SHAMELESS, lewis hamilton¹

19

Ever since the thing that happened in the kitchen on Thursday, Mirabella had been ignoring Hamilton once again to the best of her abilities. It was an impossible task. He was always there in her line of sight at all times. It almost felt like he was doing it on purpose. Like he was trying to drive her insane by always being there. Right in front of her like a temptation.

A small part of her was afraid that it was working.

The only times where she didn't see him was when they were in their cars for free practice. Otherwise, they were always together. Aurora wasn't lying when she said their punishment was forced proximity. But this was a completely different type of torture.

It was torture of her own self-control.

She knew what her body wanted, but her brain wasn't ready to come to terms with it. Her brain was going to deny it. And she could control herself. She didn't think there was anything he could do to make her self-control snap. She was also way too stubborn.

That didn't mean that he wasn't going to make it difficult for her. Nothing between them was ever easy anyway.

Q1 was about to start. She was pulling on her balaclava and her specially designed helmet, inspired by the Spider-Man movies she binge-watched through the week-long break. She had ended up with black glitter on the lines that resembled cobwebs. And in her opinion, it looked really cool.

Maybe if she won tomorrow she could do a hero/spider-man pose as the celebration. Yeah. She liked that idea. But to do it she would have to win and right now she was concentrating on the Quali. She let that consume her thoughts. Not tomorrow's race, not the stupid reporter or Lewis Hamilton. Only Qualifying.

Q1 started and after half of the grid was sent out, both Mercedes were sent out right after each other. The team weren't babying them anymore by sending them out separately.

That was fine by her. She wasn't going to do anything as long as he didn't do anything.

Mirabella made her way through the slow track once and when she came out of turn nineteen she didn't hesitate to gear up and slam harder down on the accelerator, shooting down the straight into turn one.

She made her way through the street track to the best of her abilities, including the tight hairpin of turn six. As much as the Grand Hotel Hairpin was iconic, she still hated it with a burning passion.

She crossed the finish line again, green stripes lightning up on her steering wheel. "How did I do?"

"You're P6 at the moment," Declan answered her. "Do you want top ten?"

"Yes, please."

"It's Perez on pole, Sainz, Verstappen, Alonso, Norris, you, Tsunoda, Ricciardo, Ocon and Stroll."

"Grazie."

Mirabella ended up pitting near the nine-minute mark, after taking another flying lap that didn't actually help her a lot as she was still in P6.

She was sent out when she had around five minutes left of the first round of the Qualifying. She got in two flying laps before the red flag was waved and everyone had to get back into their garages.

Yuki had hit a wall, puncturing his tyres pretty badly from what was shown on the screens. But else way he was fine and it didn't take long before they were sent back out.

They only had two minutes and a half to get new and better lap times. Mirabella was sent out right before her teammate, so she would set her lap time before him.

The traffic was heavy at first but they all gained space as they came out onto the track. She made her way around the track and slammed down on her accelerator when she came out of turn nineteen again.