Team Principal | Carlos Sainz

chapter fourty-three

Carlos S.

It was stressful. The new season was already five races in and I had won two of them. The whole team worked great and we delivered really good results, Checo and I, but it was stressful. Maybe that also was a reason for Antonia's behavior.

For a couple of weeks now she was behaving strange and our relationship wasn't developing as great as before. She often worked longer and started earlier than myself which meant that we never arrived or left the track together.

It wasn't any different today, after a pretty good qualifying with P2 for myself and P5 for Checo here in Monaco. It was already late and I had brought Luca to bed over an hour ago already, but I couldn't sleep.

I had to think about Antonia and our relationship, where this all would lead. She was working way too much and I wasn't sure how to handle that. When I said something about it to her, back in Baku a few weeks, we had a huge fight.

Luckily Luca had been with uncle Lando, how he called him, so he hadn't been there. But it was really loud and we shouted at each other as I said she shouldn't over work herself whilst she said I wasn't her boss.

It went that far that I smashed the hotel room door close and stormed out, taking a walk through the streets of Baku, the city where we had our first date the year before. And after an hour of walking and thinking I had came past a shop.

I looked down at the ring between my fingers, that I had bought that day. It was a beautiful silver piece of jewelry with a diamond on top of it. Despite having that huge fight I had been one hunderte percent sure that she's the one, I still am, but things are complicated.

I sighed and took out my phone to dial a number, my mum. She was always there for me, even in hard situations and she always understood my feelings and side. Also with the thing and our relatives, what they said about me and Antonia, she was always on my side.

"Carlitos, my son, I wasn't expecting a call at this late hour." she said surprised as she saw my face, "What's wrong mi amore?"

"Nothing really." I answered while looking down at the ring with which I was playing between my fingers, "I am on P2 for tomorrow, that's great right?"

"It is mi amore, of course it is."

As I didn't answer she sighed and I looked up again.

"She's again working late, isn't she?"

"Yeah, " I sighed and bit my bottom lip, "She said Monaco needs special treatment and extra work."

"She's not wrong, Monaco is the top of the game." my mother tried to explain.

"I know mama, but it was just a lame excuse, I saw it in her eyes."

Then there was silence and I looked down at the ring again before I heard my mum's voice again through the phone.

"Antonia loves you, you know that, right?"

"Of course, I don't think she's cheating on me mama." I said a bit louder, but as the words left my lips I wasn't so sure about it anymore, maybe there was another man.

"Don't Carlos," my mother said as she saw the look on my face, "She would never do that, she loves your little family with Luca, she loves you."