Under the helmet | Charles Leclerc

~Chapter 40~

As soon as I leave the pitlane for a bit of driving around the Barcelona track with the Spanish sun glaring down on me, feeling every ray of sun hitting me through my helmet, the cockpit begins to get warm and I'm not even out the pitlane yet.

"Right Maeve, we plan to test both hard and soft tyres this session, please pit when the hard tyres get worn out, and we'll continue from there." Albert informs me over the radio, which just sounds like a high frequency radio in my ears.

I grasp the steering wheel a little tighter and I start to steer going on a bit of a slower lap to try and ease myself into the track and hopefully starting to feel better. My head begins to feel like its pounding out of the helmet as I try to steer the car around the corners and try to keep myself from passing out.

"Car, please be nice to me, please be nice and balanced..." I whisper to myself taking a little bit of oversteer around the corner.

"Maeve? Is everything ok?" I suddenly hear Albert on the radio sounding really concerned. I realise I had my radio on when I said that.

"Yep, all good." I lie, I'm not all good.

"You speak to the car?" He asks.

"A little... When I want it to be nice to me." I respond, stuttering a little and Albert laughs in response.

I make sure this time to turn my radio off, now that I know the whole f1 fanbase knows that I talk to the cars I sit in. That'll give Viola a job and a half to deal with, or maybe she won't deal with it all. The car begins to get worse and worse with oversteer over the next few laps and I begin to have less and less control.

"Ok, Maeve, that was p14. We'll look into any technical issues with the car quickly for you." Albert says, instantly assuming there's something wrong with the car.

"No, It's okay, I'll get a better time, I'll use this lap to cool off then I'll do a quick lap." I repeat what I'd said the past few laps.

"Maeve, you've said that the past 3 laps, you haven't improved your time, I think it's best you box for softs." Albert chimes over the radio and my head pounds some more, my ears ring.

"No, it's fine. I'll get a quicker time." I persist.

"Maeve, that's an order, box this lap, your tyres are heavily worn." Fred gets on the radio as I approach the straight where I pull in to pit.

The team quickly get to work on my car and swap the tyres quickly, and I quickly get to grasping the steering wheel and hitting the throttle and pull into the white pit lane.

"Alright Maeve, let's get your best time on these." Albert says over the radio, my right foot hovers over the brake peddle as my head pounds and chimes, almost bursting into a million pieces, I keep myself together.

"One. One last. Lap." I make sure my radio is turned off before I say anything and drive the car around the track slowly and weave around to warm the tyres.

"Ok, final turn, race mode on." Albert reminds me over the radio. That being nearly the final straw for my headache.

I drive the car really quickly around the final corner and floor it down the straight maintaining control of the steering and the car, I brake perfectly at the braking point carrying speed round the first turn and swiftly continuing around the rest of the track maintaining a fair amount of speed.

"Ok Maeve and that's p6, well done, nice lap you brought out of the hat, box this lap please." Albert says over the radio and I slow the car until I box the car.

I get the steering wheel out of the car and take my gloves off and unstrap my seatbelt and try to lift myself up out the car. As soon as I do, the dizzy spells and fuzziness come back. I blink a couple of times and immediately head towards my driver room to get some space.

I stare at the floor for a bit and the chair that I'm sat on slowly gets more and more comfortable making me want to take a nap, until I hear a knock on my door.

"Yep?" I respond to whoever is knocking on the door.

"So, Charles has just gone out on the softs, we are going to also test him on the medium-" I hear Viola's voice which suddenly comes to a halt when she sees me curled up on a chair, pale face and zoned out eyes. "Are you alright? Please tell me you didn't drive in this state." Viola asks, to which I only respond with by looking at the floor. "Maeve..." She looks at me with sympathy.

"I, I couldn't just not drive. I'm fine." I persist.

"You haven't been fine all day! Earlier you had the same zoned out look on your face, your not alright. Let's head over to the medical center." Viola suggests.

"I don't- I don't want to make a fuss..." I point out, Viola hesitates in her plan but then continues and she helps me out of the chair.

"Don't worry, we'll only tell Albert, we'll go around the back way, if anyone sees you I'll sort the media out, it's okay." I shake my head when she mentions Albert, he'll tell Charles.

"No, we don't have to tell Albert.." I point out, trying to convince her but she goes and tells Albert anyway.

As she walks back from the pit window she picks up my arm and puts it around one shoulder to prevent me from falling over.

Arriving in the medical center the room is relatively empty, only having a few medics in the area. We approach the main table at the front of the small room and the woman asks whats wrong and I explain all my symptoms to her and she advises I go and sit down on a bed, Viola coming with me.

"Maeve, I have to go, please don't go anywhere. If anyone asks I won't say a word." Viola promises, giving me a brief hug before leaving out the front door.

"Right, I just need to get a little checkup on you. Blood test and whatnot, make sure internally you're alright." The doctor behind Viola states with a clipboard and pen in hand.

The doctor asks me a couple of questions and takes some blood samples to quickly test in some other room in front of me, suddenly someone bursts through the doors, because of the curtain in front of the bed I cannot see who, so I wait for a voice.

"Sir? Do you have an issue?" The familiar voice of the woman at the front desk asks.