Chapter 3
MINNIE
As I spritz perfume on my neck, I say the words out loud: ‘They liked it. They really liked it.’ Maybe if I repeat it enough times it’ll sink in.
What did my bosses like most: me constantly being told to move, or apologising on loop for eight minutes flat? Or how about when almost every driver told me to fuck off?
Except one, that is.
My producer said my ‘banter’ with the drivers was hilarious. What banter? Kurt rejected me; étienne called me fat; Matteo D’Ambrosio shook his head with such hostility, you’d have thought I’d offered to braid his hair with sparkly beads.
My phone buzzes and I cease mumbling to myself. Taxi’s here.
Butterflies are rioting in my stomach on the drive to the bar.
It’s been a long time since I was anywhere super glamorous, and the first time I’ve been invited to an F1 afterparty period (surprisingly, pre-teens aren’t allowed on guestlists).
But when we turn down a dusty side street and the taxi abruptly stops, the butterflies meet an anticlimactic end.
Surely this can’t be it? Tan buildings, air con boxes and a sandwich shop?
It seems the cost-of-living crisis has even hit F1.
That was a plot twist I never saw coming.
My driver’s pointing enthusiastically to a closed door. I get out slowly, praying he doesn’t drive off and leave me stranded in this nondescript part of Manama. To my horror, he jets off quicker than Jack did this afternoon.
I’m going to die. My face will be plastered on BBC News as the stupid tourist who was lured into a kidnapper’s den by the promise of free booze and—
The door opens revealing a man with a clipboard, and I’ve never been so relieved.
F1, in fact, has not been blighted by the cost-of-living crisis.
The lift doors open to a gorgeous rooftop lounge with soft orange lighting, green foliage and expansive views of the city.
Every inch is packed. Models, celebrities, oligarchs and, of course, drivers.
Kurt’s flirting with a blonde towering over him like the Burj Khalifa; étienne’s beckoning me aggressively from the far side.
‘Enfin!’ he exclaims over the music, getting up to kiss me on both cheeks. I’m ashamed to admit it’s the most a man’s touched me in months. ‘’Ow long do you take to get ready? Assieds-toi.’ He gestures to a free seat.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to explain that, unlike him, my hotel isn’t a ten-minute drive from the track.
But I don’t feel like making things toe-curlingly awkward, so I smile and pull out the chair, only to find a jacket neatly folded in the middle.
‘Is this someone’s?’ I ask. Who’d bring a jacket? It’s a million degrees out here.
‘Minnie, iznot a jacket.’ étienne sips his wine. ‘Iz my dress.’
‘Oh har har.’ He always was an annoying little shit.
I hop up on the stool and greet the rest of the table, a mixture of semi-familiar drivers, performance coaches and other paddock faces, and less familiar scantily clad women who make me feel like a dumpy potato. Joy.
‘Is étienne being a wanker yet?’ asks Kurt, pouring a glass of Moet from the middle of the table.
I grin. ‘Hey, I taught you that word!’
His English is better than mine despite being German. No accent, no hard consonants, no pause for translation, no slight formality. I congratulate myself that I had a small part to play. I can’t take any credit for the other four languages he’s fluent in, though…
I’ve kept in touch with him more than the others – we were always closer, mostly because of our dads – but even then, with the relentless F1 calendar it usually equates to one lunch a year when he comes over for the British Grand Prix.
‘How do you know Minnie?’ Kurt asks étienne, handing me the glass. ‘You’re, like, four years younger than us. You were a kid when your dad retired.’
‘We went to the same school in Monaco,’ I explain.
A mischievous smile lights up étienne’s face. ‘C’est tout?’
‘étienne’s brother was in my class.’ I hope he heard the full stop at the end of that sentence.
étienne’s smile broadens. ‘’E was only a classmate?’
‘Yes,’ I say tightly.
‘I will tell the story,’ étienne declares to an enrapt table. I stifle the urge to burrow my head in my hands. ‘It was a warm summer night. The moon was—’
‘Alright, alright,’ I interrupt. ‘His brother was my first kiss at a stupid school disco.’
The others burst out laughing.
étienne crosses his arms. ‘You English, no dramatique flair.’
I sip my champagne so my arm can conceal at least one blazing cheek. ‘What’s your brother doing now?’
étienne rests his chin on his balled-up fist. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know.’ He winks, and a little bit of sick travels up my throat.
‘Don’t be weird. He finished driving young, right?’
étienne straightens. ‘’E didn’t even make it to Formula 3. ’Is ’eart wasn’t in it. ’E’s in banking now, and living in Paris wiz ’is girlfriend.’ He bats his eyelashes at me. ‘You’re devastated, non?’
‘Distraught,’ I retort flatly.
‘A toast!’ Kurt cuts in, raising his glass. ‘To étienne coming in P2, us boys all finishing in the points, and Minnie, returning to where she belongs – even if it is as one of Them.’
‘Santé!’
‘Cheers!’
‘Prost!’
‘Sk?l!’
‘Cin cin!’
‘How’s your family?’ I ask Kurt once the clamour dies down.
‘Good. For Christmas, my parents bought themselves a dilapidated castle near Ingolstadt.’
‘Why?’
‘Excellent question. It’s all very Escape to the Chateau. They mainly live in Bali, and last week they realised it’s incredibly painful to get from Ingolstadt to Bali, so this morning my dad bought a 767.’
