Deaf Lando Norris oneshots/ drabbles

5: meeting Caleb McDuff (deaf driver)

NOTE: timelines on stuff don't necessarily match up, suspend the belief a bit haha, as if we aren't already!

Lando's POV:

Normally media stuff was pretty boring. Working with sponsors you got briefed on 5 minutes before and saying lines to camera. But sometimes you get to do something fun like get back into a go-kart.

Today was one of those fun days.

Team BRIT are an all-disabled racing team who have disabled drivers in all kinds of championships.

When I first went deaf, McLaren reached out to them for some assistance. Mostly because they are one of the leading teams capable in making cars accessible and because they have the only deaf racing driver in the UK.

He's called Caleb, he's ridiculously young and very cool. He lost his hearing at a young age and uses cochlear implants. He raced for years not being able to hear anything before Team BRIT worked out a way to get his processors on the outside of his helmet.

My hearing aids look and work differently to cochlear implants but the team were still super helpful. Mostly because our mechanics don't work with hearing aids or anything like that and needed a lot of help. Although, Zak was saying the other day that there is now an engineer who's job involves working on my hearing aids specifically. But that's mostly because we're having to change them and it's all been a bit of a mess. That's a story for another time though.

Because today, McLaren had me down at a local go-kart track, racing against Caleb. When I first got there, the McLaren media team made me get out the back of the taxi about 60 billion times as I did a line to camera. But when I was finally allowed inside, I met Caleb and his Dad. They were both really nice and we just talked about the f1 season so far as the team got the cameras ready.

Then it was time to get miked up. I let them do it for me as I normally did, too busy checking my phone quickly before putting it back in my pocket. Caleb looked at me nervously as they did his.

"Feels tingly right?" I signed.

He nodded in reply before signing, "you sign good." I laughed and went to sign some more as the director for the video came to stand in front of us, explaining the process of the video. We had a short interview first and then they'd get us out in the go-karts. The video would probably results in the two scenarios being cut together but that didn't really matter to us there and then.

I sat down in one of the two chairs, looking out at the track behind me. Caleb sat next to me, his hands fidgeting in his lap. I remembered being his age. He probably couldn't believe he'd been invited for an interview with an f1 driver. But I felt like the rookie here. The one who become deaf most recently and was still learning what it all meant. And most importantly, still learning sign language.

I was coached through an intro and fed the questions from behind the camera.

"Hey everyone, it's Lando Norris here and today I'm with the UK's only other deaf racing driver, Caleb McDuff."

"Hello!" Caleb said, still appearing very nervous. I didn't blame him though.

"When did you become deaf?" I then asked and listened as he explained a story I already knew. I'd read every article and watched every interview he'd done when I first became deaf. There were a couple others throughout history but he was the most recent and with technology the way it is, I wanted to learn what was already out there. I'd been pretty disappointed on the whole but found Caleb awesome. Pretty switched on young guy. Definitely more mature than I was at his age, but that wasn't exactly difficult.

"I think everyone remembers the weekend I became deaf." I joked. "But uh yea, it was a traumatic injury after a crash."

"Can I ask questions?" Caleb then asked, looking to the director of the video.