Between Love and Hate (Year 2)

Resolutions are for breaking

Miles was standing at the back of the garage with Ben, both watching the first free practice. His sister was at the top of the times but she had visited the gravel traps a few times this session. She was pushing, too hard.

"She seems off," Ben comments.

Miles looks at the screens next to him to see she was a good chunk of time ahead of Daniel. "Maybe..."

A groan from the mechanics and he looks back to the other monitor to see the car was now beached in the gravel. Session over. There were only ten minutes left but still he sighed.

When Laura is back in the pits she apologises for the error but she doesn't seem sorry, in fact she looks quite pleased when she reviews her lap times between him and Ben.

"You're pushing too hard," he tells her.

"I know what I'm doing," she responds not looking up.

"Looking for a wall to throw the car into?"

"It's practice Miles, and I was practicing," she responds bluntly. "And FYI, I win practice."

"There are no points for practice."

"Exactly," she snaps getting irritated. She turns her gaze to Ben, "You want to add something?"

Ben wisely shakes his head, "Nope."

Laura stalks off then and Miles looks at his friend. "What happened at dinner last night?"

Ben shrugs. "Nothing really. We did speak about Jenson but not in any great depth..."

Miles lets out a puff of air and both turn to watch the other Red Bull roll back into the garage. Session done.

* * *

"Sit."

Laura had been packing up from the debrief when Rocky stopped her and her engineer was looking far from impressed. She sits.

"Everyone seems to want to dance around a few things Aston princess. But you might be top of the times in both sessions and you can parade your times over whatever drivers you want. But today, that was fucking sloppy driving."

Laura blinks taken aback at her dressing down. "When is being the fastest not enough?" she snaps back at him.

Rocky leans across the table, eyes hard. "You do your laps, you run your program and you don't fucking push when you don't need to. And you don't fucking drop the car in the gravel so my guys have to clean it and check for damage when it wasn't necessary in the first place," he barks.

"The car was fine. I went the quickest and tomorrow, I will get pole and you can apologise to me."

Rocky's eyes flash with fury. "Watch your mouth with me princess because I ain't taking any of your attitude. And I don't give a shit which driver you're trying to impress right now when it's quite clear you're out to prove some fucking point rather than doing what matters!"

If he dares to use this as an opportunity to laud Sebastian over her goddamn head... "What matters is winning. And I will win. I will win and I will do it my way. And I will drive as hard as I fucking like while sticking to your damn program."

"Laura!" Rocky gets to his feet but she doesn't stop, she storms out, slamming the door on him. Why couldn't they all leave her the fuck alone.

* * *

It's late when Sebastian was making his way out of the paddock on Friday evening. The sun had long set and the paddock was mostly deserted. It was the ending of a long day. The first time the cars had hit the track competitively and testing assumptions were beginning to be confirmed or not. It seemed like the Ferraris and Red Bulls were evenly matched, well for the most part. It would appear that Aston had some edge. He was not impressed.