Deals with Daisy // LN4

62 ~ Fairy Dust

Lando's POV

"Lando, you've been very serious for the last couple of weeks - it's been pretty strange to see if you don't mind me saying," Martin asks, stopping me in my place as I was busy walking to the grid. I grimace as Bex's hand grabs the material at the back of my fireproofs to stop me from pretending to not hear his words and walking straight past him. In my defence, I am walking to where I would like to stand in silence and wait for the anthems to happen... but not today apparently.

"Busy time - lots going on in the championship," I lie with a straight face, taking out one of the AirPods in my ear as I look around and try to rearrange my thermals from where Bex had disturbed them. I know I've been off the last couple of days, Bex has given me enough dirty looks for my short answers and generally miserable demeanour for me to get that message. I know I could put effort into faking being good but I'm already running on empty just from being here. I have nothing more to give but my presence and whatever efforts I can create when behind the wheel of the car and so I don't care to pretend that I'm fully prepared and rested for this because I'm not.

"Absolutely, you're not expecting any more issues with the car this weekend?" He asks and I finally stop looking around for Carlos or George to come save me from this miserable existence. To be fair to most of the guys, they've all jumped into interviews where I've been quite clearly dying to leave to help distract from the questions being directed towards me but it seems as though I'm all alone here now as they are stuck on the red carpet, looking apologetically at me. Instead I look at Martin through the dark lenses of my sunglasses, hand over my heart as I try to stop it from beating so hard and go over my words.

I was going to be endlessly thankful to McLaren for the lie they were helping me tell to protect my reputation.

The truth was that the brakes hadn't given out last week, I'd lost my focus for a split second during the race and sent it straight into the wall. I was tired from not sleeping, my body ached from lack of nutrition and I wasn't prepared for the mental strain of staying focused for that long in a car. I couldn't help my mind wandering but because it had been so strange, I hadn't even noticed I'd crashed until after it happened, it looked as though my brakes had failed. Before I could say anything other than that I was okay over the radio, Elliot, my new race engineer had piped up, apologising for the breaks suddenly failing. After that we had all stuck to the line in any interviews which was a relief because the last thing Max, Lewis or anyone else involved in a title fight with me needed to be thinking was that I was checked out of the competition.

I had lost the championship lead as quickly as I'd gained it but there wasn't much I could do about last week. Daisy had said that these things happen. Brake lines fail and it wasn't my fault. She told me to chill out, go and play paddle or golf and regroup, thinking forward to this week.

I tried a few times but I couldn't tell her that the brake line was fine because I didn't want her thinking that it was on her because it wasn't. It had been my fault. So I couldn't regroup, I couldn't calm the voices of doubt in my head that were making it impossible for me to sleep. I couldn't focus or look forward to doing it all again today because I just wanted to be in Monaco... I didn't want to be here.

Worst of all, unlike every other time I'd had these moments of doubt, the fear that it was all going to come apart, Daisy wasn't here to guide my mind back out of it. Members of the team were fine but it didn't matter what they said to me. I couldn't find it in myself to care or believe them and it just made her absence more apparent. I'd continued to not be able to sleep or pay attention in meetings. I hadn't done anything on my days off and I felt miserable. Like a puppy that had been kicked and everyone was just watching me, trying to help, but none of them could because none of them were who I needed.