( ACT II. ── Uncertain Waters )
chapter twenty-six / Shit Out of Luck
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TIKTOK
I Think Räikkönen's New
Engineer Snuck Onto Earth
▶️ 28.8k views
AR : Annika Räikkönen
BC : Brendan Caballero
AR: Fuck, my steering wheel is completely blank. [Tapping screen] Nothing is coming up.
BC: Copy, can you do without?
AR: Yeah, I guess.
BC: We'll get you a replacement after this session.
AR: Lewis─ ah, Lewis spun. That would have been nice to know.
BC: Piastri is coming in on a hot lap, let him past.
AR: Okay.
( ... )
AR: Mate, Piastri is not on a hot lap. What are you saying?
AR: Unexpected update for the world... McLaren is fast.
BC: Sorry, who did you say?
AR: McLarens. The McLarens are fast. Can you hear me, or?
AR: What position?
BC: Uh, so at the moment you're a tenth up from Albon in P8, Albon P8, with... Stroll... sorry, you are P6, Stroll is p7, three tenths off Albon... Er, Albon is P7, Stroll is p10.
AR: Make up your god***n mind, Brendan.
AR: Why did Verstappen abort his lap?
BC: Verstappen aborted for red flag conditions.
AR: Is it a red flag?!
BC: Yes, this is red flag conditions.
AR: I just overtook two cars, you f***ing dumb**s! My steering wheel is dead! When there's a red flag you have to f***ing tell me, for f***'s sake!
BC: Sorry, come into the pits.
AR: I already passed the pit entry, it is too f***ing late! What the h*** is wrong with you?
BC: Take an in lap and come in.
AR: Mate, shut the f*** up.
AR: If I see you I am running you over.
BC: ...Copy.
BC: Uh, you've recieved summons from the stewards.
AR: This is a f***ing joke! This is a f***ing joke.
BC: I can only apologize, Annika.
AR: Hey, just f***ing save it, man. Nothing you can say will make this better. You are useless! En voi uskoa sitä. Älä puhu minulle enää. F***ER!
CROFTY: It looks like Annika Räikkönen has been called to the stewards for not adhering to red flag conditions.
MARTIN: Oh, that is just unfortunate. That miscommunication from her engineer was hard to listen to. Can't imagine... aw, god, look at her.
CROFTY: Helmet still on. That can only mean one thing. Do Not Approach.
MARTIN: If that was me, I would be fuming.
CROFTY: Toto Wolff is not a happy man, look at that scowl.
MARTIN: I'd be surprised if that engineer keeps his job. Remember, this is not Räikkönen's usual engineer, he's on medical leave and this is someone new. Er... not for long.
comments
user1 : That's just absolutely unacceptable
user2 : they should have taken that man off the pitwall when he couldn't figure out which channel to speak into during practice... 😒
user3 : ik this is serious but the way she said "make up ur goddamn mind brendan" has me in stitches 😭
── user4 : I didn't realize how much I missed the sassy Annika with a bad engineer behavior lmfaooo
user5 : They should have IMMEDIATELY brought her in when she realized her steering wheel was broken. Who knows what else could have gone wrong with it??
user6 : If incompetent people got promoted as often in my line of work as they do in F1, I would be a CEO.
user7 : Ridiculously dangerous.
user8 : Even if her screen wasn't broken, an engineer should alert drivers of red flags/scs anyway??? This guy needs to get booted.
user9 : brendan pack ur bags
user10 : annika's only flaw is living in a society with stupid people
user11 : Annika's crimes according to the stewards report: 1. Not adhering to red flag conditions, 2. Overtaking under red flag conditions, 3. Speeding under red flag conditions, 4. Reckless driving under red flag conditions
── user12 : I will be surprised if she doesn't get dsq. Poor kid.
user13 : When I'm in an Annika Räikkönen apologist competition but Martin Brundle is already there
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Annika didn't like people to see her like this. It was a bad side of her, an ugly side of her.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she was demanding as soon as she returned to the garage. Her voice echoed around the absence of power tools ─ the cars were being packed up and now everyone was looking at her with anxious eyes. She was filled to the brim with boiling humiliation from her reprimand, standing alone in that suffocating room.
She reached around Brendan and slammed his laptop shut. "My little sister could fucking do this better than you."
Brendan was silent. The first wise thing he'd done since she met him.
Toto approached and reached out to both to put some distance in the tension between them, like he was afraid Annika would try to bodyslam the guy. "Let's talk in the conference room."
"No, we talk here. I just got all of my laps disqualified, so instead of P4 I'll be starting P20, and on top of it I have a ten-place grid penalty, so technically I'll be sitting P30 tomorrow."
There was a silence where no one really knew what to say. A couple of mechanics began pretending tyre zippers were stuck.
Annika looked up to Toto, squeezing her tongue between her back teeth to remind herself to stay calm. It wasn't really helping. "I want a different engineer by tomorrow, or I'm not driving."
"I understand," he agreed.
Brendan said nothing. Still.
Annika began unzipping her race suit and walked away. Her face was hot, lungs tight, a hand squeezing and pulling inside her chest. Part of her wanted to cry, but it wouldn't do any good. She just needed to focus on getting that grid penalty out of the way so she could get points in Hungary ─ a decent placement this weekend was now completely out of the question.
"Annika," Greta was pulling off her headphones by Annika's driver room, her expression wrought with concern.
Annika pulled her into a hug. "I'm okay." She kissed the top of Greta's head. "I will be okay. Just go find Teddy, and I will be done for the day soon."
