Story of another us

Charles Leclerc

Visions I vandalize

Cold in my kingdom size

Fell for these ocean eyes

(Billie Eilish - you should see me in a crown)

The "summer break" ended and the working days on the tracks began again. The first Grand Prix in line is a "home" race for Max, namely the Dutch GP. There is always a special atmosphere at home Grands Prix, because there are lots of fans supporting you everywhere, and it is always more pleasant and comfortable to drive in the "native walls". Although how should I know? My "home" Grand Prix always came out disasterous: sixth place, then fourth, then DNF. So I don't really like to think about my racing adventures in Monaco.

But now we are in the Netherlands, and there are no reasons for joy in the past sessions of races: car failures, the weather doesn't please, and Dan got into an accident with Piastri and eventually dropped out indefinitely, because he got a fracture. He was hurt, but he did the right thing: he could either crash into Oscar, and then both would definitely get injured, or into the wall and take the whole blow on himself. He chose the latter and paid for it. I sometimes think that Dan and I are very similar, because we both trying to do what we can on the track, but nothing good comes out of it.

So today, something unimaginable was happening at the qualification: at first the weather conditions are disgusting, then the fines comes one after another, then the usual race leaders suddenly began to drop lower and lower in the scoring table. All by the leaders, except, of course, Max. "Williams" on their slowest and weakest cars easy bypassed others. As a result, Alex starts from the fourth position, and Logan from the tenth, and then only because he had an accident on the third lap of qualifying. Just like me. I also had an accident, or rather I flew into the fence at speed, but to be honest, I didn't care so much that I didn't even have the strength to be angry.

Therefore, I just sat on a folding chair outside the track until the end of the race, and watched how qualifying was going on without me. I even felt for a second like Fernando at the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2015, when he also got off the track and was sunbathing sitting on a chair. I would also sunbathe, but the weather clearly won't allow it, and I doubt that I need any sunbathing any soon. I'm already almost in the same tone as the racing suit.

As a result of qualifying, I took the ninth position, and Logan the tenth, since he got off the track before me. But everyone was shocked because of the result of the "Williams" team, because they hadn't entered the third round of qualifying in both cars for a very long time, and Russell from Mercedes took the third position, which was also not observed for a long time. I am glad that at least my teammate, Carlos, took the sixth place. At least he got to the finish line, huh.

Max is on the first place. Of course, I was envious, but on the other hand, I understand perfectly well that I can only dream of winning prizes on shitboxes like ours, and in my case, getting to the finish line would already be an outstanding achievement.

After qualifying, the teams went to the pits to discuss the strategy for the upcoming race, and I felt like a dummy - I just nodded at all the suggestions of strategists and mechanics. Honestly, I didn't care what and how they would decide there, because tomorrow there will be a race, which means that we'll see nothing but another circus performance from them.

As soon as we were all released, I went to my cooling room to change clothes and finally go to the hotel and relax. Still, it wasn't very easy to drive in such conditions, especially after a vacation.

Max and I exchanged a couple of messages before leaving the race center. Max spends the night at home, because this is his home race after all, and I'm at the hotel. He offered to spend the night with him, but after discussing everything, we still decided that it was better for us not to meet today, since both felt like squeezed lemons, and in order to show at least something on the track tomorrow, we both need a full rest. But we agreed to call on "Facetime" to at least spend a little time together.