❝ you deserve to be loved the way i can't love you ❞
✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊ- a story in which two former mercedes juniors find themselves reuniting again in the bitter circumstances of him finally climbing up to the pinnacle of motorsport that she's spent the pa...
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BORN INTO A COMPLICATED FAMILY,cato verstappen was raised to be a champion. after her and her twin were separated from her younger sister after the divorce of their parents, she, along with max verstappen, were pushed to win every karting race and every title they could. she trained day in and day out, developing the championship winning mentality at such a young age. she was taught that nothing else mattered, only that she needed to be the best she possibly could be to follow in her father's footsteps to enter the prestigious world of formula one.
the only part that ever felt worth it was defying her father's want for his children to stay independent by accepting the deal that signed her on with the new mercedes development program. the feeling of being wanted made it believable enough that she was actually talented despite everything she'd been told.
MERCEDES JUNIORS. she'd been one back when it was first introduced, and it was nothing short of a nightmare. mercedes picked two aspiring drivers from GP2 to mentor: one from carlin, and the other from ART grand prix. cato verstappen and luca santiago. it was game on the second the mercedes logos broke out, and the competitive spirit increased tenfold into the exact opposite of what mercedes wanted for their image.
AS IF DIPPED IN GOLD,luca santiago was made of sunshine. he had always been bright and cheery, without a care in the world. one bad race was something he easily bounced back from, and you hardly ever saw him without a smile. he was well-liked and well-perceived, and never had a bad thing to say about anyone. not even to cato, who had shut herself down every time he got too close and would refuse to cooperate as junior drivers while they fought for the GP2 championship.
sunshines darkened overtime. they disappeared behind clouds and fell as the moon rose slowly to the surface. cato winning the GP2 championship had broke his smile. she'd appeared out of nowhere and smashed through to the victory with no sign of slowing down. the contract signing her on as a mercedes junior had stayed put as she moved up to sit as a test and reserve for sahara force india before her seventeenth birthday. luca had been left behind, the ever growing chatter of how he shared a junior rank with the girl that had turned everything so bitter a constant nagging screech in his head.
he learnt to keep his smile up despite the fall, he learnt to ignore how he was compared to her and to keep pushing until he achieved his dream of entering the sport he knew cato was dominating as if she had the world in the palm of her hand. from indy lights and super formula to indycar and a mclaren development driver, he was slowly making this dream a reality.
AND, AT THE END OF THE 2023 FORMULA ONE SEASON, his dream was finally a reality. luca santiago was finally given the formula one seat he'd been waiting on ever since he was sixteen. and that finally meant that he was up on the same stage as cato verstappen.
