Arriving in Qatar later than most, I immediately went to the track for Mercedes practice, to the point my luggage was still in the car. I was nervous for this Grand Prix. It was a new track for me, and I did pretty good at best in sim racing. Ok, that's a lie, but they apparently changed a lot. I went into Mercedes. The car was ready and waiting. Going around a few laps, I felt how hard this would actually be. The sand had blown across the track slightly, and certain corners were hard to go around without going off. Finishing my few laps, I got out of the car, and smiled. This was a really good car. Complementing the engineers, I put on the mercedes headphones, and after posing for a picture, listened in on certain stats of the car. It was kind of borning, but absolutely necessary. I felt Lewis' presence in the seat next to me as he tuned into the same video. I wish I could drive with the same helmet as him, if anything to support the community, but it was more of a 7x world champion thing. That didn't mean I couldn't show up in an outfit that made a statement, tho.
We finished up, and just walked around. There were some celebrities that had gotten invited, and guests of drivers were her too...
"Cecelia!" I started grinning before I even turned around. Running up, one of my best friends that I met through Sim Racing, Patrone Dehelnas hugged me. I flinched away, before realizing it was him, and want into the hug. We hugged, and I breathed in his scent, it was almost cinnomony. I had met Patron in real life once, when he came to one of my F2 races. Excitedly, I showed him around this paddock. As we passed by, I saw Max staring, so I dropped his arm subtly, as we kept walking. Finishing our tour, I saw him looking in awe at everything. It made me realize how much of this I took for granted. As the day progressed, it only got hotter and hotter. Patrone and I went from talking with the other drivers in the paddock to holed up at the top of the AC'd Mercedes garage. We ran tests and practiced until it was time to go. Even after the practice, which was only me and Lewis going around 12 times, I felt like I was going to die; I did not know how well I would do in the actual race. Going to the hotel room, I questioned for the first time if I was ready for this.
The next few days were a maze of course outlining, statistics, and much more testing. By the time our one and only free practice came, I felt kind of ready.
—-
"Bianchi in P8, Hamilton in P13. Not the best result for the team, but butter then some others. I hope they get plenty of rest for qualifiers in a few short hours!"
—
"Hamilton in P3, and Bianchi in P2! What a spectacular return from our amazing rookie of the season! And an amazing do-over from the free practice!"
"Speaking of amazing rookies, we had that show of Piastri in pole up until five minutes ago! As well as Sargant in P14 which is one of his highest starts of the season!"
"All in all, I'm sure we're going to see some amazing displays from all our rookies this week!"
After finishing in P4, I could barely make it out of the car. Even only 19 laps made me feel like I would pass out. What about 57? Getting out of the car, I was met with open arms from Patrone. "That was amazing, Ceceile! P4! Lando, and maybe Piastri were over the line." I smiled at him, and he let me sink into him a little because it felt like my legs would give out any minute. I heard a camera click, and we broke apart. Annoyed, I mouthed sorry to him, before walking farther into the garage. I went out to do interviews after a quick video chat with Lewis, Toto, and I. When I got there, the majority of drivers had cleared out, only Max, Oscar, and a few others remained. Oh shit! The scoreboards changed! Both Oscar and Lando apparently exceed track limits, like Patrone predicted, causing their time to be deleted. That means I'm P2! I saw a camera pointed at me, so I stared up, and flashed a big smile. It was not long until an interviewer come up to me.
"Ceceile! How do you feel about your new P2 position?"
"It's amazing! The car was spectacular today, the track less so, but they'res always room for improvement. I'm about to go to a drivers meeting, but I'll be sure to come back by tommerow." I walked away, heading to Mercedes garage, ready for what would come in a few hours. I got good sleep, with the schedule actually saying I would not between the sprint, and the race with everything we had to prepare. The sprint day worked in two parts; the shootout, which was qualifiers,and the actual sprint. At the hotel, only then did I realize that I was too hyped up to get any sleep at all. I grabbed pepper spray, which I took everywhere now, and my phone, befor beheading to the hotel gym. It was closed at this time, but the staff said it was open to the Mercedes drivers at any time, so I took that as now as well. Going on the treadmill, I ran for about forty five minutes, before stopping. Lewis had told me about how taxing this race was. After, I had finished that, I saw an insta dm notification.
