In the Spotlight (Max Verstappen - Book Two)

Chapter Seven

"Alright, Elodie. Radio check?" I hear Daniella call into my ears as I press the radio button.

"Hello, lovely," I respond happily as I'm enjoying the hum of the engine below me, the exhilaration and adrenaline running through my veins with excitement, my first opportunity to get out in the car that I'll be racing for the next season.

"You ready for this?" She asks me and I nod to myself as I examine the wheel and the settings we have selected on it.

"Beyond ready. Can I go out yet? Pleeeeaseee?" I practically sing in hope but I'm met with silence as I shift energetically in my seat, taking the opportunity to glance around the garage as the screens in front of me are relaying fairly useless information to me right now. To my left I see Max talking with his engineer as his eyes meet mine and he sends me a quick smile. Fortunately for me, my helmet is covering my now pink-tinted face as I shoot him a quick wave from my seat which he returns and I force myself to look away as I tap on my steering wheel impatiently.

"Alright, we will release you onto the track in one minute." I hear Daniella call down the line and I breathe out a sigh of relief.

"Oh thank goodness, I think I might pass out from excitement if I have to stay here for much longer," I tell her and I hear her briefly laugh before the radio cuts out. The monitors get removed and I see the engineers prepare to take off the tire blankets as I follow the instructions Dani gives me about positions for various switches and dials on the wheel. Moments later there is a flurry of movement as I snap the visor down and the mechanics remove all the tire warmers and one RB mechanic walks backwards in the pitlane to help guide my exit. I press down on the throttle and am propelled forward as I turn the wheel, pulling myself out of the garage for the first time in the RB19, whooping excitedly.

I take the first chicane and the rest of the track somewhat carefully as I work to gradually build up heat in the towers as the new regulations don't allow them to be as warm before going on the car. I weave down the empty straight between turns three and four before beginning to pick up speed around the rest of the track, massively enjoying every second as I began to adjust to the car. I commented on corners I took where I felt more or less understeer or oversteer on the car set up. The first stint I was out was meant to be a long one with a heavy fuel load in the car to allow me to adjust to the feel of the car, naturally, it reacted slightly differently from how it did in the simulator and I called out random coded words to signal the differences to Daniella that Max's side of the garage would not understand. No doubt this could lead to another argument with Max but I had already come to terms with the fact that this was a new reality I would be adjusting to, while he was supportive of me as his teammate, I could tell that he was not used to the challenge of competing with a teammate in a long time. The last real time was 2018 and I just had to give him time to adjust to this as a reality and hope that he really would be as mature as he claimed to be when it came to racing. At the end of the day, it wasn't going to be fair if he was going to be continuously resentful of me just for being better prepared than he was for the season. I think this was something that he had begun to learn after the Sebastian incident but no doubt would be one that I would reiterate tonight.

I pushed all thoughts of Max out of my mind however as I pushed the car around the track, gradually pushing it faster and faster, getting frequent updates from Dani as well as suggestions of dials or switches to change. Finally, after almost thirty minutes straight out in the car, I pulled back into the pits, staying seated as the team bought the screens down in front of me. I opted to pull my helmet and balaclava off, passing them to Nick in exchange for my water bottle that I so desperately wanted. I put the straw in my mouth as I look at the data in front of me, chewing on the inside of my lip before asking Nick to bring Dani over so I could chat with her as I had taken my helmet off. He does and soon I have both of them on either side of my car, Dani and I discussing different data points while Nick just took non-stop notes of what we were saying. After fifteen minutes of this, Dani and I agree on a tire-wear programme to run and load the car up heavy with fuel again although we are only planning on doing a third of the time on this occasion and on top of that we had the ballasts in the car weighing a bit more than they were meant to in case my weight fluctuated more than we anticipated. Still wanting to somewhat throw off the competition about the true speed of the RB19 as instructed by Christian which was also why the engine was roughly two levels below its top performance ability. But we could still grab valuable performance data which is what I was intent on doing. I let my head fall back as I sipped on my water once again as Dani gave instructions to the rest of the team about how to set up the car. I look around the garage as I gently massage my neck, Nick tries to reach through the halo to possibly help but I just laugh and shake my head at him, batting his hands away playfully before he rolled his eyes and just crouched down next to me.