Chapter 19
PINCHING: FORCING ANOTHER DRIVER TOWARD EDGE OF TRACK
Bahrain at night looks cinematic from the outside. From inside the cockpit, it’s glare and dust and timing.
My world narrows to instinct after a clean start.
I launch forward without losing traction, the rear holding as I surge ahead, my hands tight on the steering wheel, the vibration flowing through my gloves like a second heartbeat.
“Good start,” Dario’s voice snaps through the radio. “Hold position. Car on your right.”
“I see him.” He’s barely visible through my peripheral vision.
The Aston draws alongside me into Turn One. As usual, Bahrain’s first corner invites stupidity. Drivers are desperate to get ahead early, yet the field is still a mix of cold tyres, fuel-heavy machines, and confidence bred to know no limits.
I use instinct as my car twitches to hold the line. The Aston’s front tyre edges closer—close enough that one wrong correction from either of us and we’re both debris.
“Leo,” Dario warns.
“I’ve got it.” I ease up on the gas, causing the Aston to surge forward.
They’re late on the brakes, trying to be aggressive enough to make a point, but not fully committing.
I hit the gas at just the right moment out of the curve.
The Aston tries to block me, but the wheel comes alive beneath my hands.
For half a second, it looks like he’s not going to give me space. Then he yields, and I proceed to cut him off, closing any opportunity for him to consider nosing back in. Dario’s voice is calm in my ear. “Position held.”
“Finally. That gap was mine.”
“Focus.”
“I am focused.”
The run into Turn Two comes fast, then the kink through Three. Now, my driving is about skill as the throttle builds. My car glides forward, chasing the pack ahead. Every braking marker feels like a decision point as we drive around the challenging course.
I decide to stop playing games. Tucking myself behind the Ferrari as we enter lap three, I’d be inhaling their exhaust if my helmet didn’t protect me. By the end of Turn Six, I’m edging up their back left wheel. My car starts to wash wide, the front grip fading for a heartbeat.
“Losing front through Six,” I say.
“Copy,” Dario answers. “We’re seeing it in real time. Brake bias minus one.”
I flick the switch with my thumb. The change is immediate because of Christin’s work.
The wheel gives me what I ask for without lag.
The first time I felt the smoothness of the shift in testing, I nearly broadcast over the comms that I wanted her to marry me and bear my children.
I can only imagine her taking one of the pit crew’s drills to me. Fortunately, I held back.
I ask, “Gap to Ferrari?”
“Seven tenths,” Dario says. “DRS next lap if you keep this pace.”
“I’ll keep it.”
Turn Ten tries to humiliate me. It always does. It’s a downhill, narrowing left-hander that involves braking while turning. It’s an ego crusher regardless of skill. Coming in hot behind the Ferrari with my front-left protesting, I’m close enough to see the horse emblems on their taillights.
For one sharp second, the car wants to slide. My instinct is to start correcting early. Then, I hear Christin in my head from the weeks in Vegas before this race.
Stop predicting. Trust what’s actually happening.
The wall waits beyond the runoff, not close enough to touch, but close enough to imagine the sound. I hold the car a fraction longer than I normally would.
The wheels regain their traction, and I surge forward, releasing a harsh breath.
“Nice save,” Dario says.
“Wasn’t a save.”
“What was it?”
I smirk before I answer, “Emotional growth.”
There’s a pause over the radio. Then Dario mutters, “Christ, help us.”
With the first three laps behind us, the race settles into a steady, grueling rhythm. Bahrain’s corners come at me in sequences now—brake, rotate, manage traction, unwind. The car is responsive. Predictable in a way it hasn’t been in almost half a year.
And it’s all because of Christin. Everything I hold in my hands carries her right alongside me. Doesn’t matter if it’s the revised mode switching or cleaner input mapping, Christin didn’t just make the system easier; she customized it for me. For the team, I correct myself.
Still, I’m not used to being anyone’s first consideration.
“Leo,” Dario says. “Ferrari’s struggling on rear traction. Pressure him into Eleven.”
“Already there.”
“Don’t get greedy.”
“I’m never greedy.” Except when it comes to one woman.
Dario snorts. “Lie.”
“Fine. Rarely.”
I close the gap through Turn Eleven. The Ferrari ahead clips a curb too sharply and twitches on exit. I spot it before he has time to correct himself. There’s a small opening to the outside—small enough that I’m probably insane for considering it.
I take it anyway.
The car drifts right, tyres edging near the painted line. Suddenly, I’m alongside the Ferrari, a hair’s breadth between us. They drift toward me, either not seeing or pretending they don’t. I realize I’m too close to the edge just as Dario snaps, “Leo, watch track limits.”
“He’s pushing me.”
“Then don’t let him.”
I mutter, “What I love—strategic advice.”
I hold firm, letting the Ferrari decide whether he wants contact more than position. He blinks first as we head into Turn Twelve. His car slows for a fraction of a second—just enough to avoid the crash and remain in the race. By Turn Thirteen, I’m in third.
“Overtake complete,” Dario says.
“Tell Christin the interface held brilliantly.”
Silence before Dario snarks, “You just told her yourself. This is an open channel.”
I can’t pay much attention to his less than subtle reminder that Christin is listening in, because the second I do, I’ll be distracted. Instead, I focus on the drivers ahead and whether I can improve on holding third place.