KellyPiquet
Kellypiquet: Hey, I'm so sorry to bother you, I just quite literally have no other options. My daughter and I are stranded in Paris, with our luggages, passports, and my phone lost due to several accidents in the airport. I used to have many connections to the Formula world, and could have easily asked Ocon or Gasley, but I dropped out of contact with them. My father is Nelson Piquet. I won't bother you, I have my wallet, so I can buy new clothes, I just don't have any sort of ID.
This was probably the strangest message I had ever gotten. I video chatted her, because for all I knew she had gotten hacked. I knew who Nelson was, but I had no idea who this lady was, of what her history was with the formula one world. She picked up almost immaditedly. She was stunning. I looked to her profile, and saw it was in fact the same woman. After an hour long conversation, I agreed to let her stay for three days, as was how long her modeling gig took. Booting up all the cameras in the house, and kept tabs on her and her daughter for a few minutes, until I actually got tired, and went to sleep after texting the head of the houses security, Andrea, to watch the tapes. It's not that I didn't trust them, but I just don't. I also gave my housekeeper some extra money to get a gift for the five year old. After a good six hours of sleep, which is more than I normally got, and drove to the track. Parking about seven blocks away in an alleyway, I put my head on the wheel, and just took deep breaths. I don't understand why I was so worried about this. Pulling out, I broke suddenly, as to not hit people walking. They stared at me, before gasping as my face clicked in their brain. Locking the doors, I waved, before motionint htem to move. They took out their phones. Lovely. I waved again, for the recording, before motioning for them to move... yet again. It was not light outside. This time, they understood, and moved to the side. I cracked the window, and smiled. "Hi! Are you going to the grand prix?" They asked, giddy happy to meet me.
"Yes! I have a drivers meeting then I'm warming up! Nice to meet you!" I waved goodbye, before rolling up my window and driving away. I loved meeting fans. It was honestly crazy to me that I actually had fans. Driving up, I went to the headphones to have briefings. I would start on softs for the sprint shootout. After learning strategy, it was time to race.
—
And that is it for our 2023 sprint shootout! Rookie Oscar Piastri takes pole, with teammate Lando Norris close behind! Ceceile Bianchi takes P3 right out from under the almost 3 time world champion! Remember, Verstappen only needs to get P8 or above to win the title! We are gearing towards an amazing sprint race coming up later today! I took off my Balaclava and helmet , taking my hair out of the low pony, and ruffleing it. Walking into the mercedes garage, I had yet another call with Toto, except it was in my driver room with just him and me.
"Are you positive you can race this week? We still have Mick as our stand-in racer." I smiled at Toto. At least he cared. Probably about the company more then me, but still. It was meaningful.
"My shoulder is fine, seriously."
"Ceceile. I wasn't talking about your shoulder." Tears blurred in my eyes, as shock and embarrassment flashed across my face.
"H-how?"
"Don't worry about that Ceceile, no one else knows. I bought the small journalist company that was going to run the story. They now work under Mercedes AMG-Petronas. Only two people, who both signed life-binding NDAs know. I'm worried about you. Are you sure that your okay? Because it's better to check yourself her then on the track. I took a deep breath, before wiping my eyes.
