Forbidden

103. Brazilian GP

Later on that same day came the Sprint. Severely delayed by the heavy rains. Everyone had to wait for the rain to clear and then for the track to get dry enough to race. To everyone's surprise and delight, Kevin Magnussen had pole for the first time in his career. Nobody could be mad about that, the entire Haas team was ecstatic. Olivia knew that he would most likely get overtaken quickly, but it was still such a milestone. 

Now that the weather had cleared Olivia felt more at ease, like she usually felt during a race. K-Mag had a great start, he was followed by Max in P2 and George in P3. Meanwhile, Checo was fighting his way up from P9. Ocon pushed Fernando off the track and clipped his front wing. Olivia shook her head after in disbelief at Ocon's ability to crash into his teammates' car. It was unbelievable. Max overtook K-Mag by the third lap, he honestly held on to P1 more than Olivia would've thought possible. Although, their red bulls had really been struggling the whole week. On and off the track. Checo was up to 5th place by lap 9 On lap 12 the battle between George and Max began, both of them giving it their all. The Mercs had been looking really incredible the whole weekend. By lap 15 the lead was George's, he had more speed and grip than their RB18s. 

Max started loosing places after that. While battling with Carlos his front wing was clipped and pieces of it flew everywhere. He was a sitting duck trying to hold on to the race. As the sprint came to and end Max stood in P4 while Checo in P5. Olivia heard over the radio how Checo asked if Max was going to give over his position, they were only a second apart after all and he needed the points for that second place in the championship. However, Olivia also heard Max's radio and the team didn't even ask him. 

Olivia shrugged it off, it was only a sprint. The real race would be the next day and those were the big points. Their car didn't seem as competitive this weekend but her bulls knew how to fight. 

After a disappointing sprint for the bulls, but a fantastic one for the Mercs with George in P1 and Lewis in P3, they stayed for a strategy meeting. Olivia waited for Max and Checo to come out of the meeting as she drank a cup of cold coffee and edited some more pictures not taken by her and sent them to the social media team.

Once they finally came back out of the meeting the tension that was there before the race still lingered. It added to the unspoken conversation Olivia felt with Max for the past week. 

"So, let's go shall we? Terribly long day" said Olivia looking from one bull to the other. 

 "You guys go ahead, I'll catch up" Checo said to her.

"Alright, we'll wait for you in the car" she smiled at him.

"No, no, just go to the hotel don't worry. I'll go in a different car I just still have to talk with my mechanics a bit more" he said.

Liv looked unconvinced "Okay Chequito" she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before leaving with Max. 

Once they were back at the hotel she decided to talk about the elephant in the room. Or at least one of the elephants "Is there something going on with Checo?".

Max turned to look at her with a confused look on his face "You don't know what's up with him?" he asked.

"No, what is going on? It all felt so tense today" said Olivia.

"I don't know!" said Max shrugging. He had no idea why Checo had been extra cold this past week. He had avoided Max like the plague every time they were working. He knew it was probably something related to the baptism but he had apologized for that, Olivia had forgiven him, Checo and Carola said they had forgiven him too. Still, the atmosphere had been quite frigid the last few days and Max was starting to get frustrated by it. Why say you forgive me if you're gonna still be a jerk about it? He thought. "I thought you knew why but didn't want to tell me" he added.