Royal Speed | Leclerc & Verstappen

52 | world champion

-/- Abu Dhabi 2021 - race weekend -/-

"It's lights out and away we go!"

The crowd cheered while I was standing in the back of the garage, headphone on while nervously looking at the screens in front of me. Max had a really bad start, Hamilton easily going by into turn one.

Instantly I started biting my bottom lip, my hands sweating while I kneaded my fingers, not daring to breath as the two cars came close. In the second lap it then happend, Max and Hamilton had slight contact, the Mercedes leaving the track.

All the mechanics inside the garage shouted and pointed at the screen, making me scared a bit. But I directly calmed down again as I felt Jos standing next to me. While Arthur, Cathy, Victoria, Tom and the boys watched the race from the balcony above the garage, I decided to follow Max's father.

"He has to give the position back." I heard Max's voice over the radio that I could hear through the headphones.

"We're on it mate, head down." his engineer returned, but I knew exactly how frustrated Max was right now, how angry, I could hear it in his voice.

"Focus boy, focus." Jos next to me mumbled while his eyes were also glued to the screen.

There was no moment where I could take a deep breath and clam down a bit because every lap was intense and my knuckles were already white, as I gripped so hard onto the barrier in front of me.

In lap 14 Max came for his first pit stop, the car coming in my view in front of the camera for just two seconds before he was gone again. Instantly my head snapped back to the screen and I nervously bit my tongue as I watched him through the tunnel back onto the track.

"My god!" Jos groaned as two cars were now between Max and Hamilton.

The British driver pitted one lap later, still returning to the track with quite a big gap to Max. Also there was still a Ferrari between them, Sergio Perez, Max's team mate now leading the race.

"Checo's gonna try to hold him up." I heard Max's engineer over the radio, while the Dutchman only scolded.

"What is this fucking Ferrari doing man, he should move out of my way!"

"Head down, you're eleven seconds behind Hamilton now."

Nervously I bounced with my leg up and down, nearly forgetting to breath because I was that tense. Luckily Max then managed to overtake the Ferrari and was now directly behind Hamilton, with quite a gap though, but his team mate tried everything to hold him up.

"Seven seconds."

I starred at the screen, not daring to blink so I wouldn't miss anything. My tie was slowly getting to tight and without thinking too much I quickly opened it and laid it next to Max's second helmet on his shelf in the back of the garage, not taking my eyes off the screen though.

"Five point three seconds."

Now all three cars were on screen and Hamilton managed to overtake Perez.

"Checo's a legend!" Max beamed as he took the DRS form his team mate to finally come closer to the Mercedes.

"Absolute animal." Christian returned while the game started from it's beginning, Max chasing Hamilton.

Unfortunately the gap only got bigger after that and so Max decided to pit again, going for another hard tire as he had a free pit stop, meaning that he would come back on track behind Hamilton again with no one between them.

But the rounds got less and and Max's gap was still too big, eleven seconds with only ten laps to go. But then, in lap 53 suddenly a car crashed and not long after the safety car was out on track, causing all cars to drive much slower.