Religiously ° Charles Leclerc

seven

(I have changed a few things around about this race so that things happen the way I want them to, so this is in no way accurate to the actual '23 Las Vegas Grand Prix, just a fair warning about that... also it won't be described with much detail or anything as I'm still pretty new in the fandom and I've never actually watched a race yet, I want to but I can never catch them when they're live.)

***

It was almost time for the race to start and Val was standing beside Charles' car that he had just climbed into, the man tilted his head up to look at her, his bottom lip jutted out just slightly "Good luck kiss?" It was something that he had done so many times when they were together the first time, also it was something Val complied with every time he asked.

The singer gave him an amused look but leaned down and pressed her lips against his, the angle that she was standing at prevented the cameras from seeing what exactly she had done. "good luck tesoro, I believe in you." she spoke softly where only he could hear her.

He gave her a dimpled smile, as she stood up again and he started putting his helmet and everything on.

Val just gave him a soft smile in return, the brunette truly had missed him.

Charles' race engineer Xavier Marcos stepped up beside Val handing her a radio so she could listen in on Charles' radio while he was racing, "thank you, Xavier."

The older man smiled at the singer, he for sure had been surprised to see her when she had walked into the garage the previous day and was talking to Charles, and was even more surprised when she walked into the garage with him that morning, "You're welcome Val, I may not know exactly what's going on but it's nice to see the two of you together again and maybe, just maybe it might be the push he needed, he's not had the best season so far... but having you here this weekend he's done better."

She smiled, as she started fixing the radio but not putting the headphones on yet. "yeah so I've heard, but I've got full faith in him that he can win today, he's had such a good weekend with free practices, and quali."

Xavier smiled again, he hated seeing Charles so down after everything that had happened with his breakup with Val, and seeing the two talking and interacting again, seeing how her presence just seemed to brighten the Monégasque driver's mood, made him happy for the younger man, they had developed quite a friendship over the years, that Xavier had been Charles' race engineer.

Val had put the headphones over her ears as the race was starting, she was still getting some looks of surprise from other people in the garage but she wasn't focused on that at all her full focus was on the race.

"It's lights out and away we go." was heard before the race started.

The start of the race was a little slow but that wasn't always a bad thing, Charles had managed to keep his lead by a pretty good margin that is until they had him pit a few laps too soon which allowed Max to overtake him and be in the lead.

Charles had ended up back in second after he managed to come out p5 after the pit but overtook both McLaren cars and Pérez to end up back in p2 so now he just needed a chance to overtake Max and be back in p1.

Max held out for the majority of the race at P1 and Charles P2 and there were maybe 20 laps left when Charles got his opportunity and overtook Max, landing him back in P1. Which had the people in the Ferrari garage cheering when it happened, Val had actually jumped up and down a few times as she muttered to herself "You've got this baby..." she was practically on the edge of her seat or well she would be if she were sitting down anyway.