4. TIAGO
TIAGO
MELBOURNE
I should be out there. Practice sessions should be fast and fluid. You go out, you test, you come in. Changing tyres, data flowing, making decisions. Instead, I’m stuck in the garage, listening to the sounds of teams setting themselves up for victory, and fans roaring their asses off about it.
‘Are we nearly ready?’ I ask the closest engineer. I don’t know his name. What’s the point? I won’t be here long.
‘We’re still collecting data,’ he mumbles. Translation: we don’t have solutions yet.
I lean back against the headrest padding. I’m too good for this. Five years of experience and two podiums, and I’m stationary during FP1. It doesn’t help my teammate’s out there. Nothing wrong with his diagnostics.
He’s another rookie, one of six this year.
The most F1’s ever had. Rookies are dangerous.
They don’t yet understand the demands of driving at this level but are eager to make it look like they do.
Frontrunners like Jack and Tom can steer clear, but backmarkers?
Forget it. It’s basically a ticking time bomb before one wipes me out.
Leone’s garage makes Volare look space age.
Sparse mechanics, older equipment, and none of the slickness.
Everyone’s hesitant, pausing, agonising.
It’s sad, but also an opportunity. I plan to use everything I learned at Volare to ace this early part of the season.
Work closely with the engineers and galvanise them into a winning team.
I did it once, I can do it again. Imagine winning a Grand Prix in a Leone. Volare will be begging to have me back.
Though I do have to drive to execute this plan.
‘Ok, Tiago,’ says my race engineer through my earpiece, and my heart sings. ‘Session starts in five minutes. We’ll start on the hard tyre. Run plan C, fuel for a long stint.’
YES.
I mean, not ideal tyres when everyone else is on softs, and I don’t like the sound of a long stint when this session’s about action and reaction, but I’ll take what I can get. We’re a work in progress. I’m back, baby!
‘No need to push on this run, just collect data,’ he adds as I’m about to head out.
What is it with this team and data? They don’t seem to be doing anything with it.
The car feels sluggish under me as I push out to the pit lane.
These dumb tyres are like ice blocks attached to the bottom of my chassis.
I’m understeering and wandering all over the place.
There’s still no straight-line speed, despite the engineers assuring me it’d change after I bombed pre-season testing.
I’m not even allowed full deployment of the engine mode, so acceleration’s flat as fuck.
God help me on Sunday, I’ll trudge off the line.
A Pagari zips by so rapidly I might as well be in a tractor. This is ridiculous, we’re here to race. I push a little harder and the car violently spasms. Shaking hands white-knuckle the wheel as I swallow down a ghostly, ‘Ahhh!’
‘Keep it steady. Let’s build temperatures gradually,’ encourages my race engineer. ‘We’re looking for long-run stability, not outright pace.’
It’s bullshit, I know it is, but I don’t have time to argue because I’m coming up to a sharp right-handed corner. Here goes nothing.
It goes to shit immediately. The front tyres skate around the bend, making me feel like I’m floating, which is something no driver ever wants to feel. It’s not fast by F1 standards, but it’s fast enough to kill me if I can’t claw back some speck of control.
The tyres can’t hold the lateral load and the rears snap suddenly.
I distantly register that I shouldn’t, but I stamp on the brake pedal with the intensity I used to in my Volare, and the tyres lock.
I exit the corner sweating my balls off, sawing at the wheel trying to keep the damn thing straight.
‘That was fucking humiliating,’ I vent to Isa and JC when I’m back in the garage after a similarly abysmal second practice. Semi-quietly, to not be a dick, but part of me doesn’t care if the crew hears. Shit’s got to change.
Isa hands me a banana. ‘It was just practice. You’ve got two more sessions until the race. A lot can change in forty-six hours.’
She doesn’t get it. I’ve been driving since I was four. I know when I’m in a competitive car, and that wasn’t it. That was a moving chicane.
‘Have you talked to the engineers?’ asks my brother and manager, JC. ‘Explained the sessions from your perspective?’
‘I tried three times, but they won’t listen. I have an official briefing with them later, but if it’s anything like pre-season testing, I’m not optimistic they’ll take my feedback seriously.’
I look around at the crew whispering in tight huddles and poring over screens.
It feels like they don’t want new problems, which is short-sighted as hell because there should be a connection between what I feel and what they see.
That’s how it was at Volare. Surely they should welcome knowledge from a superior team.
‘This is all your fault.’ I chew angrily, pointing my scowl at JC. ‘You got me this stupid seat.’
His eyebrows draw together. ‘My fault? Would you’ve rather been out of Formula 1? Because that’s where you were headed. You should be thanking me, malagradecido de mierda.’
