I forced my smile to stay on my face as I lifted my arms to wrap my arms around him as good as I could with him being behind me. "Hmmm, maybe the nail biting Dutchman?" My voice came out amused, a carefully crafted deception of my feelings towards my teammate. However sneaking out a jab at him in such concealed manner that he could not retaliate did lighten my discomfort.
"Hey you promised not to tell anyone" He pouted and let go off my face and gave my head a gentle shove before settling by my side, using my shoulder as an armrest. "Whoopsies" I feigned playfulness as I shrugged my shoulders.
"Well hello Max" the interviewer smiled and tilted her head slightly as her eyes devoured him. "Hi" he awkwardly smiled back and somewhat shuffled to stand more behind me. If anyone hated media work more than me it would be him, or maybe Kimi.
"Since you're crashing our interview you might as well join in properly, what is your prediction of Emmy's results for the weekend?" Not so smooth. The reporter could have used some better media training. How ironic.
"Well I mean Baku has always been quite the good track for her and the team truly believes in her so I think she will make some celebrating cool down laps after the races" His answer danced around the question in the same manner mine had. He seemed to be as exited about talking me up as I was, aka completely uninterested.
"Another oh so insightful answer. Quite the mysterious pair the two of you make" Oh excuse me for a moment while I go barf.
"Are you looking forward to a happy end to this weekend?" The question made me tilt my head in confusion, was she daft? Obviously I wanted the weekend to end on a good note.
"Well yeah"
Her smile didn't even falter as she batted her eyelashes. "So yes to a celebratory cooldown lap?"
"No not really, cool down laps are awkward" I shrugged again and she smiled so genuinely it almost made me feel bad for being short with her. "Don't all drivers love a good glory lap at the end?"
"I dunno, it's just weird. I never know if the fans are cheering or booing at me. In spa last year I started waving at the grandstand because I thought they were cheering me on, spoiler alert; they weren't"
I mentally cringed at the image taking place in my mind. It took me months to shake all of the mocking videos online of the stupid girl driver waving when she was getting booed. Fucking horrifying.
"Yeah it's happened to me a fair amount of times as well" Max agreed and my stomach churned at the close proximity of his voice to the back of my head.
***
"Radio check Emmy, Radio check"
"Loud and clear baby, loud and clear"
"Plan A, stick to it and keep out of the walls" I rolled my eyes at Markus's stupid remark about keeping the car on the track.
Head down and stick to the plan. Plan A meant that the weather would be stable enough for me to do two warm up laps, one to gain temperature and one for confidence. The two laps also helped in passing of time while I waited for the traffic to clear. It was approximately seven minutes into Q1 before I had been released. The team wanted to run max first for data that they'd use for my strategy since they were confident in him preforming good enough for a spot in Q2 within a few laps.
"Okay traffic should be clear enough, push lap so let's speed it up a bit yeah?" Sassy bitch.
The tyre degradation that had shown was worrisome but I pushed it too the back of my mind as I entered my push lap, keeping my eyes locked onto the black Mercedes cruising in front of me.
Turn one was easy enough and as I entered the first drs detection zone I stuck it as close to the merc as I could while still maintaining a good enough pace. Coming out of turn two I enabled my drs and basically flew past the black car as I pushed full throttle. The rest of the lap went smoothly, a few close calls with track limits but nothing that would put me in a position where I'd run the risk of having the lap deleted.
"1:41:82"
I grinned wildly In my helmet as Markus read my time out for me. "How's that for picking it up a bit?"
"Good enough for p5, box now" I mentally shook my head at his lack of amusent. P5 was good, not great but good enough. However the time was indeed good enough as to where the team would rather have me box to conserve the tires rather than try to put in another push lap.
The rest of qualifying went seemingly smooth. I passed through Q2 easily and with yellow flags playing out with in my favor I managed to snag a second place on the grid. To say I was pleased was an understatement. The weekend seemed to play out in just the redemption success I needed to gain back my confidence, Baku was my track.
***
Authors note:
Hi guys hope you enjoyed this chapter! I've had really bad writers block and a general lack of time to write. However I hope to get back to it a bit more. Please vote and comment if you enjoyed!
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General FictionTo make it to formula one you have to be prepared to make sacrifices- to be successful you actually have to make them. There was no line she would not cross and no sacrifice she would not make. She had one rule for herself: Be. The. Best. Being the...
