Rivals - Charles Leclerc

Pedal to the Medal

Chapter 8

Ava's POV

The next day had been an absolute dumpster fire. Charles, being Charles, of course, had to go on a rant during one of his media sections basically calling me a bunch of names again and reassuring himself that he was better than me.

"God what an ass," I said as I scrolled through another video talking about the whole situation. Taking another bite of my cereal.

"Dude, I still can't believe that he actually said that on television," Marisa chimed in, sitting next to me as she glanced over at my phone screen.

Honestly, I couldn't either. I thought things had cooled off a bit between us ever since that conversation in the office. I mean, we were always going to be competitive with one another and most likely never friends, but I didn't think we were still pulling punches like that. But I did find it amusing how the Ferrari team was scrambling to try and remedy the situation. Charles now being bombarded with people bashing him on the internet. I felt a sense of peace knowing that I didn't have to do anything but just exist to make him upset. This, in my opinion, was the more satisfying revenge.

"But on a real note, you ready for today?" Marisa asked me, looking over at me as she shoved a spoonful of Cheerios in her mouth.

I let out a sigh, putting my phone down as I looked over at her. "Fuck yeah I am," I said enthusiastically making Marisa let out a laugh, almost spitting out her cereal.

As I arrived at the paddock, I was quickly surrounded by reporters who were unable to get a comment from me regarding Charles' comments from yesterday. Each reporter's face was smeared with a look of utter desperation like a rabid animal getting their first look at food in weeks. It was something else. But I just continued to walk forward, making my way into the Red Bull garage where they couldn't follow me.

The sheer level of media craze that this whole rivalry of sorts created has thrown me for a loop honestly. The amount of attention that this was bringing both Charles and myself was something that neither of us could have ever predicted. Everyone and their mother I swear was hopping on the trend of commenting on what they thought was going on 'behind the scenes'. Pitting Ferrari and Red Bull as head-to-head enemies.

But none of that stuff mattered today, after all, it was race day and the most important thing for today was staying focused so that I could beat Charles on the racetrack. Something that I wanted even more now. I knew that starting behind him was going to be a disadvantage but I had worked for hours with Christian and our strategist on what we wanted to do and I felt confident. He for sure was going down.

After a couple of hours of warming up and meditation, it was time to step into the car. The time when shit was getting real was finally here. I slipped into my race suit and headed down into the garage, meeting up with Max who was fixated on his car.

"You feeling ready?' He asked me, noticing my presence next to him.

"Ready as I'll ever be," I replied, smiling at him. "Let's kill it," I said, offering my first for a little first bump which he delightly accepted.

"Let's fucking kill em'" he repeated, putting his helmet on as he walked over to his car.

I followed his actions, slipping into the car as we did our usual round of checks; the engineers walking the car over to the lineup area.

I was never the type to get nervous before a race, but there was something about staring into the back of the bright red Ferrari ahead of me that was sending my body into a state of panic. Could I do this? I shook that thought away from me, reassuring myself that I had this in the bag. Charles was going to go down, and I was going to become the first woman ever to stand on a Formula 1 podium.