Connections (F1 story)

Chapter Seventeen: Miles away

Shanghai, China, was race number four on the calendar, and it was the Wednesday back in Asia before the race. The weather here was similar to England, but the humidity rocketed during the day.

Sitting in the hotel lounge area on my laptop responding to the latest lot of emails, and occasionally taking a sip of my coffee, I knew that the guys would be getting here very soon.

As always I'd been non-stop since landing in the UK little over a week ago. Hundreds of appearances, interviews and statements had been arranged. Red Bull had a larger than average following out here and that would escalate work loads even more.

A while passed and I heard guests come and go, until Daniel surprised me by joining me at my table. He'd just arrived along with Christian and some of his management team.

"Please don't say I'm having to make bloody stir fry," he said, clearly still traumatised by that experience in Malaysia. I had missed his Australian accent and cheeky persona to say the least. Only a little bit though.

"No, but they do want you to help build a robot." I laughed, reading one of the requests from my Apple Mac screen. "Ooo, how about a 'Roller Disco' interview?"

I clicked the delete button on the email after replying with the automated response saying that unfortunately Daniel would be unavailable.

"Christ, I'm lucky. Anything else?" He leant over my shoulder peering at my work.

"Uh, that's not for you to see!" I teased. "Now please, for goodness sake, go and check in before the entire city knows that you are here."

"Yes, Miss White, anything you say, Miss White." he responded and I immediately swatted a bunch of papers at his left arm.

"Ow." he said sarcastically, mock rubbing his bicep. Was he tensing?

"Go!"

Daniel walked off with his suitcase in search of the reception desk. This time the management as well as the senior team would be staying in the same hotel, a Shangri-la. I tutted and watched him as he went but couldn't help but smirk. Everything was so much more interesting when he was around.

---

"No thank you." I told the waiter for a second time. There was definitely a bit of a minor language barrier here.

He tried to place the horrifying object on my plate for the third time when Ricciardo, who was seated next to me, stepped in (when he managed to stop laughing that was).

"She-doesn't-want-the-chicken-feet." Daniel exasperated. That did it; he finally got the gist and he instead proceeded to put twice as much on the Australian's plate. It was my turn to laugh.

The interviewer sat patiently whilst this was all happening- waiting to begin asking even more questions. The STAR Sports Channel journalist immediately began to interrogate Daniel, barely giving him time to finish his mouthful.

"And is it true you've split from your girlfriend of two years?" I didn't like where this was going. I looked across to Daniel, and he gave me a small nod signifying that he was okay with answering this.

"Yes, I have." he said, not giving too much away unless he had to.

"And what were the reasons for this?"

"Ah...I don't wanna go into my private life too much but what's happened has happened. It's tough but I move on and I need to focus on racing." His response was cool, calm and collected.

I grinned as he'd dealt with the question well. No doubt this wouldn't be the first time of facing that predicament this week.

The journalist continued firing away for another ten/fifteen minutes whilst we ate our food. I was extra careful not to choke as I didn't want the sound of spluttering on my recording device. That would have sounded delightful.