"Yes, Toto, I'm okay to race." He nodded, and never brought it up again in our conversation. I went out to do press, before going back in and talking strategy. Inbetween races, Patrone, Eva, Lewis, and I went to the top of the Mercedes. Since Monico, Eva had rarely left my side, scared for anything that could go wrong. This was amazing, and offered me some comfort, yet heads were starting to turn, as they were anytime I spent too much time with anyone. Hamilton and I both had doctors running around, performing checks, and putting IV drips in our arms to give us more liquids. Patrone asked if we could film a tiktok, so we gathered around, and endlessly clicked a filter until we figured out what car from the movie Cars we would be. I was Cruz, who I got on my first try, and felt fit, Patrone was hell beant on getting Storm, Eva didn't really care, and was happy with Cal, and we reset the filter probably fifty times until Lewis got the car he designed. He posted that, then we just had fun up until forty five minutes until it was time to go. Lewis and I talked 1 on 1 strategy, with me so far forward, and him so far back. I would try to gain as many possessions as I could, while maintaining a reasonable pace, and playing mostly defence, so that he could try and catch up with cars sort of in a line. After talking with race engineers, they had said to just try and get as much of a lead as we could. Getting in our cars, we got ready to go.
Lining up, I was fourth. On softs, I was sure I could go around Lando, and maybe Oscar. After doing our formation lap, we stopped again, waiting for the green light. Fuck, it was even hotter. The sweat was now pouring out of me in a way I have never sweated before. This was so much worse than Singapore. I tapped my helmet to get in the zone, before gripping the wheel. Hot and dehydrated people do crazy shit sometimes. I rolled my shoulders back as the lights counted down. Green light, let's go. I show off the line, pulling ahead of Lando and almost Oscar going into turn one. I had to brake, and dip down into P2 to avoid crashing. Oop, Safety car. Someone spun out. We followed the car for a lap, before I got a radio.
"Okay Ceceile, safety car is going to drop out in two turns."
"Hit him hard before he knows whats going on?"
"Affirmitive, Ceceile."
Simular to what Marcus had said, the safety car entered the turn off point, and I pushed the car, downshifting slightly to go faster. Leaping around corner six, I managed to get around Piastri! Slowing down, I used my mirrors to make sure no one would overtake me. I lead like this for a few laps, letting Hamilton get up to tenth. On lap four, we had yet another spin out into the gravel. For three whole laps, we had to have a safety car, which was not helpful for our plan. I would have to put it into overtime.
"Ceceile. We need you to boost possible reaction to pace once the safety car leaves," Marcus told me. What the fuck does that mean?
"What does that mean?' I said it a little to loud, but I was focusing on not crashing.
"Just bring your pace up, we don't want you to get overtaken."
"I won't, don't worry. I'll boost the pace a little." On the seventh, I brought the pace up a little, but still kept the cars behind me, behind me. Oh shit! In my mirrors, I saw what happend. Perez and Esteban sandwiched Hülkenberg, making him have to pull back, but in doing so he clipped the two of them. For most of the rest of the race, the safety car was in play. It ducked out once the crash was cleared, and I didn't press on the accelerator enough, causing Piastri to get around me. For a few laps, we battled, until he inevidivly won on mediums. Shit. If I had kept the pace up, that never would have happened. I finished in P2, and because of my intervention, Lewis finished in P5. Running up, he hugged me, happy to have gotten so many points. When we broke away, I went up to oscar, doing our handshake, before slapping him in the back of his helmet to congratulate him. Then, Max came out... Max came out. I couldn't help but stare at him. He looked so happy! He ran into a sea of engineers, waiting to congratulate him. He got third, behind me after booting Lando out of the podium. After he finished celebrating with his team, I held out my arms for a congratulations hug. He accepted, and both of us with sweat seeping through our clothes, and helmets still on, hugged. When we broke apart, we went to get the trophies from our sprint. Only then did we take off our helmets, and put on team hats, before going to press. When all that wrapped up, Hamilton and I went to the Mercedes, for a long night of strategy.
