"We're going to be late." The story of Emilia's life. Emilia threw clothes at Lando across the bedroom.
"It'll be fine. We just overslept." Emilia shrugged getting changed herself.
"You don't have a meeting in twenty minutes." Lando pointed out.
"That is true. I'm going down to the buffet to have a three course meal before I leave." Emilia answered rubbing it in Lando's face. Three courses would be too much for a race morning but that wasn't the point.
"Yeah sure enjoy that. I need to go, good luck today." Lando threw a jumper over his head and put on his shoes.
"Good luck I love you." Emilia kissed Lando as he was leaving. "Not even going to brush your teeth."
"I haven't got time, Jon's waiting. I love you." Lando said as he closed the door behind him. Emilia had a much less rushed morning as she didn't need to be at the track until later. She was going to sit by herself at breakfast when Lewis called her name. He was gesturing to join her, Toto was also there.
"Good morning." Emilia greeted as she sat down. "Any news?" Emilia whispered trying to be secretive.
"No I haven't made a fully decision but I'll probably stay, I don't want to get your hopes up." Lewis answered.
"Is that a grey hair I see?" Emilia asked squinting at Lewis' hair. She was trying to not sound disappointed with Lewis' answer.
"What where?" Lewis pulled his phone out to look at the camera when he saw Emilia laughing. He looked at his team principal for support.
"Emilia stop peer pressuring Lewis into retiring." Toto whispered tiredly.
"I forget how grumpy he gets at the end of the season." Emilia said to Lewis who nodded in agreement.
"At least he doesn't have you trying to win F2 as well. Last year he was especially tense."
"Maybe that's why his hair is so grey." Emilia said thoughtfully.
"I am here you know." Toto folded his arms.
"We know." Lewis and Emilia said simultaneously.
"Both of you will lose your jobs." Toto warned.
"Empty threats." Emilia coughed.
"You couldn't afford to lose either of us." Lewis shrugged. "I've won you a billion Championships and Emilia will win you a billion more. You don't want us to go to Red Bull do you?"
"You wouldn't go to Red Bull." Toto replied.
"We would." Lewis said winding Toto up. Emilia felt like she would not be able to get away annoying Toto this much without Lewis being there, he was definitely Toto's favourite child and rightfully so.
"Oh actually I can't, my manager wouldn't let me." Emilia stated.
"Who's your manager?" Lewis asked and Emilia pointed to Toto.
"It's fine, I'll be your manager and we can go be besties with Christian."
"Over my dead body." Toto huffed.
"Toto we won't leave you for Red Bull." Lewis assured. He continued eating his food. "Are you really Emilia's manager?"
"Yeah he is." Emilia responded. "Why? Is that not good?"
"Did he offer to do it or did you ask?" Lewis questioned.
"He sort of told me he was going to be my manager and I was like okay." Emilia replied. "Why? You're concerning me now."
"No I'm just surprised Toto wanted to do it. He has enough stress in his life." Lewis admitted.
"I'm not that stressful to manage." Emilia defended. She looked for Toto for support.
"You are the most difficult to manage out of all the junior drivers." Toto sighed. "But for the talent you have, it is definitely worth it." Toto didn't hand out compliments to Emilia often so she appreciated in rather even if it came with the comment beforehand.
"Thanks Toto." Emilia smiled. "I'll try not to crash into Lewis today if but he did qualify quite a bit ahead of me as per. Do you want me to like let him past if he ends up behind me?" Emilia questioned quietly.
"I would like you to not do anything that will raise my heart rate." Toto answered.
"Okay cool. I have to go to the track, I'll see you later and good luck." Emilia said and got up having finished her food. Toto's response was a clear enough response.
Soon enough, it was race time. Emilia was in her grid spot doing her little shuffle while the rest of the grid formed. The red lights glared at the stationary cars then turned off all at once and the stationary cars became mobile. Emilia knew this first corner was going to be a mess. There were cars everywhere and there was a slim chance of all twenty cars going go unscathed. Emilia was determined to make sure she was not one of them.
The two cars either side of Emilia, once of which was Lando, were moving closer towards her. But Lando was hit from behind so Emilia steered to dodge being caught in the crossfire. She continued on driving round the second corner and through the third when a red flag was brought out.
Emilia tried to remain calm as she knew Lando had crashed but it didn't look bad. Still, she was concerned about a second impact.
"Lando's okay." John informed. He didn't have to give her that information but Emilia was so glad to hear it.
"Thank you John." Emilia breathed a sigh of relief.
