𝘴𝘩𝘶𝘵 𝘶𝘱 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘦 || 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘰𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘳

probably just false hope... or not?

i love oscar it's for the plot that lando's being an ass

~

Oscar braced himself, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath before entering the debrief room. He was met with a round of warm applause from the team, but it felt hollow, like the cheers were just background noise.

Despite this, he smiled graciously and took his seat in front of the screens, trying to focus solely on the statistics and less on the turns that the race had taken and the backwards way in which it had unfolded, especially with his teammate who wouldn't even look him in the eye.

The debrief ran relatively smoothly, going through where the team had been strong and how the car could potentially be improved for future races, though the elephant in the room was yet to be discussed. The God-awful strategy.

For the first time, Oscar spoke up. 
"Could we talk about the second round of pit stops and why Lando was asked to box first, which is what instigated the issues we faced later on in the race."

The team dove into something about the tire compounds but even that didn't make sense as their tires were practically used almost equally when they had called Lando in. Oscar suspected it was just an excuse.

"But you guys did that knowing it would put Lando in the lead," Oscar argued.

Oscar looked extremely unimpressed as the team did a bunch of hand waving to try to cover up their error. He looked over at Lando who looked equally, almost offended, at the fact that the team was making an excuse.

"Look," Lando said. "We're a team, and we won't improve unless we admit our mistakes. The first one was gifting Oscar the win when I'm in a title fight and he's not, and it's just funny to me that you guys would prioritize your worse driver."

Ouch. That was brutal.

Oscar didn't miss the pointed look Lando got from Zak but in the same breath Zak wasn't really one to be talking at that moment in time either. He was part of the reason both his drivers felt completely fucked over, and the enemy of an enemy is a friend, right?

It sucked though, because he thought that maybe Lando was warming up to him ever so slightly, until the Brit casually dumped this bucket of cold water on his head with the icy words he heard Lando saying behind his back.

The debrief continued on, both Lando and Oscar expressing their immense frustrations with the choices of the team. At least that was one thing they agreed on. But their frustrations stemmed from different places, and Oscar caught every direct and backhanded insult that Lando threw his way. But the worst, he didn't know, was yet to come.

After some ridiculous amount of time they were finally permitted to pack up and leave from a brutal Grand Prix weekend, which also marked the end of the triple header. What Oscar was unaware of, however, was that this was only the beginning of a wild ride.

As he turned into his driver's room, he saw Lando waiting in the entryway of his own driver's room, as the two were always on opposite sides of the same end of the hallway.

"I don't ever want to hear about my Miami win being lucky again," Lando sneered. "Because the team didn't hand me that. This was presented on a silver platter to you, is that really how you wanted to get your debut win?"

"Of course not," Oscar deadpanned. "Who wants their win to be like this? You certainly wouldn't, oh wait, it wasn't like yours was legitimate either."

"Guess we're even," Lando shrugged. "One thing I'm surprised you haven't learned yet, though, is that I don't like anything except first place in this team. I don't take anything except first since I have been the most loyal driver in years. It's not for nothing, Oscar."