Under the Microscope (Book One of Three)

Chapter 48

Second last chapter! I'm going to publish the sequel at the same time that I publish the final chapter for this book, so make sure you check out my page, the sequel "In the Spotlight" is now out!

Also Matthew Grant is an OC!
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Arriving in Monza on the Tuesday was insane, after dropping my bags at the hotel, I switched Olivia for JC and we went to an engineer's meeting about the car for the weekend. Cartier were annoyed that I was not going to be at their dinner on the Tuesday, but said they would be understanding if I would also attend the Valentino party in Milan on Sunday on their behalf after the race, which I obviously agreed to especially when I found out I wouldn't be the only driver doing so.

After that, JC insisted that I went to the gym and we did some active recovery workouts and stretches before meeting with Rachel to go over footage from the previous years to find the best overtaking spots and tried to go over the Pirelli recommendations for tires to figure out programmes we wanted to run in free practice. The benefit of having everyone in the country at once was that we could have these meetings in person earlier in the week so as to decrease how busy the rest of the weekend would be. I told JC about how I had asked Nick to join us again this weekend and she was thrilled. Tuesday night was a team dinner for those that had come straight from Zandvoort to Monza in an attempt to keep morale up going into the final weekend of the tiring triple header.

The team meal was nice, but the day was made good by going for drinks with Daniel and Lando, although all of us abstained from alcohol, just looking for company. After posting a quick selfie on Instagram we just chatted about all things, not just racing but life in general as Lando had broken up with Luisa in a bit of a surprise move but her career taking off meant that she was super busy and the schedules just didn't work out, so Danny and I were trying to help keep his mind off of it. Lando and I mainly spoke about a charity-golf tournament he was entered into for the following week during our 'two weeks off'...if you can even call it that based off the schedule that Olivia showed me which was incredibly busy with my move to Monaco as well being added in.

Wednesday was chill as Nick and my parents both ended up arriving early and in a funny turn of events had sat next to each other on the plane, neither party realising who they other was until both were stood in front of me waiting to pick them up at the airport. The scene was rather amusing in all honesty as I could literally see the realisation dawn on their faces which caused me a lot of enjoyment. I had already done my team meetings in the morning as well as some sponsorship meetings with Toto which was nice because we did our normal sit and do work silently in each other's presence afterwards while I waited to leave for the airport. Once I had brought the three of them back to the hotel (when I say 'I', I mean Olivia because she banned me from driving as she heard me say as I was leaving my meeting with Toto that I was excited to drive because I missed being fast...which was true but made her feel unsafe or something...I don't know!), they dropped their stuff and we all went to the restaurant I had gone to with the team the night before, with JC and Cameron as well.

That was a lot of fun, between the embarrassment of my parents sharing childhood stories with the rest of the group and JC and Olivia returning with stories of their own for my parents to hear made the night full of laughter and I even enjoyed a glass of wine with the meal as well, deciding that these moments were rare and needed to be enjoyed to the fullest. So that night I relaxed and didn't think about anything, just enjoyed my time with the people that were essentially my family, both blood-related and not. A big thing of that night was how well Nick got on with my family, my dad loved him and his humour which solidified the decision I had essentially already made regarding employing him. So, the next morning I formally offered him the job as his references had been checked earlier in the week and Toto had signed off on him during the meeting, having gotten the paperwork ready in case I went through with the decision. He quickly accepted and we were all signed and sorted the same day, having given him the same contract I gave JC but for slightly more money as the races, he would have to travel to was increasing and he was offering to also do the work of a nutritionist as well.