Lando POV
I dance around the room, sipping on a alcoholic cocktails and taking photos with everyone who wants me, holding up my trophy as it glints in the dance floor lights. Everyone is drinking tonight and I happily placed my card behind the bar to sponsor it. I know I got lucky with that final lap, but man am I happy right now.
"Lando! Care for a photo with your boss?" Zak Brown throws his heavy arm around my shoulders and rips the enormous trophy from my hands as the camera flashes and flashes again. "You doing okay?" he shouts over the music.
"Yeah, great!" I laugh. He kisses the trophy and hands it back to me.
"Shame about Oscar, isn't it? I suppose I should find him and give him a little pep talk."
I force a smile and Zak Brown turns away. My eyes scan the room but don't see Oscar anywhere. I try to take that as a good thing, but some part of me wishes I had found him watching and ruminating in his own inadequacy. And some deeper part feels heavy, like a brick has settled in my stomach.
Will invites me to play beer pong but I feel sick at the thought, remembering how it went last time. At least my room is only upstairs now, not halfway across Woking, in case anything goes wrong tonight.
Eventually my body gives out and I flop into a comfy sofa on the outskirts of the party. I've raced at Monza today, the temple of speed, and won. I mustn't overdo it on the celebrations. I'm sick of being the only McLaren employee who doesn't know how to hold his drink.
"You okay?" Grace sits down beside me. "Great performance today!"
"Thanks," I smile. "But you don't have to congratulate me, everyone else has done enough of that already."
Grace laughs and offers me her bag of crisps. I decline and gaze tiredly around the room at my team. Happy, dancing, carefree. The whole season could've been like this if it wasn't for stupid Oscar Piastri.
"Are you thinking about Oscar?" Grace asks.
I tilt my head. "How did you know?"
"You always get this specific look on your face. Your eyebrows go tight and you clench your jaw."
"Yeah, those are signs of anger."
"But you did it! You really put him in his place today."
I sigh. Why do all conversations with Grace come back around to Oscar?
"I know why I have problems with Oscar," I say, "but why do you hate him so much?"
Grace nibbles on a crisp for a while before she answers.
"He's just... an antagonist. The paddock would be a better place without him."
I study her, searching for a hint of a lie, but the moment passes and I look back at the crowd. The brick in my stomach is growing.
Will shouts at the DJ to put on some limbo music, whatever that means. He spots me sitting at the edge of the room and strides over purposefully.
"Lando, you have to be part of the limbo competition! Come on, you're so short it'll be easy for you."
"Hey!" I complain and Will laughs drunkenly. He grabs my arm and I allow him to drag my out of my seat. I shrug and smile at Grace as we leave her behind. I feel a little bad, but I'm glad for a distraction from Oscar Piastri.
In the centre of the room, two of the pit crew hold a piece of car wiring at a height that I could just about walk under. Will releases me at the edge of the crowd as Leah shimmies up to face the challenge first.
"Level one!" they scream.
Nobody goes out on level one. Limbo music turns out to be some generic Spanish or Mexican songs which I can't understand a word of, but the atmosphere is buzzing anyway. As I breeze through levels two, three and four and the crowd chants my name in a deafening roar, I'm reminded that Oscar isn't here. The knot of guilt in my stomach returns, but I push it away. Oscar has nothing to celebrate tonight. If he doesn't want to be here, that's his choice.
Grace only watches the game, as always. She loves to lurk on the edges of a party, never letting her guard down and never getting involved. I guess that's why we've always gotten on so well. We both try to avoid attracting attention. Unless one of us has just won the Italian Grand Prix, of course.
I make it to round eight, the car-wiring limbo pole falling an arbitrary amount with every round that passes. There are only four of us left, one of whom is Will who clearly suggested this game because he's really good at it.
Tim goes out on round nine and Leah on round ten. Will shakes his fist at me playfully as the mechanics lower the wire again.
"I shouldn't have invited you to play," he laughs.
"You should've known I'd be good at it, nobody has better abs than me," I joke. "Is there a prize?"
"How about your race trophy?"
"Not a chance in hell."
I'm first up. I've worked out a pretty good technique in the previous rounds and I know the key is just not to rush things. I engage my abs, tense my glutes and make baby steps all the way under the wire before falling to my knees on the other side. The crowd applauds wildly and I take a bow.
