Fifth Light (Sebastian Vettel)

Chapter 17: Double Podium

Casey settled into the RB10, watching in the side-mirror as Rocky walked to the back of the garage. She saw him pull up a chair in front of one of the computers alongside a few of the other technicians.

She took a moment to appreciate where she was sitting. It was totally different to what she had imagined. She could finally understand just how much visibility the driver had, further astounding her as to how they could possibly drive wheel to wheel so often with so few incidents.

Seb crouched down so that he was eye-level with her and she turned to look at him. He was grinning from ear to ear.

"Wow..." she muttered, placing her hands on the steering wheel.

"Beautiful, isn't she," he cooed.

She nodded in awe, running her fingers over the buttons. It felt so special to be there, in that seat, in that car. His car. Where he did so many unthinkably amazing things.

"Almost as beautiful as you," he added, just quietly enough for only her to hear.

Her brow knitted together as she caught his gaze and tried and failed to process. Did he really just say that?

Before she could respond, Jacob walked over on her other side and crouched down too, fitting a headset over her ears. He then passed another pair to Seb. Moments later, Kyle and Harry reached into the cockpit in front of her, simultaneously pressing commands on the wheel and bringing the electronics to life.

"Case, can you confirm you hear us? You can talk freely, the headset will broadcast automatically whenever you say something but we're on a private channel," Rocky's voice crackled in her ears.

"Confirming and understood," she replied, shaking off Seb's spell and retraining her eyes on the wheel.

"And Seb?" Rocky asked.

"Loud and clear," he replied.

"Alright Case, I'm going to call out a reference code and you'll activate it. Seb will show you the combinations. You don't need to memorise them all right now. I'll provide you with a reference to memorise over the next few sessions."

"Yep, no problem," she replied.

"Okay, first one, 5-170," Rocky commanded.

Seb reached forward and adjusted two of the dials in a specific order. Casey pressed them and waited.

"Good. Now 5 clicks on H."

She waited again as Sebastian showed her what to do before copying him. They continued doing this for at least 20 minutes. Each time she listened carefully and tried to memorise as many as possible.

"Rocky, can you get someone to put up the screens. It's about to get distracting," Seb's voiced interrupted her focus.

Her eyes snapped up and she spotted a cameraman rushing towards them across the pit lane, desperately trying to snap a lens on to the front of his huge camera. She flinched as he finally seemed to get it in place and take aim. Just before he could shoot any pictures, several of the engineers rolled a huge partition into place, completely blocking the car from his view. The sheet was made of thick black canvas, strung up to a metal frame and mounted on wheels. Two more partitions were wheeled into place either side to make it impossible for the cameraman to get an angle.

She smiled at Seb in relief and he subtly reached forward to squeeze her hand under the guise of pressing a button. After a moment, Rocky continued on, "Okay guys, let's see 3 clicks on B."

---

"Do we really need to do this silly race? Can't I just sit here for another six hours?" Casey whined as they finished up and it was time to vacate the car. She had decided that she loved sitting in the cockpit and didn't ever want to get out. It was easily the highlight of her working career so far. Seb chuckled and shook his head.