Sunday, November 11th, 2018- São Paulo, Brazil
Brazil Grand Prix, Autódromo José Carlos Pace- the Interlagos Circuit
"Let's not do that right now," you reach out, hoping to grab hold of him, to keep him from walking away but you're too slow, your fingers closing around thin air rather than Max's upper arm, "fuck, fuck, fuck!" You mumble to yourself, torn between chasing after him and staying where you are, afraid of making a scene by doing the former but petrified of what might be about to happen if you didn't do the latter.
Things go to shit like they always seem to do in racing- at the most inopportune times, in the most inconvenient places, and for the most inappropriate reasons, never in a moment when it can be stopped before it has a chance to really get started and always in front of cameras.
Where one moment everything seems to be perfectly fine, the next Max is squaring up, stepping forward to get in Ocon's face, as the world around the two comes to a screeching halt as every eye in the vicinity turns to watch.
The tableau that unfolds in full sight of the paddock is a strange one, with Brendan Hartley in Toro Rosso royal blue and red frozen in place behind the pair like a deer in the headlights, and Valtteri Bottas stood off to one side, poised to intervene, as he looks away from the verbal altercation that teeters dangerously close to coming to physical blows and scans the crowd, clearly searching for someone that you fail to realize is you until his eyes finally find yours.
"God damnit," you mutter, forced into action by the expression on Bottas's face, which had begged the question 'are you going to just stand there or are you going to do something about this?' even as it had caught you wholly by surprise, since you'd been entirely unaware that the Fin had any idea who you were, let alone knew what your job was, "I swear to fucking God."
Leaving all niceties at the door, you cut a path through the crowd of people that has amassed in a matter of minutes, finding that everyone has simultaneously gone deaf, struck dumb by the show unfolding before them, you're left with no choice but to just shove your way through, tossing out clipped apologies here and there as is necessitated.
Unfortunately, you're still too far away to hear what it is that Ocon says that directly prefaces the point of no return, because even as you strain your ears, trying to ascertain the words being exchanged, the conflict escalates without any warning, the argument and its exact content instantaneously falling to out of importance as Max, reaching breakpoint, shoves the Racing Point driver.
Ocon is quite clearly taken aback by the hard right the altercation has just taken into a true bodily dispute, a shocked expression on his face that serves only to infuriate Max further, and sparks the first feel instance of anger you'd felt until now because while this whole thing is so fucking stupid, it's absolutely ridiculous that the Frenchman thought he could instigate an argument like he had and that nothing would come of it.
That's not to excuse what Max has just done and the line that he's just crossed, which has just put him solely at fault for everything that's about to happen and will, rightfully so, make him wholly responsible for the conflict in the eyes of the FIA but still, it hardly seems fair.
At first, Esteban extends one arm and raises it in front of him to hold Max off, his fingers briefly making contact with the Dutchman before he realizes the attempt is futile as Max shoves him again, harder this time, and he instead throws his right hand up in the air, gesturing to the driver in his face and the witnesses that surround them that he's choosing to not physically engage.
Max doesn't give a fuck, ignoring the sudden uproar that had followed the first instance of contact and pushes him again, for the third time, which sends Ocon stumbling backwards off the platform they're stood on, one hand still held aloft in placation.
