Rogue - Formula 1

1

"OH FOR FUCKS SAKE" she had just spun out again, for the 3rd time this session. To any onlookers it might've seemed as if she'd never driven a race car before.

Testing was a disaster. It was in no way amounting to the eye-catchingly brilliant sessions she had hoped would prove Ferrari had made the correct decision in signing her. She couldn't seem to grasp the balance of the car and had already worn through countless sets of tires due to her numerous lockups, spins and runouts that were plaguing her testing. And to further her frustrations at the situation she could already picture the gathering doubts on her performance.

It was as if she was adding copious amounts if gasoline to an already well alight flame.

She knew that testing had never been a strong point for her, even in seasons where she went on to be successful her testing times and performance had always been poor. But this was a new low for her and to make matters worse she keen the team was beyond frustrated with her.

*Radio*

*Team* "Florence we need you to push this lap, push this lap. But make sure to keep the car within track limits we need to start getting actual data from you soon"

*DeRose* "Okay copy that, but I'm really struggling out here, I just can't seem to get a handle on the car"

*Team* "Understood we will look into that but you are the only driver here who has yet to pull off a clean pushing lap"

Florence responded by pressing the OK button on her wheel as she didn't want to talk to the team anymore, Florence knew they where disappointed by her driving, hell she was too. They took a big risk in signing her onto the team and at the moment she was making them look like biggest idiots in the paddock.

~~~

FINALLY, Florence's third and final testing session had actually started to show some form of driving capability. She had started to produce multiple successive clean laps, and felt as if shed had finally been able to figure out and adjust to the car's balance and handling, meaning she had produced a significant pace gain. Now lapping just a couple of hundredths of what Charles had been producing all testing. She was noticeably still wasn't happy with my times or driving but at least now she felt that Ferrari wouldn't kick her straight out of Formula 1 the moment she left the car.

 Her session concluded with Florence holding the 7th fastest lap time, behind the two Mercedes, a singular Red Bull, Charles and the two Mclauren boys. A much needed improvement from 18th yesterday where she only managed to be faster than Latifi and Mazepin.

She had hoped to have a nice smooth run through testing, not push it too much, just get comfortable in the car and do some decent laps. Testing was planned to be a confidence builder for the upcoming season but instead Florence felt as if it had only done her harm. Testing had left her worried for the actual race, all the self doubt that she had worked so hard to put behind herself was slowly creeping back up upon her once again, begging for her allowance to take control.

There was one singular positive to come out of testing. The car itself had shown itself to hold a lot of pace this year. The Ferrari's times had come within a touching distance of the Mercedes and Red Bull, who looked like they had very strong cars and where going to be hard to beat this coming year.

~~~

THE PADDOCK had never been a favourite place for the Monegasque, with it being forever filled with cameras and judgemental eyes from media, public and race staff alike. And these eyes always seemed to fall upon Florence. As she entered the media area for the debrief it was hard for her to refrain from turning and walking straight out as every set of eyes locked on felt as if they were staring straight through her. 

'Let's get this over and done with' she thought, its not like she didn't know what the questions would be about anyway.

Throughout her whole motorsports career the media and public had always been overly critical and harsh. Even as a young girl in Karts Florence was never taken seriously and every small error was blown out of proportion, but everything always made it's way back to gender. 

'Yes Michael my run out at turn 4 was only because I was a girl, it's not like 6 other drivers had issues at that same turn or anything.'

 It never mattered how well she did, if Florence won it was down to pure luck or the other drivers going easy on her because she was a girl. If she came in second or worse it was always what is she doing in motorsport, Florence was never seen as good enough.

When she signed on as a Ferrari Academy driver just before the start of her rookie F2 season Florence thought everything was finally straightening out. But that was all false hope, testing didn't go her way after due to a specular crash out on the 3rd and final day where the suspension on the car failed. The season just went from bad to worse, whilst her teammate was getting win after win, podium after podium she would be lucky to finish in the points. The media tore her apart, she felt as if she had given it her all though the entire season and maybe she started to believe that she actually wasn't good enough. Although up until that point the driving had always come easily for her, she had often struggled with the mentality needed for the sport and media, the backlash from the poor results within that 2019 season nearly destroyed Florence, she had started to think that she actually didn't have a place within motorsport and wondered if all the sacrifices to get to this point where worth it. It was following that season that she gave herself an ultimatum during the off-season, if she didn't win a race in the 2020 season she would give in to the public and media scrutiny and leave the sport. The dream would be over.

Luck was on her side that following year, winning the opening race after a poor qualifying had brightened her spirits,  then the wins had kept on coming. Temporarily drowning out the voices of her critics and Florence's own voice inside her head. When she won the championship it was like a fever dream for her, it was something so surreal that she had struggled to believe it actually happened. For the following moment she had actually thought that she would have had earned her place in the sport, not just in her own eyes but in the media's eyes too. She couldn't have been more wrong.

Driving for Ferrari in F1 had alway been Florence's dream, but as of now it couldn't be further from it. She felt like I was drowning all over again, voices running rampant and uncontained in her own head, the media forcing their fake words and cruel smiles upon her. 

The fire was we alight and she hadn't even raced yet.