Chapter 52
MINNIE
SURREY, ENGLAND
‘Minnie,’ Mum says in the living room doorway, and the dogs and I jump. ‘What are you doing? You’re torturing yourself!’
I gesture to Martin talking to a rapper I’ve never heard of in a peculiarly bright shirt. ‘I can’t miss this.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Well then do it properly – with excellent snacks and a litre of booze.’ With that, she disappears and two dogs follow.
Martin approaches étienne, who’s standing with a cooling towel around his neck even though it’s a night race. They look boiling. Gustaf’s already pink. I wrap my dressing gown tighter around me and pull the blanket up higher.
It’s so strange seeing them all on screen and not being there. It doesn’t seem as busy as the other races, or maybe that’s just how it looks on TV.
‘Popcorn, fruit pastilles, cashews and grapes,’ Mum announces, laying the four bowls neatly on the coffee table. ‘How do we feel about margs?’
I release a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. ‘It’s winter.’
‘It’s not in Doha.’
Fair point. ‘A winter-adjacent marg then, like red berry.’
She nods once. ‘I’ll make a jug.’
I lose another dog, but thankfully three are too lazy. Maggie’s snoring so loudly I can barely hear Eilo saying meaningless things about Ackland’s race strategy.
It’s a shame I didn’t get to work the whole season. I’ve never experienced the Qatar Grand Prix, although there are copious notes on it stashed uselessly under my bed. It’s one of the new races, dubbed a ‘money race’, and not super popular with the teams or fans as far as I can tell.
The circuit’s high speed with sweeping corners, encouraging drivers to flout track limits which has led to controversies in the past – not least surrounding étienne. Also with few heavy braking zones and overtaking opportunities, it can get processional. But with Jack on pole, I doubt he minds.
‘Et voilà!’ Mum says, returning with drinks to the sound of the Qatari national anthem.
By the time she’s poured, we’ve clinked glasses and debated whether an abaya is slimming, they’re onto the formation lap.
‘Who’s where?’ She squints at the screen.
‘Jack’s on pole, then Tom, then étienne, then Eilo.’
‘Crikey, what a top three.’
I recoil. ‘Have you been watching it all season?’
‘Of course I have!’ She takes a wounded sip. ‘It’s your job.’
‘But—’ I quieten at the sight of the green flag: the last car has joined the back. In seconds the lights will go off and the biggest race of the season will begin.
Every car rockets off the line. Jack’s ahead of Tom but as they build to Turn 1, Tom’s got the better inside line and pushes in front. étienne appears from nowhere, fighting on Tom’s inside. By the end of Turn 3, he’s slipped into second, and Jack’s lumbered with third.
Oh my god. If the race finished now, Jack would still clinch the Championship, but if he drops back further…
My shoulders, hands and jaw are all clenched tight. I swallow down a ‘NO!’ when the focus switches to a crash at the back of the grid taking out three cars, and triggering a yellow flag. Matteo D’Ambrosio’s getting a penalty for causing a collision.
When racing resumes at lap five, Tom, étienne and Jack are back in view, wrestling to triumph over Turn 1.
‘You haven’t touched your marg. It’s going to get warm,’ Mum comments, sounding much less like her heart’s pulsing in her ears. On the upside, this is the hottest I’ve been all week.
‘I don’t feel like it.’
‘Drink it, Mins. It’ll help.’
I take a small sip to appease her without taking my eyes off the TV.
She shoves the bowl of fruit pastilles in my face. ‘Eat.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘It’ll help.’
I quickly roll my eyes and take a handful, and sit with them clamped in my fist. It’s not long before they morph into a ball of gloop in my sticky palm.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ Mum says breezily, like Jack’s swimming with dolphins and not gambling with his life on étienne’s tail.
‘étienne’s very penalty-prone here since track limits don’t seem to mean much to him.
Plus there’s a lot on the line and he often shows his youth when it comes to his driving style, so he’ll probably push the car beyond its capabilities like he did in Monza and Spa, and the last third of the race will crumble. ’
I tear my eyes from the screen and gawk at her.