Lap twelve. Dario warns me of a safety car threat in sector two but we’re green again before we reach it. The field compresses slightly anyway, everyone recalculating tire life and strategy.
“Box window opening in four laps,” Dario says.
“Copy.”
“You sound calm.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
I come through Turn Four, wider than I want, correcting on exit. “I’m waiting for the car to lie.”
“Has it?”
“No.”
“Then maybe stop expecting it to.”
That lands too close to every thought I’ve had since Christin came back into my world and proved she’d always belonged there.
I’m quiet for too long. Dario notices. “Talk to me.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
“About predicting failure.”
My car rockets down the straight toward Turn One again.
“Is this about the car?”
“It’s about everything.”
There’s static for half a second before Christin’s voice chides me on the line. “Leo.”
“I know,” I say, braking hard into Turn One. “Bad timing for emotional development.”
“I think so. Yes.”
I take Turn Two cleaner than I have since the start of the race.
“It’s just…” I pause before I throttle the engine, lining up for the next section. “Most of my life I assumed anything good wasn’t meant for me.”
The radio goes very quiet. I should stop talking, but I can’t. Maybe because the race blur has stripped me down to nothing but fundamentals. I continue, “My father barely tolerated me. Took the piss out of it too. Every mistake was proof I had no business under his roof.”
I flick the brake balance again, setting up for Turn Eight. “I learned that reacting to it made it worse. I eventually was tossed out. Turned out to be a good thing.”
Dario’s voice booms through, reminding me, “You know this channel is still open, yes?”
“I’m just talking.”
“Yes,” he says. “To me and half the pit wall.”
And to Christin, even though she hasn’t said anything.
“Then half the pit wall can enjoy my childhood trauma.” There’s a faint burst of static, as if someone’s comm is off mute, before it disappears.
Dario says, “Keep going if it’s helping.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then stop.”
“I can’t.”
The Mercedes ahead of me pits. I stay out until it’s clean. Then, I push.
“I ruined the best thing I ever had because of fear,” I say, and the words taste like the dust I’m driving through.
I hate the silence after I confess my shame to my whole team. “I didn’t understand it then. Or maybe I was just too much of a bloody coward. I was afraid she’d abandon me, just like everyone else I once tried to love did.”
Turn Ten again. I breathe through it. “Bloody hell, I can barely talk about it.”
The car speeds through Eleven cleanly.
“You’re doing it now,” Dario says.
I almost miss the apex. “Don’t be nice to me mid-race,” I mutter.
“Don’t confess your childhood trauma at two hundred kilometers per hour.”
“Fair.”
“Box this lap.”
“Copy.”
I come out ahead of the Ferrari but behind the Mercedes team. Cold tyres make the first sector treacherous, the car squirming under braking, but I keep it under me. The Mercedes has warmer tyres and better traction, but by the next lap, I’m close enough to make him nervous.
Dario says, “Podium possible behind Mercedes.”
To ensure I stand on that podium, I continue to drop the hammer over the next six laps. Not dramatic. Relentless. I catch up to them through the middle sector. Turn One, I feign outside. He covers. I switch back. He compromises his exit.
Good.
I stay with him through Two and Three, then use the better traction onto the straight. DRS opens. The car surges.
He moves once.
I go the other way.
We brake nearly side by side into Four. For a moment, the space disappears again. His tyre is inches from mine. “Leo,” Dario says sharply.
“I see it.”
I brake a breath later, rotate tighter, and force him wide without contact as we all cross the finish line.
“P3,” Dario says, a smile in his voice.
Ten laps left.
Red Bull’s Ford power unit isn’t collapsing. Instead, they’re showing tyre degradation. I can taste the opportunity now. I push harder than I should, then pull back because Christin’s voice is in my head reminding me to trust what I’m seeing on the telemetry. Infuriating, brilliant woman.
By lap fifty, I’m in DRS range. By lap fifty-two, I’m close enough to attack.
“Use overtake on exit,” Dario says. “He’s weak into One.”
“I know.”
“Don’t anticipate,” Christin’s voice reminds me over the headset.
I swallow hard. “Copy.”
The final pass is not pretty. Races rarely are when they matter.
I get a better exit from the last corner, DRS open, battery deployed, car screaming down the main straight. Red Bull defends inside. Mercedes is trying to keep a grasp on the outside. I put my trust in Christin that the car will behave if I stop overthinking it.
His front wing is beside my rear tyre. Mine is inches from the edge. One glitch, and we’re both done.
I hold. The car holds. I’m ahead by Turn Two.
“P2,” Dario says, voice tight. “Bring it home.”
P2.
Part of me wants to relish in the fact it’s better than I placed all last year, but I don’t have time.
The last legs blur into heat, light, and breath.
When I cross the line second, the celebration has already begun. The radio erupts. Dario says something about points, pace, strategy. I answer, but I don’t remember what I actually said. My hands stay tight on the wheel as the cooldown lap begins. “Christin, can you hear me?”
Dario drawls, “Oh, she’s heard everything.”
“Christin?”
She comes through my headset. “Yes?”
“What you did? It made a huge difference today.”
There’s a pause before she murmurs, “It helps when you have someone willing to trust what you’re telling them.”
I stare through the visor at the track ahead, suddenly more exhilarated than I was going wheel to wheel into Turn One. Not because I’ve come close to fixing anything between us but because she gave me something infinitely more valuable than second place.
Hope.