Unchained Melody (Daniel Ricciardo)

Landing down under

"Baby you're being very quiet. What's going on?" Daniel and Ayla are driving to the airport where they will get on a flight to Perth. They decided to go stay at Daniel's farm for about a week before heading to the Maldives where they will spend ten days in one of the overwater bungalows of Soneva Fushi.

They have been to Austria where Daniel's luck seemed to have run out already. He was again driving in the back, fighting the car. For Red Bull it was a weekend with mixed emotions.

Max took the victory after being fastest throughout the entire weekend, but Checo crashed in Q1. The car spun and he ended up in the barriers. The gear box was completely destroyed and they had to replace it.
Checo started from pit lane and eventually ended up P14 after a messy and terrible race.

Ayla loved it there though, not just the way the circuit is positioned, between the Austrian mountains, but also the people. Everybody was very nice, the fans were amazing, a lot of them Dutch which was fun.
Ayla met quite a few of them and they ended up going through the fanzone with special paddock VIP passes they handed out to some fans.

Ayla came up with it and after suggesting it to Christian, saying that it would be a great way to get the fans closer to the action and the team, he immediately agreed and they had ten paddock passes to hand out.

Of course it made amazing content for social media and it proved once again that she is worth every cent the team is paying her for her work.

Between Austria and France they spent a few days at Sebs place where Melissa has now settled in. She feels right at home in Sebs farm house and enjoys the peace and quiet.
After quitting her job she decided to take some time to think about what she really wanted to do with her life and she started writing a children's book.

Because she can take her laptop anywhere she goes, she will now join Seb to many more races than she did before.
They are going strong and have even been talking about when they might want to start a family.

Ayla and Daniel then went to his place in Monaco where they had a couple of days all by themselves. They hung out with Charles and his girlfriend Charlotte on Charles' yacht and were accompanied by Tina and Lando who were also staying in Lando's apartment.

It was nice to be able to have that time together. After Silverstone where they went public with their relationship, the media had a little bit of a frenzy over them. They could barely get into the paddock together without being bombarded with questions and being blinded by the flashes of the camera's.

It was a lot and Ayla almost regretted coming out with their relationship, but Daniel was her rock as always and he managed to pull her through.
He has been getting a lot of shit thrown over him for not getting any results and that has been weighing on him heavily, still he managed to be there for her even with everything he is going through.

Oscar and Mark were hanging around the garage in Austria as well and for Daniel it was a clear sign that something was happening. Obviously it didn't sit right with him.

Ayla went to talk to Mark, as they have been friends for a long time, but he stayed vague and couldn't, or wouldn't tell her anything.
Oscar is a nice kid, but he is supposed to be reserve driver for Alpine, so it doesn't make sense that he is at McLaren so much.

At first they kept him pretty well hidden so no camera's would accidentally catch him there, but after Austria, Oscar was seen leaving the McLaren garage and that made the media go ballistic.

It's hard to see Daniel so deflated every time he climbs out of the car. No matter what he does, it never seems to work. He can't gel with the car and the team doesn't seem to put in a lot of effort. They are listening to Lando more because he is obviously getting the results and the points.