‘What? I was in this world for fifteen years. You think I didn’t learn a thing or two about racing?’ She shovels cashews in her mouth.
‘What about Tom?’
She chews thoughtfully. ‘He’s never adapted to this car like he did with the last iteration. He’s more hesitant, and he lacks the ruthlessness he used to have. If it comes to a close battle today, Jack would manage to overtake.’
I don’t want to ask about Jack’s weaknesses. Maybe I do. No. Yes. No. I turn back to the race and deposit my fruit pastille gunge onto the table. Coco gives it an interested sniff and I shoo her away.
Lap fourteen, and they’re still in the same formation.
Damn I hate this circuit, it’s so difficult to overtake.
At least Jack’s not in danger of being passed – Tiago’s 3.
37 seconds behind him. That’s something.
We spend a maddeningly long time watching the mid-pack battles.
Am I supposed to guess what Jack’s doing?
I jolt when étienne pits at lap twenty-four and pray under my breath that he’s delayed.
Nothing major, a jammed jack or similar.
It’s not very friendly behaviour but he doesn’t have to know.
To my shock, the front right and rear tyres all prove tricky, amounting to an extraordinarily slow pit stop that sees him resurface at P11.
‘YES!’ Mum yells.
I shoot her a quizzical look.
‘What?’ she says, picking up her blanket from where she’d flung it on a sleeping Noodle. ‘I don’t want to see Martinelli win. Christophe’s an arse.’
Could she be… warming to Jack? No time to think about that now because he’s pitting. I force myself to keep watching and breathing as he halts perfectly inside the box. The crew unscrew the tyres and reattach fresh mediums with swift exactitude. He rejoins the race in P3 behind Tiago.
‘Excellent pit stop,’ I murmur as 2.2 seconds appears on the screen. Phew.
‘Superb,’ Mum affirms, pouring herself a fresh glass.
He wastes no time overtaking Tiago in a move the commentator jarringly describes as ‘fruity’. He’s five seconds behind Tom. Overtaking would be a tough ask, unless Tom has a sloppy second stop, but Martinelli won’t make the same mistake twice.
The next thirty laps pass in an aggravating swirl of stress and frustration, with the cameras focusing almost entirely on the mid-field. My nails are stubs by the time Jack crosses the finish line in P2, but it doesn’t matter because he’s done it. He’s bloody won the World Championship.
Mum and I leap up and hug excitedly to barking from all six dogs while Jack does his victory lap.
The constructors’ title fight will run on to Abu Dhabi with the margin between Pagari and Martinelli still stressfully slim.
But that doesn’t matter today because all his hard work has paid off and he’s so amazing and why am I crying?
‘Oh Mins, let it out,’ says Mum, smoothing my hair.
‘I’ve been s-so s-strong.’
‘Yes you have. Now drink a marg.’ She bends down to top up my barely-touched glass.
‘I don’t know h-how to f-feel.’
‘You’re not supposed to.’
I go through a mound of tissues and nibble on some grapes, telling myself sugar will help.
It still looks stifling in Qatar. When the cameras pan to the Pagari garage, the pit crew are all sopping, their uniforms vacuum-packed to their bodies.
Kurt flashes on screen, struggling to get out of his car due to heat exposure.
Apparently Ross has been rushed to the medical centre with dehydration.
It’s like the old Malaysia races from years ago.
‘I don’t know how you sat through hundreds of these,’ I say, re-cocooning myself in my blanket. ‘My nerves are shot to hell.’
Mum shrugs. ‘It gets worse once you have a child, but Balinese masseuses help. And booze, naturally.’
I slump back against the sofa and watch as Jack takes the podium. A three-time World Champion. He’ll go in the Hall of Fame. And I’ll be a footnote in his story. Probably not even that.
‘Now you can close the chapter,’ Mum says gently.
I don’t want to close the chapter. I want to be in Qatar with his team, jumping up and down with Georgie.
I want to be the one he runs to first, slick with sweat and brimming with pride.
I want to go to the afterparty and be showered in confetti and watch fireworks explode overhead and feel like life doesn’t get better than this.
But I can’t. So even though I feel like I’m dying inside, I have to close the chapter.