Chapter Two – Melbourne Grand Prix Sunday
Aleksandr Volkov – Pre-Race Warm Up
The paddock was already pulsing when I arrived. The air shimmered with heat and the sound of engines idling—throaty, impatient beasts straining against the red line. The tang of fuel, rubber, and hot metal hung heavy, clinging to my throat.
Obsidian’s garage gleamed like a surgical theatre: black, chrome, and sharp angles. Every surface caught the light, every reflection precise enough to shave with.
Precision. Power. Perfection.
It was everywhere—the motto, the expectation, the weight. Even the hum of the lights seemed timed to a metronome.
Terri intercepted me before I reached the engineers. Tablet in hand, headset around her neck, she looked more anxious than usual.
“A quick word?”
I stopped, folding my arms. “What did you find?”
She swallowed. “There was no talk—none—about our engine before yesterday’s press conference. Whatever’s circulating now, it started with that question from Archer.”
My jaw tightened. “So she wasn’t echoing rumours.”
Terri hesitated. “No. She created them.”
A pulse of heat rippled through my chest. “Find out who’s feeding her. I doubt she came up with it out of nowhere.”
“I’ve asked around. But no one knows what she’s talking about.”
I exhaled hard through my nose. “All right.”
I spotted my race engineer, Marcus McKenna leaning against the garage wall, headset slung around his neck, watching the chaos with the patience of a man who’d seen it all before. I crossed the floor toward him, the hum of generators and the staccato of impact guns echoing around us.
“Mac.”
He looked up from his tablet, squinting. “Mornin’, champ. You look like someone nicked yer breakfast.”
“Why would a reporter start asking about our engine?” I asked. “You heard her question yesterday. Yes?”
He shrugged, all calm and gravel. “Because it makes headlines. ‘Machine breaks rules’ sells better than ‘machine wins races.’ Ignore it.”
“That is easier said than done,” I replied, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Folk always have their theories ’bout the Obsidian rocket ship. Let ’em chatter. You start lookin’ sideways now, you’ll miss the lights when they go out.”
His tone was steady, deliberate. The way he spoke when he wanted me to let something drop. I recognised the rhythm—like tightening a bolt just shy of snapping.
“You’re saying don’t worry about it.”
“I’m sayin’ worry ’bout the track, not some journo with a rumour.” He looked up finally, one corner of his mouth twitching. “Get yer head in the car. That’s where you win.”
I nodded once. The words didn’t settle.
The garage burst into motion. Mechanics rolling tyre trolleys, laptops snapping shut, cameras flashing as PR staff herded the media away from the action.
My race suit fit like a glove—black with a razor-thin silver piping that caught the light like a blade.
The Obsidian Performance logo gleamed across the chest in chrome embroidery; beneath it, the words that had been branded into my brain since my rookie year: Precision. Power. Perfection.
Terri appeared again with my gloves and balaclava. “Five minutes to the grid.”
I pulled the zip of my race suit all the way up.
I slipped on the balaclava and finally my helmet.
The world outside dimmed, narrowed to the ritual.
I pressed a gloved hand against the car’s flank, tracing the smooth, cold metal.
My world shrank to this machine: three hundred kilometres an hour of carbon fibre and fury.
The air was heavy with the low drone of engines from the other garages, the whine of drills, the slap of rubber on tarmac.
Every sound vibrated in my ribs. The chrome on the nose cone caught the afternoon light, throwing knives of silver across the garage floor, the smell of fuel thick enough to taste.
The heat hit harder outside. I could feel it pooling inside my suit, running down my spine. I climbed into the cockpit, sliding into the custom-moulded seat. The belts snapped across my shoulders, tightening like a heartbeat.
Mac’s voice crackled in my ear. “Alright, Aleks. Let’s keep it simple. Lights out, clean start. Ye know the drill.”
“Copy,” I said.
Focus.
Mac’s voice came through the radio, steady as bedrock. “Engine temps are perfect. We’ll run the out-lap slow, then get some heat in the tyres. Don’t overthink it.”
“Wasn’t planning to,” I said. I closed my eyes behind the visor. Noise dulled to a hum. The world existed in fragments—one hand on the steering wheel, the other gripping the edge of my composure.
I’d been here a hundred times before. Same grid. Same ritual. Same rhythm pulsing under my skin.
But this afternoon, it wasn’t just anticipation clawing at me. It was something else—something raw.
She started this.
A journalist with a smirk and a question, and somehow she’d managed to get inside my head.
