BACK TO DECEMBER ━ oscar piastri.

[ 006 ] Mortal Combat

   

  

   

( ACT I. ── Fading Imprints )
chapter six / Mortal Combat

   

  

  

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All through her life, Gisela had never experienced the "sick nerves," she was skilled at handling her anxiety and prided herself on that. This day, however, was a completely new ball game and she felt incredibly nauseous. Her very first Formula One qualifying session started in 45 minutes, and she was on the verge of breathing into a paper bag.

"Hey," Bram put his hands on her shoulders as they both observed some on-screen data, "just remember the car is fucked, so whatever happens it's probably not your fault." 

Gisela resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Thank you, Rynsburger."

"We're gonna live in a shithouse for a couple of months." He squeezed her shoulders unhelpfully. "But there's literally only up from here."

"Awesome." She wished he would stop talking. Her stomach was already flipping her breakfast around and his pep talk was doing absolutely nothing productive.

They saved most of the gnarlier performance talks for the absolute last minute, partly because team morale was already low, and also because Bram and Gabriele had been in mortal combat all week about how the car was borderline unsafe to drive. The likelihood of complete system failure in the main straight was... higher than anyone would have liked. Bram had started out refusing to get in the car, period. His next failed plan was to drive the car as slow as possible in a form of protest. He had this way of being dead calm, but he was the prized world champion here and it was clearly his way or the highway, so their Team Principal had conceded and stayed up with the team for three full nights trying to fix at least some the issues, but this still wasn't enough for Bram. That was when Gabriele pulled out his last card and spent over an hour in his office with this drivers laying down the rules. I pay you. I don't have to accommodate you, but I do, so you'll give me credit where credit is due. Long story short, Rynsburger was getting in the damn car.

Truly, to Gisela it felt like a memory of her childhood when her brother was getting verbally reamed and she just had to stand there silently, too intimidated to walk away. It still happened sometimes, too. Juanjo had come leaps and bound in the discipline and respect for others department, but sometimes he still got cornered with his hand in the cookie jar by his dad. That's what it was like listening to Bram get
berated. She was just glad it wasn't her.

While they were reading the data and Bram was still squeezing Gisela's shoulders in a way that was probably directed, with the best intentions, to be comforting, there was suddenly another elbow on the keyboard desk and Paul was in her line of sight, looking a little confused but still intending to talk to her.