Away We Go • 2 • Formula One

Chapter 31

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The Friday of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend marked a whole year since Max and I initially became a couple. Whilst it was an important day, neither of us felt the urge to celebrate it because of the large portion of time we hadn't been together. We had both done things in that time we would rather didn't happen so starting afresh was a huge relief. Besides, the date we had at the beginning of the week was amazing enough on its own. It had sufficiently reached my quota of 'cute Max' for the rest of the week. I still decided to buy him a cute little gift because he was the type of guy to get me a present even when he says he won't. It was a good thing that I bought him a personalised T-shirt because he ended up giving me a new lingerie set. The set was definitely my style, however I suspected that he bought it with the intention of seeing me wearing it.

Stoffel showed amazing pace as my teammate at Mercedes. The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was a track where the silver arrows typically dominated. A few tenths separated our times as P1 and P2 in the first practice session, however this was almost cut in half for the following session. I was pleasantly surprised to see him being so competitive,

I arrived to the circuit bright and early with my Belgian teammate. We always got on well despite being in different teams last season. A lot of the banter that we shared involved teasing the other, but we both knew it was always in good fun with zero malicious intentions.

The final practice session before qualifying was the most chilled-out session I've had in a while. The pressures weren't as high as they had been, and I was able to push as much as I wanted. As long as I fed back information regarding set up and pace accurately to the team, there were no worries. The weather was supposed to remain consistent and warm so the track we were running on was a good representation of what conditions were going to be like for qualifying and the race. Stoffel did as he was told and thankfully didn't show any signs of getting in my way, unlike my last teammate. The setups we were running were almost identical, apart from certain aspects that were suited to our individual driving styles. I had a lot of respect for Stoffel's ability to switch between the Formula E and Formula 1 cars as they were completely different.

"You know," Stoffel began, appearing over my shoulder as I studied videos of Lewis's pole from the last season, "I'd have gotten that Mercedes seat if it wasn't for you."

I rolled my eyes and scoffed. "It's a good thing I got it; I'd feel bad for the team if they were stuck with you permanently."

"Can't be any worse than dealing with you," he shot back. I reluctantly looked up from my screen and shut it off in order to glare at Stoffel. The lazy grin he wore on his face told me that he was in one of his moods. He had been known to act more silly when he was nervous, and we'd shortly be starting his first qualifying session in a Mercedes.

"I buy my crew fancy coffee every morning on a race weekend so they don't have to drink the shitty free stuff, and I actually pay attention to them," I said with a wide smile. I poked Stoffel's arm with my index finger. "I'm a delight."

He snorted with laughter. "Yeah, right."

"Did you want me to tell your boss about your sugar habits?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. "It's not normal to put that many sugars in your drink, Stof."

"Don't be a snitch, bitch."

Whilst I appreciated the rhyme, I furrowed my brow and stuck out my bottom lip in a pout. Unluckily for Stof, Toto Wolff just so happened to be standing behind us.

"Toto!" I called, to get the boss-man's attention. He turned around with his lips pulled into a line expectantly. I folded my arms across my chest and glared at Stoffel. "My teammate just called me a bitch."