Fast Car (OC x Max Verstappen fanfiction)

Qatar 2023

Arriving in Qatar later than most, I immediately went to the track for Mercedes practice, to the point my luggage was still in the car. I was nervous for this Grand Prix. It was a new track for me, and I did pretty good at best in sim racing. Ok, that's a lie, but they apparently changed a lot. I went into Mercedes. The car was ready and waiting. Going around a few laps, I felt how hard this would actually be. The sand had blown across the track slightly, and certain corners were hard to go around without going off. Finishing my few laps, I got out of the car, and smiled. This was a really good car. Complementing the engineers, I put on the mercedes headphones, and after posing for a picture, listened in on certain stats of the car. It was kind of borning, but absolutely necessary. I felt Lewis' presence in the seat next to me as he tuned into the same video. I wish I could drive with the same helmet as him, if anything to support the community, but it was more of a 7x world champion thing. That didn't mean I couldn't show up in an outfit that made a statement, tho.

We finished up, and just walked around. There were some celebrities that had gotten invited, and guests of drivers were her too...

"Cecelia!" I started grinning before I even turned around. Running up, one of my best friends that I met through Sim Racing, Patrone Dehelnas hugged me. I flinched away, before realizing it was him, and want into the hug. We hugged, and I breathed in his scent, it was almost cinnomony. I had met Patron in real life once, when he came to one of my F2 races. Excitedly, I showed him around this paddock. As we passed by, I saw Max staring, so I dropped his arm subtly, as we kept walking. Finishing our tour, I saw him looking in awe at everything. It made me realize how much of this I took for granted. As the day progressed, it only got hotter and hotter. Patrone and I went from talking with the other drivers in the paddock to holed up at the top of the AC'd Mercedes garage. We ran tests and practiced until it was time to go. Even after the practice, which was only me and Lewis going around 12 times, I felt like I was going to die; I did not know how well I would do in the actual race. Going to the hotel room, I questioned for the first time if I was ready for this.

The next few days were a maze of course outlining, statistics, and much more testing. By the time our one and only free practice came, I felt kind of ready.

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"Bianchi in P8, Hamilton in P13. Not the best result for the team, but butter then some others. I hope they get plenty of rest for qualifiers in a few short hours!"

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"Hamilton in P3, and Bianchi in P2! What a spectacular return from our amazing rookie of the season! And an amazing do-over from the free practice!"

"Speaking of amazing rookies, we had that show of Piastri in pole up until five minutes ago! As well as Sargant in P14 which is one of his highest starts of the season!"

"All in all, I'm sure we're going to see some amazing displays from all our rookies this week!"

After finishing in P4, I could barely make it out of the car. Even only 19 laps made me feel like I would pass out. What about 57? Getting out of the car, I was met with open arms from Patrone. "That was amazing, Ceceile! P4! Lando, and maybe Piastri were over the line." I smiled at him, and he let me sink into him a little because it felt like my legs would give out any minute. I heard a camera click, and we broke apart. Annoyed, I mouthed sorry to him, before walking farther into the garage. I went out to do interviews after a quick video chat with Lewis, Toto, and I. When I got there, the majority of drivers had cleared out, only Max, Oscar, and a few others remained. Oh shit! The scoreboards changed! Both Oscar and Lando apparently exceed track limits, like Patrone predicted, causing their time to be deleted. That means I'm P2! I saw a camera pointed at me, so I stared up, and flashed a big smile. It was not long until an interviewer come up to me.