The Team // A Formula One AU

Lando

Nico is in stitches now but I still can't work out the joke. Fernando plonks down beside me, hands tightly behind him, and then Erik moves on to tying the blindfolds.

The sunny midday carpark goes completely black.

"Right, you have fifteen minutes. Ready, set, go!"

The challenge is surprisingly quiet. Fernando guides my hands to squeeze paints onto a palette, find a good paintbrush and then find the middle of the canvas. Even though I can't see anything, the actions feel natural. We mix some paint for Tom's brown hair, carefully place his eyes and mouth before colouring in his face, then blend some darker shades in the for the nose.

"Have you painted before, Lando?" Fernando asks me as I try to add some texture to the hair.

"Yeah, I love it! I painted the whole roof of the bus, didn't I?"

"Well it's not exactly the same, but..."

"I painted in school too. Mostly not portraits though."

"Well, I can tell. It actually looks pretty good."

Erik calls our two minute warning and the challenge certainly isn't quiet anymore. Daniel is screaming at Nico for squeezing out too much paint and splashing the canvas and even Kimi seems to be getting into it, it sounds like he's broken free of his restraints and Erik is fighting to get them back on.

"We need to sign it," Fernando says. "You go first, in the bottom corner... Down, no right, yeah there. Now bring the paintbrush towards me so I can use my mouth."

I follow the sound of his voice and extend the clean end of the paintbrush out towards him. I feel it hit his face and push a little harder so he can get a good grip.

Fernando wretches.

"Lan- Akh... Lando!" He chokes. I feel him headbutt my shoulder and almost push me off my chair.

"Ah!"

"Time's up!" Erik calls. "Painters take off your blindfolds and untie your partners."

I rip off my blindfold and immediately cover my eyes from the sun. It'll take a little longer to get used to this brightness again.

"Are you okay?" I frown as I ask Fernando. There tears in his eyes as he nods and clears his throat.

"Just untie me so I can get a drink."

"Now it's time to decide the winner. And the special judge is... Tom!"

"Wooo..." I clap. I thought it might be a Formula One star, but now I realise that might've been wishful thinking since they're all at winter testing this week.

Tom walks out from behind the bus, but his face looks confused instead of happy. He turns to the cameras and then looks at Erik.

"The bus," he says. "Does it look... A little green to you?"

We all turn to take a look. Fernando tilts his head. It's difficult to see in the bright sunshine but maybe Tom's right. It looks like the green bruises you might find on a lemon, and not at all the colour it was when we first saw it in Indianapolis.

Tom frowns, then shakes his head quickly. "Anyway. I have a competition to judge!"

"Great. Up first, let's take a look at Daniel and Nico's painting."

I splutter as Nico spins the canvas around, revealing a Tom made completely out of red paint, with a nose that isn't connected to his face and eyes whose pupils are pointing to the sky in a permanent eye roll. His cheeks are rosy pink from what I assume was an attempt to cover up the spilt red paint, and his mouth looks more like a worm sliding off the edge of his face.

The real Tom covers his eyes with his hands theatrically and I try to imagine if he really did look like that.

"That's a really valiant attempt," he laughs, then turns to us. "Shall we look at the Andos' painting now?"

"Sounds like we've got a new nickname," Nando grins as he holds up our canvas. I take in my work, and squint. Is that really what I just painted?

"That's... That's surprisingly good." Tom walks closer to take a better look and I glance between his face and our painting. The hair especially is perfect.

"Kimi and Yuki, let's see what you've come up with."

Their painting doesn't look too bad, but they haven't mixed any colours so every part of Tom's face is a bright intense primary. His hair and eyes are black, his face looks badly sunburned and his mouth is blue, for some reason.

"Good effort, but I think I know which team is the winner."

Tom gestures to our painting and I stand up and jump into the air. We did it! Erik walks over and hands us each a bouncy ball as a prize.

"It's not much, but we want to keep trophies for podiums."

"I love it!"

"Here, you can have mine too," Fernando places his in my hand and I compare the two. One half blue and half red, and one with a small plastic fish inside. Then I remember the cameras are still rolling, and look down the lens as I launch them both into the ground.