Lily Stroll had been stepping out of her brother's shadow and making an even bigger spotlight for most of her life. A media darling, when her contract ended with Williams in 2022, she never expected to get an offer from the rising stars of F1.
They...
"Hold on to your socks, Dutchie, cause I'm coming for you." *~🏎️~*
"Pressure pushin' down on me Pressin' down on you, no man ask for."
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The third day of testing at Bahrain had always been more tense then all the other days. It was the last day to prove what you and your car were made of before the first race of the season. Lily, obviously, had wanted to do exactly that.
"The atmosphere is tense, no?"
Pierre Gasly had looked at the Canadian driver with raised eyebrows, clearly giving her a look to question if she had really wanted an answer to it. Of course, she had looked at him obliviously, waiting for an answer.
"What the fuck do you think?" he had asked, which had made them both double over in laughing. While the female driver got on with most people around the track, it was known that Pierre was her go to.
"That I can last longer at Red Bull than you did." Lily had dared to say, which had made Pierre chase after her. If anyone who had no idea who they were had've seen them, they would've called them crazy, immature teenagers. If anyone who did had've seen them, they probably would have thought the same thing.
"It doesn't matter anymore anyway," Pierre had huffed, "I'm at Alpine now."
"Ah yes, you and Esteban make me laugh!"
Once again, the Red Bull driver had been chased by the Frenchman around the Paddock. It had been no secret to any fan or driver that Esteban and Pierre did not like each other, rather fierce rivals. For them to be on the same team, well, Lily had found a lot of irony.
"I don't get why everyone loves you so much." the Alpine driver had glared at the brunette. "You're pure evil with a ribbon tied on you."
"What do you mean?" Lily had exclaimed in mock horror. "I'm an angel."
"Kiss my ass." he said.
"No thank you."
"Why not?"
"Disgusting!"
"I have a great ass!"
"You two!"
Kiera had finally yelled at the pair, making them both stop. Lily's poor manager had probably been standing there for about three minutes listening to the two argue for no reason. It hadn't helped she was feeling pressure from the Red Bull female driver to get updates on her brother, who had managed to break both his wrists and two toes, so would enter the season with no testing at all.
Quickly, Lily had waved to Pierre and had followed her Irish manager to the Red Bull garage. Apparently, her Dutch teammate had been minding his girlfriend's child and everyone was stressed out, so they were going to use her as the victim.
"Hi Aditi." Lily had smiled at her race engineer, giving a wave to some nearby media. "What's the updates?"
"Well, Guanyu Zhou, that Alfa Romeo driver, he's got the fastest time, Valtteri has also set a good time and Lewis as well. Conditions seem well so far, so we're happy on our end. Of course, our goal is to beat Max's time, but we can only do so much." Aditi told the female driver as engineers, mechanics and track crew stormed around the pits.
"What is it looking like over at AlphaTauri?"
Most Red Bull drivers had a past with the RB sister team, AlphaTauri. However, Lily did not, though she had been brought up through the Red Bull junior driver program. Rather, she had gone for the Mercedes driver dump at Williams, but it had worked out for her in the end.
"Yuki did some decent laps but Nyck didn't seem comfortable in the car."
"Three years in Formula E to Formula 1. No wonder. Très merci, Aditi."
It hadn't been unusual throughout the Canadian's career to suddenly speak one of her native launguages. Mostly when the pressure was on or she was immensely stressed, but sometimes her dyslexia caught up with her, and that had been one of those moments when her engineer had handed her some graphs and data.
The numbers and words just blended all together. Despite being mostly fluent in English due to her upbringing in Canada, Lily had always struggled with reading and writing, especially spelling. It had made her seem childish most of her life and she had hated it with a fierce passion, one that she had used to be a Formula 3 and 2 champion.
Coanda effect, she had read, is a tendency to have failed aerodynamics. No it isn't, she had thought, it is... is, what is it? Mentally hitting herself repetitively, she tried again and again to think of what it was. She knew it, she had studied it at school, but all she had been able to remember was blurred words.
"Lily!"
The brunette driver had jumped up in surprise, looking around for who was calling her name. There had stood none of then her teammate, giving her his signature half-lopsided grin, holding a little girl with brown hair's hand.
"Bonjour Max." she had smiled, half because she was glad to see her teammate and the cute little girl, but mainly because it had given her an excuse to ignore the long, tedious and endless pieces of paper in front of her. "Who is this little cutie?"
"Penelope, I want you to meet Lily, she is taking Checo's seat, she's nearly as good as me, but not quite." the Dutchman had chuckled at his cheesy joke.
"Max Verstappen, you are lucky there is a child here or I would be saying some very expressive language. You're not forgiven for being late to coffee yesterday though." the fellow Red Bull driver had glared at him. "How are you, Penny? Can I call you that?"
Shyly, the little girl had nodded and Lily had to try very hard not to gush over how adorable she was. She reminded the Canadian of what she had been like as a child.
"Anyway, we just wanted to wish you luck today, Christian is bouncing in his seat to see what happens when you go out there."
"He should be." Lily had grinned at the two-time world champion. "Enjoy eating my dust and bye Penny, don't let Max be all grumpy, okay?"
"Okay!" Penelope had chirped happily, clutching onto Max's hand for dear life.
