Logan Sargeant One-Shots || Taking Requests!

Red Flag

It was the middle of the F1 season, your second as Logan's race engineer, but sixth overall. This weekend, the cars were racing in Austria. The Red Bull Ring was a tough track, but you always enjoyed the challenge. Throughout the weekend, the weather was on and off, making strategy difficult to plan for the race on Sunday. During the third practice session, Logan expressed his concerns to you.

"Man, I don't think it'll be safe for us to race on Sunday, I just have a terrible feeling about this," he vented, crossing the line and putting in another lap. 

"The forecast looks unpredictable, but until we get word from the FIA, it's going to be lights out tomorrow," you replied, noting his lap time. 

"After this lap, we are going to simulate qualifying, make sure to keep the tires warm Logan,"

As well as tracking his laps, you took note of his concerns, taking into consideration the conditions of the track this weekend. You weren't in the car, so you wouldn't understand the conditions as well as the driver. Between the end of the practice session and qualifying, you discussed the conditions with other race engineers and strategists, coming to the conclusion that this weekend wouldn't be a clean race. During qualifying, Logan put in a lap time good enough to get him into Q2 for the first time this season. Logan was able to push the car enough to where he would start the race on Sunday in thirteenth.

Taking your seat at the pit wall on race day, you noticed that the clouds were rolling in. Your job as a race engineer wasn't just logistics and racing, you also had to be moral support for your driver. You communicated and saw them at their highest performance, and even at their lowest points, so you had almost taken up a therapist role.

"Radio check,"

"Loud and clear," Logan sighed into the microphone of his headset, settling into the car.

Logan got off to a great start, moving up to eighth place, maintaining position until you instructed him to pit on the thirty-sixth lap. You put him on the wet tyres, taking a risk, since the weather was still uncertain, and for all you knew, the rest of the race could be dry. Luckily, your worries about the right tyres were dismissed the moment it started pouring down at the track.

"Okay Logan, the rain is starting to really come down now," you held down the radio button, looking at a monitor with the weather forecast, "thankfully since we pitted earlier, we can hopefully push through on your current tyres,"

"Understood. What's the gap to the car in front?" 

"Exactly 3 seconds, I reckon Oscar will be pitting soon, his tyres look like they're lost significant grip. If you keep up the pace, we're looking at P8," 

You took another look at the weather, discussing the pit stop strategy with your coworker. In the corner of your eye, you see the monitor of the race broadcast, showing a replay of a car splitting through the barriers at turn two. 

"What the hell, who is that?" 

The graphics on the screen show that the car was Piastri's. Never in your career have you seen a car cut through the barriers like that McLaren. Your heart started pounding in your chest, as you got a message from Logan.

"Is he okay? I saw that McLaren spin into the barriers," he asked, almost a little bit erratically. 

"We'll get back to you," 

"Fucking hell man, that looked awful,"

You received communication from race control, being told that Oscar's crash would be bringing out the red flag. 

"Red flag Logan, please come back to the garage. We aren't sure how long we may have to wait until the restart, but that isn't our main concern,"

"Was that Oscar or Lando?"