Friends will be friends

Notes:

Disclaimer: I haven't been into Formula 1 for that long and I'm learning more and more about the subject. That's why I won't go into much detail about the technology and the rules. The focus of my story is on the friendship between Charles and Carlos.

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"Fuck"

Charles angrily threw his helmet into the corner. Things were going so well for him. The start was perfect and Max was completely in his shadow. What had happened on lap 18? Why had he been so unfocused? He went past the engineers, didn't want to see anyone, but the race still had 35 laps to go and he had to give interviews afterwards. But he could still hope for Carlos, who, although he was only allowed to start from P19 because of a penalty, had driven himself into P10.

"At least we can get the points." Charles ran his fingers through his hair and took a sip from his bottle before running over to the paddock. Binotto didn't return his gaze. Never a good sign and Charles knew that it wasn't the post-race interviews that would be awkward, but the internal team talk afterwards.

The interviews were terrible but Charles did pretty well. It wasn't the first time he landed in the wall. It was just that it was the World Championship that was at stake.

Now they were sitting at this rounded table. The two drivers Charles and Carlos, the engineers, the technical team and of course Binotto. Carlos took a seat opposite Charles, smiling slightly. He had just as little desire to be here as Charles.

"This race sucked," Binotto started talking. He put his eyes on Charles.

"What was going on with you?"

Embarrassed, Charles shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know, I just lost control of the car."

"You have to control the car, Charles, not the car you," said Laurent

"You don't say?" muttered Carlos, grinning and looking over at Charles, who couldn't help to giggle a little.

Binotto now turned his head to Carlos and looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"And what was going on with you, please?"

Now Carlos shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know what you mean," he said and looked at Binotto.

"You don't know what I mean?" he looked at him incredulously. Carlos knew exactly what he meant, but he didn't look to say anything about it, after all it wasn't his fault.

"You could have easily made P3," Enrico said. Annoyed, Carlos looked to him.

"Are you trying to make fun of me? I got us 10 points after all." he shook his head and sat back.

Charles sighed.

"I know it was my fault that the car ended up in the wall." he looked at Binotto and the others.

"But it wasn't Carlo's fault that he didn't get on the podium." now his gaze went over to Carlos, who looked at him questioningly.

"If you hadn't brought him into the pit a second time he would have got George again." Of these words Charles was convinced. Perez had only slipped to P4 because Carlos had been brought into the pits. Carlos nodded and took the floor.

"He's right." he continued after the looks of the others now went from Charles over to him.

"If you hadn't brought me into the pit again, it would have been easy. My tyres were still fine." he looked to the technical team.