During the red flag, Emilia talked with her engineers and kept her mind sharp with her trainer so she would be ready to race whenever the signal was given. It was a while as there were five cars out of the race and it took time to remove them all and repair the barriers. This also meant George was able to gain places. It put Williams in a good position for the Constructor's Championship.
The ten minute warning was given and Emilia got back in her car trying to focus on the race. She took her deep breaths clearing her mind of everything that wouldn't help her excel in this race. The grid lined up again and Emilia was hoping this start would go smoother. Her wishes came true and all fifteen cars made it out the first chicane without any crashes.
It continued like this and Emilia stayed in P5 but this became the problem. She couldn't pass the car in front of her. Emilia was stuck behind Valtteri Bottas and she couldn't get close enough to overtake. Being in his dirty air was hurting her tyres and heating up her engine.
"What do we do about this? I can't get past." Emilia said to John.
"We want to wait a bit to see if there's a safety car." John responded.
"I'm not progressing anywhere." Emilia pointed out. She was getting frustrated though P5 would be perfectly fine, but that's not how F1 drivers work. They always wanted to improve and do better.
"Copy." John replied which only annoyed Emilia more. She could understand why they wanted to wait but Emilia didn't want to be stuck behind the Mercedes anymore. However, it was the penultimate race of the season, not losing out on points was crucial especially when it meant pulling a risky move against a Mercedes.
Emilia dropped back from Valtteri to cool her engine and brakes leaving the gap to a couple of seconds. She was waiting for the call to push which would be the lap before she pits. It got to the point where Emilia's tyres were completely gone.
"What are we doing?" Emilia asked to check the team hadn't forgotten about her.
"Push now Emilia, box this lap." John replied immediately.
Emilia tried to push but her tyres were awful. She could not catch Valtteri up so there was no way that an undercut would work. To make matters worse, the pit stop was slow. Emilia came out even more frustrated than she had been before the pit stop.
The back luck didn't stop there. On her out-lap, the safety car came out so everyone basically had a free pit stop. This couldn't get much worse. Emilia remembered her previous race and remained calm. None of this was in her control, she had to focus on what was to come which was a safety car restart.
The safety car came in and Emilia focused on her restart. It was difficult to overtake on this track but Emilia could do it. She was in P14 but she knew she could back into the points.
On the restart Emilia managed to get a much better run than the Alpine in front of her and was challenging it into the first corner. She made sure to leave plenty of room so the Alpine didn't collide with her. Emilia smoothly moved up to P13. She could do this and there was half of the race still to go.
Emilia didn't get a chance to overtake the car in P12 until DRS was activated. She patiently waited until the Alpha Tauri made a mistake so Emilia could slide right past. The Alpha Tauri almost hit Emilia as it tried to position itself on the racing line once again.
The points were not far away and Emilia was determined to get some. George was not too far away either and with Lando's DNF, Williams needed to maximise on the points available. Although, Emilia found it difficult to overtake; she found herself in a DRS train and no one able to overtake each other. It was frustrating but Emilia had learned from Brazil that the best way to deal with it was to be patient and not get frustrated.
"Is pitting going to help?" Emilia asked seeing if she could get out of this DRS train.
"No." John responded. Well that answered that. It was probably because she would get stuck behind slower cars and her new tyres would not be enough of an advantage to overtake them on this track then she would be even further back than she was now.
Eventually, there was a safety car. The pits were carnage with everyone swapping to softs with only ten laps to go. Hopefully, there would be a bit more action for Emilia in these last ten laps, the good kind of action, than there had been in the last twenty laps.
By the time the safety car went in, there were eight racing laps left. There were only about eight cars left running after many of them having crashed. The circuit was new, it was difficult and that is not something you put at the end of the F1 calendar when every overtake is so much more important. Obviously, there were more than eight cars left running as Emilia was stuck in P11 gaining a place from the crash. Plus, she was not the last car, there were a couple behind her.
"Full focus Emilia, let's get some points." John encouraged. Emilia did not manage that. She got a singular point but she thought her overtake should have been worth ten points at least.
The Ferrari in front of Emilia had come out of turn three all wrong after narrowly avoiding contact with the wall. Emilia pounced and was level with it down to turn four. Emilia had the outside line committing to the overtake. This outside turned into the inside for turn six and Emilia slipped through into P10.
There were no overtaking opportunities after that and Emilia also had her teammate in front of her. She wasn't going to risk that and George wouldn't have been able to let her past without letting other cars through either.
Williams finished the weekend with three points. It was not what they wanted especially with Daniel finishing in P4. It certainly put them on the back foot going into Abu Dhabi. Emilia felt that she couldn't have done more than that. Despite the result, she was proud for finishing the race. Emilia had learnt her lesson, she did not get angry and frustrated, she was patient and calm. It only earned her a point but it may be a point that makes a difference in the end.
