Simply beautiful

Chapter thirteen :

Aaliyah's Pov:

"Do you want to follow me to the track and then we can hang out before the sprint race starts?" Lando asks. "Yh sure" I say as I start walking to my car. I open the back door and then lift Mattheo up into his car seat. I buckle him in and then close the door behind me. I get into the drivers seat , place my bag in the footwell of the passenger seat and then start the car.

15 minutes later and we have finally arrived at the track. Lando gets stopped to talk to the security and then he drives on in. I stop by the security guard as he says "have you got your passes?" I reach for my bag and then get the paddock passes out. "Here you go" I say as I hand him the passes over. "Ok you can follow the car in front." He says. "Ok Thankyou" I say with a smile and then continue to drive.

Once we are parked I get out the car and the get Mattheo out. Mattheo and I walk towards Lando and he walks towards us. When we are close to Lando,Mattheo reaches for Lando's hand to hold and Lando gives his hand without hesitation. We then start to walk towards the paddock. As we are talking all of a sudden I see bright flashes. I look to my left and see loads of cameras. I put my head down and then start to walk faster to get to the paddock so I can get out of the spotlight.

I scan my pass and the walk into the paddock. I look back and see Lando has lifted Mattheo up so he can scan his pass. One he scanned it lando places Mattheo on the floor and then scans his own.

The sprint race starts at 12pm so we have 2 hours to kill.

We hang out in the garage for most of that time, sometimes in his drivers room when we wanted to get out of the heat. For the last 2 hours all we have done is laugh,talk and even more laughter.

We hear a knock on his drivers room door and then a mclaren worker opens the door. "Hey lando, you are needed in the garage it's nearly race time." I am shocked when I hear that. I didn't know nearly 2 hours have already passed. Lando checks his watch for the time and then says "ok thx for letting me know. I'll be out in a second." Me and Mattheo gets up from his couch and then walk into the garage whilst lando gets changed into his race suit and fireproofs.

15 minutes later and then sprint race is about to begin.

the Sprint lasts around 30 minutes, which here equates to 19 laps. There's no need to run multiple tyre compounds or pit if you don't want to.

Everyone has free tyre choice for the start, but keep in mind that the teams need to keep some tyres back for Qualifying later on and the Grand Prix tomorrow.

Unsurprisingly, most are on mediums. Quite a few are on a used set though, Alonso's are five laps old, Hamilton's six.

There are two who have chosen the softs and they are doing so from down the order. Tsunoda starts 15th on the red-marked tyres, Sargeant is 18th.

And its lights out and away we go.

Verstappen jumps away and he is clean and gone. Perez is alongside Leclerc, he has to pull out of the move and as such gets jumped by Ricciardo! Further back there is a stricken car - it is Norris, he's been hit! Norris is parked up at Turn 1, that is a disaster for him. Stroll is limping, Alonso has a puncture and the Safety Car is called.

I feel so bad for Norris. Alonso collided with team mate Lance Stroll, who subsequently ricocheted into the McLaren of Norris, putting lando out of the race. I bet he is going to be so frustrated when he gets out the car.

A safety car was deployed and the field will be coming through the pit lane. Replays show there was a four way fight into turn 1, Hamilton down the inside, Alonso with nowhere to go, Stroll on his outside.

Stroll turned in and left Alonso nowhere to go. Those two barged into each other, which pushed Stroll into Norris who was minding his own business.

Norris exited his MCL 38 on the track, and while nothing is being investigated further by the stewards in the on-track accident, Norris's foot entry to the track will be after the race.

The debris from this has been cleared up - so we are about to be back racing.
On lap 5/19 Verstappen has already put a full second between himself and Leclerc, so he won't be worrying about DRS. Ricciardo can't stick close enough to Leclerc either, and he has Perez to defend from.

Gasly is all over the back of his former team mate Tsunoda in the fight for P10.

Perez got Ricciardo on the back straight at the end of the last lap, and now the Aussie has Sainz for company. That Ferrari looks fast today - but at the moment Ricciardo has DRS with which to defend from Perez ahead.

Piastri in sixth has dropped Hulkenberg and is trying to stick to the back of this Sainz fight.

By lap 9/19 Verstappen is now nearly two seconds clear and can start to manage his tyres if needed. Sainz has dropped a couple of tenths back on Ricciardo.

Verstappen wins from Leclerc and Perez. Ricciardo picks up his first points of the season ahead of Sainz and Piastri. Hulkenberg grabs two more points - with some help from his team mate - and Hamilton initially scored one point in eighth.

But Hamilton has just lost that place, he's been given a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane. That will add 20 seconds to his race time, and thus drop him down the order.

The last point therefore goes to Tsunoda.

Sprint results:
1.) Verstappen 11.) Zhou
2.) Leclerc 12.) Russell
3.) Perez 13.) Albon
4.) Ricciardo 14.) Bottas
5.) Sainz 15.) Ocon
6.) Piastri 16.) Hamilton
7.) Hulkenberg 17.) Alonso
8.) Tsunoda 18.) Magnussen
9.) Gasly 19.) Stroll
10.) Sargeant 20.) Norris

Whilst the race was still going Lando had an interview with sky sports. Nothing I could have done," Norris told Sky Sports. "It's a bit stupid in a sprint race without many points.""Car's been good all weekend," Norris told the interviewer. "Today, we paid the price of being back with some of the people that are a bit more careless."

Once he returned to the garage I walked up to him to give him a hug. He hugged me back instantly and then places his head in my shoulder. "I'm sorry it's not the results you wanted" I say. "It's ok. It's only a sprint race anyway.  You don't really gain much from it apart from a few points" he responds.