"What we have to lose"

60

I put on my headphones and looked at the monitors in front of me. It feels weird to see Daniel in a different car. The third free practice was over quickly because of a Red flag. They weren't able to repair the barriers in time so the free practice was only 45 minutes long.
The time before the qualifying made me go back into Daniel's garage. I checked on him and asked how he felt in his car and was glad to hear that he had a good time. We went into the hospitality for lunch and had some lovely conversations with the Renault workers. I'm glad that they all accepted me even though they knew that I officially still work for Red Bull.
"I wish you all the best for the qualifying and I'll see you after that, I love you." I said before leaving to the Red Bull garage. " Thank you, I Love you too." Daniel answered with a big hug.
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Arriving in the garage I saw Max who seemed to wait for me. " Amilia are you feeling good?" he asks me which made me look confused at him " yes I am what's wrong?" I ask. " Could you do me a favor and tape my neck? I somehow managed to hurt myself right before qualifying." he asks. I nodded at him and we went into his driver room and I taped him but told him we have to work that out after the session. "Thank you so much you saved me."Max says while giving me a hug. I wished him good luck before he stepped into the car. I sat back down in my chair and waited for the qualifying to start.
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It was an eventful Q1 with a lot of yellow flags and I was glad that both Max and Daniel had good lap times that helped them get into Q2. Sadly the qualifying was over for Daniel after Q2 because he only made it to P12 but that was fine for the first time in his new car. After Q3 I was happy for Max who made it to P4. He came back into the garage and I congratulated him on that. I quickly went over to Daniel, talked to him about the qualifying and told him I have to work with Max. "Ok we have to talk about the Qualifying anyways so text me when you're ready." he said and I went back to Max.
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I worked with Max for nearly an hour before I placed some more tape strips on his neck. "I hope your neck is feeling better already, but we should see tomorrow morning again." I said. He thanked me again and I said goodbye to him. Before leaving his driver room I texted Daniel that I'm on my way. During my way to the Renault motorhome I came across the rookies of this year. I recognized George Russel and Alex Albon but who was....no way "Lando?" I ask as I recognized him. He smiled at me and said "I thought you'd never see me." I actually did not see him during the qualifying nor while walking around. "By the way I'm the one in the orange car, pretty obvious, maybe you'll see me on track tomorrow." Lando said and smiled. "Haha You're so funny but I will keep an eye out for you." I said before waving them goodbye. For anyone who forgot about Lando....I bumped into him in the supermarket back in England and met him at the track last season when he was still driving in F2. I knew he joined F1 this season but forgot about it somehow. I really think we he's such a funny guy and I think we could become friends as well.
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Sunday morning, the weather was great so I decided to wear a dress. I normally don't dress up because I wear my team wear but today I felt like it. I wore a blouse dress and sneakers and tried to cover up my permanent IV but it didn't work out too well. After finishing my IV I pulled my hair to the front and covered it up as good as possible.
We arrived at the track and the photographers greeted us again. Daniel and I waved friendly and went straight into his drivers room.
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Daniel was focused on his final preparations and I already wished him good luck. I sat down into his garage next to his family and put on the headphones while Daniel drove out of the garage. They parked their cars and waited for the red lights. As usual I was pretty nervous when I saw all of the red lights on. "It's lights out and away we go." I hear over the headphones and watched closely what happened. The start was good, there was no crash and Daniel gained two places. I was pretty happy for such a good start for Daniel.
"And Daniel Ricciardo has to drive through the grass because of the fight with Sergio Perez and oh no he lost his front wing." I hear the comentator say and place my hands on my head. Daniel fell back to the last place on grid and had to drive without the front wing before being able to box. He came into the box and my hopes were still high that they can simply replace the wing. But sadly they took a closer look and saw that since the wing was ripped off they can't put the new one on. »Daniel I'm sorry to tell you this but we won't be able to fix the front wing, you have to retire.« I heard his engineer say. He answered with a quick ok and I heard his disappointment. I wished for him to have a good start with Renault but sadly it wasn't meant to be. I hope the next races will be better.
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