Life in the Fastlane (Sebastian Vettel)

9. Hunter's Prey

"Mollie, you've never raced at Monaco before as it's not on the women's calendar."

"Thanks for telling me that Daniel, I hadn't realised." The other journalists gathered at the press conference laughed collectively. They had no love for Daniel Hunter themselves and found it amusing when Mollie called him out.

"You've previously been called the Queen of street circuits.  How do you think you'll do around the streets of Monte Carlo?"

"If I knew that I'd put a bet on ."  Next to her Esteban Ocon covered his mouth, trying to hide his laugh. 

"Do you think you'll be back to your normal position, scrapping for the last points places?  You benefitted from others misfortunes in Germany."

"Luck always has a role to play. For everyone.  I was in the right place at the right time.  Where others made mistakes, I didn't. Simples."

"But without any out of the ordinary circumstances do you honestly believe that you can compete with the....more experienced drivers?"

"You mean with the male drivers?"

"I never said that."

"You hinted at it. And you've made it clear in the past that you think I'm out of my depth."

"Ok, next question!" the host,  Daniel Harrison, cut in, trying to defuse the situation.

"Mollie, there's rumours going around that you are still in a relationship with Sebastian Vettel," said Debra Swift, another one of the journalists. "Is there any truth in the rumour? You were spotted together just last week at Heathrow airport."

"Mine and Sebastian's relationship, or non relationship, is nothing to do with anyone else but to clarify things, Sebastian and I split at the end of last season. We are still good friends. I don't know why people have to jump to conclusions."

The press conference concluded shortly after. Mollie glared at Daniel Hunter as she passed him on her way out. He winked at her.

"Jerk," she muttered under breath.

As she headed outside she saw Seb waiting with Max.

"Hey," he said. "What's up? You look pissed off."

"Fucking Hunter. Questioning my abilities as per fucking usual. Oh, and also be aware you may get asked about us. Apparently we were spotted at the airport last week. I just said we split last season. We're still good friends, blah, blah,blah. I never actually denied it though."

"Ok, thanks for the heads up. See you later." They gave each a look full of longing, then Mollie headed off to the motorhome.

***

Daniel Hunter considered himself a handsome man. He was still the right side of forty and always seemed to have lots of female attention.

He loved women. He just didn't believe that they had a place in Formula 1. Especially not smart mouth bitches like Mollie Rashford. She'd humiliated him more than once, and enough was enough.

She needed to be brought down a peg or two. But how? Annoyingly, her results were good, so he couldn't use that against her.

He thought back to what Debra Swift had said. Then he thought of the almost identical answers Mollie and Seb had given to the question about their relationship.

Daniel had his suspicions that the romance was very much ongoing but being hidden. If he could prove that it would raise doubts about Mollie and how she had got her seat and about whether she and Seb were really able to be rivals.