Amore Mio - Daniel Ricciardo

03

Noemi tapped her paddock pass onto the gate, allowing her inside. Immediately as she's let inside a reporter asks her a question, "Noemi, are you nervous for today?"

"Yes I am, but it's the first race of the season. Ask almost any other driver and I'm sure they'll tell you the same." Noemi responded and walked away hastily.

Aston Martin's meeting room was an open room, decorated with plants and displayed the helmets of previous Aston Martin drivers as well as some of Fernando's helmets from the past. There was a large window on the side of the room that allowed them to look out onto the paddock, but only worked one way, making it appear as a mirror to those outside. There was a long wooden table with office desk chairs lined up around it, one chair on each end and three on each side, enough to seat eight people. She was greeted by Fernando, he was holding a bottle of water in one hand and his green hat in the other, "Good morning Mimi" he said. Noemi responded with a good morning in return as well. Following that she took her seat at the table.

The meeting was boring, Noemi was anxious to get to her garage and step inside of her car, she was aching for the track, for the thrill, for the adrenaline. It had only been a day, yet she was anticipating getting back out onto the track.
Finally as the meeting was coming to an end, Noemi had been pretending to listen while taking short glances out the window to see what kind of excitement was going on outside. There really wasn't much going on. She saw Checo Pérez walk by followed by his PR rep but besides that just normal people walking around.
Just as Noemi started directing her attention back to the meeting she saw Daniel, walking by outside, as usual he was smiling, laughing, and talking to someone beside him. It appeared to be the RB Visa Cashapp team principal Laurent Mekies. And as their conversation carried on Daniel's smile faded. Laurent patted him on the back and walked into their building, leaving Daniel alone in the paddock appearing distressed.

"Alright, does everything sound good?" Mike Krack, Aston Martin's team principal asked.

"Yes, it sounds perfect." Fernando responded. Noemi shook her head as a response as well.

"Good. Now you two have some fan meetings to go attend, you'll be with McLaren and Visa Cashapp, so we're sure there will be quite a few people there to meet you."

This was the first time Noemi was in a fan meeting. Ferrari had done one at Q1 with Haas, and RedBull had done one at Q2 followed by Williams that same day. Today was a three different teams, six different drivers. Noemi, Fernando, Lando, Oscar, Yuki, and of course by some twisted fate: Daniel.

As Noemi walked with Fernando and their PR reps to the fan meeting she saw as people were wearing green Aston Martin jerseys, some with Fernando's number 14, and to her surprise many people had 30 on theirs, especially young girls and women.

The six drivers were sat down on a stage and were asked questions from the fans around them. One fan asked Yuki, "If you weren't an F1 driver, what would you do instead."

"Um, I think I'd like to be a chef, have my own restaurant maybe?"

Another fan walked up to the microphone, "Noemi," Noemi's heart raced at the mentioning of her name, not knowing what she was about to be asked, "What is it like being the only woman on the grid?"

"You know it's odd, especially coming off a grid of only women. But honestly it's about the same as academy. We're all friends, and all pretty nice to each other off the track, however I'm not so sure about the nice part." People in the crowd found her comment funny, and so did the other drivers.

A third fan came, "Daniel, how does it feel to have a seat back with your name on it?"

"It feels great honestly, I feel like I can come back, and become the driver I used to be. It's gonna be hard, and obviously it's not going to come back immediately, but it'll happen, trust me." He responded with a smile and a glance over at Noemi. She sat up straighter after seeing Daniel's eyes purposefully find her among the other drivers.