SHAMELESS, lewis hamilton¹

29

Mirabella was scrolling through Twitter as she waited for the knock on her door, signalling that the race was starting and she needed to get out and into her car.

She had fallen into a rabbit hole on the social platform, all filled with hateful comments directed at her. Some were old, some were new. They all had the same thing in common, a thread that connected them together. They all thought she was weak. That she wasn't made for this sport. That she wasn't strong enough.

The newer ones all said the same thing, just different synonyms, but they all meant the same thing. No one thought she was going to be able to win today. No one thought she was even going to make it into the top ten.

They all thought that she had been lucky over the years. Managing to get high enough positions in Qualifying to just win in the race. And since now she was actually starting somewhere that wasn't at the front, they believed that they would be proven right that she couldn't actually race anywhere on the grid. That she could only race on the front of the grid.

Well... fuck that.

She was growing angrier by the minute. But she didn't see anything wrong with that.

When she was younger she was always so happy. You wouldn't think that little girl had an ounce of anger in her petite body. But she was angry. So very angry. She always has been. And she's always used it to her advantage, using every negative emotion and turning it into fuel on track.

And that was exactly what she was going to do now.

There was a reason her fingers found the app, clicking on her hashtag on the search page. She knew what she would find. And find it she did. There were some positive things but... the negative overshadowed it heavily.

She was already filled with fury. At the FIA mostly, but at the world too. She just needed more. More fuel. More negativity. They thought she wasn't going to win, but just because of that, she was going to win. She's petty, that is something she can happily admit to.

But she didn't just want to win, she wanted to humiliate everyone who thought that she couldn't win. Oh, she'd show them just how good she can win.

She heard the knock on the door of her driver's room and she stood up from the couch. Her body moved of its own accord. It knew where she was supposed to go, where she was supposed to drive, where she was supposed to stand as the Italian National Anthem played. But she was completely in her own head, any emotion she could show gone from her face.

Her eyes subtly flickered towards the big screen, that was angled so she was barely able to see the content. But she did manage to see herself. The way the cameras were focused on her, trying to capture every and any reaction her face showed. Only she didn't. She was expressionless. Void of anything. Heartless.

She barely noticed the Anthem finishing. She felt the presence of the other drivers leave, leaving her on her own as she watched the planes fly above, the colours of her flag coming out from them in stripes.

It was when the colours started to fade that she snapped out of the trance she seemed to have been put in.

Still, she seemed to move slowly, her movements smooth like the waves of the ocean. She moved in the middle of the lineup where the teams were working hastily on both sides, her hands still intertwined behind her back and her head held high and confident.

They tried not to. They really did. But the members of each team, including their drivers, couldn't help but stop and stare as she walked past them so poised and cold. They couldn't help but think she looked regal in a way. Powerful.