"Go on Will," I grin from the other side of the wire.
Will, on the other hand, takes the final way too quickly. His steps are too big, he isn't focussing on his form, and he has to start again twice because his hands touch the floor.
"Last chance!" somebody calls. The music turns down low. I fold my arms and raise my chin defiantly.
Will falls on his elbows.
"And the winner, for the second time today, is Lando Norris!"
My team lift me up in the air. It's a bit much for a limbo party game, but I know it stands for much more than that. It's about the whole day, the whole weekend, this season where we've been making a brand new history together. I laugh and complain, but inside I know I've never been so happy in my whole life.
I just wish Oscar was here to see it.
Oscar POV
As soon as I can leave the party, I do. I wait until nobody is watching and tear off, hiding my face as I navigate endless yellow corridors to my room. When I finally find the correct door I throw it open and stumble inside, panting.
What's happened to me?
Tears well in my eyes until I can't blink them away anymore. My throat is tight. I want to cough, but instead I sob.
Why does everything go wrong? Why couldn't I have just one piece of good luck, one solitary reward for all my hard work and everything I've been through?
I shiver in the middle of the room, trying to control myself. I can't. My cheeks are wet with tears and yet I'm paralysed, unable to wipe them. I wanted to be the best. Now nobody will believe in me.
I lose track of how long I stand there, staring at bleary nothing, arms wrapped around myself tightly as I cry. At a certain point I know I have to move. I have to get myself back together. What use is standing around crying? Which racing drivers have I ever heard of who whined and complained while their rivals lifted trophies and won championships? I'm sure there have been some, but I've never heard of them. Because their names don't go down in history.
I force myself into the bathroom and tear some paper tissues for my eyes, avoiding my reflection. I sit on the closed toilet lid and open my phone, a force of habit.
Instagram is flooded with photos of Lando. His sixth race win, his fourth in a row. Comments like McLaren are unstoppable and this year's champion? I swallow the lump in my throat again and again.
I open Twitter and, against my better judgement, run a search on my name. I'm half expecting to see streams of hatred, people saying I can't drive, people calling for me to be sacked. But actually, I see the opposite. Popular F1 bloggers calling it an unlucky coincidence, people sympathising with the situation saying I deserve to have a win by now. The fans seem to be really upset by what happened.
I can almost hear the party downstairs. Has anyone even realised I'm missing? It isn't my party, it's Lando's. I didn't win the race, he did. I didn't even finish it.
My phone pings and I wipe my eyes to read the message. I lean forward, frowning. George Russell?
Hey, man. I understand how you feel right now. It's pretty low that your team are downstairs celebrating when you had such a horrible race. Are you okay?
I double check the sender, and I double and triple check the message. Is this some kind of joke? George Russell, Lando's best friend, messaging me to sympathise?
I pace the tiny white bathroom and type a reply at least five different ways, unsure what to say.
Thanks... Yeah. That one hurt.
I hit send and hold my breath, leaning on the side of the shower. I'm close to letting my armour down, opening my heart, and I know that's a dangerous thing to do in this sport. Do I want to talk about what happened? Do I want to talk to him?
Are you still in the BlueRare Hotel? Want to go for a walk?
I have to sit in the shower cubicle to process that message. George Russell wants to walk with me, the arch nemesis of his oldest friend on the grid? I consider the possibilities, meeting my own warped eyes in the shiny tiles. He could be tricking me. He could lure me out only to start telling me how much better his best friend is than me. As I imagine it more and more though, I know he wouldn't trick me. George Russell is the kindest person in Formula One.
Room 617, I write.
On my way.
I scramble off the floor, hitting my knee on the sink with a yelp. I didn't expect such a fast response. The red splotches on my face don't die down with water, no matter how much I splash my skin. Lie, I think desperately. Tell him I accidentally ate a shrimp, and that I'm allergic.
I pull on some different clothes and spray myself with my cologne. Then I shake my head at myself in the mirror. Who am I meeting, a famous supermodel? It's only George Russell, for god's sake.
There's a knock at the door.
"Come in," I croak, and cringe at myself in the mirror.
