The driver, The Girlfriend and Me

Meeting

The day before Jerez testing

I walked down the paddock in my freshly ironed 2015 Force India T-Shirt. That's a perk of working in F1, you get free merchandise. But I'm not here for that. I'm here for my passion for Motorsport. After many hard years of working as a PR in BTCC, my time had come. But before I get ahead of myself, I'm Sophie.

I had only just got out of my motorhome (shared with Sergio Perezs PR) and I was already lost. I needed the Force India area in the paddock but somehow I had arrived at Ferrari. A flustered looking Britta Roeske came out, carrying armfuls of paperwork. She tripped over a crack in the pavement and dropped them. To be polite I rushed over to help her.

"Thank you! Wait...are you the new Press Officer for Force India?" She asked, eyeing my uniform.

"That's me! Nice to meet you Britta!"

"How do you know my name?"

"I supported Vettel for the longest time ever!" I said, cringing at my fangirl tone.

"Great! Let me guess. Your lost, right?"

"Yep. Always happens"

"Ah! Just walk down to the bottom and turn left!"

"Thank you!"

"No problem! Come to me if there's anything you need!"

And with that, I smiled, waved and walked off to my new job.

I put my pass on the scanner and opened the door where Vijay was waiting for me.

"Ah! Sophie! A pleasure to meet you!" He said, looking anxious but happy to see me.

"Same goes for you" I said as I shook his hand.

"Today you will be meeting Nico and getting to know him. You'll be around him 13 hours a day for every race weekend at a minimum!"

"Great! I honestly can't wait!"

"I love someone who's so enthusiastic! Now, channel that enthusiasm into meeting Nico!"

I followed Vijay over to two huge doors. I fixed my hair and waited for him to let me in. The wait seemed to last forever.

"Go in young lady" he said, lightly pushing my shoulders.

I smiled and walked in, my waist length brown hair bouncing as I did. Nico was sat down at the long table. As he saw me, he stood up, smiled and walked over.

"Hi. I'm Nico" he said politely. His smooth German accent going through me.

"Hi Nico. I'm Sophie" I smiled at him.

"A pleasure to meet you, Sophie"

"You too, Nico"
We stood with an awkward silence for a few moments before Vijay broke it.

"I'm going to leave you two alone for a while to get on with paperwork"

"Thank you Vijay" I said with a smile.

Nico pointed at the end of the table and lead me over. He then picked up a huge pile of paperwork and put it on the desk. Great.

"Just to warn you I am new at this. Especially in the F1 world"

"What Motorsport where you in before?"

"BTCC. I was Jason Platos press officer"

"Cool"

I was neatly signing the paper when I noticed an envelope marked 'give to Nico'.

"I think this is for you" I said as I gave it to him.