( ACT I. ── The Becoming )
chapter nine / Small Steps
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anniraikkonen posted a photo !
Liked by lewishamilton and 42,046 others.
anniraikkonen Shoe improvement for quali 👟
comments
user1 Not us bullying her into buying new shoes 😭
user2 One small step for man
user3 Now we just have to work on the fits to go with it...
─ user4 She's channeling middle school core again
user5 You're doing amazing sweetie!
user6 Mercedes PR has the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever
user7 Not the most fabulous shoes ever but none of us were exactly shooting for the stars here anyway
user8 Let's bully her for her posture next
─ user9 Every time a camera is on her she looks like it's her first time on earth
user10 I can acknowledge that she's hot but her personality is not it.
─ user11 What a strange thing to announce
user12 Shoes and F1 seat purchased with.... *checks notes* daddy's money.
─ user5 As if 75% of the grid aren't also nepo babies 😐
user13 Am I the only one who gets really bad vibes from her?
user14 Love the tattoos 🤩
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Comfortably reclined in her seat, nestled deeply into the heart of the car, Annika waited to be released for the first round of qualifying in Miami. Her visor was up, and there was a camera crew in the corner of the garage, filming anything of her that was visible, meaning her eyes, the bridge of her nose, the sweat that had already begun to gather beneath her lashes. She did her best to ignore the cameras. Whether they were filming for the live broadcast or for Netflix, she couldn't tell.
Sleep had been hard to come by, but she made it work. As long as she was able to drive, she could make it work.
Today, Mercedes was aiming for a double Q3, and potentially even putting Lewis into the top three. Both cars had been given upgrades to the limited-slip differential, which had so far seemed to make a difference around the sharper turns. This adjustment was primarily in preparation for Monaco ─ a war in its own right, one that Annika was not excited for.
At last, the countdown was finished and the tyre warmers were taken off, and Annika shook herself, fighting for alertness. In the warm, reclined seat, it was rather easy to get sleepy. She flipped her visor down and pulled out of the garage to begin her out lap.
Several cars were already out on the track ahead of her, already warming up and priming for their hot laps, so she took her opening lap easy, being wary of the flyers coming up behind her, keeping a low profile and generating warmth in the car. She watched a Williams speed by, an Alpha Tauri, a Haas ─ and then she had made her full lap.
"Get ready to push whenever you can," Lyndon's voice said in her comms.
"Copy." Annika flicked up her gears and went full throttle across the starting line, beginning her flying lap with a promising roar from the engine.
She wasn't even finished with the first sector before she was experiencing her first problem; understeering around a turn that nearly dragged her sideways into the barriers, the same mistake she had made during qualifying in Bahrain. Lyndon was back to her by the time she had righted herself, "Abort the lap."
"Yeah. Sorry. I need to pay more attention," she said anxiously as a Red Bull flew by her.
As if he could read her thoughts, Lyndon said, "Don't pay attention to them. Just focus on your car. You've got plenty of time."
Annika forced herself to take a deep breath and shook herself again, discarding her sudden fear.
She harvested energy for the rest of the lap and then started up again, going full throttle down the opening straight. The wind was making itself known now ─ a fact that made Annika rather nervous.
She passed the curve that had ruined her original lap and slid into the second sector, feeling her time, knowing she was doing well. The DRS zone brought more speed, and she very well could have been flying.
More curves, another DRS zone, and she crossed the line at a speed that made her entire body flicker and spark.
"P2. P2. Excellent work."
Annika pumped her fist and dropped a gear or two for her cool-down lap.
She took another couple of laps, but was unable to beat her previous best, much to her own nervousness. By the end of Q1, she was down in thirteenth, dangerously close to the knockout zone. Her lap was good enough to keep her in, but only barely.
In the garage, waiting for Q2, she chatted with Lyndon. "Who's out?"
"Both McLarens," he said, making her cringe, "the Alpha Tauri of Tsunoda, the Aston Martin of Stroll, and the Williams of Albon."
"Where's Lewis?"
"He made P6."
"As long as he keeps that up, we might have him on the front line tomorrow," she said cheerfully.
"You just focus on staying out of knockout for Q2."
"Yes sir, I will." Annika tapped her gloved palms together absentmindedly, trying to keep herself alert. She watched the mechanics move around ─ her favorite kind of organized chaos, ─ wiggled her feet, put her visor down and then back up again, picked at the straps of her harness, studied the pattern on the ceiling, removed her steering wheel and then replaced it, bounced her shoulders back and forth to the sides of the narrow cockpit, and hummed to herself.
The second round of qualifying, surprisingly, passed quickly and without incident for the most part. Annika was happy with her lap, setting a solid time that put her into the midfield for Q3, and she was satisfied that she had done it so easily. Her hopes were high.
