The Apprenticeship - A Lando Norris FanFiction

14. Dutch Grand Prix, Saturday Pt1

I woke up feel refreshed and awake ready for quali day, it was early and I still had an hour before I needed to get ready so I went out for a run, as I left girls were still outside the hotel and some of them recognised me asking about Lando but I just told them that I was unsure where he was and I had to go.

Once I got back the number of girls tripled and I was struggling to get back into the hotel. I went upstairs had a shower and got ready and headed back downstairs to have breakfast. Charlotte was sitting on her own. "Hey Charlotte!" I said.
"Hey y/n! Sorry I left you and Lando alone for dinner last night."
"No problem, speaking of Lando, where is he?"
"He's still getting changed, he didn't sleep well last night so he's tired, which isn't good especially for quali day. Speaking of the devil here he is." She said nodding her head in the direction of the lift. I turned to see Lando half asleep rubbing his eyes, as he got to the table Charlotte gave him his ready made granola and yogurt pot. "Morning Lando." Both Charlotte and I said, he waved his hand. "Morniiiii..." He yawned.
"I'm going to drive us this morning, Lando try to sleep in the car and after fp3 try and sleep again so you aren't tired for quali." Charlotte said.

After our breakfast we headed to the car trying not to get trampled by the fan girls. I sat in the front and Lando lying down sleeping on the backseat, Charlotte and I stayed quiet the whole car journey to allow Lando to sleep.

When we got there I got out the car and opened the back door and nudged Lando to wake up, compared to waking Molly up he was much easier. We headed through the paddock to the motorhome, I saw George he started to walk over but I ignored him and went inside. Whilst Lando was sorting his stuff out upstairs, I headed to the pits with Charlotte. As I headed into the pits people were clapping and looking in the direction of me, I turned around to see if it was Lando or Danny but neither of them were there, I was confused. Charlotte then turned and started clapping at me, "Bravo! Y/n we couldn't clap for you yesterday as we were packing everything up so we are doing it now. Well done for doing such a great job at the blanket tyres yesterday!" Zak said.
"Thank you!" I smiled.
"No thank you, would you like to do it again today?" 
"Yes please." I smiled. I had to take these opportunities as I know this would be the last Grand Prix I would be going to for a while. Everyone returned to what they were doing in the pits getting ready for the final free practice. "Charlotte, shall I get Lando a coffee to wake him up."
"It's very thoughtful of you but he can't have coffee before he goes on the track it can mess with his reaction time." She replied.
"Oh I didn't know that, would you like a coffee?" I asked Charlotte.
"Yes please." She replied.
"Yes please y/n." Jose one of the pit members said.
"That would be lovely y/n." Jon said. A load more yes please came across the room not realising I was just asking Charlotte. So I headed to the coffee machine and got 40 coffees going back and forward giving them to all the pit crew, everyone was very thankful, it was a great way of showing how I wanted to be apart of McLaren. 

It was now final practice everyone was going through the final checks to make sure Lando's and Danny's car's were ready. Haas where the first cars out on the pit lane, whilst some others followed. Ten minutes later I got called over to get ready to take the tyre blankets off. Again I consider myself to have done a job well done. There was a red flag in the middle of the session, Carlos Sainz had crashed, luckily he go out ok. Towards the end Lando was going round a corner and oversteer made him go into the gravel, I gasped worried about him. He radioed in mentioning that he was ok which brought a sigh of relief to me. At the end of the session Lando was P6 which was a good result so far. 

Once Fp3 was done everyone got lunch but I wasn't hungry, instead of eating with everyone else I went to the private room in the paddock that I was at yesterday. Luckily no one else was in there, I sat down and as it was the only free time I had, I called my parents. I told them about doing well removing the tyre blankets, they told me how proud they were of me, I could feel myself start to cry and told them I had to go. As I hung up tears started to rush down my face, I was really starting to miss my parents. Then all of a sudden I heard footsteps walk in. I turned with my puffy eyes to see George walk in. "Oh I'm sorry I thought no one was in here I'll go." He said. 
"It's fine I can go." I sniffled. He noticed I had been crying.
"No stay." He said walking over. "What's wrong." 
"George, why do you even want to talk to me after we spoke yesterday, you made it pretty clear you don't care about me anymore." I said trying to stop crying.
"Look I know I've been a dick recently but I don't want to see you cry like that."
"Ok fine, I miss my parents. I haven't seen them in a month which feels like a lifetime and before I moved the longest I have gone without seeing them was a week. Speaking to them makes me feel worse and I don't like to cry because then they start to worry about me." I said wiping my eyes. "Hey, I know exactly what that feels like. When I had to move away from my parents to be closer to Williams, I found it really hard and even I cried and please don't tell anyone I said that but the way I dealt with it is talking to them as much as possible the less you talk to them the further away you feel but the more you talk to them, you feel so much more closer." He said and he was right. "Thank you." I sniffled with a small smile.
"Wanna hug?" He asked I nodded. He pulled me in for a tight hug to which I felt much better. 
"Ahem." A familiar voice fake coughed, I turned to see...

Sorry to interrupt your amazing reading time, I have two quite important things to say 1. Thank you if your this far into the FanFic I appreciate you so much and 2. The Dutch Grand Prix hasn't happened yet making it hard for me to finish the next chapter which is quali, I have posted the first half of the next chapter and will finish after the dutch grand prix, the reason I'm not just making the results up is because I want it to be realistic but also truthful for you Lando fans, so I guess you will also be learning along the way.