The Bet - a Max Verstappen x OC short-story

chapter five

But when the lights went out, the adrenaline junkie showed up again. My heart was beating louder than a drum and I had goosebumps watching all the cars on the grid go from zero to a hundred kilometres per hour in a few seconds. However, that excitement died very quickly when the cars got to Turn 1 known as Sainte-Dévote and several piled up. The red flag was instantly raised, stopping the race for now.

My heart stopped for a second because the international directors wouldn't show the live feed and we had only heard the crash from the cameras filming the back of the grid. This usually meant that something bad had happened. Like every journalist in the media room, I ran to the windows overlooking the pit lane to try to have a glance at Turn 1. Unfortunately, I couldn't see anything from there so I went back to my seat, the eyes glued on the wall of televisions in front of me, praying that everyone involved made it out of there alive and well.

The first person I thought of was Max, for obvious reasons. He had worked so hard on the preparation for the race that I would hate for it to be over for him just as it was starting. I couldn't even think of other possibilities for him. I could not even think that he was injured or worse. I did not want to. He would be okay. He had to.

The feed suddenly came back on and went straight to Max's onboard camera, still driving but who said on the radio that he had a puncture in his left back tyre. His engineer asked him if he could make it to the pit lane.

Max answered, "I have to. My girl's watching."

I immediately broke into a sob. He was okay. He had no damages to himself, only on the car. And instead of just answering what was asked of him by his race engineer, he called me his girl. I knew it was a message to me to let me know that he was okay and that our bet was still on. That made me chuckle. The man certainly had nerves of steel to be thinking of a bet when his car could have been totalled or he could have been seriously injured.

My reaction made other journalists look at me curiously but they all turned away when the cameras finally showed what happened at Turn 1. Daniil Kvyat, the Alpha Tauri driver who had surprised everyone by qualifying third, suffered a brake failure on his car and rear-ended Max. Since it was the start of the race and all the cars had been close to one another, it created a domino effect and cars piled up. Luckily, nobody was hurt even though it had been an impressive accident. Cars were crushed and some were even nearly destroyed but everyone was fine. That also meant that, unfortunately, only twelve cars made it past the first turn and they all gained the pit lane safely, driving slow as to not lose any carbon elements on other parts of the track.

While the commissioners were cleaning up the track, the drivers were allowed to get out of their car since we were told that it would take up to a whole hour before the restart.

Technically, I was allowed to go there but I didn't want to throw Max off his game. So I stayed in the room allowed for journalists against Franck's protests. We kind of bonded during the weekend and he wanted me to enjoy this to the fullest. But since I was getting involved with a driver, I had to consider his concentration first and did not want to mess that up while he would have several discussions with his race engineer, strategists and the chief mechanic to check if there was further damage to his car and how they wanted to play this out for the rest of the race.

Yet, a mere two minutes later, I received a text from him. Why aren't you with the journalist? I see him lurking around the pit lane but you're not with him.

I texted him back, secretly pleased that he had noticed my absence in the midst of the chaos that was the pit lane right now. I don't want to disturb you during this short break. You have to stay focused if you want to win, right?

His next message put a smile on my face. Oh so you do want to kiss me, don't you? Don't worry baby, it's going to happen either way.

I answered with another good luck message and said that I'd be there when he won.

The race restarted after fifty-five minutes. Max was still in pole position since the race control decided that Lewis Hamilton overtook him as a result of the accident. From Turn 1, he was pushed by Lewis but the Brit couldn't get past him. The Mercedes driver might have the best car on the grid, but Max knew exactly what not to do with his and it allowed him to carry on with his position. All the journalists surrounding me agreed that they had never seen Max so serene in his racing. He was not too aggressive with it and it was the real key to win here in Monaco.

And 78 laps later, Max did get his first win in Monaco, followed closely by Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo.

I jumped and kept on shouting, "he did it, he did it", not caring about the other people in the room. I was so proud of him that I couldn't care less. Fortunately, I was not the only one celebrating his win in the room, making me smile at all these people cheering for his talent.

I was about to follow Franck to the spot in the paddock where he would do post-race interviews when two people from Red Bull came and asked me to follow them. The production crew asked if they could follow me as part of the documentary they were filming but the guy from the team said they were not allowed on the grid right now which prompted a wink from Franck. From my behaviour today, he might have understood that something was going on between Max and I. Nothing could pass by a journalist, even if it was not their area of expertise.

We rushed through the pit lane to go where the whole garage was waiting for Max. I stood a little bit on the side, not really sure where to fit in here or even why I was brought here. This was their moment to celebrate their win as a team, so I had nothing to do here really.

But the minute I saw him get out of his car and jump into his mechanics, I stopped trying to understand. I just felt this pride and happiness coursing through my veins and I had an epiphany.

I was in love with him.