Chapter 1 #2
So yes, I’m a chance for Barry Arden to polish his team’s murky reputation.
But there is politics behind so many decisions in F1, and besides, I am the queen of making lemonade out of lemons.
I’ve worked with the scraps I’ve been tossed my entire racing career, and look where it’s got me.
Here. Hopefully paving the way for more young women to break up this boys’ club.
“I know you’ll have a lot of questions for Chloe, but I just have another announcement to make before we unleash the hounds.” Barry pets one of his greyhounds, Ginger, and chuckles to himself.
One of the female journalists in the front row tips her head toward me and grins. “Good for you,” she mouths. I bite my lip, my cheeks warm with delight. All the work. All the hard fucking graft, it all comes down to this.
Barry clears his throat. “Now for the other big news . . . As you know, our first driver position has been empty since the departure of Jose Diaz. And so, we’re excited to announce we’ve taken on a new driver.”
I swing my head around to look at Barry.
Hiring new drivers is really the team principal’s decision, and I have ideas of my own.
I feel the little groove between my eyebrows deepen as I cover the mic on my desk and lean in toward Barry, trying desperately, out of the corner of my mouth, to shut the guy up.
But he completely ignores me.
“I’ve just finished talks with Rossini about the immediate release of Matthew Warner from his contract there.”
If I thought the news about me delivered gasps of shock, they paled in comparison to the breathless puffing and wheezing of excitement from this surprise announcement.
“What?” I say loudly into my microphone, causing feedback to squeal across the room.
Barry taps the table in front of me, his way of telling me to calm down.
Then he continues, a toothy grin on his round face.
“As if he needs any introduction, Matt Warner has spent the last ten years at the top of the very best team, with over seventy podiums and one world championship under his belt. I know the last few months have been rough for him, but Rossini have agreed a fresh start for Matt here at Arden is best for everyone.”
All eyes are on Matt, and he looks furious.
He immediately cranes his head in the direction of the Rossini team principal, who is already picking his way through the crowd to make his escape.
Barry glances toward the commotion, and I wonder if this announcement is a little premature.
I wonder, briefly panicked, if Matt and Rossini are also missing a final contract.
Matt looks back in our direction, now frozen in horror, and I’m surprised to find my first emotion is a wave of compassion. For him. For Matt fucking Warner. This massive bomb was just dropped on me, but was it dropped on Matt also?
I collect myself and feel a fury of my own start to bubble up. I put my hands on the table, and as I’m about to stand, I feel Barry’s hand on my shoulder holding me down. “Trust me,” he says, quietly but sternly.
“Matt, would you come up and join us onstage?” Barry booms.
Matt is still frozen stiff until he’s slapped on the back by way of congratulations by another driver from McLaren.
And then a small handful of the press awkwardly clap, more out of pity than anything, surely?
Matt has just been forcibly moved from the top Formula 1 team to the bottom one. This is no moment for congratulations.
“Matt? I’m sure the press would like to see the new team all together?”
Matt looks like someone winded him, and yet he moves toward the stage, slowly.
The frenzy of clicking is so loud it starts to sound like white noise, and in the cacophony, I realize why Matt is going along with this: He’s trapped.
He can’t force Rossini to keep him, and if Arden have bought him out, his ass now belongs to Barry.
He has no choice, and the world is watching. What else is he going to do? Run?
The camera clicking evolves into shouting. They have questions. Many questions. The shouting from the journalists is so loud, the dogs have started to howl, and Barry has to lean down and run a hand over their little heads to soothe them.
“Matt, can you tell us when you found out about the transfer?”
“Matt, BBC here. This is not unprecedented, but exceedingly unusual. Why Arden?”
“Hi, Joe from Racing Monthly. Has this got anything to do with the crash, and your struggle to recover your previous speeds?”
“Has your teammate Stavros recovered, Matt?”
“Why won’t you talk about the crash?”
“Can you look in this direction for a photo, please?”
But Matt isn’t replying. He’s just sitting with his arms folded, his mouth fixed firm, and a look of pure fury on his face.
This could have been the best day of my life.
It should’ve been. It was supposed to be the moment when my career headed into the apex and emerged at full speed onto the straight.
Me, poised to fly across the finish line, finally a winner in a sport I have battled for so long to do well in.
Instead, my day in the sun has been completely overshadowed.
And by, of all fucking people, Matt Warner.
“I think maybe it’s best if we pass on questions today,” Barry says now, holding his arms out to calm the room. “After all, we have a brand-new team and a Singapore qualifying to prepare for.”
I crumple up my prepared speech, briefly glancing sidelong at Matt.
“Of course,” Barry is saying to one of the photographers, who has pushed his way forward and is pointing his enormous lens in our faces. “Yes, we can get a team photo.”
Barry Arden drapes an arm over my shoulders, and then over Matt’s shoulders, squeezing us both in toward him. He is beaming. I’m pretty sure I look like I just saw a ghost. And Matt wants to punch something.
This ridiculous image of the three key members of the new Arden Racing team will no doubt appear in the sports news of every major paper tomorrow.
Barry squeezes us both closer. “So, darlin’,” he says to me out of the side of his mouth. “How do you like your present?”