In the Spotlight (Max Verstappen - Book Two)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

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"Elodie!" I hear my name being called by a familiar voice and a smile spreads across my face as I turn around and see my favourite German standing in the paddock.

"Seb!" I call out, jogging away from Liv and towards the retired World Champion, embracing him in a strong hug, very aware of all the cameras that surround us in the paddock. After some travel issues, he hadn't managed to get here on Friday as planned and I was actually just on my way to prep for the qualifying session when I saw him standing there. "I'm glad you made it!" I say emphatically as I pat him on the back.

"Me too, glad to be somewhere dry before the chaos begins," he says pointing at the ominous looking sky and I let out a chuckle as I nod. The predicted rain hadn't hit yet and it meant that all teams were going into qualifying expecting it to rain at any second with no data on how the cars might be affected.

"Follow me, I'm headed to the garage just now for some chats and pre-qually warm up," I explain and he nods emphatically as we walk along the paddock catching up about his journey, jogging towards the end as the predicted rain drops finally make their way out of the clouds and onto the ground. By the time we've walked from the back of the garage to the front, the heavens have well and truly opened.

"Mein Gott," Sebastian says as we both nervously peer out the garage at the sight in front of us.

"My sentiments exactly," Dani says walking up to us where we are standing near the car at the front of the garage, she reaches out a hand to the German driver and I introduce the two as I look around the garage. Every TV station's camera and every photographer is pointed at us right now with this being Sebastian's first appearance in the paddock since his retirement, but their eyes aren't the only ones - both mine and Max's sides of the garage are looking curiously at us right now.

"Well...we planned for this in the sim right?" I ask Dani, tearing my eyes away from the rain and the cameras back to the woman of the hour who is currently chewing her bottom lip in a way that doesn't fill me with much if any confidence in whatever she is about to say.

"Yep...it was, unfortunately, the only scenario we ran where Max outperformed you," she delivers the information freely and brutally as both Sebastian and I wince, nodding in synchronisation.

"Sebastian!" A voice booms across the garage, bringing out attention to the team principal as he strides over a wide smile on his face which brings one onto Sebastian's. The two have a warm hug in greeting before Christian looks at Dani and me and then to the rain. "I'll leave you to it, but I trust you'll be good. You always have had some magic in the rain," Christian says smiling and I nod tightly, trying not to let the expectation get to me as the rain decreases. "I expect they'll want to get qualifying started asap, full wets to inters I imagine," Christian declares and I hear Dani agree with him before he bids us farewell, sprinting across the pit lane to the pit wall as fast as he can to get out of the rain.

Nick comes out of nowhere in an effort to get me to warm up and I realise that with the extra distraction of Sebastian, I have now run slightly behind schedule. "Don't suppose there will be many tactics?" I ask Dani who shrugs as we look out at the rain in silent agreement...this is going to be interesting. Sebastian follows Nick and me as we find some space to do some warm ups and Sebastian and I talk through the track and its wet weather possibilities which we quickly decide are endless as the track is tricky and unpredictable without rain...let alone the volume that we were seeing five minutes ago.