driving and detriment; norris

.1 the internship

Starboy
The Weeknd, Daft Punk

"Max! Stop laughing will you?" After her first day, Meadow quickly learned that Max Verstappen is still a child. And that you should treat him like a child.

They have been trying to shoot a video for the past fourty minutes. A video that's not even going to be three minutes long. But everytime Meadow reads aloud a question, Max breaks into a fit of laughter. Therefore, the tiktok filming is not running smoothly.

"Sorry Meadow, I'll try to focus now! I promise!" After this empty promise, she asks him a few questions from the fans and he answers them surprisingly serious. Not even thirty minutes later she leaves his drivers room to edit the video.

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Only two weeks ago, Meadow was approved for an internship at Red Bull Racing. They made her the tiktok admin, basically giving her a freepass to build their platform from scratch.

So that's how she ended up in Australia this weekend, at the first grand prix of the 2022 formula one season. Meadow is not even a big fan of the sport. She's watched it with her dad in the past. He's dutch, so he's a Max fan. When she told him she would be working with him, he went crazy.

But other than the Red Bull drivers and some details about the sport itself, Meadow knows nothing about formula one. It's uncharted territory for her.

Today is thursday, also known as media day. It's definitely going to take her a while to get used to the rhythm of the paddock. Most people have been here for years. She's the new girl, and most of them don't have the time to show her everything. Or in formula one language: she's a rookie.

Her and the team arrived here last night, after flying out from the factory in England. Her fancy hotelroom was a welcome surprise after the long journey. As 'just an intern', Meadow never expected her room to be so nice. It's got a full queen sized bed, a shower big enough to fit four people and a massive flat-screen TV.

Although she's here for work of course. This morning her alarm went off at 6 am. Australian time, which means it was 7 pm in Oxford. Meadow definitely has a great jetlag, but her colleagues assured her she will get used to them in a few weeks.

When Meadow arrived at the track that morning, she had a meeting with Christian Horner first. She couldn't have imagined 'the big man' even caring for a silly intern like her, but he quickly assured her that the entire Red Bull paddock team is all very close.

She met Max around eleven. That's driver perks for ya, they don't have to get up at the crack of dawn everyday. Although they do need to train very hard, Meadow's glad she doesn't have to do that.

They hit it off straight away. Max's energy is great and clicked very well with Meadow's personality. They were able to speak some Dutch with eachother, confusing the other staff. They definitely weren't  joking about them when they couldn't understand what they were saying..

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Now Meadow's made her way back to the Red Bull hospitality building. She doesn't have her own office there, so she sits down at a table in the communal space.

"Hey Meadow! How did it go with Max?" Across from her sits Olive. Together with her, and Ruby, the three of them form the Red Bull TikTok team. Olive is from Portugal, and her daddy's money definitely bought her position here. She started out as an intern last season, back then she worked for the Instagram team.
Ruby is from England as well, she comes from a rich family and loves the luxury of the Formula one world. Ruby also started as an intern for the Instagram team, but the both of them each have a regular contract now.