"Welcome to the paddock Kiddo," Lewis smiled as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder to guide me around the paddock in Bahrain. "Are you ready for your first practice session?" he said looking down at me.
A pulse of nerves radiated through my body at his question. I shrugged my shoulders. "I'm treating it like pre season testing." I replied although my tone suggested I wasn't sure of my words and in all honesty I wasn't sure either.
Lewis had announced his shock retirement at the end of the last season after winning his 8th WDC, but he was still in the team as a Senior advisor, working closely with Peter Bonnington, 'Bono' who had been his engineer throughout seven of his eight word drivers championship titles.
The decision surprised both the public and Mercedes who had expected to retain him for another year, and it left them scrambling for a driver to fill the second seat along George Russell who would now go into the first seat.
There were already a lot of cameras and press throughout the paddock, Lewis caught the eye of Jenson Button who was on Sky Sports pundit duty this weekend during a break.
"Hey Lewis, you alright?" He asked as he walked over to us. We stopped outside Mercedes Hospitality. Jenson reached his hand out, "Scarlet, nice to finally meet you. I'm Jenson." He said introducing himself.
I laughed, "Yes I know who you are, the first championship I was fully invested in was 2009." I chuckled nervously. "And yes, really nice to meet you." I recovered.
Growing up my dad was a massive McLaren fan, stemming from the days of Senna and Prost but ever since I could remember I was actually a Ferrari fan. It was the brightest car on the track and apart from that I wasn't interested in anything else.
Unlike most racing drivers I didn't discover my passion until my twelfth birthday, but once I had I was obsessed. My older brother had been the racing driver in our family, I used to follow him to track after track, and because I wanted to do anything he did I jumped in the kart and it turned out I was a natural.
Once my brother, Milo, had lost interest and moved onto football which certainly suited him better, I carried on. I won my first major title in 2013 at the age 13, which was the Karting World Championship. Due to minimum ages I spent another year in karts before making the move to F3 in 2016. I won the F3 championship in 2017 and moved to F2 where I was the first female to win a title, and also won back to back championships in 2020 & 2021.
Jenson smiled, "I'm flattered, make sure you look after her Lewis." He informed his friend with a firm point. "I'll catch up with you soon, I'm being called to the sky pad."
We walked into hospitality and through to the strategy room so that we could go through the runnings for the practice session. Lewis grabbed bottles of water and we took our seats and awaited the rest of the team.
Moments later the tall Toto and Bono walked in, followed by George and James Urwin who he had brought from Williams when he came.
My new teammate came and set next to me, "Miss Crusoe." He winked.
George had been a friend through the karting series, although a few years above, but our parents had actually forged a really good friendship and so having him had made the transition to the big league a little bit easier.
We had spent many evenings at the Mercedes Tech centre going through data and running the simulators and I had also reviewed his approach to the car.
"So with everything discussed, here we are, race week one." Toto announced, "George, Scarlet, how are you feeling?" He asked.
I was about to speak but George started first. He was feeling calm and collected, but of course there was always a slight nerve to the first practice.
Winter testing had gone well, but due to only joining at the beginning of January I hadn't had as many hours in the car.
George turned to me, "Yeah good, quite excited to get out in the car to be honest." Lewis gripped my shoulder in confidence.
With the meeting wrapped up, I made my way into the garage to complete my final stretches and prepare for the practice session.
I ran my hand down the chassis of my car, paying particular attention to the number 12 that was printed on nose of the car. It had been my favourite number and I was happy that it was free when I was able to chose my number.
It was also on the back of my helmet, which I had specially designed for my first race weekend. Lewis and George had both encouraged me to get a custom helmet so that I could remember this forever. Naturally I picked purple to pay respect to my mentor Lewis, but I also included a shimmer pearl lilac and a small bunch of daises.
Before I knew it, Lewis was handing me my helmet and I was jumping into the car. "You got this Scarlet, I didn't handpick you for nothing." He winked.
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DISCLAIMER:
This was started before the events of Abu Dhabi 2021 Therefore they won't play a part - however there will be FIA / Masi slander as a theme throughout bc whatever your stance we can all agree he needs to go 😉
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