Brake check- autistic Oscar Piastri, ADHD Lando Norris

5: honest answers

Oscar's POV:

The light was on in Lando's office when I got back after my shower. He was probably having his lunch. I needed to get my own but had decided to bring it back down to my own office to eat. I had a pretty press heavy afternoon again and I needed some time to settle before all of it.

I knocked on the door and stood back a couple steps. "Mhm?" Came from inside.

"Hey Lando, it's uh Oscar, just wanted to say hi."

He got up and opened the door, AirPods still in one ear and salad dressing around his mouth. I struggled not to laugh. "Don't even, this pasta salad is giving me the fight of my life." He paused, "you can come in." I nodded in thanks and sat down on the identical sofa that was present in my own office.

"I just wanted to check you were okay after yesterday?" I asked, starting to open the takeaway container full of my own food.

"Yea I'm all good just got a bit too much. But I heard you talked to Jon?"

"I just wanted to know if you were okay and he explained how you were finding the transition to all of this a bit difficult. I said if it wasn't working for you then it wasn't working."

"Thanks for that, we uh had a meeting this morning about making it work."

"And is it now? Working, I mean?"

"Maybe, we'll see. I don't really know what I need so I can't exactly ask for it."

"I get that. Kim asked me what he should do if I have a meltdown and it took me ages to think about what even works."

Lando nodded, paused and then turned to me, "what should we do?"

"You've kind of already dealt with one. I mean it was more of a sensory overload but uh same kind of deal, sort of."

"So just a quiet space?"

"Yea pretty much. I've done it by myself for so long that most of the time that's all I really need to be okay again. If I have a really bad one it's a bit more of a mess but that hasn't happened in years or really around anyone who isn't my mum."

"What happens in the really bad ones?"

"Crying, sometimes screaming, it depends, I'm normally violent towards myself. I will hide away somewhere, normally a toilet, they're easiest, especially when I don't really have the ability to get myself to a quiet place or home or anything. If people get too close, I can get violent with them too and I'm super sensitive to sounds and tastes and sight and basically all my senses. Then I kind of go into a shutdown afterwards and my motor skills drop off the face of the earth." I couldn't believe I was talking about it all so openly but also if I was going to do it with anyone, it was going to be Lando. Weirdly, it didn't feel like I was choosing to talk about it, it was just happening.

"How do you mean?"

"Mhm?"

"The motor skills, doesn't that make driving the cars dangerous?"

"Not at all really. I wouldn't ever still be in the car when that happened. There's a rumbling period, well that's what they call it I think, before a meltdown and sensory overloads. Or at least for me there is. So I know if one's coming and I don't risk it if I can't calm down during the rumbling period."

"You just retire?"

"Yea."

"But how do you-? I mean don't people have questions?"

"I don't know! It only happened once or twice. It happened more in karting I guess but we were kids, everyone had a temper tantrum at least one race per year. I think there was a time it happened in formula 2 or maybe formula Renault, I can't really remember. But it was hot weekend where I'd been ill. It all got too much and lead to a bit of a sensory overload in the end but ultimately we blamed it on the illness and the heat. I kind of got away with it. The loss of motor skills was blamed on the fact I was pretty much unconscious for a while. Plus, I totally hyperfocus when I race. Like, nothing really affects me, my brain is on one track only, the track I'm driving on."