The Twins a F1 story

Chapitre 6

May 2004

Ralf POV

It has been a year since I first introduced Yuri to karting and he has been loving it. He's honestly a natural plus he's a really fast learner when it comes to driving. Like every time I go to him after a run, to tell him where he messed up and how to correct it he takes the correction and apply it straight away and then will never make that mistake again.  Today we will be going to his first race of his second season in Germany.

We decided to make it a boy day only so only Dad and Micheal would come with us while the lady had their own lady time. So we packed everything in the trailer before attaching it to the car and making our way to the race track.

Everything was a mess in the car Yuri was screaming from excitement in the back seat with his Opa while Michael and I were debating about which road to take to get there faster. After taking two wrong turns, we finally arrived at the track where we were met by a few fans. Michael and I went to sign a few autographs before helping our dad with unpacking the kart and taking our toolbox in case we had something to fix on it.

We then made our way to the pit lane to get the kart ready and made sure everything was in order before Yuri sat into it to do a warmup lap to get accustomed to the track. Once he came back Michael and I gave him some advice about what he could do to ameliorate his time. And then we did some late braking drills so that he can get used to braking later to gain time on his competitors.

After this, we went to look at what time he needed to be on the track for his qualifying session. Yuri didn't have to be there for two more hours so we decided to go get lunch and then look at the younger categories race and discuss about strategy he could use during the race.

We got our food and made our way to where Michael was in the stands and waited for the younger category race to start we have betted on an other German kid we had met he qualified second so we had high hopes that he could finish first.

During his race he managed to over take the one in first place and continued on to win his first race. Everyone was thrilled that he managed to win so we went down to congratulate him before Yuri and I made our way to the changing rooms to get him in his racing suit before he had to be on track.

I wasn't too worried about him since he has won every race he entered up until now and by a large margin at that so he should be fine in today's race. I honestly was more worried about him making a reckless move and get either injured or disqualified.

Yuri POV

I was in the changing room getting my suit on with my dad and discussing about the race and what result we were looking for here. While having that conversation I noticed a lot of others watching us. I wasn't really surprised since I had become accustomed to it.

Let's just say my sister and I were getting more and more famous inside  the sport since we've been more present within the paddock where all the cameras are at, so sometimes we get recognized in the street and get asked for either autographs or pictures. I honestly find it annoying since most of the time they interrupt us while we're eating dinner, or in the middle of conversations. Honestly, people think that paparazzi are the worst, I mean yeah it gets kind of annoying but at least they joke around a bit with you. For me the worst are the fans, like I find it hod that a complete stranger to you knows basically everything about your life that honestly creeps me out the most.

Seeing that I was uncomfortable dad asked me what was wrong.
—They're all just staring. I whispered to him.
He then looked around and seeing that everyone was indeed staring took my hand and made our way outside. Normally I don't get this bothered about it because Carissa's here with me and always makes light of the situations by joking around and saying they're just staring because they're jealous that I have a beautiful sister. But when she's not there, I just feel like an outcast since no one really comes to talk to me or when they do it's for an autograph it honestly get quite lonely, but thankfully my family support's me brought it and now I will have Mick to talk to when we have the same races.

We walked for a while before reaching the pit lane where my kart was parked once seeing it I immediately came back to focus and had one thing in mind and that was to win this race. Once we reached it, my dad gave me his usual speech.

- Be safe out there and remember what I told you.

I nodded and we did our little handshake before he gave me my helmet and helped me put it on. I then got into the kart and buckled up, before starting the engine and exiting the pit lane to begin my warmup lap I was the last one schedule to have my hot lap so I just had to make sure not to be in the way of any other drivers and wait for my turn.

After another few laps, it was finally my turn to have a go at my qualifying lap so I started to accelerate to reach top speed before reaching the starting line and then went on to do the fastest lap of the day making me start in pole position for the race. I then made my way back to the pit lane and got out of the kart before taking my helmet off and going to get myself a water bottle at the pit wall.

There I was met with Dad and Uncle Michael who congratulated me on my pole position for the race. They then left me to go back to their seats while I looked at the racing board to see what the times looked like. Seeing that the second place was a guy that I already raced against I decided to go see him and try to get in his head. So seeing that he was looking at me, I went up to his kart and looked around it like Inspector Seb does before making a concerned face and then going to see him and say.

- Good job for p2 and good luck in the race with that kart. I said to hopefully cause doubt in his head about the capacity of the kart. I then gave him a hand shake before leaving. Yeah, I've been trying to get into my opponents head before races and hopefully mess with their peace of mind or destabilize them before the race so that they're more likely to make mistakes.

The organizers then made an announcement saying that we had ten minutes left before the start of the race. So we each made our way to our karts and buckled up before getting ready to start the formation lap. Once everyone was in their kart, we began the formation lap and stopped in our respective slot before waiting for the lights to go off.

The lights go off. I immediately put my foot down on the gas taking off in a heartbeat ahead of the rest of the pack. I stayed there until the end of the race. Sadly, it wasn't really eventful that's why I typically like to race with more advance drivers since I learn more in those types of races, but you need to race against people of your experience level here. The one thing that was exciting was that my little experience worked well, since the guy was too scared to push his kart to the limit but oh well good for me since he was too scared to even attempt to catch up to me.

I finished the cool down lap before going back into the pit lane where my family was waiting for me. Once I got out, everyone congratulated me and gave me a big hug. We had to wait for the end of the day for the award ceremony where all the trophies would be given.

Once the day was over, everyone gathered together for the award ceremony where they gave all of us our respective awards as well as some special award such as the driver of the day, best overtaken, fastest lap and others. I personally won the fastest lap of the day so I was happy about that. Everyone then went back to the pit lane to get their karts packed and to go home. On the way home, we decided to go celebrate these achievements at a restaurant so we called up the girls to tell them we were going to be late a little later they said that it was fine and they would just continue their girls day.

Once we got to Uncle Michael's house, we got into the house where we were reunited with the girls who congratulated us on our win before everyone went their separate way.

On our way back home Carissa told us about her day and how much fun she had and how she liked having a girls' day since she was always the only girl at home and in the paddock. This made me laugh since she always complains about it, which his exactly why Dad put her into figure skating since it was mostly a girl dominated sport especially with the ballet class that she has to do on top. Yeah Dad had found a figure skating ring last year in which he had immediately enrolled her in. What was nice about it was that it was a Russian school so she could talk to the personnel in Russian since we all still struggled to speak French it was just the perfect fit.

We then finally made it to our house that we still had in Germany even though we would stay in Monaco most of the time, but we still come here from time to time especially in the winter break and other times dad didn't have races for a long amount of time. And because of that dad told us to pack up before going to bed since we would be flying back to Monaco tomorrow.