Connected (F1 Story)

Chapter One: The Immediate Assumption

Saturday of the Canadian Grand Prix, June 2015

Right, okay. This was not good. Even I knew that and I struggled my whole way through the science courses as a teenager.

Power was down and the Renault engine was becoming just about the biggest annoyance ever. Minus Paul drunk. You could not get more annoying than that. Actually, you could not get more annoying than Paul full stop.

And it's an improvement, just. Ricciardo is in Q2!

I tweeted, followed by the lap's timings. Considering where we were on the racing front a year ago, it definitely felt like we'd taken three humongous steps back. Make that three-thousand. It was admittedly pretty disheartening to see the whole team so dejected. It wasn't doing our race feature time any favours either. The only time the cars got shown was when they pulled over on the track with a power unit failure. The sponsors were not best pleased.

"Fucking hell," Paul, Daniel's physiotherapist and all round best mate, huffed and drew out his schedule. It took a lot for the Australian to get annoyed (minus when I was late for something, or had too much to drink. He was easy to piss off then).

Daniil Kvyat, who had been promoted from sister team Toro Rosso for the 2015 Formula 1 season, was the last car to cross the line in that session and he too had done enough. Just.

Out went another tweet from me and I went back to putting Rebecca's (you might remember her from last year) and Josh's schedule for the rest of the afternoon together. While I was still very much Daniel Ricciardo's press officer, Josh handled some of the media at the track which left me heading up the travelling communications team. It was a massive step up, but I was flattered.

I wasn't going to lie, I did miss the media pen but now and then I got let in. If I was lucky.

I didn't mind though; it meant Daniel and I's time was well spent together and there was a lesser chance of something totally unprofessional happening. Not that it hadn't happened multiple times already.

"Saskia, you're going to break that iPad in a minute." Paul snapped me out of my lost train of thought and I was left to roll my eyes. Actually, I was clenching the Apple device pretty tight. I could hear Lizzie laughing.

I checked the monitors in case anything had changed and then looked back at the giant of Paul. His blonde hair needed combing- it must have been the stress which had made it splay out in many directions. Either that or he was attempting to electrocute himself with the air cooler he was sorting out. Things were dire.

"You'd better go before Jonathan murders you," I quipped and he strode off, shrugging at Olly as he went.

Daniel's Red Bull made its appearance in the garage and his visor went up. Paul was in position with the fan and a drink. Just in time.

"Two laps in Q3, Dan. We are not going to waste tyres and engine usage." Simon's voice filtered through my headset and I got up to take a picture of the guys at work in the garage. Public relations and all that.

Being careful not to bump into anyone, or trip over any of the wires, tools, bottles of water (the list goes on), I positioned myself and tried my best not to drop the iPad. I was no photographer but my shot of Red Bull's space wasn't too shoddy. It would reach the vital eleven likes on Instagram, I think.

I set about uploading it and turned at the call of my name. It was Josh and he was looking a tad on the stressed side.

Like most of the people in the paddock, he was a lot taller than me and was nice. Really nice. He was good friends with the BBC presenters and that of Natalie Pinkham (who presented for Sky). This meant that we all got on well and Dan and I's friendship circle was ever expanding.