"You put in a fastest middle sector, nice work. Verstappen P1, you P5, Russell P10. Um, Lewis down to P11, so he's out."
"What?" Annika said, stunned. "You are sure?"
"Come back in to wait for Q3, please."
Her hands suddenly felt like jelly as she re-entered the pits. The Mercedes garage was bustling around, and for a moment Annika feared that they were purposefully avoiding her gaze. She wondered if it was her own lap that put Lewis out of Q3.
"What happened?" she asked into the radio, straining her eyes to watch the back of Lyndon's head at the pit wall.
"He didn't make it out of knockout."
"At all?"
"No. His lap only took him from P13 to P11."
"Was there something wrong with the car?"
"Annika, please ask your questions later. We need to prepare you for Q3, okay?"
She was silent. Insecurity brewed. This was not supposed to be her, she was not supposed to do this without Lewis ─ the plan had been to get him into the top four at all cost, and without him there, she would be the one to pick up the slack.
Ripping off her gloves for a moment, she flexed her fingers to air out her sweaty hands, wiping them on her race suit.
Someone slapped the top of her helmet, and she craned her neck up to see Lewis, his face still flushed and creased from the compression of the helmet. He looked grave, but reached for her hand, and she grasped his outstretched palm firmly.
"I'm so sorry, mate," Annika said before he could speak.
He shook his head at her and squeezed her hand. "Don't apologize, it didn't have anything to do with you."
Annika nodded anxiously.
"See you later. Make us proud." His words were brief as he let go of her hand, and she knew he was upset. He disappeared out of the garage for interviews, and Annika sank even lower down in her seat, her heart beating like never before. She put her gloves back on.
She was released preemptively for Q3 and was first in line at the end of the pit lane, needing as much time as possible to carry this as far as she could. Top six, she prayed. Top six.
When the light turned green she was first out, her heart pounding in her throat.
"Take a breath, Annika. You're doing great," Lyndon said calmly. "You're already top ten. There's only up from here."
"Okay," she agreed.
After her first lap she felt good, so she checked in with her head engineer to inquire about where the others were ending up, and found that she was fourth out of five. Not looking great.
She took a double cool-down lap. The car was struggling, overheating. She needed everything to be perfect.
For her next flying lap, she pushed. Hard.
Her tyre degradation was looking bad in the heat of Miami, but she could not let it stop her.
"Annika Räikkönen ─ she's beaten her teammate into Q3 for the first time in this year's qualifying. With Hamilton out in P11, it's up to Mercedes' second driver now to decide where they will end up on the grid."
"Right, you've set provisional pole, seven hundredths ahead of Pérez. Well done."
Annika guided the car to the edges for another cool-down lap. "Where's Verstappen?"
"Verstappen has not set a time yet."
Annika was surprised, but kept it to herself. She made it around, biding her time and praying, and began another flying lap.
If she could just get to the top six, she would be content. She would take heart in knowing that she had given her team something of substance to make up for their disappointment in her performance of late. They signed her because she was consistent with Alpine, even after collisions and other roadblocks, so to speak, she had always placed on a natural progression. So far with Mercedes, she had been erratic and unpredictable. It brought her shame.
She finished her lap without confidence.
"Red flag, Annika, red flag."
"What happened?" Annika demanded, panicked, staring at the alert on her screen that she had somehow missed.
"Leclerc went into the barriers. He's OK. 1:36 left on the clock, so it won't be restarted."
"Fuck. Fuck. Did I make it before the flag? Did my lap get recorded?"
"No, I'm sorry. You were a second too late."
Annika sighed but couldn't be too disappointed. She hadn't been all that confident with her final lap anyway. "Where did I end up?"
"Er..." A nerve-wracking pause as Lyndon checked the numbers. He began to speak and stopped himself. Stunned. "You're on pole, mate."
"What?"
"1:26.78, that's ahead of Pérez, that's P1. Outstanding."
"Are you kidding me?!" she shouted, completely ecstatic. "YES!" She threw her fist into the air in celebration. Her maiden pole in Formula 1 could not have possibly come at a better time. Her team needed this. "YES! Oh my god!"
"That was an absolutely fantastic lap, Annika. Bring it back in."
Her hands were shaking again, but this time purely from adrenaline. Her in lap lasted a hundred years but also a single heartbeat. Once she was parked in parc fermé, she struggled to shut down the car, and she was immediately bombarded by the noise of the crowd.
She climbed up on top of the car and threw her fists into the air, relishing the boom of noise from spectators, before leaping to the ground.
Her team was at the barriers. She ran to them and hugged them all, every one of them, even Lyndon. He grabbed both sides of her helmet in excitement.
Annika had never felt so much.
