School is a place to learn, explore new activities, and sometimes make unexpected connections. That’s exactly what happened with freshman Angie Basilio and sophomore CJ Smith. This unexpected friendship formed around one topic: F1 racing.

“Our friendship started when we were forced to be in the Giggle Gang together,” Smith said.

The Giggle Gang is the group Smith and Basilio were placed in for their Journalism 1 class. In this group, they sit next to each other, collaborate on projects, and, most importantly, foster a sense of harmony. At first, they were strangers, but they quickly became friends.

On the first day of working together, CJ said the quote, “Second is the first loser.” Angie immediately recognized it as a quote from the famous F1 driver Jos Verstappen. At first, she was a little apprehensive about striking up a conversation about F1, because she was worried he might judge her.

“I thought he would be rude or judge and ask me to name five racers,” Basilio admitted. However, this wasn’t the case.

They discovered that Carlos Sainz, who races for Ferrari, is CJ’s favorite racer. Angie’s favorite is Max Verstappen, who races for Red Bull.

When they’re not working on journalism assignments, they talk about F1. Watching edits on Instagram has become a shared pastime, and together, they’ve saved over 1,500 clips.

“He once made me cry one day with a sad edit he showed me,” Basilio said.

The edit was about Daniel Ricciardo, who had just been let go by his team. Smith showed it to her harmlessly and was surprised by her reaction.

This unlikely friendship all started with a simple class project and is now growing beyond Journalism 1—into Student Government, and beyond.