OVERDRIVE| CHARLES LECLERC

prolouge

Alessandra Corceiro had experienced a total of three heartbreaks in her twenty years of life so far. The first was at the young age of seven, when the tragic death of Andrea Corceiro had struck the Corceiro family. Finding out that your mother was dead when you barely understood what the word truly meant was something that nobody would ever wish upon a child. How could the most important person in her life just disappear? It was so sudden, so unexplained, that to this day, Alessandra still couldn't grasp the fact that she would never know the love of a mother again.

They had called it a freak accident, whatever that meant. She couldn't quite fathom how no one could be to blame for her mothers death.

Andrea was a marine biologist –one of the best there was– and had been on an expedition out in Australia with various researchers and professionally trained divers, studying the dying great barrier reef. Each diver had been assigned to each researcher and were instructed to make sure everything was fine at all times. A faulty oxygen tank was the conclusion investigators had come to. That's all it had taken to take a mother from her children.

Her second heartbreak happened on Alessandras first ever Marine Volunteer Program in Sri Lanka; four weeks during the summer break at a turtle conservation camp. Just like her mother, every one had said. Where her life had once been filled with go karts and dreams of being on track, was now replaced by thoughts of nothing but the ocean. It called to her in everywhere possible. At the age of thirteen, she believed that it was a siren song from her mother.

It was the third week of the camp when Alessandra was awoken in the middle of the night by haunting dreams of drowning. She couldn't fall back to sleep after that, she never could. Instead of staring at the ceiling all night, the young Portuguese girl had decided to pull her self out of her bunk and head to the beach to clear her mind. Sat against the plush white sand with the soft rocking waves, the most magical sight unfolded right beside her as hundreds of turtles began to hatch. It had been six years since, and Alessandra would forever regret not staying in bed.

She heard the loud revving at first. Why was anyone driving on the beach at 2 o'clock in the morning? They weren't going to stop. Frantically, Alessandra had waved her arms, screaming and shouting like a mad women, tears threatening to spill down her horrified face. It was too late of course. Most of them had been crushed. She cut her trip short after that, begging her father to let her go home. She didn't leave her room for the rest of the summer.

And finally, Alessandra Corceiro's third heartbreak was standing directly in front of her. Dressed in the finest suit that she had picked out for him, Lando Norris had his arm wrapped around her beautiful sister. She could of sworn her heart had been ripped out of her chest, if it were not for the fact that her heart was already in the palm of his hands. This was certainly not how she had the evening planned out when her best friend had asked her to be his date for the formula 1 2023 pre-season gala. What on earth had happened in the 6 hours since she'd last seen him?

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Authors Note:

So that's the prologue done. I've been wanting to write a formula 1 story for so long but had no idea of where to start after not writing in a good four years. Please bare with me with this one as it's not going to be perfect at first.

I have some really good ideas for this one already so I hope you'll like it enough to stick around.