Driven For You - A Charles Leclerc Story

004 | Chapter Two

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I can't remember the first time I got in a go kart. I can't remember when my love for driving became apparent and I definitely can't remember when I decided that becoming an F1 driver was my life's mission. But I remember lots of other important milestones. Like when I won my first race in the under 10-year-old national championship, or when I got signed to drive for Scuderia Ferrari, or when I got my first taste of victory in the 2022 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix.

And unfortunately, I remember when the first bitter tasting misogynistic comment was thrown my way.

But luckily for me I wasn't a naïve child who thought everyone had equal obstacles in their lives. I realised from a young age that my gender was going to be one of my personal bigger ones. Some, not many, but some people just seem to have a problem with a woman racing and worse still, are very forthcoming with their opinions on the matter. I don't think a day has gone by where my gender has been thrown in my face as an insult.

But that was always amusing for me.

Albeit the snide comments of 10-year-olds, or tabloids created by grown-ass media men, every little attempted knock to my confidence only seemed to make me more determined to prove them all wrong. It was a fuel that I fed on ravenously.

So, when walking out of the media room and out into the wolf den of reporters, I held my head high and carefully crafted a look of disappointment to obtain maybe a slight bit of sympathy from the multitude of camera that flashed and recorded. Maybe it was low to grovel for empathy, but I needed the publics support, and the quickest way to someone's heart is abusing their human instinct to care for others. If media training had taught me anything, it was to appease to the masses.

Leclerc was nowhere to be seen, which was odd having only left thirty seconds before I did, but I didn't dwell on it. He had taken up way too much of my day and I caught the bubbly new Sky Reporter approaching me with a smile on her face. Time to be the professional I pretend to be.

Time to put on the act of a lifetime.

"Isla Rogers," She began, not even asking me for an interview, but just jumping straight into it. This wasn't unusual, however. Many drivers would probably tell reports to bugger off if they were given the option to. "First crash of your 2023 year, can you tell us what happened out there?" She asked, all but shoving the microphone in my face.

I swallowed any resentment that bubbled to the surface and put a smile as fake as my best friends red hair, "Just an issue of mistimed overtaking, nothing too serious, we'll come back stronger next time." I nodded hoping for that to be it.

It never is.

The reporter nodded as if she had been listening to me and continued, "That fight with Charles Leclerc after the crash seemed more personal than simple teammate rivalry. Even public have started to suspect you two don't get along very well. Any comments on that?"

I bit my tongue and forced out a laugh, "Me and Leclerc are good friends," I began scraping together a feasible lie, "And as you said, it was my first DNF of my career, it was heat of the moment stuff, could have been anyone on the receiving end."

The reporter huffed at my answer, obviously hoping to get a scoop worth something more than the usual drabble. But I suppose she figured she wasn't going to get anything else out of me about that issue, so she switched topics. "Your lead in the Championship is going to take a hit from this. If Max places second or higher he will have over taken you in terms of points. How do you intend on rectifying that next race?"