𝘽𝙄𝙏𝙏𝙀𝙍, max verstappen

chapter thirty-five.

the saudi arabian grand prix.

it had been a week since that night — and camila and max hadn't seen each other since.

camila thought max wouldn't want to see her, assuming he wanted to brush off what happened and call it a mistake, but that wasn't true.

max wanted to see camila, desperately, but he couldn't.

because his dad was following his every move this weekend, he needed to stay in check, he needed to win.

yet so far, jos' plan wasn't working.

because once again, camila was on pole, meanwhile max only qualified 4th.

and he could probably tolerate being second a bit more, but forth? there was no way.

what the fuck was wrong with him? why wasn't he good enough? was he just a one hit wonder or something? one championship and that's it — now he's just a single page in the history books? was he just something easy to forget?

once again, jos was making sure that whatever camila was doing to prepare for the race, his son would double that, even triple it sometimes — max always needed to be one step ahead during race weekends.

max and camila were yet to do any media duties together, and so far, max hadn't even seen camila for majority of the weekend, let alone had the opportunity to talk to her, as his father was practically over his shoulder the entire time.

camila hated it. she hated that there wasn't a single moment that she'd seen max without jos today. it was also impossible to ignore jos' stern gaze into hers, the way he'd scowl as she passed by him and then turn to whisper something in max's ear.

camila had wanted to see max's face again, but not like this. she wanted to see max alone, without all the forces constricting them, she wanted clarity.

after the events of waking up alone, camila eventually found herself making the right decision, deciding to call sofia and tell her everything.

and after a lengthy rant, sofia concluded that the one thing camila and max lacked was communication. and if camila wanted clarity about that night, it would only come with communicating to max.

she was going to tell him how she felt at some point, she had to.

but for now, camila had to lay her priorities elsewhere. she had a race to win.

the engines fired up, and once the formation lap was complete, the entire paddock buzzed with anticipation as the saudi arabian grand prix was set to begin.

"lights out and away we go!"

camila accelerated quickly, already holding her strong lead valiantly.

meanwhile, max attempted to overtake carlos ahead of him in the first corner, but much to his frustrations, he was unsuccessful.

jos watched intently from the garage, his hands folded together and clenched tightly as he leaned closer to the screen in front of him, watching his son fail once again.

the few few laps were challenging, as camila struggled to defend the two ferrari's behind, charles even managing to overtake camila at a few stages, yet camila came back stronger, clutching the lead once again.

lap after lap, despite max's continuous attempts, he was unable to reach a podium position at this stage, his frustrations clouded his mind, his confidence began to shatter.

"okay max, we're going to do a double stack, pit next lap, next lap" gp radioed in, as max continued to battle out his frustrations on the track.