ℝ𝕚𝕧𝕒𝕝𝕤 [ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕣𝕝𝕖𝕤 𝕃𝕖𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕣𝕔] ✔

Part 49

Finally it was race weekend again. After a long summer break still with good memories of Ferrari's 1-2 win, they were already preparing for FP1 here in Portugal. The mood was high in the garage and Y/n certainly felt more relaxed as she did her warm ups. The previous Grand Prix showed her that she was actually capable to score some high points with the car, and she was feeling a lot more confident- 

This was still her first F1 season and thanks to an amazing team, teammate and car, she had already gotten great results. But she was hungry for more. A win would absolutely top her season. Though it seemed just a tad ambitious, she was also confident that it was a good thing to have this kind of goal and for the team and herself to work had to achieve it. 

And so she didn't even complain once at her warm ups which even made Peter suspicious. "Is everything alright?" He asked her as they had just finished warm ups. "Yeah of course, why wouldn't it be?" the girl happily answered with a smile. "Because you seemed so... happy to do warm ups, and you never do" he replied crossing his arms. "Well, sometimes changes can be good" she said and patted his shoulder before zipping up her racing suit. 

Coming out of FP1 with a P4, Y/n was satisfied though she felt like she could push the car maybe a little bit more. That was until Riccardo, her race engineer, spoke to her. "It looks like there's an 85% change of rain during the next session, so we might need to test the wet tires" most drivers, not only in F1, liked or loved the rain. It was a time, where you could really see, whos' got the talent and who doesn't. But Y/n hated the rain with a burning passion, when she was racing. 

Back in her F3 days, she had a race, where she qualified P1. She felt confident, and her team was happy with her since she hadn't had all the best of luck that season. But during the race it began to rain heavily, and for some stupid reason, the race wasn't stopped. Or well it was, but not until she had crashed into the barrier and taken another driver with her. Luckily she didn't hurt herself that much, only a few bruises and a sore body, but the other driver... it was bad. He was in a coma for months, and it took him years to finally return to the motorsport world, but Y/n continued to live with the guilt that she could have killed him. And in a way she did. She killed his career. He never made it to F2, and he quit F3. A driver, whom she was positive would make it to the top. She doesn't know, what he's doing today, but he will never be able to race the same again, and it was all her fault. Only because she pushed her car too far in the rain. 

"Y/n? Did you hear what I said?" She snapped out of her thoughts and looked at Riccardo. "Yeah sorry" she mumbled as they continued to go over strategies. 

And surely enough, in the middle of FP2 it began raining. Y/n came into the pits and changed her tires before going back out. She felt how nervous, she actually was coming out of the pits again, but she couldn't let it shine through.

Ending FP2 with a P8 was more than fine to her, considering her hate for the rain. But of course the world wouldn't be kind to her today, as Tabatha had to drag her to an interview where she got paired up with Lewis and Max meaning she would also had to overhear all the questions about their fight for the championship though Lewis would probably win. Again. 

She tried her best not to show how tired and unbothered she was. Interviews was absolute trash, and she saw no reason to do them. In fact she had already skipped a few, but Tabatha didn't know that obviously, and it would forever stay that way. 

"Coming onto you Lewis, do you feel confident that you're gonna win another World Championship soon?" Y/n looked at Lewis, who seemed to really think about his answer. Sometimes she whished that she had Lewis' skills to do all his interviews with grace. It always seemed like whatever he said, it sounded good. 

"Well the fight isn't over yet, and I look forward to the upcoming race. Of course Mercedes is currently leading, and we do have and have shown our great pace. But it's clear that teams like Red Bull, Ferrari and Racing Point have shown their pace as well, and I believe the fight will be close" Like damn, how does he sound so professional saying all that? Sure he'd been in the sport for a while, but it was still unfair. 

"And Y/n, I think we all noticed a big difference between FP1 and FP2 today. At first you had great pace, but can you tell us what happened with FP2?" Well what did happen with FP2? She got shit scared because she didn't wanna send another driver or herself to the hospital in a coma, but she couldn't exactly say that on TV, or actually just say that even without the TV. If she said that in a strategy meeting, they would laugh at her. 

"Well I believe it was the rain. You know it's always tricky to drive in the rain, and I'm not as used to that as many other drivers yet" she replied. Definitely not her best answer, but what the hell. It's not like they give you points for a good interview. And if they did, Lewis would be winning that as well. "And why is the rain hard for you?" oh come on, she had to answer more?

"I don't know, I don't have the answer for that" see if they were to give out points for interviews, she would have gotten penalty points for that answer. God she hated interviews.