Take This Life / Daniel Ricciardo

Chapter 1

20th of August, 2014

Well, what I'd told my mother about getting to Red Bull's HQs earlier was partially true. Partially coz I was waiting now at the airport in Frankfurt for a flight to London. At 4:40 AM. Two weeks ago they'd called to inform that I needed to get to Milton Keynes few days before the end of the break, coz I would be flying with the team for the rest of races. And they needed me at 10 AM there, so I had to spend the early morning at the airport. The good thing was that the airport had the coffee shops opened 24/7, so I could just sit down and wait for the flight and sip a surprising good coffee.

Even though it was 4AM and I was awake since 2 or maybe 3 and had like 2 hours of sleep, I felt quite nice. Maybe you couldn't see that by the dark circles under my red eyes and not brushed hair, but I was feeling really good. It was probably caused by the adrenaline of the coming day and soon I'd pass out, but still.

The airport, the biggest one here - FRA, was actually quite loaded for this early hour. Half of the chairs were taken. It was so big that it was really easy to get lost there, but I'd actually been there many times, so it wasn't a big problem to find the right departure's zone. Actually it had a really good view for the runway and planes on the taxi ways, so that was really nice.

After 10 or 15 minutes of waiting, the airport staff finally let us board the plane. I threw away my empty cup of coffee and gave the lady my passport and the ticket. Next I went with the people behind and in front of me to the plane. Luckily I had the seat next to the window, so I could finally get some, well 2 hours, of sleep. But first we needed to actually take off which took some time to do that.

The plane wasn't full but it also wasn't empty. The seat next to me was empty, but the next seat was occupied by an old guy who probably was flying to work, as just me. I shrugged it off and waited patiently for the take off. When it happened and the plane started ascending above the clouds and I decided to try to get some sleep.

When I woke up from the quick nap, the plane was slowly approaching the landing. I fastened my seatbelt and was watching the view from the outside thinking about the day and how excitement started to grow inside of me by every minute.

———

After the safe landing and managing to grab my case from the arrivals, I headed for the train to Milton Keynes. It actually took some time to get to the train station and catch the train, but I managed somehow.

As I looked at my black, used watch, the time was 7:36 AM. I sighted in relief coz I wouldn't be late and decided to relax in the train. I had brought with myself a really interesting lecture - Keith Richards' autobiography and decided to read more of it.

When I was concentrating on reading the part where Keith was talking about making Exile on Main St., my phone started to ring. I wasn't really expecting anyone to ring me at this deadly for some people hour, but still I closed the book and took my phone in hand.

The caller was... Christian Horner. I was confused why he would be calling me then, but I answered the call without any hesitation. "Hello mr. Horner?" I asked him not too sure how I should have sounded like.

"Hey, Johanna. First, don't call me mr. Horner, just Christian, it's not like we don't know each other, right?" He said while chuckling to himself, but he continued and I decided to wait for him to finish whatever he needed to say. "Second thing, I'm calling you to tell you that we've made a reservation for you at the hotel and rented a car for you, so you wouldn't need to stay at your dad's old place" he said and I became quite flattered.

"Uhm... y-you shouldn't have, I could easily manage myself, but seriously thank you so much" I stuttered a little and decided not to argue with Christian coz after all he was my boss.