RED LINE [3]

15:00

Charles Leclerc:

I won the championship that year.

I had worked so hard, keeping my head down and to be able to perform for the team. I wanted to prove to her I was more than I had shown her who I was, that I was indeed capable of winning for myself.

However deep down, I knew, and so did the rest of the team, when I stood there on the podium in Abu Dubai I scanned the crowd for her – looking for her soft eyes in the crowd of red, the fireworks exploding behind me as the time slowed and I felt my chest becoming lighter.

Max patting me on the back, congratulating me as I smiled for the cameras, clutching onto the trophy while my fingers slipped in sweat.

She wasn't there.

Not when I stepped down from the podium, my hands grabbing the rails as I lowered my head, the bottle of champagne by my feet as I closed my eyes, rubbing my sore and tired eyes.

I could feel everyone staring at me, the cheers from the crowd, but they all drowned out, only hers would be able to penetrate through all the noise.

Only her.

When they shoved a microphone into my face, asking me a million questions; how do you feel? What's it like being a world champion? You must be so proud of yourself?

No. I wasn't.

I wouldn't feel that sense of proudness until she was stood beside me, saying it herself.

I felt like a floating boat in the middle of the ocean, nothing else around me as I drifted day in and out waiting for land to come – she was my land.

The winter break came and went, Christmas was a drag and new years was a reoccurring theme as last years; forgetting where I was, a bottle hanging from my grasp as I stumbled from club to club, Max trying to get me with other girls, but nothing fancied me.

Loosen up, he said again, like a broken record as the clocks strike midnight in Monaco, another year without her and I felt like I was drowning.

Where are you, Amore?

I couldn't find her anywhere, George had blocked me on everything, Lewis did everything to redirect the conversation at the mere mention of her name and Dee was radio silent.

I felt like everyone around me was lying to me, that she was truly dead.

I trained the hardest that winter, pushing myself to the absolute breaking point – Andres questioned my mental health at one point before the 2026 season, if I was mentally well enough to perform under these conditions.

I shut him down and the rest of the board who battled the case, begging me to take a year out, but my results spoke differently to the health I was keeping myself at.

I was beating Max at every race, pushing myself past every corner and barrier that came towards me, half a minute from the rest of the grid, yet they still tried to get me to stop when I was performing my best.

Was she watching me?

The only thing that kept me with my foot to the floor was the thought of her watching at home, or wherever it was she called home now as the flowers and letters I had been sending to her home address kept coming right back to me.

Her shadow haunted me like a ghost, I saw her reflection in every fine woman I was forced on a date with by Max, forced to make small talk and sip expensive cocktails while I stuck to the bathroom to drown myself further into the bottle.