Reviewing priorities - Sebastian Vettel

3. Lights out?

'Hey, I'm on my lunch break now. Where are you?' Valeria texted Seb.

They had exchanged a few texts during the weekend. Mostly Valeria complaining about being hungover and Seb telling her about his PT sessions. They hadn't managed to find a time to meet, so they had decided to meet at the factory.

'sim room, do you know how to get here? 😏'

'following the signs?'

'They grow up so quickly'

Valeria snorted at his reply. She loved his cheek even before she had met him. If she liked the guy as a driver before, now she had realised he was a pretty good human too. And cute. But she had tried to brush that off. She couldn't afford to jeopardise her career for a crush. Seb had been the face of the sport for years, she needed to realise he had better things to do than care about her.

She knocked on the door. Riccardo,his race engineer, opened up.

'Hello, Valeria' he greeted her. 'how are you?'

'I'm all good and you? Riccardo, right?' she asked.

'Correct. I'm very well, thank you' he smiled. 'Seb's just doing a lap, he'll be out soon' Valeria turned to the simulator, watching Seb drive through the Barcelona circuit. She had forgotten what it felt like, driving on a circuit. She sat next to Riccardo, popping her bag by the side.

'hey, sorry I kept you waiting' Seb told her with a smile. 'Thanks for returning it' he added, as she passed him his jacket.

'i tried to sell it on ebay, but nobody wanted it.' She joked. 'how's the sim?'

'Very good, wanna try?' he asked. Valeria wasn't sure if he was joking or not, her forehead wrinkling as she looked at him. 'I'm not joking, Charles told me you used to kart?' he added with a smile.

'Can I really?' she asked.

'yes of course' Seb nodded.

Valeria sat on the seat. She looked at the wheel, it had a lot more buttons than she expected. She had played a few simulator games, she even had a rig back at home, but this was the real stuff.

'Front brake bias, differential, DRS, engine modes...' Seb had seen her confused look and had started to explain the buttons. 'accelerator, brake' he added.

'sorry, which is which again?' she joked. 'excuse the socks, I can't do this in boots.' She added, taking her shoes off and showing off her bright non matching socks.

'Do I need to speak to Enrico and get you a raise so you can buy matching socks?' Seb joked, making her laugh. 'when you're ready, press that' he pointed at a button.

Valeria took a deep breath and pressed start. She drove through the circuit, managing not to crash or spin out, narrowly doing so a couple of times as she missed the breaking point.

'Not bad, not bad' Seb said. He did look fairly impressed, she thought.

'yeah, tyres a bit square. Sorry, Riccardo' she joked. 'Man this is making me miss karting a bit. Thanks, Seb!'she put her boots back on and walked out of the sim room.

She walked to the canteen to grab some lunch and sat at an empty table. She got her phone out and opened her chat with her dad.

'Just did a lap on the Ferrari sim and, apart from a couple of square tyres, I didn't crash on anything. Hope you're proud. Missing you and everyone else.' She texted.