Fernando approached her from his car behind the P3 sign, and he grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight, unable to speak to her due to the noise, but making his sentiments clear. Congratulations.
Annika went through the statistics in her head. She was now the first woman to score a pole position in Formula One.
She also fist-bumped Checo, who would be beside her at P2 and more than likely would be overtaking her sooner rather than later tomorrow, but she was too happy about the day's achievements to care. Every victory was still a victory.
All three removed their helmets and placed them on the miniature podiums. Annika was sweatier than usual, and needed to be handed a towel to wipe the dampness away from her eyes and neck. She also unzipped her race suit and removed her arms from it, desperate for a cool breeze. As the adrenaline left her, she was able to think. She untwisted the cap of a water bottle as she made her way over to the weigh station.
When she was weighed and cleared to continue, she stepped off the scale and jogged past the camera crews, following the other two drivers out to the middle of the track for interviews, falling into place beside Checo. They were just out of sight of the primary camera crew, broadcasting Fernando's current interview with Danica Patrick.
She turned to Checo curiously, "Did you see Charles' crash?"
"No, I didn't," he shook his head.
"Were you on a fast lap?"
"Yeah, I was behind you. Four, five seconds."
"I did not even see the red flag at first, until I looked down. I thought I was about to get fined, because in that last bit it's just flat out, I was not slowed down."
"What was the margin?"
"I think two-hundredths between you and me."
His eyes widened and he tilted his head curiously, "two, wow." He held his fist out to her again.
She fist-bumped him. "I did not even know I was on pole at first. I thought maybe third at most."
"I knew you were going to be top three. You had good pace today."
"I assumed Max would knock me down sooner than later."
"Eh, no reason not to try."
Annika grimaced, feeling that there would be a lot of chatter about her red flag fluke in the days to come, and not all of it positive. "I thought I might as well, I had already committed, so..."
"All or nothing," he agreed.
"Yes, all or nothing."
Fernando came back from his interview and handed the microphone off to Checo, using his other hand to pat Annika on the shoulder.
Annika had known of Fernando Alonso for a majority of her life, though her father had never been especially close to him, so she never formally encountered him until later into her own career. He had always been more than enthusiastic to offer her advice or encouragement, and never failed to congratulate her on her achievements, and today was no different.
After Checo's interview, he handed the microphone off to Annika, and she walked out in front of the cameras. The grandstands erupted with commotion, cheers and screams and whistling. She looked out at them with a small wave, feeling a bit like a deer in the headlights, in the strangest way possible.
"They're excited here," Danica Patrick said jovially.
Annika nodded, a bit breathless. "Yeah."
"How about you?"
"I─ I mean, you know, I think anyone would feel good about this."
"This is your first pole position in Formula One. What was different about today that brought you to the top?"
Annika shifted uncomfortably on her feet, primally aware of the cameras on her. She remembered her media training: what to say, and what not to say. "It is many different things. I mean, the red flag was my extra luck, but not lucky for others, so it was being in─ in the right place at the right time, a bit. But at the same time, my performance today showed improvement regardless of where I ended up, and a lot of my determination was to give my team something really good, after I have had an inconsistent start to the season."
"You've been very hard on yourself about the start of the season."
"Yes, I mean, it is frustrating because I know I have the ability and the um..." she surveyed Danica for a moment, "and I have the aggression, and the experience. I have just been unlucky, and at times I have been careless, so what I need most to do is remember who I am and why I am here."
"And why is that?"
"I mean, why is anyone here? I want to win."
"Is that your goal for tomorrow, then?"
"Absolutely. I'm not here to pray for tenth, I'm here to stand on podiums."
"Do you believe yourself to have an advantage over the Red Bulls today?"
"Obviously I have an advantage, being on pole. But a Red Bull is a Red Bull, so we will see what happens, you know."
"Well, we're all cheering you on. Good luck."
"Thank you." Annika gave her the microphone and departed immediately.
She fell into step behind Fernando and Checo. The cameras followed, and Annika felt odd, her excitement mixing with discomfort. Fernando looked over his shoulder and stepped away from Checo, gesturing for Annika to fill the gap between them, to more effectively walk in line with one another. She accepted his invitation gratefully.
She broke off from the crowd and slipped into the Mercedes garage. She exchanged congratulations with the pit crew, fist-bumping and a couple of hugs ─ they had held their own celebration while she was still out on the track. She was due for more interviews, but instead of heading to the media pen, she slipped into her driver room and retrieved her phone from the couch, immediately opening her contacts with her heart in her throat.
It barely even had time to ring once.
"Iskä, katsoitko minua?" she said as soon as her father picked up. "Olen P1."
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( note )
this took me an insanely long time to write for some reason. no matter what i did, i just wasn't happy with the second half. powered through though 💪