— The morning came quickly, with Hamilton and I passing out at around three in the morning, and waking up at six for race day because of an insane new add-on that had all the engineers freaking out about. Apparently last night the FIA had made it so the track was even more condensed, as well as a mandatory 18 lap pit stop, which just adds to the confusion. The rest of the day was just getting ready for the day.
—
And it's lights out, away we go in the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix! Ceceile Bianchi shoots off the line, pressing up to Max Verstappen while going into turn one. Hamilton finds a new line, cutting in front of Fernando Alonso, and giving Charles Leclarc room to take the outside! Big crash going into turn one! Leclarc has turned into not only Alonso, but Hamilton too! This brings Ferrari out of the competition with Carlos Sainz not even starting! Insane stuff at the start of the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix! With the loss of three cars in the front, this puts even more of a gap between the rest of the drivers and Verstappan and Bianchi, who managed to overtake Verstappen in turn four! This gap does not exist for long however, with a safety car for three laps!
Ceceile POV
"Shit! Marcus, what should I do? I've never not had Lewis on the track." However, it was actually Toto who answered.
"Don't freak out, Ceceile. It will be okay. Your pace looks good, the lap car will be there for a projected four laps, then off you go. Your job is to just try to stay cool, and follow the safety car." I nodded my head, giving the car distance, as I heard he preferred. After four laps, the heat inside the car had gone above the heat outside the car in my readings. I took a sip of water, before being told the safety car would move out in a lap. Once it moed out of the way, we were off. I kept good pace for about ten laps after, making a six second gap between me and Max. This is when I was really feeling the heat. Taking a sip of water, I looked at the readings. My vision blurred for a second as I went around corner four, but I managed to look. 50 fucking degrees. (122F) Pitting the first time offered me 2.3 seconds of relief before I was off again. Because of the pit stop, I had fallen to eighth, but that was behind drivers who had not taken a pit stop yet. Ocon, who was ahead of me was weaving slightly in almost an uncontrolled way. Had he passed out? I passed him on the straight, but looked back in my mirrors to see if he was alright.
After 17 more laps, I was back in first by quite a great lead, with Max fifteen seconds behind after a lousy pit. Surprisingly, Piastri was behind him! I mad a mental note to congradulate him in interviews if I could make it that far. In all honesty, I was barely hanging on. With the pit stops, It pretty much felt like 57 laps of qualifiers. On every lap I tried to go farther and faster. I have the new lap record!
"Holy shit, Ceceile! That's a world lap record for Lusail!"
"Yay!" I tried to give as much enthusiasm as I could, but it was to fucking hot. I pitted on my 33rd lap, quickly nodding to Lewis, before I was off again. It was hot as balls. Apparently Sargent dropped out because it was too hot. Brave man. For the rest of the race, I honestly just tried to survive. I pitted again on the fifty first lap, beating Stroll/Aston Martin out of the garage. From there, it was just a waiting game. I was in fourth, then Norris, who was ten seconds ahead pitted, then Piastri who was a second ahead of Norris, then the big battle. Max was exactly twenty seconds ahead. If he had a good pit, there was a chance I would not be able to catch up. I went far faster on the straight then I normally did. With five laps left, there was a four second difference between me in first, and Max in second. Sticking to my line, I just waited it out. With three turns left, He tried to get by me. Going on defensive, I managed to make it the last few meters, and secure Pole Position!
Driving my car up to the pedestal, I smiled for paparazzi. Fuck I'm not sure if I can get out of this car. I leaned against the halo, and used my whole body to push myself to my feet, immediately I felt a wave of dizziness hit me. Slowly, I got out, to where Lewis was waiting. He dumped water on my head, with my blessing of course. I grabbed the rest that was not on me, and gulped it down. I had run out on probably the fortieth lap. Going inside to the cool down room, I saw Oscar laying down, and max sitting against the wall. Grabbing yet another bottle of water, I Layed down oth the other side, looking at replays.
"I shouldn't have gone around you after the crash. Haha," I laughed, and so did Max. The safety car had come out just as I had gotten around him.
