Dalliance- [Max Verstappen]

[ T H I R T Y - F I V E ]

Saturday comes by quickly and Daisy is glad that she was occupied with work during Friday and didn't have to deal with Claire or anything else that stresses her out. She did want to talk to Max, scold him because of his behaviour, but every time she has seen him Daisy backed out of the situation. Suddenly not knowing what to say or how to phrase her words to not make Max angry with her. Maybe she should be even happy that he is willing to protect her, but Daisy still thinks that it could be quite dangerous to bring out the bad side of Claire.

Being buried in work kept her from visiting the garage as often as she would have liked to be in there, but she has to be satisfied with watching the training sessions from the hospitality, amazed by the pool of orange fans for Max even though this isn't his home race but the one from the team. For qualifying Daisy finally manages to slip out of her makeshift office for the weekend and just enters the garage when the cars leave for the first qualification segment.

Daisy slips a pair of headphones over her ears and finds a free spot on the side of Checo, being in his team for now, so she tries to show her support to the Mexican. Q1 is rather easy for the RedBulls, having no trouble with qualifying for the best fifteen drivers, but still with room to get better with Max being on P3 behind the Ferraris and Checo on P6. They come back to the garage, watch some of their laps on the screens put on their cars while the mechanics do small adjustments to the cars. And with the blink of an eye Q2 already starts.

The second qualifying segment is rather unentertaining as well, even though Daisy likes being able to kind of relax during this time when the most stressful bit is still right in front of them. She knows Q3 will have her on the edge of her seat again, fingers crossed so tightly that it hurts while she hopes for the best result for the drivers in the RedBulls. Especially when it is the home race of the team, with sponsors being even more present than usually. Everybody wants to show them a smooth performance to make them more willing to extend contracts or even expand the amount of money they give to the team.

Q3 brings out all of the entertainment that was missing in the first two segments of qualifying with both Mercedes cars crashing out and causing a red flag just shortly after the other. In the end Max snatches the quickest time from Leclerc and when the time runs out Daisy is rather happy with the result.

"Yes!" Daisy quietly cheers to herself when it is safe that Max will be starting the race from pole position, exactly how he would like to be placed in the end. The Ferraris might be separating Max and Checo, but the team will still figure out a strategy to make everything work in the end. Daisy takes off the headphones and wants to search for Alec so that they can pick up Checo for the post-qualifying interviews when someone else speaks up.

"Daisy, do you have a minute?" Vicky asks and because Daisy just spotted Alec being in a deep conversation with someone she nods.

"Sure!"

Vicky lowers her voice and Daisy senses, that this is something not everyone needs to know. "I am going to inform Claire after this race weekend about the upcoming switch. I don't need any additional trouble this weekend. Max knows and Alec will just have to accept it." Daisy feels relived, at least for this weekend she is safe from Claire getting mad that she is being taken away from "her" Max.

"Thank you, Vicky." Daisy says and she is completely honest. She doesn't know how she would have been able to get through the rest of the weekend with Claire knowing that she will kind of lose her position at the side of Max. The other intern acting nice, but Daisy knows for sure that this is just a facade from her and that behind closed doors she would do anything to sabotage Daisy or anyone who would be in her way.

"No problem, you are a great intern, and I would be dumb not to profit from it." Warmth spreads trough Daisy's body because of the praise and she just smiles happily, before their conversation is split apart from Alec shouting that it is time for some interviews. Daisy says goodbye to Vicky quickly to follow her boss and end this workday as good as possible. Getting Checo through the interviews, typing out articles and everything else that needs to be done before working time ends.