Gasoline - [Charles Leclerc]

2.5

"Edrice Khepri has become a familiar face in the paddock, usually alongside Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc". Edrice read out loud while Charles was tying his shoes for the qualifying on the circuit of Barcelona. "The Brunette showed up this morning, stepping out of the car Charles was driving and the pair was seen together walking towards the paddock". She finished. "I become Paddock famous by now". Edrice looked up at her boyfriend who rolled his eyes with another dazzling smile and he motioned for her to give her Phone so he could see where she read it. He hummed as he saw it was a post on Instagram of Kym Illman, the Australian photographer. Charles liked the man, he made stunning pictures and alwasys said something nice in the captions of his posts. The picture he posted was a picture of them two while making their way to the entrance, Edrice looking down into her bag to find her pass and Charles looking over his shoulder while waiting for her to catch up. "You don't even need your YouTube channel to stay in the spotlights, mon amour". He jokingly said and Edrice chuckled now as well.

She locked the screen of her phone and put it in her backpocket while standing up. There were a couple minutes left before he had to hop into the car, so she would make her way into his pitbox to watch it from there. Charles grinned when she pulled him close by the lapels of his overall that was still unzipped. "Good luck and stay safe, behave". She told him with a smile and he laughed, holding her by her lower back before pressing a chaste kiss to her lips. "See you in a bit". He said and she nodded, closing the door behind him. Charles was still smiling when Andrea came in and he was busy warming up. "I'm sure you're not that smiley because I came in". Andrea said in Italian. "I never smile when you come in". Charles replied and then received a playful shove. "I just love it when she's here". He explained, throwing the balls back to Andrea before catching them again. "Maybe she can be a bit of your Lucky charm". His trainer replied. "That would be great". He had driven well in the practices, he had split the Mercedes pair yesterday and Friday he had been in the top three as well.

However everybody doubted it when Mercedes said 'Ferrari is quicker than us', the races up until now have showed that Mercedes had the best car on the grid and they only came a bit closer, nothing else. Ferrari saw a lot of points of improvement and they were going to fixed as quickly as possible. Charles took a sip of water, not too much before he'd have to use the toilet again. Andrea took his helmet while they walked into the pit box His balaclava moved over his hair and face before he zipped up his overall and secured his helmet on his head. Edrice was in the back of his pitbox meanwhile with some other guests of the team. She leaned her arms on the balustrade that was made to stay behind, that way nobody would be walking in the way of the crew. She had her headphones on as the car pulled up from the pitbox and disappeared out of sight soon enough. Edrice looked up at the screen that hung above them, following the qualy from there. She was proud of her boyfriend when his name flickered over the screen.

The camera followed his Ferrari bolide around the track and he clocked his time. The end result said that he was in P5 for the race day. The Red Bull of Verstappen had been barely a tenth quicker than him, but it was still a place in front of Charles. Charles sighed as he parked his car at Parc Fermé, he was happy for his teammate, but of course he rather saw himself in that front row. He hated that he wasn't driving like he wanted to. He hated that he wasn't giving the team results they wanted, even though that he wasn't the only one in the team. The boys who worked on his car worked so hard. Back in Maranello everyone dreamed of beating everyone else. And now they just weren't doing it. Charles climbed out of his car and took his helmet off, walking into the FIA garage to get weighed. Mia was waiting on him instead of Stefania, as she was on other duties with the media team this weekend. Charles handed his helmet to Andrea who gave him his water bottle back. Mia and Charles made their way to the media square, where multiple journalists were waiting to ask him their questions.