I opened my eyes, and the world came back in colour and light. Mechanics peeled away from their positions crouched by the wheels. Mac’s voice steady in my ear.
“Alright, champ. Let’s bring her to life.”
The engine fired—a snarl that rolled through my chest like thunder. I felt the vibration in my bones, in my teeth, in every nerve.
The garage around me faded to vague flashes of black and chrome, the shimmer of heat haze out in the pit lane, banners rippling above the crowd.
Precision. Power. Perfection.
The words weren’t a motto now. They were a command.
I eased the clutch, the car creeping forward out of the garage.
I gently opened her up, gathering speed as I led the procession from the pit lane.
The track opened ahead, wide and empty. I pressed the throttle and the car leapt forward, a surge of motion that swallowed thought.
Corners blurred—Turn One, Two, Three—each as familiar as breathing.
The rhythm returned: brake, turn, throttle, repeat.
For a few perfect seconds, there was only the machine, the circuit, and the pulse of control.
But when I brought her back onto the main straight, the peace fractured.
The grid was a riot of colour and heat: mechanics, engineers, reporters swarming like hornets around the cars.
I slid into the pole position I’d become so accustomed to, the Obsidian livery blazing black and chrome beneath the sun.
Cooling ducts hissed as the crew rushed to meet me.
I flexed my hands inside my gloves, before climbing back out of the car to fold into the tumult of pre-race energy.
I slipped my helmet off and let it hang by my side while I tried to set my focus on the track, not the nuisance reporter.
Around us, photographers jostled for position, lenses glinting like a firing line. Somewhere, a chant started in the grandstands—my name swallowed by the rising tide of the crowd.
Then movement in the corner of my eye—beyond the ropes of the media pen.
She was there.
Elena Archer, camera crews and other reporters at her back, the morning light catching her hair and turning it to dark fire. She wore sunglasses, but I could still feel her eyes on me, dissecting, measuring.
My pulse hitched.
Anger burned low and clean in my gut—not the wild kind, but the kind that sharpened focus, made edges glint. She’d thrown the first punch, and soon every headline out there might have my name and the word ‘cheating’ side by side.
I slid the helmet over my head, sealing myself inside the silence. My own breathing filled the space, rhythmic and mechanical. I slid back into the cockpit with just the sound of my breathing. The world narrowed to a strip of asphalt, a thousand heartbeats waiting for the lights to go out.
The grid cleared. The lights above the gantry burned crimson, one by one.
I steadied my breathing. In the silence between heartbeats, there was no crowd, no scandal, no Archer. Only the engine’s low growl beneath me, waiting for my command.
Precision. Power. Perfection.
The rest could burn.
F1 Pulse Broadcast: Post-Race Wrap-Up
MARTY GRAVES: Well, if anyone wondered whether the new season would shake the old order—wonder no more! Aleksandr Volkov takes the chequered flag in Melbourne, making it look disgustingly easy.
TARA WHITCOMBE: Textbook Obsidian dominance. Smooth start, ruthless pace, and not a single mistake. Precision. Power. Perfection—they’ll be insufferable on the socials tonight.
MARTY: Behind Volkov, Luca Moretti wrung every ounce out of the Hawthorn, but he just couldn’t close the gap. And look who’s back on the podium—Jax Rivers, apparently deciding Nova Dynamics is his new stage.
TARA: It paid off for him. Risky overtake on lap forty-two, and somehow he didn’t end up in a wall. Growth, Marty. Personal growth.
MARTY: You sound almost proud.
TARA: Don’t ruin it. And let’s not forget the rookies—Sofia Vega bringing Stratos home in eleventh. Out-qualified half the grid, held her nerve, and kept it clean. Not bad for a début that half the paddock said would end in tears.
MARTY: Speaking of tears, Riley Chen’s day ended in the gravel after a tangle with Matteo Ramos. Tempest will be looking at that one in the stewards’ room for a while.
TARA: Racing incident, if you ask me. Two ambitious kids, one narrow corner, and physics did the rest.
MARTY: That’s Melbourne for you. But the story of the day? Obsidian. Still untouchable, still smug, and still giving everyone else nightmares. If the other teams have any hope of toppling Volkov this year, they’d better find an extra half-second and a miracle.
TARA: Because right now, it looks like the champion’s just getting started.
Aleksandr Volkov – Post-Race Press Pen
The podium haze still clung to me—champagne sticky on my hands, the sharp fizz of it caught in my throat. My cap dripped as I stepped off the stage, the roar of the crowd fading into the hum of generators and cameras. Another win. Another performance.