Rumor has it ~ Charles Leclerc

Part 74

I walk into the garage and stand behind the barrier. I watch the Ferrari guys put on new tires for the start and Charles walks in.
"Has anybody seen my girlfriend?" He walks over to the car and puts on his balaclava. "Right there Charles" and engineer points at me and Charles walks over to me. He takes the balaclava off again and kisses me.
"You look hot like that" my hands run through his hair and he kisses me harder.
"I mean, I love to give you good luck kisses, but we are not alone here" I smile at him and he grins back.
"Wish me luck."
"You don't need luck, just think of me when it gets hard and *I whisper in his ear* just trust in lando" I give him one last kiss and he gets into his car. 

The race starts with a bit of trouble because Gasly, who was on the inside of turn one, couldn't turn and with that send Danny, Kmag, Lance and Hülki off the track. Kmag slides off with high speed and nearly touches Danny again with would have send him in the barriers as well.
Kmag goes flying because of the gravel but lands on his wheels again but still slides into the wall.
With that there is a red flag and I get a chair in the waiting time and Charles personal manager brings a a bouncy ball as well. He tells me, that Charles bought it because of my nervousness and that he should give it to me.

The race restarts and Charles starts brilliantly and switches from 13th to 9th. As the race continues rb pulls a bad strategy and Charles fights his way to 5th within the first half of the race.
As Charles fights for forth with George, lando becomes the race leader.

The whole race stays tense and with five laps left Charles is second and has max right up his ass. Charles defends for his life and fights for the 1.4 second gap which keeps max out of the DRS. But the gap gets tighter and was by the next corner at 1.2 seconds.

"What's the gap between 2 and 3" landos voice sounds from the monitors.
"Verstappen is 1.3 seconds behind Leclerc" his engineer answers.
"What strategy do you want to use?"
"Strategy Bella"
"I didn't quiet understand"
"Strategy Bella! B E L L A! I choose that one" he answers and I can't control my smile which immediately was captured by the cameras and shown on the screens.  

"Charles, just wanted to give you an update. The gap to Verstappen is at 1.2 and Lando just switched to strategy Bella. We don't know what it means but wanted to tell you."
"Doesn't matter, I know what he means. Don't talk any more, trust in the strategy. We also switch to strategy Bella." Now the screen is split in showing me, lando and Charles.
The gap from Charles to lando fades more and more, till Charles is in the DRS window and then gets faster again. With that the gap to max increases and Charles is more safe from him.

By the last lap Charles is right behind lando and drives next to him just half a lap before finishing the race. He could pass him but won't and they keep driving next to each other for the rest of the race and by the finish line, Charles backs up a bit to not take the win.
They drive the extra round and than park in front of their plates. They get out and get in a hug as they loosen the hug lando points a heart that Charles had put on his helmet as a reference to me and they look over to the photographers.
After that they run to their teams and get more hugs.

I stand with the Ferrari guys during the interviews and then landos engineer pulls me aside.
"Hey Bella, we thought about who we send on the podium with them and than had the idea that it could be you. I mean if you don't mind. If you don't want to, we can still find someone else. We have also already talked to the chefs. You in-fact are allowed to."
"Well in that case I don't mind. I'd love to." 

On the podium I can't stop smiling and after the anthems we take the champagne and spray each other. Lando does his jump and I try as hard as I can, not to drop the bottle.
Lando takes the bottle from me and Charles and points at the pole position step. We get on it and Charles pulls me towards him and kisses me, as max and lando spray us again.
After that they step on it with us and we rearrange the order. Photos are taken and than we leave the podium.