Lone Wolff | Charles Leclerc

11 - the great down under

I had such a long journey ahead and it made me anxious. I groaned loudly and scooted down in the big chair I was sitting in at the airport. The idea of seeing Willow again was the thing that made my anxiety better because I was so excited to her for the first time in what felt like forever. We were always connected at the hip at uni, but after she moved we hadn't seen each other at all, I missed her. And I also liked to see everyone at the paddock again, they are starting to become a new home to me. My phone vibrated and I looked down again to see Charles' name pop up on my screen. My lips curved up immediately as I continued my innocent talk with him about jet lag tips. I liked texting him.

The great tip to beat the jetlag was to stay awake the whole flight and drink loads of coffee. It had been easy up until my layover. I had drank enough coffee to fuel multiple horses and I had been playing a Zelda game on my Nintendo Switch and reading my books - plural as I had finished the first one already and was almost done with the second one. It had been a long first flight and I really couldn't just relax. The second I sat down in the lounge at Singapore I felt a wave of exhaustion come over me as I read all my missed messages. I had posted an Instastory that I was on my way to Australia and most of the messages were something along the lines of 'have a good flight' but also the lovely Mick Schumacher had texted me and I smiled.

 Hey Teddy! Have a safe flight! I'm flying in tomorrow as well and I was wondering if you'd like to join me and some friends to go surfing later this week, probably on Wednesday? It's with some people from Alpine, Pierre and Esteban are also gonna be there, it's gonna be fun! Let me know :)

Hii Mickey! Thanks, I'm currently in Singapore trying not to fall asleep in the lounge here, send help pls haha. Looking forward to seeing you again and thanks for the invite to come surf, it sounds fun! I have a tight schedule this whole week because I'm meeting up with my best friend Willow and she has a whole planning going on, but I'm sure we can make it work.

Can she also join? I know she likes to surf.

Sure! I'd love to meet the famous Willow :) I'll let you know when we're going when the boys finally settle on a date

How has your flight been? Do you have a long layover?

Yes, plsssss entertain me, I'm dying

I'm trying not to fall asleep as I arrive around bedtime in Australia so I can beat the horrible jetlag, but it sooooooo hard right now

Yeah, you are not good with jetlags at all

Thanks for the faith in me Mickey...

 Will make sure that I'm gonna bother you like hell when I'm jetlagged again

Always :)

And if that means that we will have another movie night and you fall asleep against me again, I'm not complaining

I can't promise anything :)

I couldn't help but giggle at Mick's message as I remembered our fun little movie night. It cured my jetlag last time and it made me feel so welcome and normal for a moment during the chaos of the last GP. Mick radiated such comfortable energy that I could easily fall asleep against his shoulder, even if I was super tense.  We had really bonded over the last few weeks and it was super sweet of him to ask me to go surfing with him and some others. We had spoken about surfing a little while back on the plane, as I had tried to surf a couple of times with friends as Willow wanted to try before she left for Australia, but I wasn't really good at it. I could at this point probably manage to stand up, but staying on the board was a lot harder than it looked. Mick must have remembered the story and figured that I'd maybe be interested in surfing in Australia as well. I immediately asked Willow if she'd be down and she was completely excited. I also updated her on my arrival time, as she was going to pick me up. We had rented a little Airbnb in Melbourne for the first couple of days and I'd go to the hotel that Mercedes fixed for me a little later in the week when I had to work.