I sat down in the garage. I just closed my eyes for a second. I had to concentrate. I really had to win this race but I also really needed to calm down. I couldn't jump in the car like this. Someone put his hands on my knees and kneeled in front of me. I opened my eyes and looked at him. It was Jon, my trainer. "Are you okay?" He looked at me with a concerned look on his face. I nodded. "Just a bit stressed" I could be honest with him. He was my trainer for a lot of years now, he knew how to motivate me. I kinda needed that right now. "Why? Just drive like you always do. We are proud of you, no matter what happens" he got up and reached his hand to me. I grabbed his hand and got up too. He patted my back and put my helmet in my hands. "Let's do this" I said as I got myself ready.
"Okay Lando, pretty much everyone is starting on the softs, except for you. We believe that the mediums are the best tire. Verstappen is right in front of you, he's also starting on the softs" my engineer was going over everyone's tire. But obviously I was only interested in Max's strategy. Everyone pretty much had the same strategy except for us. Did we fuck up? I had to believe we were on the right tire. I had to believe in my team just like they did in me.
I was just looking at the five lights in front of me. As soon as the five lights went out, I put my foot on the throttle as fast as I could. Verstappen was way faster on his tires, I could see him putting a lot of distance in between him and I. "Good start Lando, don't focus on the other drivers. Just focus on yourself" my engineer tried to calm me down. He probably knew I was getting frustrated already. I had to win this, I had to.
But I trusted them. They told me to focus on my own race, so that's exactly what I did. "Verstappen is in the pits" I looked at my steering wheel. Okay that was very early. I guess his tires were gone already. "How are your tires feeling?" My engineer asked. I honestly had no complaints whatsoever. "Still feeling good" I replied quickly. I guess they really made the best choice. The rest of the race was pretty easy. Max had to box two times but I only had to box once. Needless to say, I won the race. I quickly got out of the car and ran to my team. I won this race because of them.
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@LandoNorris: YES BOYS!! We did it. One more race. ☝🏼
Liked by @BlueSkye, @Mclaren, @Imanii and 638.749 others.
@BlueSkye: YES baby! So so so proud @MaxFewtrell: C'mon muppet! @Imanii: i hope to see you next race! Goodluck! @user1: future champ @user2: what a race! I had so much stress > @user3: same omg > @user2: and it will be worse next week
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"Good job Lando, you had a fantastic race" my pr manager said as we were walking to the media pen. "Thank you, but the team won this race for me" she didn't reply, but she didn't need to. The first journalist was Sarah, she worked for the Dutch tv and I really liked her. "Hi Sarah, how are you?" I asked as I put my hands on the railing between us. "Good, you had a fantastic race. Are you feeling confident for next race?" She quickly adjusted the mic. "Feeling very confident. It's pretty easy with a team like that" I literally praised my team every chance I got.
After a couple of other interviews I walked to Maya. I did my interview with her, we were very professional with each other lately. I didn't really care about her and I think she didn't care about us anymore either. "Lando, do you have a minute?" She softly asked as I was about to walk away. I nodded and she gestured to walk a bit to the side. "I just wanted to wish you good luck for the last race. I know you can do it. Just believe in yourself" I smiled at her. She was pretty thoughtful lately. "Thanks Maya, I appreciate it" I smiled, I wanted to go back to the hospitality but she quickly grabbed my arm. "I figured out who has send me the texts from Skye and Chloe by the way" she got my attention now. I titled my head a little. The texts were fake, Chloe showed me the real texts between her and Skye. So someone actually wanted Skye to look bad, but who?
