"We are a PR teams worst nightmare." Daniel manages to say through heavy breaths. "Good thing no one knows about this then." Noemi adds breathing heavier. The two of them can hear Tsunoda's engine roar to life from the other side of the wall.
In a s...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
ASTON MARTIN COGNIZANT HEADQUARTERS - SILVERSTONE
"That was not what we wanted to see today, Noemi." Her principal said after a three hour long training session in the simulator.
"I don't know what happened, I was right on Verstappen, and then I lost it." Noemi sat down on the bench outside the simulator room defeated. She had played out an entire race in the simulator, following the virtual Verstappen closely all the way until the end, where she slipped up and fell down to fifth.
"P5 is lower than what you placed in a real race. You need to do better during training," Her principal walked away, without giving Noemi a second chance to redeem herself. She was being treated as if she was extremely experienced in F1, but in reality she was still just a rookie. P5 is better than way over half the grid and still scores her team points, she's better than Stroll ever was, yet she'll never be good enough. Noemi walked over to the other simulator that Fernando had been using to see his placement compared to hers, P8. Yet nothing was said to him after their training race. Noemi walked out to the main room of the headquarters building. There were at least 50 people walking around doing different jobs, it was so weird seeing all these people knowing that they were all working on her and Fernando.
Noemi's phone rang, she didn't recognize the number so she just let it go to voicemail, she'd listen to it later, she wasn't in the mood right now. She sat down on the couch in the main office of the HQ and took a deep breath leaning back and relaxing into the couch. She was leaving in a few hours to head to Saudi Arabia. It was only Tuesday and she had only one day off, and even then it was filled with cardio training in the form of a nine mile run as well as a lot of mental preparation for this coming weekend. Fernando walked up to her and sat down beside her on the couch, "I saw P5 on training, good job."
He was being sincere, but Noemi couldn't help but scoff, "It wasn't good enough for Krack."
"He's only hard on you because he knows you have potential."
Noemi looked down, she knew that was the real reason, but it didn't feel like it was whenever he was saying something to her about needing to do better. Someone from the other side of the building called Fernando's name, he got up, waved Noemi goodbye and walked to where he was called. Sinking back into the couch and checking the voicemail she had been left, she pressed play and the voice on the other end made her smile.
"Hey Noemi, it's Daniel. I got your number off Fernando Sunday. I reckon you're busy with training right now or something or those sorts. I was just wondering if when you land in Saudi you'd want to get dinner or something, if not it's totally fine, just call me back whenever."
The voicemail made her feel butterflies in her stomach and a sudden uplift in her mood. Of course she wanted to go to dinner with him tonight. She saved the contact in her phone as 'Daniel Ricciardo' eventually planning on changing it to something more personal to them, but just his normal name was good for now, and she stepped outside of the building into the parking lot and gave Daniel's phone a call back.
