The Formula 1 grid didn't want another team but one appeared anyway. With a reputation to rival Ferrari, Lamborghini was ready to take their place on the grid. Wanting to showcase a level of stability, even if the first year didn't bring results, th...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Daniel Ricciardo had to admit that having his girlfriend's mother as his boss was slightly weird. While Lucia Romono had a very good switch between the personalities of Team Principal and mother, it was sometimes hard for Daniel to remember that. It didn't change his opinions on either side of her nor did it create any sort of tension.
Lucia was the type of person that if Daniel ever broke Marissa's heart, which he had no intention of, she would never let it interfere with how she treated him as a racer. Perhaps, it would be a little rocky at team gatherings but she'd never let it change the way she ran a team.
Daniel respected that. Daniel had always respected her since he met his girlfriend, from the fact she immediately showed him respect with no questions asked or the way she made Marissa feel as though she always had someone to go when she couldn't go to Daniel. Not to mention, the Australian had never met a cook as good as Lucia Romono. He was positive she'd put Gordan Ramsey to shame.
Lucia took in Daniel and Mick, who were left without race seats, and treated them with the utter most family-like attitude that they had been missing from their teams. There was no forced demands or expectations that you would have thought would come from a new team, though it looked strange from the outside, but that was the reason they were destined for greatness.
Not everyone turned into a diamond under pressure, some people shattered. Those that could be broken shined brightest when they had room too. Lucia believed that with all her heart.
"He's hopeless," Marissa complained as she sat across from mother in hospitality.
"Who is hopeless?" Lucia hummed, glancing up from food.
"Daniel and his Italian!" Marissa complained, pointing to Daniel. "He just keeps yelling 'mama mia!' at me."
Mick snorted from beside Daniel, glancing between the two of them. Marissa crossed her arms and began to mutter some angry Italian words to her mother, who didn't seem phased at all. Lucia just wanted to eat her food in peace with some slight chatter before she had to the garage.
She had already been slightly frustrated with the fact one of her potential sponsors wouldn't meet a deal with her. Lucia had been trying her best to secure a majority of Italian sponsors since it kept in line with their values. They had a few well-known ones such as Lambretta and Versace.
"I'm trying," Daniel replied honestly. "I think I'm doing a good job."
"It doesn't suit your accent," Marissa claimed. "When Charles and Carlos speak Italian, it suits them but you, it does not."
"Now you're just offending me—"
"Marissa, they will learn it when they learn it," Lucia shrugged. "You did not learn English over night, did you?"
"I learnt it very quickly," Marissa emphasised.
"You had a lot more time to learn it than Daniel and Mick do," Lucia reminded.
"Daniel's had four years to learn Italian for me," Marissa added playfully.
Lucia gave her daughter a look that screamed 'it's too early for this' before getting up from the table to start her duties for the day. Lucia liked to make sure all her team ate proper meals to keep them going during the weekend so they all ate at the same time in the morning in hospitality. It was a little harder for lunch and dinner since everyone was so busy.
"Have a nice day," said Lucia in Italian to her daughter. "Don't be too rude to Daniel."
"I never am. Not really." said Lucia before turning to Daniel. "See if you knew Italian, you'd know what we were saying!"
The Italian Team Principal chuckled before heading out into the paddock. The Saudi Arabi Grand Prix took her time this weekend as she tried to continue another good weekend for her team. Thursday had gone by like a breeze and they had kept their car in one piece during Friday. With one more practice and qualifying to go before the race, Lucia was feeling positive.
They had good chances at current times. McLaren had failed to produce a working car, Alfa Romeo was struggling, Alpha Tauri was the same as every year, Mercedes faltered a little but was doing better. Red Bull were uncatchable anyway but Lucia wasn't looking at them. Aston Martin was a large threat.
"Morning Lucia," Zak Brown offered upon seeing her.
"Caio," Lucia returned.
"You don't look as cheerful as last weekend," said Zak honestly. "Bad day?"
"The coffee has not kicked in," replied Lucia. "It is not a bad day when there is still plenty to do."
"How are you finding the step up from Formula 2?"
Quite frankly, Lucia would have preferred to walk alone to the FIA building, where she was due to have a short unimportant meeting. She just dropped unlucky that Zak had decided he needed to walk that way too.
"More time sensitive but that has never bothered me before and I will not bother me now. I always keep myself structured in everything I do," Lucia replied smoothly. "When there are only eleven, once ten, jobs for what we do, they do not pick random people for no reason. There is always reason. Have a nice weekend."
Lucia gave a short nod to Zak, who returned it, before heading into the FIA building. She wasn't trying to be rude purposely but she didn't exactly have much time outside of her schedule, which was already packed, to talk about random things.
●▬▬▬▬▬๑🇮🇹๑▬▬▬▬▬●
The weekend didn't go too badly.
It also wasn't particularly cheap as there had been damage during the race due to debris of another contact upfront. It had been Daniel who needed the front wing change but the car had enough pace afterwards to try to get back up to the points.
On the other hand, Mick had been managing his tyres well along with good pitstops and managed to secure another two points for himself and the team. Daniel didn't manage to score any points in P11 but he did the best recovery he could with the options they had.
With a week gap until the next race, Lucia was heading back to Italy to check on work at the factory as well as check in with some of their junior drivers. It was important to her that everyone who wasn't at the track also felt well looked after when she wasn't there.
Daniel and Mick were also flying back to do sim work, which Marissa was happy about since she got to stay with Daniel as well. Daniel and Mick were both staying at Marissa's house in Milan since they weren't there for long and sim work was all day.
Lucia just needed everyone to be happy. Otherwise, what point was a team that hated being there?
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Welp that's the end of the all the drafts I had from last time I uploaded this book so everything from here is good ol fresh content 👀 I've also made an update schedule which is located in cast!
