( ACT II. ── Uncertain Waters )
chapter eighteen / Decline
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INSTAGRAM.
kimimatiasraikkonen posted photos !
Liked by pierregasly and 276,922 others.
kimimatiasraikkonen Reminiscing today. Love my kid. Always proud.
Tagged : anniraikkonen
comments
anniraikkonen Love you Isä ❤️❤️
user1 How cuteee
user2 World Champion posting future World Champion
─ user3 Bffr
─ user2 I am.
user4 Of course 2000s Kimi would put his infant daughter in a shrimp costume
user5 Shame we never got to see you two race together 💔
─ kimimatiasraikkonen Monza.
─ user5 kimimatiasraikkonen Beg pardon?
─ user6 kimimatiasraikkonen What??
─ user7 kimimatiasraikkonen SPEAK MAN
user8 She kind of looks like Greta in the last picture awww
─ user9 Who's that?
─ user8 user9 Her little sister from her mom
user10 The OG Icecube
user11 My daddy issues go insane haywire cuckoo bananas every time Kimi and Annika interact
─ user12 Help that's so real
─ user13 Milk dad gang 🤘
─ user11 user13 🤘😔
─ user14 The last time Annika was ever seen in a dress
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MESSAGES
( greta + annika )
BABY SIS ❤️
stop why is ur dad so cute :( a whole post on insta just because he misses you
NIKI
i told you his attitude is deceiving
BABY SIS ❤️
i'm so jealous you sometimes
erased
a lot of the time
erased
my dad hasn't called me in weeks
erased
i heard mum talking to you on the phone the other day and she won't tell me what it's about. spill please.
NIKI
it's not your business nosy nelly
BABY SIS ❤️
LIES. if it didn't have anything to do with me, she would have told me.
NIKI
you are spoiled rotten
BABY SIS ❤️
you know something i don't...
NIKI
getting in the car now byeee
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Austria. Media pen. The absolute last place on earth that Annika wanted to be right now.
Carving her fingers through her sweaty hair, sucking down some electrolytes through her rubber straw, she felt the burning lingering in her face and neck, unable to cool down. Her entire arm ached. She was miserable. And for what? Not even making it into Q3. In fact, being at the dead bottom of the elimination zone like a useless, suffocating fish. P15 was the absolute best she could do? It was her most pathetic performance to date.
A reporter waved her over, and she approached reluctantly, Matt by her side with his recorder out.
"Hi, Annika. What was that?" the man asked. No need to be subtle about it.
"Uh..." Annika laughed nervously and grimaced, trying and failing to lighten the mood. "I don't know."
"You seemed frustrated with the car."
"No, just─ I think, just, frustrated in general."
"So you wouldn't say it's any fault of the car?"
"I don't know. I─ I don't know if it was a problem with my performance, or the tyres, or the track conditions, I don't know. I will have to do a deeper look during the debrief." She hesitated, her chest tightening. Shame, shame, shame. "I wish I had an answer for you, Toby."
"I understand. I understand. How's the arm?"
She held up her ace-bandaged wrist. "About as good as you'd expect."
"Still hurts?"
"It's manageable."
"And tomorrow you can get a bit of a reset, with the sprint format, so that's your opportunity to rescue something."
"Yeah." Annika coughed and put her straw back in her mouth. She wanted to be home.
"Now, last week you didn't get any interviews in, due to being at hospital. Is there anything you'd like to say about the race? Your collision with Verstappen, powering through your injury, your excellent defense?"
Annika let the silence stretch while she let out a slow breath.
"No."
He waited for her to elaborate.
Media training this, media training that... to hell with her media training. She didn't want to reminisce on Canada for one single moment longer than she had to.
Toby awkwardly nodded. "Right. Do you have any plans for the sprint that you can share?"
"Not crash."
"Ha! Fair enough." He shuffled through some notes. "What do you think the chances are of your teammate locking in a second win in a row this weekend?"
"He's right over there, ask him," Annika mumbled through her straw, pointing to the other end of the pen.
Matt seemed to sense a disturbance and tapped her on the arm, his signal to her that she would be leaving now.
"Bye," she said vaguely to Toby, and followed blindly at her manager's heels as he guided her back into the paddock.
"Are you okay?" Matt asked. He was looking directly at her, not a simple glance up from his phone, but genuinely searching her eyes for signs of trouble. His hand was on her back, not only to guide her but as if he was afraid she was going to fall over.
Annika shrugged. "I'm tired."
"Do you feel sick?"
"No, my─ my hand hurts and I need a painkiller, and I want to leave," she replied irritably.
The horizon was gray and solemn, like the breath of silence before a rumble of thunder rolls across the sky. The air was heavy with moisture. Warm and cold simultaneously.
Matt nodded. "Okay. I'll make some calls to get you out of media. You go ahead back to the motorhome."
"Thank you," Annika said softly.
The journey back to the motorhome was like walking through the shark tube at the aquarium. She was alone in the world and nothing could touch her, but she couldn't touch anything either. People wandered around, opening umbrellas, wheeling around carts of equipment, speaking into microphones. Annika kept her head down, wishing she didn't exist.
She slipped through the door and was met with an empty room. She took out the keys to the sim room and unlocked the door.
Climbed into the simulator, powered it up. Fit the helmet over her head, strapped herself in.
Austria. Red Bull Ring. Soft compound tyres. Conditions: rain.
Lap after lap after lap, she was doing everything she had always done, the same way she always did them, but her lap times were slacking, dropping, a steady decline as she pushed herself deeper into frustration. When she wasn't doing sub-par laps, she was trying to go faster and ultimately spinning out.
What the fuck is wrong with me? She thought as she reset the lap again.
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YOUTUBE
Austria 2023, Post-Qualifying
Interview | Annika Räikkönen
3.9k views | 2 hours ago
comments
USER1 Canada was such a mess from everyone. She lost her mojo 😕
── USER2 It will come back, don't worry.
USER3 "He's right over there, ask him." Lmfaooo she channeled Kimi for a second
USER4 She looks so sad :(
USER5 I give it 3 days before she starts talking about sabotage again
USER6 She literally cannot take a bad result without throwing a tantrum, Jesus christ
USER7 Aaaaand here is exhibit A of why women should not be in F1. Just grow tf up.
USER8 I broke my wrist last year and didn't even have that many bandages. What ever happened to walking it off??
── USER9 Congrats.... I bet you weren't driving racecars at 300kph at the time though...
USER10 She speaks and I hear the teacher from Charlie Brown
USER11 The drama is ridiculous
USER12 Maybe not ALL F1 kids should follow in their father's footsteps. Yikes. 😬 Attitude is half of what it is to be a Formula One racer. Sore losers don't work out around here. If you want to be a moody pissant, you go to NASCAR and drive in circles.
USER13 Remind me to never open the comment section on a video about Annika Räikkönen ever
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( note )
this era is just misery. her mojo has disappeared. the energy is simply not giving. so sorry annika.