‘Thanking you?’ I spit. ‘I’m currently sitting in P17! There are only twenty fucking drivers on this grid, and two didn’t even make it out today!’
‘I got you a raise.’ He steps forward. ‘That’s called making the best of a bad situation – which you caused with your frat boy behaviour.’
‘I—’
‘Woah, woah, woah.’ Isa barges between us.
‘It’s no one’s fault. We’re a team. Yes, things are looking shitty right now, but this season’s not going to improve if you guys don’t stop arguing like teenagers.
Tiago, shut up and eat your banana quickly because Channel 3 are hovering over there.
JC, go and make sure his schedule’s all lined up for the weekend. ’
He pauses and she gives him a shove toward the back passageway. He stalks off muttering in Spanish.
Alright, shake it off. The UK’s Channel 3 are waiting to talk to me, and even though being perky about my abysmal life choices is the last thing I want to do, it’s the only part of my job Leone can’t ruin.
‘There he is!’ says the presenter with an extraordinarily high quiff as he hands me a microphone. ‘The smiliest guy in the paddock.’
‘Must take some effort after those two catastrophic practice sessions,’ chimes in their pundit, former World Champion Brian O’Connell. Thank you for pointing out the obvious, asshole.
‘You know me.’ I shrug in an aw-shucks way. ‘Good old-fashioned American optimism.’
‘Are you optimistic?’ the presenter presses.
‘Sure.’ Insert phony smile. ‘Today was just teething problems. I’m here to bring some experience to the team and get us fighting in the midfield.
Last year, Leone spent the whole time fixing things and weren’t developing the car.
This year’s going to be different. I have two podiums from last year alone,’ I leave out the part where I got none the previous four years, ‘as well as so much knowledge about how to fight in the big leagues. Look at where Volare are now. We’ll be fighting alongside them by the summer break.
’ Which I won’t care about because I’ll be back there.
The presenter leans back slightly. ‘Wow, big chat.’
‘That certainly is optimistic,’ muses Brian. ‘Leone have never scored points in the three years they’ve been in Formula 1.’
I curve my lips down. ‘They’ve never had me.’ I half believe it, which is less than I did this morning.
They both laugh.
‘You Hispanics are a dramatic bunch,’ chortles Brian.
Casual racism, cool cool cool.
The presenter rests a hand on my shoulder. ‘Good luck tomorrow, mate. Really looking forward to it. I hope this comes off.’
Me too, brother.
I head back over to Isa, who’s sitting on the mechanics’ tool bench, glued to her phone.
I sigh heavily. ‘That was—’
‘Oh. My. God.’ She looks up, and the astonishment on her face sets my pulse racing. Could it be… Could they…
Already?
‘W-what is it?’ I force myself to say.
‘Jules has touched down in Melbourne!’
Huh?!
‘Jesus Christ, that’s it?! Your stupid influencer?’
‘It’s official: she’s picked F1! There’s already a poll for which driver it is.’
That changes things.
‘How many votes do I have?’
She snorts. ‘You’re not on it.’
‘What?’ It’s pitched higher than I meant.
‘A poll can only have four options.’
Well isn’t that the biggest slap in the dick. ‘Almost half the guys are too young to drink—’
‘They’re European. They’ve been drinking wine since they were teething.’
‘—and most of the others are in relationships,’ I finish. ‘Who made the cut?’
‘Tom Webber, Kurtis Hatten-Meyer, Matteo D’Ambrosio, and Jack Bowden.’
‘Jack Bowden’s in a relationship!’
She nods disbelievingly. ‘I know, with Jules’ best friend. People are dumb. He’s the World Champion – maybe some voters think winners can do what they want.’
I can’t believe I’m offended, it’s so ridiculous. I don’t even know this woman, and her dating games are stupid. Still, after everything, it’d be nice to be chosen.
‘What if she chooses me?’ I fold my arms. ‘That’ll prove everyone wrong.’
Isa’s look is pointed.
‘What?’ I say.
‘I thought you were going cold turkey.’
‘Fuck cold turkey, we’re talking about a stable relationship. It would mend my reputation in a day.’
Isa shakes her long black hair. ‘Tiago, she dates sportsmen at the top of their field. She dated Damian Reisner, Brennan Okorafor, George Smith, Dominic Johnson, Loga—’
My eyes narrow. ‘I would be very careful about the point you’re making. Today of all days.’
She concedes with raised hands. ‘You don’t want to date her anyway. As a follower, I love her, but to date? She uses guys then dumps them at the end of the season. I don’t know why Logan’s taking it so hard. Everyone knew this was going to happen except him.’
‘Poor dude.’
‘Alas, your turkey remains cold.’
‘So you really believe I can do it?’
She pats my arm. ‘Let’s focus on one problem at a time.’