Greta still didn't let go, and gazed up at Annika worriedly. "Do you want me to call Mum to come and get me?"
"What? No, of course not." Annika rubbed Greta's arms. "I want you to be here."
"Okay." Greta gave her another quick hug before departing.
Matt was waiting for Annika outside the garage, and looked grim and apologetic as he directed her towards the media pen.
He also handed her phone over, and she sent a quick text before stuffing it in her pocket.
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ANNIKA
Congratulations on front row!!
So so proud of you ❤️❤️
LAN
Thanks 😊
What did the stewards say?
ANNIKA
We'll talk later
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"Who was that?" Matt asked casually as he followed her into the media pen.
"What?"
"I dunno, I saw hearts. And I'm nosy."
She sent him a glare. "Don't be."
"OK. Sorry."
Annika shrugged out of the top of her race suit and adjusted the neckline of her fireproofs, trying to clear her head. There was already a reporter in front of her by the time she reached the barricades.
"I hate to be the first to say it, Annika, but the end of that session was a bit of a disaster," the reporter said with a grimace.
"Well, you're not the first to say it, if that's any consolation," she muttered.
"What happened out there? Do you think it was just an adjustment period for you and your new engineer?"
"Um, no, I think critical mistakes were being made on the pit wall, and I was suffering for it."
"Will you consider this a learning experience?"
"No."
"No?"
"No, I didn't do anything wrong."
"Alright. How do you think this is going to affect your performance tomorrow?"
"Well, I'd have to win the race just to score a single point. So," she sighed heavily. "Not positively."
"What do you mean?"
"When you add up my penalties I'll be sitting P30. I will need to make twenty overtakes just to reach P10."
"Is that your goal, then?"
Annika shrugged and tried to come up with a reasonable answer, but she couldn't stop fleshing out how ludicrous this was. "Is it my goal? I... my goal is to survive the rest of the bloody year." Matt nudged her arm; it was more like an angry jab. She rubbed her sore face and murmured, "Fuck's sake. Ask me something else."
Shitfuck. She had just gone and said something irreparable. Survive the rest of the year was not a statement Mercedes would have liked to hear, so when the blowback hit them, they would surely be mad. More so than they already were.
"Uh... well, aside from the obvious disasterclass at the end of Q3, how did you feel about your lap times in comparison to the other drivers? Especially the McLarens?"
Media training. Remember the media training. "Uh, yeah, I mean, I was really caught off-guard by the speed of the McLarens, I knew they got upgrades but this was more than I expected. So... uh, anyway, big ups to all of them at the team. Uh, my gift of congratulations is Oscar inheriting my P4."
The reporter chuckled, thank god. "Do you feel intimidated by the sudden rise in competitiveness from them?"
"This weekend, I'll stick to my lane and be intimidated by De Vries," she replied. Was that too mean? she wondered, and her question was answered by another harsh jab in the arm by Matt.
"One last question for you: a wild card."
"Okay."
"Next world champion that isn't Verstappen or Hamilton. Who is your bets on?"
Annika shrugged. "Me."
"You think yourself?"
"Yeah. I mean, if my luck turns around, who knows?" she laughed in a strained sort of way.
"Well, I hope it does," he replied.
"Thank you, man. Thank you." Annika ran her fingers through her damp hair as she turned away, avoiding Matt's exasperated glare. She didn't require reminding when it came to her stupidity.
She just wanted to go back to the hotel and get some sleep.
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That evening in the hotel, while Greta was showering, Annika checked her phone and found a missed call and voicemail from Lando. Her mood was still shallow and misery-filled, so her night consisted of closing all the window curtains and burying herself under a mass of blankets. She checked to make sure speakerphone was turned off, and then pressed play on the voicemail.
"Hi Annika, I don't usually do voicemails, but I had some thoughts and I know I'm gonna forget them if I wait 'till I see you next."
He sounded far-away, and his voice jumped or strained or even cut out every so often, leading Annika to smile to herself as she wondered what on earth he was doing.
"I'm just getting changed right now─ I hope your sister's not listening. For several reasons. If your name is Greta put your headphones on. Anyway, I was thinking about ways I could cheer you up, which got dirty really fast, but that's a conversation for another time, and anyway it got me thinking about summer break. Which is totally irrelevant to today, so I'll have to come up with something else. But I got an invite to the rally race in Finland which is right at the start of break, and it says I can bring like three or five people or whatever, and I wasn't gonna go, but just now I was like, hey, Annika's Finnish, and if I took my friend Max and someone else, no one would really question you being there with me, you know? So if you're down for that, I'd love to take you there. Uh... yeah, so next time we talk, let me know. Or if you think it's a terrible idea just don't ever bring it up again, and I'll take the hint. Okay, I'm off to a meeting now. If you're in bed already, sleep well. Dream about me. Mwah." He made a kiss sound at his phone before the voicemail ended.
Annika smiled and made sure she saved it to her inbox, intending to keep it there for life. It was actually almost embarrassing, how easily just the sound of his voice lifted her mood.
Greta walked out of the bathroom not a moment too late, just before Annika was intending to play the voicemail again. She was brushing her damp hair, dressed in lemon yellow pajamas with little sketched suns and hearts on them, and jumped into her bed beside Annika's.
Annika shut off her phone and rolled over to face her sister. "So, how's your first Grand Prix experience so far?"
"I'll need more data before I can tell you that," Greta replied wisely. "I still have yet to encounter a competent engineer, but I'll curb my judgement until tomorrow."
Annika laughed.
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( note )
brendan forcing annika to relive her alpine trauma one dumb choice at a time ✅️