Unchained Melody (Daniel Ricciardo)

Simulator and a birthday dinner.

"Lando!! That's moving under breaking. You're cheating!" Ayla shouted to Lando in the simulator next to her. They are back in the UK for the Silverstone race and decided to go for some sim racing.

Daniel and Tina are just having a good time, but Ayla and Lando are very competitive and Lando has now realized that Ayla is actually pretty good, so in order for him not to lose from a non racing driver he even had to take some extreme, not very sportsman like, actions.

"If you are faster, just overtake me." He grinned.
"I was going to, but you were weaving all over the place. Such a sore loser." Ayla laughed.

Over the last few weeks she has started to feel more and more like her old self. A lot of that she has to thank Daniel for. He has been a rock these weeks and even though they are not together, for now, he has been there to listen, to hold her when she cried and to tell her time and time again how special she is.

Because of him she finally did make the decision to talk to a counselor and she has started when they came back from Canada.
She has two sessions a week, mostly over video call because of her crazy schedule, but it has helped.

She found it very hard to open up to a stranger, but Carolina, her therapist, has been so patient and so understanding, that slowly Ayla is able to talk to her more and to give her more details about everything she went through these last years and especially with her mom, dad and then of course Axel.

Carolina figured out that Ayla never gave herself time to grieve about losing her mother. She went from a student, to a carer, to a party girl in Amsterdam, to working for Red Bull. She never really went through the grieving process for her mom and she did the same after what happened with Axel.

She pretended nothing happened which prevented her to grief what she lost.
Her control, her sense of safety and her sense of ownership of her own body.

Ayla knows she still has a long way to go, but for the first time in a long time, she believes she might have a chance to feel good about herself again.

That combined with her amazing friends, makes it that she is able to laugh whole heartedly about Lando who can't accept he is being beaten by her.

What Lando doesn't know is that she used to go karting a lot and that she spent a lot of time in the simulators on the Zandvoort circuit. She is not some rookie who has never done this before, but she thought it would be funnier to see Lando's reaction when he found out she is very good in a sim.

She goes in for her pitstop and looks over to Daniel who has a smile on his face, but she can tell he is not really with his head in the game.
Baku and Canada were, again, not great for him.

By now media has started to write brutal articles about his performance and results which only add to Daniel's confidence fading even more with each race.
The only time he is really his true, happy self, is when they are together, just the two of them.

When there's no pressure from the outside world weighing down on him and they are relaxing, watching a movie or just talking. Then he is the Daniel she knows and grown to love so much. But as soon as the race weekend is coming closer, he becomes more quiet, thoughtful and worried.

His smile never reaches his eyes when he puts on a brave face for the media and the fans, but Ayla knows him so much better now. She knows he is having a really hard time and even though he hasn't said it out loud, it's clear that he is doubting his ability to race.

Ever since they came back from Canada, he has been staying with Lando to be close to the MTC in Woking. He has been going to the MTC for simulator time almost on a daily basis.