*◌ೃ࿔ ≡ 🏎️🌫️🫧 .･*｡ lando norris x driver!reader — — where sometimes a podium comes a cost that lando doesn't want you to have to pay
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—— THERE WERE MANY DIFFICULT THINGS ANOUT BEING A FORMULA ONE DRIVER.
Of course, there's the things that are obvious. The rigorous training, the strict dieting as to not throw the weight of the car off, the g-forces during a race, the falsified rivalries and nosy media reports. Those were all things drivers signed up for, things they knew about. Things they all agreed to.
Then there were more non traditional struggles she braved through.
Being a women in Formula One in and of itself was something so foreign. The sexist and pig like comments and questions, the constant need to prove herself when in fact— if she were indeed a man, she'd easily be considered one of the greatest drivers of all time. Yet even with her championship titles, outstanding statistics, and broken records to her name; many still questioned if she truly belonged.
And to make those assumptions all the worse, you had to go and fall in love with another driver. Specifically a driver on a different team. It wasn't planned, as some suspected, and it certainly wasn't how you expected your career to work out— but you wouldn't change anything about it either. Years of trying to explain away those delicate stares and promises. A friendship morphing into hidden love.
It was a mutual agreement. Private was always going to be better. You and Lando may have been soulmates, and it wasn't a secret or anything, you both just decided to keep the romance aspect of everything; off the track. Kiss at the hotel, congratulate each other professionally, minimal physical contact and allowing the fans to decipher all the subliminal messages on their own time. It was for the better. Less rumors that way. This complicated thing's obviously— but as far as the FIA could tell; being romantic hadn't interfered in race strategies or grid dynamics in any other way than friendships among drivers did.
Obviously, seeing as you left Lando in the dust in the points. The championship was yours, racing for RedBull this season, reigning victorious yet again, Lando just as proud as ever in his papaya McLaren colors. He'd never mind losing if it meant losing to you. Besides, he'd come to learn in his life that second place was not first loser— it was just second place.
But outside of personal affections and all other struggles of the sport— no driver had prepared adequately for such race conditions.
Not rain, they knew how to drive in the rain. It wasn't the sun nor the moon that upset them.
It was the godforsaken heat.
The track was hot enough as it was, even if the race happened after the sun went down— it had cooked the pavement nearly all day. Every team garage had already invested in extra sets of tires for the Prix, knowing their cars would melt through the rubber faster than average. And every driver hydrated efficiently, wearing ice cold towels around their necks any chance they were outside of the cars— fans howling cool air at them in the paddock and empty water bottles discarded everywhere. It was going to be a tough race, the air temperature, pavement conditions, and the boiling heat of the engines sitting right behind them— they knew this.
