The perfect match

“They weren’t in the cars anymore, but not far away. Perez seems injured, we don’t have news about Gasly. Tsunoda and Bottas are out of their cars, they look fine.” A team member told him while they saw Pierre kneeling next to Checo on the gravel, not far from the burning cars, by now firefighters tried to stop the fire while the doctor and EMTs were with Pierre, while an ambulance made it’s way towards them, sirens blaring. They got Checo into the ambulance quite quickly, helmet off but a neck brace on. Checo was conscious and holding a thumb up while Pierre was guided to the emergency car while waving to the crowd, leaving the track behind the ambulance. Clean-up took over two hours, having to stop the fire first. News came that Pierre was alright but would stay at the hospital for a couple of hours for observation and that Checo was stable and still got checked by doctors. Magnussen had to stop his race after all, making his way to the pit last, a huge piece of advertisement stuck in his rear wing and a block of tec-pro on top of his halo, his front wing broken off and stuck under the floor of his own car, two tires blown. How he made his way back into the pit lane like that, nobody knew.
Oscar had already been on the phone with Kika, the live feed cutting away from the accident before the fire started, not showing that Pierre got out, but the fireball going up in the background. The replay later showed what really happened.
Checo had struck some grass at the side and collided with Yuki, who then turned into Bottas, who turned into Daniel’s rear wing. Both Yuki and Valtteri were lucky, only getting minor damage and being able to continue. The small collision with Yuki flung Checo back, letting him lose control and lock up, turn and getting hit full force by Pierre who had gotten to full speed by now, somehow getting stuck their cars into each other at the front wing, turning around together. Pierre’s rear tire hit Kevin’s front wing, pushing it under Kevin’s car, while Checo’s rear hit the beginning of the tec-pro with the advertisements, ripping it apart and flinging it all over the track and poor Kevin got it all over him. Pierre and Checo finally got to a standstill when Pierre saw Checo’s brakes burning and fluid running out of his car, yelling into the intercom for fire. He climbed out of his car, seeing Checo unconscious. He frantically opened Checo’s belts and threw off the headrest, almost ripping him out of the car, pulling him away from it when the car started burning, the leaking fuel getting ignited by the fire from the brakes, in return letting Pierre’s own car next to it blow up. They were both blown backwards by the explosion, which was the big fire ball Lando saw when he got out of the car.

As they didn’t finish the first sector of the race, it was restarted with the original grid order.
“Let’s hope it goes well for us, I’m still not sure this is it.” One mechanic said to another during the warm-up lap.
“It worked last practice and qualifying.”
“In single laps, this was never done long distance.”
“What was never done long distance?” Oscar said from behind them, making one of the mechanics beeline away from him. Oscar was able to stop the other one by grabbing his shirt. “What was never done?”
“Well, they are trying something with the car because the track is uneven.” He said, looking scared.
“And they are using Lando as a lab rat?” he hissed.
“Well, they asked him if he would be okay to try and unlevel the car and he said yes. He even argued with Zak about that.”
“Who is they?” Oscar pressed.
“Kimi”
“Get him here!” Oscar said, letting go of the shirt.
“I don’t think I can make him –“
“Get him here!” Oscar growled.
“Yes” he said and hurried away to the pit wall, talking to Kimi. Kimi turned to Oscar and showed him two fingers, mouthing two minutes. Oscar crossed his arms and looked on his watch.

The lights went out and they started again. Lando had a great start, getting away quickly, hearing Max’s tires screech uncomfortably on the track. There was no red trying to push past this time, only dark blue. He made it around the corner first, taking the lead, the field sorting itself in turn 6, Lando still leading with a little gap.
“Is that Sargeant behind me?” he asked surprised.
“Yes. It’s Sargeant, Leclerc, Verstappen, Russell, Albon. You have a point 4 gap to second.”

“Come on, I’ll explain.” Kimi said to Oscar, guiding him into a silent corner in the garage, explaining a little bit simpler and shorter what they did and why they did it.
“And you think this will work? I mean, isn’t it always the main goal to level the car?” Oscar asked.
“Normally yes, that’s why this is such an experiment. Having an unlevelled car is more dangerous, because it doesn’t behave the same way in the corners. It takes left turns different than right turns, because the weight is distributed differently. I could explain this to you in much more detail, Oscar, but I think we should go back watching our boy now.” Kimi explained.
“Yes, and it’s okay, I think I just panicked a little when I heard you’re doing something new during a race instead of testing or practice.” Oscar said, taking a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go back.”

Lando got his first win that day, almost thirty seconds ahead of Logan, who was three seconds ahead of Alex. Max finished 4th, the last pit stop costing him the podium, Charles 5th, Yuki 6th, Nico in 7th, getting some important points for Haas, George was 8th, Esteban in 9th got this season’s first points for Alpine and Zhou got the last point in tenth.
It seemed like the celebrations at Williams were even louder than the ones at McLaren. It was their first podium since 2021 and the first podium after a full race since 2017. This was even a double podium, their last was in 2014.

