Chequered Flag | FORMULA ONE (COMPLETED)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Q1 in 10 minutes, you can get into your car now."

And so I did. I lowered myself down to my driving position and strapped myself in place. Now I just had to wait for Q1.

Once it started, I wasted no time setting a lap time and getting this over with. Q1 didn't matter to the team anymore. This car of mine carried enough pace to consistently reach Q3 and challenge the upper-midfielders and top teams.

I drove an out lap and started a flying lap on the Brazilian circuit. I braked as late as possible, used as many curbs as possible, and basically just did my best. I noticed my position on the leaderboard shot up to P1 for now, and I grinned inside my helmet. This was enough, and I could safely return to the garage and wait for Q2.

Although I was done with Q1, Ember wasn't. She seemed to be struggling with the car. Her first flying lap was a P10, which would definitely be pushed into the elimination zone by the end. She tried again and came out in P9. Not much faster, and the team was still worried. She had to try again and got a rather acceptable P7. Now she could come into the pits.

When the chequered flag came out, I was in P6, Ember in P13.

During the break, I visited her at her side of the garage.

"You okay, Ember?"

"Yea I'm fine," I heard her mutter through her helmet as she struggled to get out of her car. "Just finding it a little hard to turn sometimes. It should be fine by tomorrow."

Clearly, she was hurting to some extent, but I admired her braveness, her determination to continue racing even if she wasn't in top form.

I helped her out of the car and carried her, bridal style, to a chair to sit down. I felt some eyes looking at us and heard a few gasps in the garage, but that didn't bother me. If I could see Ember's cheeks, which were covered by her helmet right now, I reckon they would be pink, if not red.

"Stay here, I'm getting you your bottle." I said as she started taking off her helmet. She nodded in response.

Once I handed the bottle to her, she opened it and gulped the water. After that she wiped her mouth and put the bottle at the side.

We sat there, watching the engineers and mechanics do their job. Soon enough, the break was over, and we had to go back on track.

Again, I started my lap relatively early on, before there was any traffic on the circuit. I tried to get a perfect lap, but I screwed up slightly at turn 8, locking my brakes. It didn't matter though, it's only Q2, so as long as I stayed in the top 10, I was fine. Indeed, although my position dropped as time went on, I never fell into the elimination zone.

For Ember, however, this was not the case.

She was still struggling. From the screens, it looked like she couldn't turn the car really well. The car looked like it was understeering all the time but in reality it wasn't the car understeering, but Ember not turning enough. She did try the best she could though, hitting a few apexes and trying to speed through the straights as fast as possible.

Despite all that effort, it wasn't enough. When the chequered flag was waved, she was P12 and out of Q3.

When she parked her car in the garage, she apologised to her engineers, and went out to her driver room. Of course I followed her.

"Hey, Ember," I called. "Are you okay?"

"No, I'm not okay," she mumbled. "My hand hurt really bad just now and I messed up my lap. Tomorrow I need to start at the back of the midfield, Mick. How can I survive that with my injured hand?"

"Okay, calm down Ember," I comforted her and hugged her, holding her close to me. "Take some rest, and I'll give you some painkillers tomorrow so you can race."

"Okay..."

"Good. Love you, Ember!"

"Love you too!" she forced a smile, and I smiled back before heading back towards my car for a Q3 run.

Q3 was flawless for me. I made virtually no mistakes and set a personal best lap time. I was on provisional pole for a few minutes, until Verstappen, Bottas and Hamilton beat my time, and I was pushed down to P4.

The team and I accepted that result, and I could return back home now, to spend the rest of the day with Ember.

Qualifying Results: Ham, Bot, Ver, Msc, Per, Ric, Alo, Vet, Nor, Lec, Sai, Wil, Gas, Oco, Rus, Rai, Str, Tsu, Gio, Lat

V.C.Tqvm

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