That announcement left me feeling like my skin was suddenly on fire, my insides boiling. I felt my mouth open, but I just wasn't able to close it. I looked into their faces, Franz, Jody, Matt, Pierre, Dani.
It took me a moment to respond. "First off, Dani, I'm so sorry. I don't know what to say, that is just cruel."
He shrugged. "There's nothing I can do about it right now, and you don't have to feel sorry. At least now I can spend more time with my daughter, let's look at it that way."
"Still...". I looked down at my hands on my lap.
"And you're sure that I'm your first choice? I mean, I know the car and everything, but I've never raced with it before, and I obviously still don't have my super license yet, just the FP only license."
"There's a first time for everything, and the license shouldn't be a problem, I mean you have almost twice the amount of points than are required, and we", Jamie pointed at Franz Tost, Toro Rosso's team principal, "already talked with the FIA yesterday, you'll have a meeting with them first thing in the morning. Don't worry, they'll just question you about the sporting codes and regulations, which you all know.", he added after seeing the fear in my eyes.
I buried my face in my hands.
"You're a raw diamond, Suvi", I heard Graham, the team manager, say, "we all want you in that car this weekend."
I felt Jamies hand squeezing my thigh and looked up. My manager was not able to hide his excitement at all.
One look around later, I took a deep breath.
"This is really happening, isn't it?" There it was. The sudden moment of realization.
"Fuck shit. Oh shit, sorry, language...", I stopped for a moment.
"I'm gonna race in a Grand Prix!"
There were tears, clapping hands, hugs, congratulations, cheers.
I'm going to race in F1. Me. A 19 year old woman.
//
The rest of the afternoon I spent in the garage, speaking to my engineer for the weekend, Matt. We worked together before in testing sessions and got along really well.
The mechanics surely had a lot of work to do in the next two days to fit the car to my body measurements. I fortunately was pretty tall, almost 1.75m, but still clearly wouldn't be able to even reach the pedals with Daniil's settings.
As the day came to an end, the paddock was still pretty busy, and since it was already announced I was participating in the final race of the season, I kept to myself in the garage. Media day tomorrow would be stressful and draining enough, so I was glad I could stay out of reach of most of the nosy looks at least for the rest of the day.
We were looking at the data of the circuit from last year when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Franz gave me a smile when I turned around.
"So when was the last time you drove on this track?"
"I mean I won here before in '16 with GP3, beating a certain Charles Leclerc", I joked, but earned no laughter, leading to me clearing my throat, "uhh, on the simulator I think it was two months ago. But I only did about 10 laps. I'll start training in a few minutes, I'd like to put at least 50 or 60 laps in this evening. Most of the team won't make it 'til curfew anyways, so I'm not gonna be left alone."
He nodded approvingly, wished me well and left.
After 21 laps on the sim, there was a knock on the door. I was expecting one of the team members, and squeaked in excitement as I saw a certain german dressed in red enter the room. With me trapped in the simulator, we couldn't exactly hug each other, so Seb just stroked my head for a second, then grabbed one of the chairs from the middle of the room and sat down next to me.
YOU ARE READING
A U R O R A // F1
Fanfictionthe sun broke through the clouds and made her braids look like two golden chains running down her back. I glanced at her face, her eyes lost in the hustle and bustle around us in the padock. if someone could ever be perfection, it would be that girl...
