Lights Out • 1 • Formula One ✔️

Chapter 23

The next thing I knew I was looking at the world upside down, my car finally stationary. Everything looked as if it had a hazy filter momentarily whilst my eyes adjusted, my mind unable to think straight because of a loud ringing in my ears. The noise eventually died down and I could hear the faint voice of my race engineer.

T> 'Are you okay? Are you okay?'

I let out a sigh, feeling a small pain in my rib. When I moved my hand to hit the radio button on my steering wheel, there was a searing, hot pain shooting up my right wrist. The intensity of the situation set in quickly and I felt my heart rate and breathing quicken. I need to get out.

I was most definitely not good. With my left hand, I undid my seatbelt and slowly pulled myself out of the car. It was quite a difficult task considering that my car was upside down however I had a little bit of help from some stewards who had run onto the track to help. When I stood up, I could feel the pain in my ribs a bit more however I knew my legs had escaped injury. My head felt as if it had its own heartbeat after taking a beaten during the crash. I couldn't focus on the words that the stewards were trying to say to me so just put my thumbs up and walked past.

I need to apologise. I saw Sergey walking towards my car with haste, his visor up and worry in his eyes. Only then did I notice his car behind him - it's front nose was completely gone, and his rear suspension was damaged. From the looks of it, he had luckily avoided the wall. I turned to look over my shoulder at my car (despite the aching in my neck) to see something barely recognisable as an F1 car. Only one of the wheels remained attached to what was left of the body, the others being scattered across the width of the track. There were scratches on the wall from where the car had collided with it, along with bits and pieces of the pink Force India nose. I saw the small screens flashing a red flag, the lower pack slowly driving through the wreckage to make their way to the pits.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't see the debris until I hit and then I hit you into the wall." Sergey exclaimed. He didn't seem injured, however I expect he has at least some whiplash or concussion.

I couldn't bring myself to find my voice to reassure him so held up my left thumb. My right wrist I held up against my chest as an attempt to keep it still and not hurt it any further. Against it, I could feel my rapid heartbeat from the adrenaline still coursing through my veins.

"Are you badly hurt? I'm so sorry!"

I shook my head. The only thought running through my mind at the moment was that I needed to find Kudzai and my team and let them know I was okay.

I ignored the medics trying to usher me into their car, waving them off as I began to walk towards the pits. I could see the final car drive in up ahead and knew that the session would be red flagged for a while. Surprisingly, Sirotkin joined me in the long walk to the pits, apologising profusely along the way. He also put an arm under mine when he noticed I was a bit wobbly on my feet which I was grateful for.

"Thank you." I breathed out, feeling the pain re-arise in my ribs as I inhaled deeply.

"You could've won this race, I'm sorry that I stopped that."

Although I was very pissed that I was out of the race, I couldn't bring myself to be mad at him especially when it wasn't really his fault and he was being so kind about it. The only thing to blame was the debris in the road, it's just my luck that he drove over it just as I was overtaking under blue flag. "No point dwelling on could-have-been's now. I don't blame you."

"I'm still going to apologise to your team."

"Honestly, Sergey, it's fine. They won't be mad at you. Neither of us were badly hurt so we can just move on and look forward to France."