Drive to Survive

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Six

"It's crazy here!" Dylan announced to Hunter.

She had just sat down at the table with him, having finally fought her way through the media madness and the garage chaos to get to the back rooms. They were due to have a comms meeting with Andy and Greg but nobody had anticipated quite how insane the press would be.

They had congregated at the entrance to the paddock and were shouting questions at anyone who looked even remotely tied to Perez's team. A few had even made it down towards the Red Bull garage and were trying to get a look in at the car.

"I know, it's all spiralled with Checo's crash. Tons of folk think he did it on purpose."

"Press love a conspiracy." She shrugged.

It didn't take long for Greg and Andy to make their way to the meeting room and they looked just as exhausted and shell-shocked as Dylan had when she arrived.

"Bloody hell." Greg sighed, collapsing into the chair, "I need a holiday."

Andy laughed, sitting down next to him, "Morning guys, well done for surviving the media."

"For once, they were hounding Checo, not Max." Dylan noted, "I managed to sneak through the back of the cameramen."

"It was hell." Hunter said bluntly.

After a bit more catching up, Greg moved them onto their comms objectives for the day. They'd been putting out regular content about their respective drivers and some nods to the history of Monaco and the past successes Red Bull had achieved at the track. Danny's glorious post-race pool photo always did well this time of year.

However, the elephant in the room was in the crisis management.

Perez's conspiracy crash was gaining quick momentum in the media and they needed to figure out their plan of action. Andy was determined to respond to it but Greg was more hesitant. How they handled the media would either quell or furiously fuel the fire.

It was to Dylan and Hunter to offer their opinions.

"I think we gotta wait it out." Hunter said, "Responding to it is like admitting guilt and Checo said it was an accident, we have to have his back on that."

Greg nodded, "Mmhmm, good point. Dylan?"

"Honestly, I think it depends how the race goes today. If Checo wins then we need to have a statement ready to congratulate him and reaffirm that it was an accident in qualifying or he's gonna get eaten alive. If he doesn't win, then he hasn't gained at advantage at qualifying and so we have nothing to defend against anyway."

"That's real smart, doll."

Dylan laughed, "Can you not sound so surprised?"

Andy stepped in to stop any early bickering, "Okay so let's prepare a statement to plan for a Checo victory. And let's also prepare a statement for the possibility of Max driving Checo off the track."

She couldn't really argue with that.

The team got to work, each taking different parts to draft and then using each other to review and amend. Over the next couple hours, they prepared press releases for a variety of outcomes and selected the appropriate photos to go out on social media throughout the race. Once they were done, Greg had the final sign off and then he stood to dismiss them.

"Great, see you guys after the race!"

With that, he was away with Andy in tow not far behind. Hunter and Dylan stayed behind, packing away their bags.