This Ain't A Fairytale- Lando Norris

31. This is gonna be one of those things

The race was painful to watch. Isla had been blissfully unaware, but Hannah and Adam were tearing their hair out. Every time Lando spoke on the radio Hannah could hear he was getting more and more frustrated.

When they called him into the pits ahead of Oscar she'd thought maybe they were going to give him a chance, but the stop had been slow and just created more distance between him and Oscar.

It did put him in front of Carlos who pitted a couple of laps later, but there was still no way he was going to catch and pass Oscar.

Then, after both papaya cars had pitted again, leaving Carlos out in front with Oscar and Lando second and third behind him, a quiet realisation settled over the garage that Ferrari had no intention of Carlos stopping again.

Oscar was slowly closing in on Carlos, who's tyres looked absolutely wrecked every time Hannah caught him on camera, but as she did the maths in her head with the speed he was catching him at there weren't enough laps for him to get there and pass him, not unless something went very wrong for Carlos.

It was clearly something the Tifosi had also now realised because the roar from the crowd every time the scarlet Ferrari passed them was deafening.

Lando was also gaining on Oscar, setting fastest lap after fastest lap each time he came around, despite having the older tyres. But she realised he too was going to run out of time before he could catch him. The couple of seconds behind that he was going to finish had been caused by that squabble on the first lap and the near spin, and then getting stuck behind Carlos.

She was happy for Carlos as she watched his car sail through the finish, she could hear all the Ferrari staff out in the pitlane celebrating. The celebrations were slightly more subdued in the McLaren garage, knowing that what had been a P2 and P3 could quite easily have been a P1 and P2 with some slightly better decisions.

"Come on, let's go out and find him." Adam suggested, scooping Isla up from where she had been sitting.

Hannah nodded in agreement, following her father in law down the pitlane and making their way through the crowds so they'd be waiting when Lando arrived after the cooldown lap.

As he pulled in behind the number three board, Hannah watched as the familiar neon helmet dropped a bit, Lando sitting in the car for a fraction longer than normal before he slowly climbed out.

The first thing he did was go over and give Carlos a hug on his way to get weighed, his former teammate well and truly swept up in the celebrations of an unexpected win in front of Ferrari's home crowd on his birthday. Hannah also gave Carlos a quick hug and congratulated him as he made his way down the line of Ferrari staff they were sandwiched in between.

Lando eventually came over after going to get weighed, making a beeline straight for Hannah without even stopping to take his helmet off.

She wrapped her arms around him, feeling quite how tense he was as her hands landed on his shoulders.

"What an absolute shitshow." He mumbled under his helmet.

Hannah just squeezed him a little bit tighter, knowing there was nothing she could say to make it any better.

He eventually let go of her, slowly pulling his helmet and balaclava off, leaning against the barrier beside her. "That was just...." He shook his head.

She ran her fingers through the curls on top of his head, pushing them out of his face. Her fingers tracing the indent the wire of his ear pieces had left on the side of his face. "We'll talk about it later." She said softly.

He nodded in agreement, reaching to take Isla from his dad for a minute. She threw her arms around his neck, Hannah resting a hand on his shoulder as he squeezed their daughter.