racing hearts - a Fabio Quartararo fanfiction [🇬🇧]

chapter 12

[Pray for me - The Weeknd]

For 2 weeks now I'm probably the happiest person in the world.
I secretly imagined what it would be like if I could call Fabio my boyfriend before he was. Now that he was, I realized my expectations were understated. I experienced him again from a completely different side, but day by day I started to love him more, even if we haven't seen each other since the kiss at the airport because we were both busy with our work. However, that didn't affect the relationship. Although there was no real contact, we were still able to call and facetime.
The relationship also rubbed off a bit on my race results. But in a positive way.
After my comeback in Bahrain, the next podium followed in Miami. And that shouldn't be stopped today at the Imola Grand Prix.
In the sprint race, I not only secured pole position for today's race, but also collected 8 points. Iwasn't first in the world championship ranking yet, but I was back in the race.

I was just sitting in my drivers room. There was still some time before the race started. So I just texted Fabio, who was racing today in San Marino. Actually, he should already be driving, but it was raining where he was, as I found out from him.

do you know when
the race starts again?

It will probably take a little
longer til it starts.
Probably about the same
time as your race.
The rain should stop at 3 p.m
W

hat about the weather in Imola?

The sun is still shining here
however, it starts to get
cloudier. Maybe it also
will start to rain but not yet

Fabio was just writing, which is why I looked at my cell phone while waiting, when I suddenly heard a knock, and a little later the door opened.
Max entered the room and closed the door shortly afterwards.
"Hey," he greeted me, which I returned.
"Do you already have any information about the weather or are you sticking to the fact that the start of the race will be sunny?" I asked.
Max took a seat across from me. "Well, it won't be exactly sunny, but it's not supposed to rain at the start."
Shortly thereafter, his gaze shifted to my phone, which was lying next to me, but with a darkened screen, which lit up when I got a message.
I just saw it out of the corner of my eye and didn't look at it because my teammate was about to say something. That's why my gaze was focused at him.
Max broke off just before he could start talking, though, and his lips formed a grin instead. Now confused, I checked my phone, assuming his reaction had something to do with it. A slight premonition was building up in me and when I saw the message it started to be confirmed.
"Anni, wasn't I so wrong with the date during the test drives?" Max asked and now looked at me demandingly. He was expecting an answer.
It was a message from Fabio that I received. It didn't say anything special, but I had put his name in it with a red heart, which made things pretty clear.

So far nobody knew about this relationship, because it only exists since three weeks and you didn't have to make everything public right away.
As far as I know Fabio told his family and closest friends and I told Mick and Daniel. However, I've also been good friends with Max for a long time, so I didn't mind that he was now part of the people who knew about it.

I started grinning now too.
"How long has this been going on?" he asked directly.
"We haven't been together that long. Only three weeks. However, I would say that the feelings have existed for a long time. But unfortunately I have to disappoint you because your date assumption was not really correct. We were both confused from the feelings, but it was really just meeting as friends back then."

We fell into a conversation when he suddenly changed the subject, "By the way, so I don't forget why I'm actually here. I should ask you if you want to go to the Roland Ratzenberger monument? A few Austrian members of the team will go and put flowers there. I'll probably go too, though. What about you?"
I immediately nodded in confirmation, whereupon Max and I set off with the rest of the team.

Daniel, Mick and I sat against a wall and waited for our teams to give us permission to get into the race cars. It won't be long before the Grand Prix will start.
I overheard a conversation between my two best friends, who were discussing which of them will be ahead after the start.
"Well, one thing is for sure. We probably won't catch Anni til the end of the first lap," laughed Danny. I started smiling too.
"Yes, I will defend the place today", I said.
Mick answered directly: "Don't say that too soon. We'll start on P11 and P12, but that doesn't mean that we'll stay there for the whole race."
Before anyone could say anything, we were each interrupted by our teams because we now had to get into the cars.
"We'll see," I said with a challenged grin before we said goodbye with a handshake.

And so I was back in my blue racing car with the number 27 on it.
The warm-up lap has just started, which was relatively calm and normal. I warmed up my tires and a sense of anticipation washed over me. If I win here, I'm guaranteed to be second in the fight for the world championship.
All 20 drivers lined up in their respective places. Now all other thoughts were swept out of my head and I was on my own.
There was only the car, the five lights and me.
I looked up at the lights.
1...
2...
3...
4...
5...
And they were out.
I tried to get the best start and got away well.
Sainz, who was behind me, came very close in the first turn, but I won it and so did the second. I depended on that for the rest.
I felt like I was flying and steered into Turn 3 and Turn 4.
"Max passed Sainz. 9 tenths behind you," I could hear my race engineer.
I finished Turns 5 and 6 but Max gained 2 tenths.
This is how I steered into turn 7.
Everything happened so fast.
I started spinning. It was far too late to try braking because I hit a barrier and everything went black immediately.