"Hey," George's friendly face and sympathetic smile appear in the doorway. "Woah, it smells like a perfumery in here."
I chuckle softly and waft the air in front of me. "Sorry. I didn't know what sort of a night you had planned."
George shrugs. "Nothing much. Why, do you want to end up in a club?"
"Maybe I should drink away my sorrows."
The sympathy on George's face would make me curdle with embarrassment if I didn't know that he'd been through it all before. His first ever race for Mercedes ended almost exactly the same as this one did for me, defeat snatched from the jaws of victory.
"Got everything? Let's get out of here."
The night air is cool and humid. This area of Italy is particularly beautiful, and not only because it holds so much Formula One history. A bright half moon shines in the sky along with its stars and lights from distant villages twinkle on the sides of the mountains around us.
"Don't you think we'll get recognised if we walk around like this?"
George shrugs, tucking his hands in his pockets. "It'll be a nice distraction."
"How did your race go?" I ask, realising I have no idea about any of the other standings. I only know two things: That Lando won, and that I was the only one who didn't finish.
"Sixth," he sighs. "Lewis smashed into me and I lost a few places, as well as peppering the road with debris."
"I know all about that," I say darkly.
George grimaces. "Sorry. The car just isn't powerful enough for some reason. You'd think it'd be at least as good as yours, seeing as how we have the same engine."
"We have better engineers, though."
George laughs sharply. "You wish."
We walk down thin roads, lined on both sides with low stone walls and fragrant flower bushes. The centre of the city is a long way away but the crickets and distant bass rhythms provide a nice soundtrack to our walk.
"Why did you invite me out here?" I finally ask.
George hesitates for a while, studying something on the horizon. "Lando says a lot about you. I wanted to see if what he's been telling me is true."
"What does he say..."
"Mostly he talks about how annoying you are."
"I say the same about him!"
"He mentioned something about a milkshake."
"I made him a nice milkshake, it was him who tried to poison me."
"Yeah, he didn't like that. It made him feel guilty."
I laugh harshly, but inside I'm on fire. I made that milkshake as a gesture of goodwill in our first media session. How can he badmouth me about that?
"Anything else I should know about?"
"No. He just repeats the same things over and over again."
Our walk takes us in a little loop of the suburbs. It's quiet, most people are already asleep or partying in the centre, and we don't add any noise. I'm weirdly comfortable in George's company. He isn't judging me and it doesn't seem like he's taken any of Lando's badmouthing of me to heart. I'm relaxed, but I wonder whether he is.
"Why did you want to get out of the hotel?" I ask. "Are you feeling okay?"
George smiles a small, sad smile. "How did you know?"
"It was just so unexpected to hear from you, and then I didn't think you'd ask to hang out. We could have done this ages ago. Something must have triggered it."
"Yeah, something did," he nods. "I saw Lando in the hotel going totally wild, drinking out of his trophy, the works. Way happier than he's been before about a win. It's not right. I never thought I would see Lando so spiteful and vengeful. It's not like him at all."
"Oh believe me, it is."
"No," George repeats. "It's not. And after having spoken to you, I'm sure it's not your fault. Something else must be making him like this."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know, maybe a hidden goal or agenda. You're just a normal guy. I don't get why he hates you so much."
I scratch the back of my head, feeling awkward. George taking pity on me is one thing, but he doesn't know how much I did to anger Lando in the first half of the season. And he certainly doesn't know the full story of Formula Renault.
"I don't get it either," I lie as we round the corner of our hotel. "But it's nothing I can't handle."
"Well, feel free to reach out. You don't have to do this on your own."
"Thanks, George."
George gives me a brief one-armed hug before we part ways in the reception. I step into the lift and press the button. My face in the mirror looks even and soft. What a strange turn of events, finding a new ally in all of this. But was George telling the truth, that it's really not my fault? My heart races at the thought.
Not my fault.
All this time I've been trying to break Lando down, fight my corner, stand my ground. I thought it was me who turned him from a sweet young racer into this monster of a teammate.
The lift dings and opens on my floor. My lungs fill with warm air as I step out. My mind is racing. If this is really not my fault, maybe I can keep my seat for next season. More than that, though. If this is really not my fault, maybe there's a way to fix everything after all.