letters [max verstappen]

27

It was Thursday now, and the track was closed but that didn't mean the weekend stopped. I was sitting at one of the outside tables at the energy station, eating my lunch while mindlessly scrolling through Instagram when a woman in Red Bull team wear came up to me.

"Becca, right?" She asked, and I nodded. "Christian will meet with you at 3. The meeting room next to his office."

"Um, okay, thanks." I semi frowned, and she gave me a curt nod and left.

––

3:00 rolled around, and I made my way up to the meeting room as I was instructed. I opened the door and couldn't help it as my brow furrowed when I saw there was a group gathered. Adrian gestured for me to sit next to him, across from the young woman who had told me about the meeting. Helmut was next to Christian, who was at the head of the table, as well as Pierre Waché– the technical director– and some other people I didn't recognize.

Christian cleared his throat, and the light chatter in the room stopped. "Thank you everyone for being flexible for us to make this meeting happen. First, Becca, we are genuinely delighted to have you back in the paddock with us. I think we all know there's been some radio silence between us and I want to be the first to apologize for that. I'm sure you remember Amanda, who was the junior programme coordinator. We had been doing some internal auditing, trying to understand why our junior drivers have been struggling these last couple of years, and to make something very complicated very simple, it turns out she wasn't doing her job. We lost a lot of good talents because of that, but we are over the moon that you've decided to stick with us."

He looked to me for a response, but I just stared back blankly. It hadn't even occurred to me that there had been other issues within the team, I just assumed the stagnant development in my career had come straight from the top. How self-centered is that? "Oh, wow, I had no idea." I finally spoke up. "Red Bull is home, I'm happy that you're still satisfied to have me here." That seemed to please Christian, who responded with a smile and a nod.

"I'm not sure who here you haven't met, obviously you know Adrian, Pierre, and Helmut. This is Emily, my PA." He gestured to the young woman, who gave me a polite smile. "Allister here is one of our senior engineers, he's actually been doing a lot of work on the program that you've been our trial for, and Freya is his apprentice." I said hello to the middle-aged man and the woman about my age next to him. Christian continued. "And down there, on the end, Taliah is from our partnerships team and Isaac is one of our legal advisors."

I waved to the pair of young people at the end of the table, but a frown formed on my face as I glanced down at my own Toro Rosso polo and then at the Red Bull polos that surrounded me. "There's no one from Toro Rosso here?"

"No, why?" Christian asked.

"I've just spent a lot of my time with them, I know they're technically the sister team and I just wasn't expecting a completely Red Bull meeting." I explained.

"Well, we're happy to have you here with us now. Why don't we just get into our agenda and hopefully that will explain some things." Adrian now spoke up. "I understand your university classes are going well?"

I nodded happily, though I was still confused. "They are, I managed to do a full-time semester this spring, which was wonderful."

Adrian nodded. "That's good. You're finished now?"

I shook my head. "No, it's a four-year full-time program but I'm expecting to be finished next fall."

"So that's four and a half years total, yes? On top of racing?" Allister asked.

"On top of full-time racing, yes, and a near-death experience." I chuckled but no one else in the room seemed to find it funny. "Um, but yes, it's been a lot of work but also very rewarding."