legends || formula one

bahrain pt.2.

AS THE CARS FLEW AROUND THE CIRCUIT, josie bounced her head from screen to screen as she absorbed telemetry and the live broadcast footage.

her eyes were following the alfa romeo, no doubt, but her eyes were also trying to catch issues that the other cars were experiencing. namely, ignition issues at aston and rear wing with lots of movement at ferrari.

her train of thought was interrupted as a car made a 360 with bright sparks flying everywhere. it was the ferrari of carlos sainz, and her immediate analysis was that they were likely running a very low ride height.

she made a note of it, though recognized that perhaps their fight was not with ferrari this season- but then again, fernando alonso was working beautifully with the AMR23. who said that alfa couldn't either?

guanyu and valtteri, who were on the soft tires, were finally able to throw in a flying lap and cross at 4th and 5th. as a few more soft runners got their laps in, including a speedy lap from fernando, it was guanyu in 8th and valtteri in 9th at the chequered flag.

it was great to see, but with sergio perez's session topping time being almost 2 seconds faster than the alfa pair, and the mercedes pair at 10th and 11th, josie kept her mind strictly on improvements.

with the mechanics climbing all over the cars to check components and bodywork, josie slipped out to discuss strategy with alex, jorn, and a mix of other race engineers who were either on track or back at the factory.

there wasn't too much to talk about. testing, as well as the run in fp1, was a decent look into how the car might function on a warmer track. for this weekend though, it was the performance under the floodlights that mattered.

WHILE JOSIE WAS PASSIONATELY DISCUSSING CORNERING SPEEDS WITH THE TEAM, max was speaking with his race engineer, gianpiero lambiase- affectionately known as gp- at the back of the garage.

it wasn't him at the top of the timing sheets during that session, but it didn't really bother him that much. gp, of course, was making sure that max knew to balance pace and degradation when it came to the higher fuel load runs they would do tomorrow.

max knew in his gut that the rb19 was something else entirely, but it was up to sunday to prove if his intuition was correct. he remembered their absolutely horrible start to the 2022 season, but that didn't seem like a concern anymore.

the two of them gravitated towards the screens as they continued to chat, and max caught a clip of the aston martin of fernando alonso going around track. it really seemed like every single person on the grid was baffled by their sudden and drastic increase in pace.

his eye also caught the final standings for the fp1 session, noticing both alfa romeo's in the top 10, and his thoughts unknowingly drifted to the race engineer that he had recently come to know.

his mind drifted back to a few days ago, the last time he had seen josie before things started ramping up for the weekend. he remembered her voice, how nervous and unsure she sounded.

she was smart, he thought, but was caught off guard when she asked if they could all stay friends, like she knew exactly where his and charles' thoughts were.

just thinking about it had made him feel oddly upset, that their future interactions would be tainted by the fact that there were obvious... undertones. it's not like he really got to talk to her much, but he felt a little more joy talking to her than he did most other people.

and it seemed like his good friend charles felt the same way.

charles was a lot more forthcoming about how he felt about her, much more than max ever was. he wore a lot of his heart on his sleeves, while max chose to reserve that for only a few people.