for god’s sake) the consistency to make it to F1 one day.
Then he did make it, and although he had some really good races throughout the years, this same criticism always somehow manages to find its way back to him.
But now, hearing a world champion bring it to the public’s attention —something he hated to hear, something he actually feared was true— angers him to the point of blinding his best judgment.
What an ego maniac, Phil thinks. It’s not like he is perfect.
At the beginning of his career he was known as Crash Kid, he used to spend more time at the pit lane than doing actual racing. Phil bets Dan wishes he could have been consistently keeping his car on track back in the day. Now he was out there giving advice? Hypocrite.
It’s like Phil can’t think straight, he picks up his phone and opens the Twitter app before he even knows what he is doing. He types a new tweet like his life depends on it.
“Here’s a question for Crash Kid (I hear he’s giving out interviews these days) What was the strategy you had in 2018? Was it *consistently* practicing your crashing technique every race?”
As soon as he hits “post” he remembers to breathe again.
But not too many minutes pass before a wave of guilt washes over him. What the hell did I just do? Phil wonders in panic.
He deletes it as fast as he can. But it's too late. His entire timeline is talking about the tweet. Sports news accounts are reposting screenshots of it like crazy.
Everyone is losing their minds over this “declared rivalry.”
Phil can only pray he won’t be losing his job now.