Chapter 9
Le Castellet, France
Circuit Paul Ricard
French Grand Prix
When the lights go out, I don’t react nearly as fast as I should. I’m a hundredth of a second slower to hit the throttle, and it’s enough time for Sasha Devin to get the nose of his car an inch ahead of mine.
I continue alongside him on the straight, keeping Lizzie parallel. Sasha, however, drifts his car out wider than he should, blocking my line.
“What is he doing?” I yell. As far as legality goes, what Sasha pulled is borderline. But from a sportsmanship perspective, it’s the equivalent of waving a giant middle finger. Given how mean he was at The Hound and the Bacon, I shouldn’t be surprised he’s an asshole on-track too.
Part of me wants to ram straight into Sasha’s rear wing. He’d deserve it.
“We’ll flag it to race control. Keep your head down and carry on.” For someone who can work herself into tears when the juice shop is out of strawberries, Roz is remarkably calm when things go sideways on-track.
As much as I want to follow my impulse to teach Sasha a lesson, she’s right. Sadly, it’s what Dietrich would probably advise too. I reluctantly ease my foot off the accelerator to avoid a collision, losing more time.
Remember Spielberg. I take a deep breath and slowly release it, counting to ten. Keep cool, keep cool. Sasha deserves to be rear-ended, but now’s not the place or time, in the interest of finishing my own race without a maximum penalty from the stewards.
The distance between our cars expands as the race progresses. I try my best to ignore the back of Sasha’s Triton growing smaller and concentrate instead on hitting my apexes.
“Pace is looking brilliant. You’re the fastest man—woman—on-track right now.”
“Woo!” I shout back. “Who’s in front of me now?”
“Still Sasha. Then a wide gap to Stephane Moreau. Cameron. J. P. Ribeiro is leading.”
“Can I win this?”
“Unlikely, but a podium is on the table if we play our cards right.”
I swallow the hot ball of disappointment in my throat. It’s okay. A podium is still a podium.
Four and a half laps later, I sail past Sasha Devin. He’s burned up his tires with all his unnecessarily combative driving, leaving him unable to mount a sustainable defense when I move to pass. It takes all my effort not to gloat over the radio. Karma.
“How do your tires feel?” Roz asks. “Amazing race so far!”
“Like I just rolled out of the pit lane.”
“I’ll leave you to it.” I can hear the smile in her voice.
Over the next eight laps, I make slow but steady progress to close the gap until I’m tailing the rear wing of Stephane Moreau’s ABT. He placed fourth in the F3 championship last year and is known to be one of the more skilled drivers in our series—someone I would dearly love to beat.
But no matter which line I try, Stephane anticipates what I’m going to do and edges ever so slightly that it doesn’t make sense for me to follow through. As we go into Turn 3, he nudges his car to the left so he’s no longer on the racing line but blocking off the overtaking route to his right.
All the while, Cameron is in front of us in P2, pulling farther and farther away.
There’s a sliver of an opening as we round into Turn 14. As I’m about to press my throttle down and try my luck on the outside line, Dietrich’s quiet, menacing voice floats into my head, speaking the words I’ve been trying—unsuccessfully—to keep my brain from replaying.
You had so much on the line. Why would you take the risk?
Damn it.
Stephane is on old tires and will likely be pitting any moment now. Chances are, a safer overtake is coming my way if I wait.
As if the motorsport gods above heard, Stephane locks up moving into the next turn. His wheels understeer, causing him to go wide and open a perfect racing line for me.
“P3! Clear air ahead of you.”
The rest of the race goes like a dream. Without anyone ahead of me to battle, I focus on taking the best lines and angles.
I don’t need Roz’s occasional updates to know I’m improving on lap times.
In what feels like just a minute but what I know is multiples of that, I see the checkered flag ahead of me, along with my pit crew hanging over the fence with a giant celebratory P3 sign.
My radio buzzes on again. This time it’s Frank. “Very nice, Justine. Congratulations.”
I grin stupidly into my helmet. The first podium in a new category is always climactic.
Pivotal. It’s the moment I can start closing the door on the nagging “what if?” sprig of uncertainty.
The first concrete proof that I won’t be completely bulldozed for the season.
That I might not be a fraud who lucked her way in.
My entire garage comes out to parc fermé to cheer: Roz bouncing up and down, waving her arms like she’s at one of the Ibiza music festivals she’s constantly telling me we need to go to; Mom with her giant DSLR glued to her face; the mechanics clapping and high-fiving one another.
Looking at them, I feel the way the photographers make me look on Orbital promotional posters.
Powerful. Unconquerable. On top of the world.