Cloud 9 | Lando Norris

7

Luna Castelli

(Saturday Australian Grand Prix)

"And, were out. Sorry, mate." My strategist's voice was ringing inside my head. I couldn't get out of Q2.

"Sorry about that. What position?"

"P11, just barley didn't make it out. Good lap, we'll have a look at it, yeah?"

"Ok."

I was brought back into the garage and exited the car. I was comforted with some pats on my arms and back by the team. I wanted to kill myself. Fuck. Well, at least some improvement. It's better than P13, but did I wish I still made it into Q3? Absolutely.

My lap wasn't that bad it was good, even. It wasn't enough, though. We were rewinding the footage of my lap again and again, trying to figure out where I went wrong. Turns out, I went wide into turn 3 and didn't get a good exit for turn 4. One small mistake, but it cost me 1 position of making it into Q3.

Max's laps were pretty good, better than mine, but he was struggling to get any higher than P4. He was making the same mistake as I was, but so was everyone else. Yet, it seemed like only the two Red Bull cars were impacted by the mistake.

"Ok, we'll look further in. Go cool off, mate." Brian spoke with furrowed brows and a concentrated expression as he stared at the monitor in front of him.

"Yeah, thanks." I nodded and walked away in exhaustion.

It was way too hot to be driving a Formula one car today. There weren't enough ice packs to get cool from at the moment. I was sweating and breathing like crazy. Well, I was trying to breathe. My head was spinning as I sat on the floor of my private room and took deep breaths. Nothing was helping anymore at this point. I took my race suit and my fireproofs off and put on loose clothes to cool my body down. After a few splashes of water on my face from my bathroom sink, I felt better. I was lying on my couch and staring at the ceiling before I heard a knock on my door. I got up and went to open it.

"Guess who just got po-po-poleeeee...." Max was yelling like a little child as he laughed.

"Super super Max Max Max?" I laughed and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Damn. Nope. P4 for me." His smile faded, and he ironically turned his head down and frowned.

"I've never seen you this happy for P4. I chuckled and thought Max was maybe kidding. "Who got pole position?"

"Charles, Lando, Carlos, Me. That's the order I was told." He smiled, which left me confused.

I furrowed my brows and smiled back. "What? I don't get why you're so pumped for P4. Don't get me wrong, I'm jealous, but something's sus, Max."

"Albonoooooo." he laughed and made me realize his party was in a few hours.

"Yeaaahhh, where's Albono?" I asked with a smile.

I wanted to walk to the Williams garage to congratulate him. Not only because it was his birthday, but because he'd managed to get a Williams into Q2 and finished P12, which is pretty fucking good, if you think about the fact that a Red Bull was only one position in front.

"Aaaayyy." I jumped around in front of the Williams garage as I saw Alex walking towards me.

"Aaaayyy." He laughed. "How you?"

"Me good. You?"

"Sì, sì. Bene." He replied in italian and had a proud grin on his face after he did.

"Wow, duolingo's really helping, I see." I always made fun of him for using duolingo whenever I got the chance, but after a while, I started using it as well.