𝓕ate | Charles Leclerc (CL16)

Chapter 4 - Bahrain Race!

Today was race day. The first race of the season, my dad was nervous I could tell whilst we ate breakfast. He wasn't his usual bubbly self he was more quiet, it started to bother me. I tried cheering him up. I made him his favourite before race snack, Greek yogurt, honey, granola and berries. Of course he ate it, yet he was still distant.

I sat down next to him and gave him a hug whispering; "I'm sure you'll do great, in fact I know you will. There's no need to stress. Just enjoy being in the car alright?" He nodded. All that was left was for me to hope that my words had an impact on him.

The paddock was buzzing, full of people excited to see the drivers race each other. I was making my way towards the paddock club to grab myself a granola bar when someone carelessly threw their arm over my shoulder.

I looked up quickly, only to see Lewis smiling widely at me. I must admit I'd seen Lewis countless times before, but for some reason I was always surprised. As we continued to walk, making conversation with each other as we went he slickly brought up Roscoe. I absolutely adore Roscoe and he knows that.

"So. Can you babysit Roscoe pretty please? I had to bring him to the race because his babysitter was sick last minute. I'll owe you one" he asked me happily. It was as if he already knew I was going to say yes because as I nodded his smile grew about 5x the size.

We changed our direction to the Mercedes garage so he could give me Roscoe. Once Roscoe was wearing his lead Lewis left me to go prepare for the race. I decided to continue my original route towards the paddock club to finally retrieve my granola bar.

When we got there it was absolutely crowded. I started to think of ways to successfully get in there without having to carry Roscoe. I must have been looking inside for about 5 minutes until I heard someone clear their voice behind me.

I jumped in surprise, moving, thinking that I must be someone's way I turned around to face the person and apologise. I was shocked to see Daniel cheerfully smiling at me.
"ElleCee why haven't I seen you in the Red Bull garage? I know it's your favourite because Christian always gives you the good smoothies." He asked as we started the bustling walk through the crowd towards the cafe inside the paddock club.
"I have been, but I had an eventful conversation with Christian I didn't really stay long" I shrugged as we reached the counter.

I ordered my Granola bar as well as smoothie, before turning to Daniel to see if he wanted anything only to see him already ordering. Classic. We sat down at a small table whist, we spoke about how university and media had been recently.

When my smoothie came Daniel asked for two straws. I looked at him confused only for him to retaliate with; " it looks to good for me not to have a sip" he winked at me playfully as I rolled my eyes.

"Don't you have to be preparing for the race? I don't think your engineer will be too happy to find you drinking a smoothie with me" I laughed. He simply shrugged as we began to drink the smoothie. I must say Paddock smoothies are too good. I always get the mango and raspberry one, because it's super thick so it's a bit like slushie, which is exactly what you want in the scorching heat of Bahrain.

During the whole time I sat there with Daniel, Roscoe sat by my side sleeping. I felt pretty bad for not giving him my full attention like I usually would, so when the waiter came back around to see if everything was alright I ordered him a puppuccino. Which, I had to make sure was made out of almond milk otherwise Lewis would kill me.

I decided to not feed Roscoe his puppuccino and instead made Daniel do it. There was no way that I would get covered by Roscoe's slobber. It was really funny to watch Daniel try to give Roscoe his snack without getting messy, sadly he failed and came out coated in slobber.