Chapter Two #2
Dampness hit my face, and my eyes stung from sweat, wind, and something else I refused to acknowledge.
I blinked quickly, desperately hoping no cameras had caught the moment of weakness.
The garage had gone quiet around me. As an F1 driver, you wanted to maximize your free practice sessions, and here I was, squandering mine.
We had three hours this weekend to get the car set up correctly for qualifying, and I was panicking, wasting away valuable minutes.
They all saw me flounder out there.
Michael appeared beside the cockpit, crouching down to my eye level with the ease of someone who’d done this a thousand times. His expression was as steady as ever, his weathered face creased with lines earned from years of racing—not unkind, because that wasn’t in his nature.
But his eyes held questions I didn’t want to answer.
“Tell me,” he said simply.
Not “what happened?” or “what’s wrong?” Just “tell me.” Like he already knew there was something beyond the lap times—something deeper than setup issues or tire troubles.
“Front felt… bad,” I said automatically, reaching for the easy technical explanation. My voice came out hoarse, raw. “Understeer in the high-speed stuff. Rear hopped over the curbs in the chicane. Brake migration might be off, or maybe the—”
“Not the car,” he interrupted quietly, firmly. “You.”
The words hit like a physical blow.
“Don’t do that.” I tried to keep my voice level, but the edge still slipped through. “If the front’s washing out—”
“Henri, you froze.” His hand gripped the edge of the cockpit. “Right in the middle of the track, you just seemed to freeze.” He paused for a moment.
I’d never heard Michael’s voice shake before. Not in eight years. Not through crashes, mechanical failures, or championship losses.
“You’re bracing before the corner even starts.
Your heart rate is all over the place. And you almost collided with Lily before sending yourself into another wall.
If she hadn’t avoided—” He stopped himself, dragging a hand over his face.
“If she hadn’t reacted, we’d be having a very different conversation right now. ”
Each observation landed with a blow, precise and devastating. But it was the tremor in his voice that really got me, the barely controlled fear of an engineer who’d just watched his driver nearly cause a catastrophic accident.
My fingers tapped against the edge of my wheel. Once, twice, three times. That nervous tic again. The words hung between us.
“She was too close.” Even as I said it, I knew how weak it sounded. How desperate.
“She was exactly where she was supposed to be. It’s free practice.”
I didn’t have an answer for that. My throat locked up around the thousand excuses clawing to get out. Michael just looked at me for a long moment, giving me space to say whatever I needed to say.
“Let’s try this again. Tell me what happened.”
But I couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come.
“She had room,” I insisted, because pride always moved faster than common sense.
“She had room because she made it,” Michael said, and now there was an edge creeping into his voice. “Not because you gave it.”
I tipped my head toward the timing screen, desperate to redirect this conversation anywhere else. My name sat at the very bottom, a pale white embarrassment. Lily’s was perched neatly at the top, bold and smug. My shoulders ached from the tension I couldn’t seem to let go.
Michael studied me quietly, like he was running data through his head, checking for what was fixable and what wasn’t.
“Hey.” He put a hand on my shoulder, grounding me. “This track suits you. You don’t have to fight it to go fast.”
I wanted to believe him. To feel the confidence that used to come naturally; the certainty that I belonged here. That I could win.
But all I felt was exhaustion.
He tapped the halo twice—that small, rhythmic sound he always made when he was trying to steady me.
“All right, listen. Here’s what we do.” My eyes met his as he continued.
“One safe lap through the fast section. Show your body what calm feels like. Next lap, we’ll let it flow.
Hands lighter. Breathe down the straights. Neat first, quick second. That’s it.”
“But—” I started, ready to argue for something I couldn’t identify.
Michael raised his hands, a quiet warning. “Give me something solid,” he said, voice even. “Then build. And if we’re not the fastest, that’s okay. There are two more sessions.”
He stood before I could answer, and I reached for my helmet, sliding it back over my head. The garage blurred into flashes of purple and gold as I drove out of it and back onto the track.
“All clear.” Michael’s voice was calm over the radio. “Keep it simple.”
“Copy,” I whispered back, though it was mostly to myself.
The out lap was quiet. I focused on warming the tires, letting the circuit unfold without expectation. The curbs, the braking points, the familiar hum of Montreal’s track.
Then came the first proper lap. The quick S-turn approached, that same section that had bitten me earlier. My pulse spiked instinctively, almost like panicked muscle memory was trying to take over.
No, not this time.
In. Across. Out. I gave myself just enough room for error, not too much, not too little. The car didn’t fight me this time. For the first time that day, I felt my lungs actually work.
That’s it. That’s how it’s supposed to feel.