That’s… incomprehensible. ‘Wow.’
He laughs into his drink. ‘Parents, hey? Honestly, I think it’s a late-life crisis.’
‘You don’t say.’
I didn’t anticipate the chasm between us being so big, and it’s widening by the minute.
Obviously the wealth surrounding F1 is astronomical, it always has been, but I don’t remember it being this bottomless, this meaningless.
Or maybe it’s me. It’s been a long time since anyone in my life talked about private planes.
‘How are your parents?’ Kurt says, plucking an olive from the charcuterie board.
‘Well—’
‘You don’t need to enquire about ’er father; ’e’s doing better than everyone! Living. The. Dream.’ étienne makes a chef’s kiss in the air.
My face starts to flame.
‘You can say that again. I think his new girlfriend’s twenty?’ Thank you, Kurt.
‘’e’s still in Monaco. I see ’im at the…’ étienne snaps his fingers to help him remember the word. Please don’t say school yard. ‘…men’s ’air shop.’
Phew.
Kurt scrunches his face up in thought. ‘Isn’t she a Victoria’s Secret model?’
‘That was the previous one. This one’s from OnlyFans,’ étienne clarifies.
‘A true DiCaprio,’ muses Kurt, like he’s impressed and not sickened. ‘I guess you can do what you want when you’re a once-in-a-generation driver.’
étienne rushes to agree. I smile blandly.
It’s not like this is all news to me – I can use Google Alerts as well as anyone – but there’s something uncomfortable about it coming from other people’s lips. More specifically, people who know both of us.
Mum and I don’t discuss my dad ever, and no one back home really understands being abandoned by your motorsport legend father who’s now content to simultaneously ignore and humiliate you.
I wonder if it ever crosses his mind that his barely post-adolescent playthings – sorry, ‘loves of his life’ – are younger than his daughter.
‘Do you speak to him much?’ Kurt asks quietly.
‘Not… often.’ Never. The answer’s never.
It’s common knowledge that Sir Cliff Roberts left his family to start a new life with his knocked-up mistress.
It was all the press could talk about for a hot minute, then thankfully everyone moved on.
I’m counting on no one knowing exactly how estranged we are.
My dad still carries weight in this industry, being a former World Champion and a current Ackland board member, and I’m convinced it gives me credibility.
Probably even got me the job, though I hope that wasn’t the whole reason.
I change the subject. ‘I have a bone to pick with you two. You left me high and dry out there on the grid. On my first weekend!’
Neither has the decency to look sheepish.
‘Itznot up to us,’ étienne says with a vague shrug.
‘Who’s it up to?’
‘Team principal,’ they state in unison.
I huff. ‘I accept that from Kurt, but étienne, you have no excuse. Your principal’s your dad.’
‘On track ’e’s principal first.’
‘Yeah, well, speak to him at dinner. I need this. Help me out, both of you.’ I top up my glass. ‘You can make it up to me by sharing what I need to know about this season’s grid.’
‘No way, I’m not telling you shit,’ Kurt says with a chuckle. ‘You’re the enemy now.’
‘I’m not going to use anything. I’ve been away for a long time and research can only give me so much. I just need to get my bearings. Who’s a dark horse, who can rival Jack—’
‘Me,’ they say at the same time, looking at me like I’m the idiot.
‘You know what I mean. Where are the Pagari boys anyway? I haven’t seen them around.’
‘Jack sometimes comes for a bit and leaves early, often with a girl,’ says Kurt. What a surprise. ‘And Micah—’
étienne’s chortle cuts him off. ‘If you see Micah Adetunji at an afterparty, I will give you one million euro.’
‘He doesn’t go out?’ I dig.
Kurt reels off on his fingers: ‘He doesn’t go out; he doesn’t do press; he doesn’t greet fans; he doesn’t do charity work—’
This I half knew. ‘But why?’
‘Not why– ’ow?’ étienne thumps his fist on the table. ‘’Ow does ’e get away wiz it? None of us like doing press – no offences, Minnie.’
‘None taken.’
‘It’s literally written into our contracts,’ Kurt explains.
‘The only thing he does do are some press conferences, but nothing else. As soon as they’re over, it’s AirPods in and private jet back to London.
No talking, no hanging around.’ He takes a contemplative swig.
‘But you want a driver to rival Jack? He’s your closest man. ’
étienne lets out a superfluous pfft.
‘I’m serious, and you know it too.’ Kurt cocks his glass to the Martinelli driver. ‘Pagari’s car is unstoppable. The way to beat a Pagari is with a Pagari. Plus, Micah’s a dirty, dirty driver. I hate wheel-to-wheel with him. It’s like he’d rather us both crash out than let me beat him.’
Heads around the table nod gravely – heads I didn’t even know were listening.
I remember watching Imola last year where Kurt and Micah collided with the barrier. Kurt’s chassis caved in like it was made of rice paper. A shiver runs up my shine.
‘He hasn’t been much of a threat to Jack in the past. Jack was streaks ahead at the end of last season,’ I point out.
‘Don’t get me wrong, he doesn’t match Jack’s tyre management, and he’s nowhere near as good at quali,’ says Kurt.
‘He’s reliant on Jack making mistakes. But Jack strikes me as complacent this season; two consecutive World Championships will do that to a guy.
We’re counting it. Micah, in particular, is counting on it. ’
Interesting. Very interesting.