"Who's fault was that?" Piastri asked.
"I would say Leclarc, maybe Alonso," Max replied.
"Thank you Leclarc," Piastri replied, causing us to laugh. We stayed there for a few minutes, before it was time to go to podium. The french anthom played, and it felt like everything was right in the world for one moment, even though nothing was. I skipped interviews last night, as did most of the drivers, opting to just go to bed the first place they could. I went back to my hotel room, and slept over eleven hours, which is something I had never done. The next morning, I ordered room service. I sighed, happy that that hellhole of a race was now over. The next one would be the race of the Americas which I was somewhat excited for, as it was known to be the favorite of some drivers. When I got packed up, I got a call from Max.
"Salou, Max!"
"I don't know what that means, Cece." I laughed, causing him to laugh.
"It just means hello. Anyway, what's up?"
"Well, A lot of the drivers are going to America over break, but Charles wanted to go to Paris, and I thought that would be a marvelous idea! I just thought since it was your home, you may want to come too?" He was nervous, I could tell.
"I think that's a great idea! I have some random lady and her five year old staying in my house until tomorrow while she models, but don't even get me started on that shit. I also have a gala for women in sports on friday in New York so maybe fly out tomorrow evening, and-" I stopped talking because Max had hung up. Why did he do that? I tried to call back, but he didn't pick up. Maybe his phone was dead? I waited a minute before calling back one more time. When he didn;t pick up, I started to get worried. Calling Charles, he picked up on the third ring.
"What's up?"
"Hey! I was wondering if you can get a hold of Max? He's not picking up, and he hung up mid conversation when I was talking about Paris," I replied.
"Yeah! He just left my room, but I have his location. It says he's driving. Shit, he;s driving way faster than he should be." Fuck. Did I do something wrong?
"I'm going to call him. Okay?"
"Okay," I replied before hanging up. I sat in the hotel bed with my phone next to me, waiting on any news. For about twenty minutes, nothing came through, until there was a knock on my door. I grabbed my phone. Looking out the peephole, I saw Max there, looking upset. I quickly opened the door, inviting him in.
"Max Emilian Verstappen, do you know how worried I was? When you didn't pick up, I called Charles, who never responded, then you're at my door and-" Max gripped my hands to stop me from spiraling.
"I'm sorry to scare you. I had a chat with Charles, I was just angry, but he told my I should explain that to you. I just really need to know something. Who is renting your house?" I blinked in surprise at Max's question.
"I saw a message come through on Instagram from a woman claiming to have ties to the F1 world, her father was Nelson Piquet, I think. She said that she lost all of her luggage, and need a place to stay. I texted my house security to look into her, and it came back clean, so I let her stay there with her five year old daughter, Penelope." As I kept talking, Max got more and more still beside me. I glance over to him. "Hey, what's wrong?" He rises to his feet, still very upset. "Max! Did I do something wrong? What happened?" And then everything clicked. Kelly. That was the name he had called me when he was drunk. Kelly. And I invied her into my home. Would that mean Penelope was his daughter? Was he a father? "Oh."
"When she broke up with me- I didn't know what to do. She had supported me through everything these past years, and over summer break, I saw her start to grow more and more distant. Right before Zandervoot, I found out she wanted to get back together with Danii, who is the father to Penolope. I tried so hard to love her, but everything just fell apart. And then... there was you who showed up at Zandervoot. You were so perfect. You never made mistakes, and you. Who is one of the best rookies of all time. I like you Ceceile, but it hurts so much everytime you dismiss me, or prove your not interested because I think... that i've fallen in love with you." His eyes, vibrant blue shone with tears of vulnerability. He looked down, embarrassed. Slowly, deciding against evey instinct in my body; knowing fully well that this could end my career before it even started, I brought my hand up to his chin. Guiding it upwards, I leaned in... and kissed Max Verstappen.