Drunk In My Underwear
Welcome to the Porridge Posse!
If you’ve ever seen Mean Girls, you know that, desperate for popularity, Gretchen Wieners (yes, that is her character’s name) tries to cultivate “fetch” as a hot new buzzword. Obvi, because “fetch” is totally cheugy (consult Urban Dictionary if you need to), it never catches on.
Like Gretchen, I also really want to make something arbitrary happen: the launch of the Porridge Posse (#porridgeposse), aka the Valtteri Bottas fan club.
Max Verstappen has the Dutch “Orange Army”.
Ferrari has the “Tifosi” – which means those infected with typhus, i.e. a fevered contingent – seems right.
There are also Lewis’ “Hamilfans”.
Bottas has none.
Why Porridge Posse? When he was a kid, Bottas wanted to kart, but he was a shrimp, so his gramps told him if he ate porridge every day, he’d grow big enough to race.
It worked.
Bottas still enjoys porridge, often with a dollop of peanut butter, before each race. As a partner in a coffee company, Bottas also hand pulls espresso before jumping in the car. As a food writer, you can understand why I love the dude.
As a race fan, you might question my sanity. If F1 and its antagonists are The Roadrunner (beep, beep), Bottas is F1’s hapless Wile E. Coyote.
If Valtteri has been leading a race for a hundred laps, his tire will inevitably puncture on the last lap.
If his main rival, Lewis Hamilton, gets stuck at the back of the pack, and Bottas has a chance to win the Monaco grand prix, his wheel nut jams so badly he’s forced to retire from the race.
If Bottas is leading the Russian grand prix in 2018, his team asks him to move aside and let his teammate win.
If Bottas is about to lose his race seat on one of the greatest F1 teams ever assembled, the guy taking his place, George Russell, decides to go straight up Bad Boy Pistons (think Mahorn vs Jordan) and sweep the leg at 180 miles an hour like someone who’s had a few too many martinis.
If the Kennedy-family curse ever came to F1, it would immediately descend upon Bottas.
This would be ok if Bottas was an untalented asshat.
He’s a two-time runner up for the world championship.
He has the ninth most podiums in F1 history.
He has the fifth (could be 4th by the end of this year) most points all time.
The Williams F1 team is one of the most celebrated in history, but when Bottas broke in with them in the 2010s, they’d fallen apart like the Tacoma Narrows bridge. And yet, Bottas piloted the Williams’ Matchbox car to multiple podiums.
F1 drivers, are so egomaniacal, they think Putin is a loser. Bottas however is so self-effacing, he makes Jesus on the cross seem like a crass self-promoter.
Today in the middle of qualifying, one of Bottas’ rivals had a massive shunt (this is what they call crashes in F1). Valtteri stopped his car and pulled up alongside the crashed-out driver Mick Schumacher to make sure he was ok before continuing to race. Mick’s dad, seven-time F1 champion, Michael, who pioneered using his car as a battering ram, would likely have driven right by, especially if it was a rival.
Bottas is also chiller than Andre 3000, who we know is “ice cold”. Maybe this is because he’s Finnish. The Finns have this concept called kalsarikännit, aka pantsdrunk, or the practice of getting hammered in your underwear at home with no intention of leaving the house. Then again, though I did not know this principle existed, I have dedicated my life to it, and I am not remotely chill. Maybe it’s because Bottas’ mother was an undertaker, and surrounded by the ubiquity of death, he was imbued with permanent solemnity.
Who knows? Still, Bottas’ low-key demeanor also belies the fact that he can be a stone-cold killer. When he won the 2019 Australian grand prix, which also meant he was briefly leading the driver’s championship, he ended the race with the radio message: “It’s a nice moment to thank my critics. To whom it may concern, fuck you!” I consider this one of the greatest moments in motor sport.
Now that Bottas has moved to Alfa Romeo, traditionally a back of the pack team since they returned to the sport in 2019, the conventional wisdom is that his career, or at least days of scoring podiums, is over. In an interesting 2022 early season twist, Ferrari has reestablished dominance, and surprise, Alfa Romeo just happens to buy their engines from the Ferrari factory in Maranello. Bottas capitalized, out-qualifying his Mercedes replacement Russell, last week, and his old teammate, Hamilton, this week.
Past precedent suggests Alfa will still struggle. Whether Bottas can turn Alfa in to a leading team or whether he ever gets another win doesn’t really matter to me. Philosopher, George Santayana, once said a fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim. I’d love for Bottas to capture a championship to prove that nice guys don’t always finish last. But, also, as a guy who has tried to build a life where you put your head down, execute as well as you can, push through the failure, and move on to the next thing without celebrating the success too much, I will cheer for Bottas always as the F1 guy who best represents these ideals. Long live the Porridge Posse!
You can’t have a fan club without the t-shirt. If you agree, or you just need Sunday watch race wear, you’re gonna want one of these.
