17th March 2016
Australia, the first race of the season. Each team tried to keep its cards close to its chest during the winter. The results you see during testing are often misleading. Everyone has their poker face on and no one wants to let the other know what they really have in their hand. The ace up the sleeve is hidden, there is bluffing, lying, and cheating. Gamblers all of them. But in Australia everything is different. As soon as you arrive in Melbourne, the game really starts.
The first stakes are set, the drivers are used to keep the fans and media at bay while the teams try to look into each other's cards. It is not unusual for the first official protest to be launched in Australia. It's a game and if you can't win with your own strength, you need to weaken the others.
This year, Ferrari must win the early mind games. They've played dumb, not tested to their limits, but they knew that Mercedes did the same. They might be seconds away without even knowing yet.
Joanna was used to it by now, it was her fifth year with the traditional team from Italy after all. She was one of the most experienced drivers on the track and knew what it was like in Australia. The race was usually pure chaos and you were lucky to get out unscathed at the end of the day, but the real competition for the championship started much earlier with the first media appearance live in front of the fans.
Joanna Lauda never feared the media, she was overly beloved, but it was always exciting to see the rookies. That day would decide what would become of them. Getting into trouble with the press early on can cause some serious problems, so it's even more important to gather support and goodwill along the way, but the real hurdle was the fans because the fans could decide whether you had a seat in a team next season or not. If the drivers were the heart of F1 and the FIA the head, the fans were the lungs that kept it going.
The Austrian entered the room, where they would wait until being called onto the stage with her teammate Sebastian by her side. To Joanna's amusement, the rookies tried their best to play it cool. Palmer was leaning against the wall, sipping from his bottle from time to time, while Pascal Wehrlein was shaking like a leaf. How adorable.
She shot Sebastian a look, which caused the German to shake his head at her no. He knew her good enough to know what she was about to do. Making the Rookies sweat a little bit was one of Joanna's hobbies, but Pascal looked like he would pass out any minute. Letting Joanna play with them would just be cruel.
Joanna and Sebastian had just stepped over to Jenson as someone for the official entered the room to tell them how they would do it. Joanna would be the first one on stage, followed by Daniel and Lewis just a few minutes later, some from the lower teams and the rookies would follow them, before Sebastian, Daniil and Nico would close the stage. All twenty drivers would stay up on the stage for questions from the fans. Of course, preselected, so every driver would get at least one question from the fans.
"The event will start in a few." The woman told them the last, which caused the driver to mingle a little bit among themselves.
"Have you already set your bets?" Screamed Daniel through the room towards the group of older drivers, from where he was sitting with his teammate and the Toro Rosso drivers on an L-shaped couch. It was a tradition that they set their little bets on who would succeed this year and who wouldn't. Normally they kept it away from the rookies and the youngest drivers, so it wouldn't get to their heads, but Joanna guessed that was now no longer possible.
"Not all of us yet, want to set your bet now?" Nico asked him, which caused Daniel to break out in a big grin, while a few drivers watched the exchange confused.
The rules were simple, decide on a driver, who would do good on track and or with the fans and the media. If you got one, who was beloved or shored decently, you won your bet. The only limitation was their years in F1. You could only bet on people, who hadn't yet completed five years in F1. Have you already completed more than 5 years, you were allowed to set a bet. Since this was Daniel's sixth year in F1, he was finally allowed to put a bet as well, which the Australian did not want to miss, now that he was finally considered one of the adults.
"My money's on ..." He stopped to look through the crowd of people, his finger pointing on one after the other before it finally stopped. The Aussie's grin grew wider before he announced his decision.
"Palmer." He said, which caused Lewis to roll his eyes at the other man's theatrics, but he noted the bet, nevertheless.
Until Lewis went through the list, Joanna had watched quietly, realizing that Joanna was the only one, who was allowed to set a bet and hasn't already done it.
"What about you, Josie? On whom is your money?" He questioned and Joanna didn't have to think very long before she nodded in the direction, where Daniel and the Toro Rosso drivers were seated.
"Verstappen." She said to clarify with a blank gaze, which caused Fernando to snicker, pulling her attention to him. Joanna raised a challenging eyebrow, causing Fernando to smirk at her, while Max watched her closely.
"Going for talent over sympathy again?" Fernando questioned, which caused her to look him dead in the eye. Max wanted to speak up, to call Fernando out for insulting him, but Daniel stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head and expectantly looking back to the sofa to indicate to Max, that he should sit back down. This wasn't about him, that was about a teammate rivalry that got out of hand years ago, with nobody to ease the hate.
"Let me guess, you went for Sainz? Again." Joanna presumed an unimpressed look on her face.
"Careful, your resting bitch face is showing. We don't want the media to know what a bitch you really are, no?" The Spaniard questioned, trying his best to rile her up before facing the press, but it never worked with her. Joanna was just too controlled.
"Then let's make a real bet. If Verstappen has scored more points than Sainz at the end of the year, you present me with your championship-winning 2005 Renault." Joanna challenged, which earned her a lot of attention from the rest of the drivers present.
No one who owned an F1 car would just place a bet on it, especially if they had won their only championship with it. Joanna on the other hand was a double champion, but Fernando wouldn't go for her 2008 or 2009 Renault. He wanted something which would hurt her to lose. He wanted a Ferrari.
"I want your father's Ferrari. 1975 or 1977. I feel generous today so you can then decide which one you want to part with."
"Jo!" Sebastian warned her, voice a little bit higher than normal, but the Austrian only gave him a look, before walking up to stand right in front of Fernando.
"Alright." She said, reaching her hand out, so Fernando could take it, what he did only to pull her a little bit closer to him. "No chickening out, Lauda."
"Why would I? It's not like Carlos has a chance." Fernando and Joanna were looking each other deep in the eye. None of them ready to be the first to break the gaze. It was the woman from before, who made sure they parted, before telling Joanna, that she could go on stage as soon as she would hear her name being called. Nodding softly, she moved over to the door, which was opened for her.
"Well, boys," Joanna spoke looking over her shoulder, which brought her the attention of all the men present in the room.
"Welcome to the hunger games." With that she let her resting bitch face slip and replaced it with a sincere and totally honest seeming smile, looking almost angelic with her golden hair, which was reached a little bit over her shoulders, before she stepped onto the stage.
Almost immediately the fans started to chant her name and wave excitedly their Ferrari flags. An ocean of excited fans and all wanted her to notice them. Joanna would have smirked, wouldn't she be on stage right now.
Most drivers betitled her to be fake, to blind the fans and press with her act. But the secret of why it worked so well was that it was real. When Joanna started in F1, the press wrote about her being too innocent, too open-minded, and that she didn't believe there was any evil in the world, which was true at that time. Joanna wasn't even angry that the press had slated her without mercy, she accepted all points of view and tried to work on herself and it was exactly this childlike innocence that earned her so many fans. She was the nice girl from next door and that's what got her so far in her career.
With the years her innocence dulled, she grew up. The world showed her that there wasn't only good, which changed her with the years, but the fans and the press kept her external childlike innocence. The girl with the bright and sincere smile.