Once out her car, Emilia congratulated the winners and briefly spoke to her team. Media duties could wait, Emilia wanted to find Lando. Emilia was hoping there would be a lot of focus on the podium ceremony so no one would notice if she slipped into the McLaren building. She ignored the stares from the other members of McLaren as she navigated to Lando's driver room but found it empty.
Emilia thought she might know where he would be as he tended to find somewhere quiet out of the way of the cameras when something went wrong. Emilia was right, she found Lando around the back of the McLaren building. Initially, Emilia wasn't sure or not if it was him as it was poorly lit but the papaya of his teamwear still shone through the darkness.
Emilia didn't say anything at first instead just sat with him. Lando had changed out of his race suit so presumably he had already done all his media duties he needed to.
"How long have you been here?" Emilia asked.
"Not long, I watched most of the race in the garage then I came here at the end. How'd you find me?" Lando rested his head on Emilia's shoulder.
"I know you." Emilia responded. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"I'm just annoyed. We were on for something good today. Daniel got P4, I could have got a good points haul but I was wiped out before I had the chance." Lando sighed resting his head on Emilia's shoulder.
"It wasn't your fault, there's nothing you could have done." Emilia assured. "Plus, you're ahead in the Championship."
"True. That's not so great for you though." Lando pointed out.
"I know but don't worry about that for a minute." Emilia replied. "What can I do to make you feel better?"
"You being here is more than enough. You face, your smile, your voice, your smell, I love it. I love everything about you. Thank you for finding me, I didn't expect you to come." Lando replied.
"I will always come, I'll always be here for you." Emilia promised.
"As long as the helmet's not on." Lando said. It was an agreement they had made. While they race, there is full focus on the racing but as soon as the race is neutralised or finishes, the priority is each other. It was a balance between wanting to get the most out of their careers whilst not sacrificing their relationship.
"As long as the helmet's not on." Emilia agreed. "I'm glad you're okay. I don't like it when you crash."
"I'll try not to crash next time." Lando smiled. Emilia still got butterflies in her stomach when he smiled at her. She wondered if they would ever stop or whether the butterflies had decided to make a habitat of her stomach. "Your overtake was impressive."
"It made my shit my pants." Emilia laughed. "Thank you though. Shame it wasn't for more points."
"You got one. McLaren are still worried about you and George when you get a track you can overtake on." Lando confessed.
"Are you included in that 'McLaren'?" Emilia questioned.
"No I think you'll be easy to beat." Lando teased. He looked at Emilia. "You're not ready to leave." Lando stated. Emilia shook her head. A few months ago, Emilia was debated if she wanted to carry on racing at all now she would give anything for an F1 seat. Maybe she shouldn't have given up on Alfa Romeo so easily but there was nothing she could do about that now.
"No, I'm not ready to leave." Emilia said. This year had been Emilia's most difficult year yet it was her best at the same time. F1 was the pinnacle of motorsport and that's where she wanted to race. The risks and rewards were so much bigger. She had the highs of the highs and the lows of the lows and she got to do it with her best friends and boyfriend. It was an experience that she wanted to do over again but Emilia was unsure if she ever would. She could be a one season wonder and not excel in other series so she fades into a distant memory becoming a driver people refer to 'could have' won this and that but won nothing in the end.
Lewis didn't look like he was retiring either. He was happy and Emilia could not be mad at him for that. His seat was always a maybe yet Emilia had been hopeful. Emilia had given it her all this season and her all wasn't enough. That was just the way it had worked out. All she could do was try her best elsewhere and hope there was an opening on the grid for her the following year.
"It's okay to not want to leave." Lando said. "I don't want you to leave, I'd give you my seat if I could."
"That's not how it works. That's not how this was supposed to go either, I was supposed to come here and comfort you." Emilia replied.
"Relationships work both ways love. We're here for each other." Lando reminded.
"We're here for each other." Emilia repeated wrapping her arms around Lando.
I hope I have convinced everyone that this conversation is progression and gives everyone faith for the sequel. But they are not perfect yet, that is why there is a sequel. Also, Emilia did disappear off to do her media duties, she was not going to get away with it but I felt adding it to the end of the chapter ruined the mood.
So I have a plan for finishing this book. Chapter 85 will be released next Tuesday or Wednesday then the final chapter will be on the 7th of March which means I will finish the book exactly two years after I posted the first chapter. It works out perfectly. Then an author's note and one bonus chapter will follow shortly after that. Hope that's good with everyone <3