" Are you excited?" Cami asked me while we were getting ready to leave to track.
" Yeah I mean, yeah" I stuttered. I was so excited. I wish everyone could see me now. I hadn't posted a lot of things after my move to Italy and the whole internship thing. Mostly just some pretty views or food pictures but nothing F1 related. Maybe this was the day for that.
" As you should, this is like your baptism for the team and your job!" Cami told me super hyped. " I'm so happy, you're the kinda worker we have been needing and I'm so happy that everyone else turned you down" she skipped across the room while I watched her amused and let out a nervous laugh.
" You need to remember that I'm here only for nine months and after that it's bye bye and back to school" I reminded her of the facts.
" Yeah we're not letting you go, you know that right?" she asked pointing at me with her toothbrush.
" I wouldn't mind at all" I laughed but felt a little sad. After this weekend it was one less race till my goodbye party.
"Well, keep up the way you have by now and we can't afford to let you go" the girl winked at me and I smiled to her words. Maybe there would be a chance for me to find a place in this world for a bit longer.
.
The third practice wasn't as strong from us as it should have been but the atmosphere was still high and everyone was confident about going into the qualifying today. I was told that cause it was my first race I could follow it downstairs the whole weekend. I had my own headset and everything. The situation after the FP3 had changed the standings quite a bit for us in the middle cast so it was going to be interesting.
Into the Q1. Carlos had some engine problems but fought his way into the Q2. After that there was some heartbeats as Charles was under the line, but it turned into the happy shouts as going into the Q3 Ferrari had a douple lead with a millisecond between the cars. In Q3 Max Verstappen rose to the pole and behind him were the two Mercedes cars. Charles starting in P4 was great news for us and Carlos in P8 just behind the two McLarens. The only car in between of the McLarens and Charles was Pierre Gasly with AlphaTauri.
Even though the result wasn't the best one for us I was pretty hyped to been able to witness all the fuss of the qualifying. Charles seemed to be happy with his performance. Carlos was little more down for his drive but didn't seem too angry or sad. I mean I knew he knew he could do better, so it was probably eating him up a little by little inside if this season was going to be this hard all the way.
I waited outside while going through my photos of the day. I was totally in love with most of them and couldn't wait for the team to see them. I think I had been able to catch some pretty amazing moments around the garage. There were some pictures of the around the paddock too that I was planning to keep just for myself.
There was one of Lewis with his dog, Daniel laughing at something (probably one of his own jokes) and then there was some photos of Cami and Nick and some other people from the team. Of course I had taken some photos of Carlos and Charles too that I was going to keep just for myself. I had this great plan of making a kind of photo book of my year here. Being here was something I never wanted to forget ever.
" Hey" I heard a tired and little sad sounding voice behind me and new it was Carlos right away.
" Hi" said to him looking at him not sure how I should act. I was the worst people with words when it came to making someone feel better, I felt like I always just ended up making them feel worse. That was something I needed to work on as I knew the nature of this sport. There was usually way more people that were disappointed than those who were happy with the way they had performed.
" What are you looking at?" he asked me looking at my computer screen.
" Just finding the photos I want to keep myself. I'm saving them to my computer before sending the rest to the boss" I explained.
" Can I see?" he asked and I nodded so he sat next to me on the ground. I began to go through the photos I was meaning to keep to myself, and I could see a little smile forming on his lips. I was happy that I could make him feel a little better and kept on going with the photos. Charles joined us after a while sitting on the other side of me. They laughed and made a little comments about the photos just the way I wanted to people to react when I showed them my pictures.
" What's going on here?" Daniel and Max walked past us and stopped looking down on the group sitting on the ground.
" We're just watching the pictures Sofia has taken this weekend so far" Charles told to the guys.
" There is some of you guys too if you wanna see," I told them shyly. I had met Daniel before but Max had always kind of scared me a bit, but now seeing him smiling down to us he didn't seem so scary after all.
"Yeah sure" Daniel told and dropped down next to Charles while Max sat down next to Carlos.
You know those moments in life when you're just feeling happy. This was one of them and I was very grateful to the other Ferrari photographer who happened to walk past us and took a picture with only me and my Ferrari boys and now also Daniel and Max. I looked beside me and just smiled. Carlos saw that and nudged me on my side and smiled to me. I was so happy. I hadn't been feeling this genuinely happy for too long time, so it was refreshing for sure.
Carlos and Charles had been pulled away from me, while we were heading back to the hotel, to some last-minute strategy meeting so I was left alone walking down towards the parking lot. I watched the pictures that the guy had taken us just a moment ago. He had been super nice and shared them with me right away.
I opened my Instagram and clicked the photo of three of us. I decided to post it right away. It was time to tell my friends and family that I was doing okay and loving my new job.
I captioned the photo 'part of my ferrari family' and tagged the guys on it. Both of them had started to follow me a while back but I didn't want to make such a big deal of it and come out like I was bragging, but then I had realized that I should and could be proud of knowing these guys and working here so I could post photos like this.
So I did.
I finally got back to the hotel and found Nick and Cami just about to leave for dinner. I shouted for them to wait and ran to my room and changed my clothes real quick. I caught up with the two friends of mine and we made our way to the dark streets of Bahrain.
"I saw the photo you posted," Nick told me.
"Oh yeah me too, it was so cute" Cami join the conversation.
"Yeah, so you liked it?" I asked with my eyes shining. I was feeling so proud and happy after today that I didn't it would be possible for me to feel any happier.
"Yes, I think it was perfect representation of you guys and your friendship. You looked really natural and comfy with each other." Nick stated and Cami was nodding her head alongside of him.
" Thanks guys, I'm really happy you know" I couldn't help but smile as wide as I could and both of the two put a hand over my shoulder as we continued our way to the food. We were seated in a window table in a small local restaurant as we ate and talked. I looked at my phone and saw that both Carlos and Charles had shared my photo which made me feel even more proud of myself. I was thinking how my brother and friends could see my face on Carlos Sainz's Instagram page.
"So how was the first qualifying?" Cami asked and the space filled with conversation about all the things that had gone down today.