Lando and Oscar came from their team’s party, both a little tipsy. Lando had Oscar pinned against the elevator wall, kissing deeply when the door opened on the garage level.
“Oh come on, guys, wait until you’re in your room.” Logan said, half carrying a drunk Alex who had a Thailand flag wrapped around him like a toga and a paper crown on his head.
“Jesus Christ, you need some help?” Lando asked.
“WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!” Alex yelled at Lando.
“Well, actually I’m the champion of the day.” Lando told him while the elevator started moving.
“NO! You’re not, we are champions! Two against one, WE WIN!” Alex howled loudly at Lando.
“But I won!” Lando growled back.
“Oh dear god, no!” Oscar exclaimed. “Lan, stop it, don’t argue with drunk people.”
“What are you talking about, I’m not drunk!” Alex said to Oscar, sticking out his tongue.
“You’re out of your mind, dude.” Lando said.
“Guys, come on, just keep it down, it was a great day, don’t mess it up now.” Logan said.
“But he said you are champions if you didn’t even win!” Lando argued as the doors opened.
“Wow, Lando, calm down now.” Oscar pushed Lando back a little against the wall.
“Oh, now that you won a single race, YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN US?!” Alex yelled while Logan pulled him out of the elevator.
“Oh damn, let me help you.” Esteban said from the hallway, helping Logan manoeuvre Alex out of the elevator, who was still arguing with Lando.
“Bye Oscar!” Logan yelled.
“Bye!” Oscar yelled back before the doors closed. “Are you happy now?”
“Yes! I won!” Lando said, smiling drunkenly.

Logan and Esteban managed to get Alex back into his room and into his bed, placing some water on the nightstand.
“Congrats on the podium!” Esteban said when they were back in the hallway.
“Congrats on the points!” Logan said with a smile.
“Nothing against a podium in your rookie season.” Esteban said.
“Every point counts.” Logan said. “You don’t look like you celebrated at all.”
“Well, understandably the team wasn’t in the most celebrative mood with Pierre being in the hospital. We had some drinks in the paddock and I got a back massage, different celebration.”
“With happy ending?” Logan asked with a smirk.
“No, no happy ending.” Esteban said with a laugh.
“You want to come in? I’ve got cherry coke and Dorito’s.” Logan asked a couple doors down.
“You don’t want to go back to your party?”
“No, they are all getting really drunk by now and … it’s not really nice if you are not, I guess.”
“Okay, but I won’t drink cherry coke.”
“Really? It’s full sugar!”
“No, not with that cherry thing.” Esteban said entering the room behind Logan.
“Okay then” Logan said, opening the minibar “We have OJ, Redbull, water, regular coke and Mountain Dew. Why do they have Mountain Dew?”
“What is Mountain Dew?”
“It’s … something like Sprite.”
“I’ll take that.” Esteban said and Logan took out the can. They sat down on the couch, leaning against the sides to look at each other, the Doritos in between them.
“Did you talk to Pierre, yet?” Logan asked.
“Yeah, he’s fine, they wanted to keep an eye on him because they were scared, he could have inhaled smoke or something, you know, all of the fumes, but everything is fine with him.”
“Did he say something about Checo?” Logan asked and Esteban took a while to answer.
“They asked Pierre to call his wife. He is in a regular room, but it seems like he won’t be back for the next race. Apparently, something with his back.”
“Shit.” Logan said, taking a Dorito.
“Did your parents call, yet?”
“My mum texted. Harry told us you were 2nd. Congrats!”
“That’s it? Who’s Harry?”
“That was it. Harry is my uncle.”
“She didn’t even like … bother to watch a best of video or something? Why say it like that?”
“That’s how they are. I’m surprised she even wrote something at all.”
“Your parents suck. I’m sorry to say it right out like that, but they do.”
“They do, but I’m used to it by now. It sounds horrible for most people to say that, but … they have always been like that. Their jobs, their company coming first, they are business people. They don’t get racing and I don’t think they want to get or understand it. I tried to tell them how much it means to me, but … no. ‘What will your real work be?’”
“God, I mean … not understanding why someone wants to do this, alright, completely acceptable, but … they don’t even care at all it seems, they don’t even try to follow it or keep tabs on you.”
“Yeah. They are more strangers to me than parents. I lived in Europe since I was ten … and it’s been just as long since they came to one of my races.”
“Not even when you raced in the US?”
“Nope, they were busy.” Logan said taking a sip of his coke.
“Hey …uhm … you know, this week, before going to Miami … I’m visiting my parents in France for a couple of days, maybe you want to come?”
“I … I don’t want to interrupt a reunion.” Logan said, pulling up his legs.
“You wouldn’t interrupt. We’d be visiting my home town, eat my mum’s good food, relax a little, they would be happy to have you. Daniel came with me when we drove in Renault together.”
“But only if they are really okay with it.”
“They are okay with me bringing friends, yes.” Esteban said with a smile.
“Mhm, okay. When do we go?”
“Well, I’m flying tomorrow … better said today, my flight leaves at nine. I should go to sleep.” Esteban then thought.
“Which flight number? Maybe I can switch?” Logan asked and pulled out his phone.