Sebastian and Daniel are standing in the kitchen drinking coffee. First of all nothing special, but it is 04:30am and the tiredness that Daniel's eyes reflect is incredibly big.
Woken by constant nightmares, he stands in the kitchen leaning against the counter, drinking his third cup. Seb is glady only awake because he always senses when one of his roommates is not feeling well.
When it is finally time for breakfast and everyone is sitting at the table, the German grasps a decision.
"Kinners, we have to change something. The rooms will be redrawn and no one will switch. K-Mag and Hulk will stay in one room, and we'll assign the rest."
The younger ones nod slightly in relief, wondering who they'll get to room with.
After breakfast, the list is then posted on the bulletin board.
Pascal, Stoffel
Daniel, Tonio
Valtteri, Zhou
Max, Charles
Pierre, Yuki
George, Alex
Esteban, Lance
Mick, Nikita
Carlos, Lando
Oscar, Logan
The drivers are happy. Even Max and Charles.
Sebastian is now heading upstairs for an interview. In it, he is to talk about the mental stability of the drivers.
"All right, so I'm here today to talk about the mental health of the drivers. I definitely can say that it's fucked up. Traumatic experiences, hate and pressure leads us into a darkness. And most of us don't have the light in the darkness. I luckily have one with Kimi but the younger ones, Daniel, Nico and Kevin don't have it. They wander around in the darkness with no way out.
And I've never seen a man as much broken as Daniel is. Never. He smiles through the pain and hopes that no one realizes it. We have 19 drivers with mental health problems and last week there were 31 panic attacks. And the saddest thing is, that it's not as bad as in the beginning.
The drivers are crying for hours, breaking down in their rooms, screaming with the hope someone would hear them, hiding under tables and beds because of nightmares and without sleep.
I had a time, where I didn't wanted to go to sleep and was a awake for 4 days straight because I was too scared to sleep. But then Kimi helped me out of it and this is something they don't have. They have the pressure, the hate and so much else, they just close themselves off and refuse to talk about it because they are afraid of being laughed at.
And when you see that every day and notice how they break more and more, a little piece breaks in you too.
That's why we're desperately trying to keep all this away from Oscar Piastri and Logan Sargeant, so they don't have to go through it.
Formula 1 is our passion, it has given us family but F1 is also incredibly toxic. Most of it comes from team bosses and the press. That's why I'm telling you this. Because sometimes the press just goes way too far.
There is always a natural pressure. But all the lies that are spread, all the rumors that come out of nowhere, interviews that are twisted and the rude questions to the drivers make it much harder to enjoy the race weekend.
In 3 weeks Formula 1 starts again and we older drivers are really just trying to rebuild the mentality. We know what to do but we also ask all the reporters and fans to think about what you ask.
Thank you!" Sebastian ends.
Before the journalist can even ask a question, the Ferrari driver hangs up and runs into the living room where a touching scene greets him.
All the drivers have brought mattresses into the living room and are now setting up a huge camp to have a movie night. Snacks are fetched, movies are picked out and seats are assigned.
Sebastian starts to smile, knowing that with the new room layout everything would be better and the parents could sleep peacefully.
~~~~~~~~~~
I decided that it's time to go back on track for them.