one more race// l. norris

Chapter 39

ahh it's my birthday!🤍
— hope you all enjoy the chapter and stay safe. if you hadn't notice yet, the main character in this book and me share the same bday, i wonder why ;))

LOVE YOU ALL XX

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The post race interviews were boring. But I got over it and did them. I then had a quick driver briefing where Christian, GP and Adrian went through the race. Asked us how the car felt. That type of stuff.

Instead of waiting until tomorrow, Max had offered to take Lando and I home on his jet. He was headed back to Milton Keynes anyways. We boarded the plane and found some seats, Max said he was gonna sleep on the way back so Lando and I found a two seater couch to sit on. The flight back was short, only 2 hours. I fell asleep on Lando's lap. I was knackered. It was a long day, lots of high speeds and overtaking. I was so grateful when I collapsed on Lando's bed that evening. Neither of us had to go to the factory tomorrow so we went almost straight to bed. It was around 9:30 when we crashed.

I forgot by we had Russia between Turkey and now. So I had to prepare for that. I hated Sochi. It was a shit track to be honest, never liked it. Never will. Valtteri won there last year, I expect Merc to be strong again.

Before I knew it, Lando and I were off to Russia. On separate flights this time, I was slightly bummed. But we had managed to get away with sharing a hotel room again. Even if we had our own rooms, we ended up crashing in the others. The flight wasn't too long, I never really liked long haul flights. We checked into our room, crashed for 30 minutes, then had to go off and do things with the teams.

Luckily, George, Alex and Lando had an interview scheduled with Natalie Pinkham this evening, and she said I could tag along and watch seeing as I had nothing else to do.

"Hi Natalie! It's been too long." I say as we approach the brunette woman.

She pulls me in for a hug, "Sky! It has been indeed. Lando, how are you?"

"I'm good thank you, yourself?" he smiled.

Natalie nodded, "Very good thank you.".

The three boys sat down on the stools and Natalie began the interview. They were about five minutes in and Lando was staring at me smiling, next thing he knows, Natalie is waving her hand in front of his face.
"Lando? Earth to Lando?"

He chuckled, "Sorry, I'm here."

George nudged him in the side, "No mate. You're over there." and gestured to where I was sat. I blushed and looked at the floor, when I looked up, Lando was looking at me, blushing and smiling himself. I blew him a kiss and walked off. I was clearly a distraction and he needed to get this interview done, and he clearly wasn't going to focus with me sat there! Ahh, I do love the boy.

LANDO POV

I watched Sky walk off around the corner, she walked with such confidence despite all the shit she was getting. Sky was definitely the strongest person I knew. The lads and I finished the interview and said goodbye to Natalie.

George and Alex dragged me in between some media trucks out of sight from everyone.

"What on ea-? Boys what are you doing?" I stuttered.

Alex put his hands on my shoulders. "Mate, you are so in love with her it's ridiculous."

I blushed, "It's not that bad-"

George soon interrupted me, "Uh yes it is. You could barely keep your eyes off her when she was sat at the interview."

I looked at them innocently, "Yeah, so?"

"Well what are you gonna do about it? You're clearly crazy about each other." George jeered.

I stopped and thought for a moment, "I know. I am crazy about her. But like you noticed the other week, she's getting so much shit from everyone. I have to be honest guys, she said to me the other week, what if she just quits? I don't think she'll stay in F1. It's too much for her. Her mental and physical health, it's ruining her."

George and Alex's faces both dropped, George was first to speak, "I think that too. I've began to notice it over recent weeks."

"Yeah me too." Alex whispered. I could tell all three of our hearts cracked a little at the thought. None of us apart from George had been overly close with Sky until this year. We had all become one little family. We were the youngest on the grid, we had to make it count.

"Well we will just have to see what she decides to do. I better be going back to the team. Charlotte will be wondering where I am." I said, unhappily.

The other two nodded and we all split into the directions of our own teams. This weekend was going to be interested. Sky still hadn't sorted out her contract for next year. I'm not sure if Red Bull want to continue with her either. Only time will tell.

SKY POV

'Get her out now.'

'No sportsmanship.'

'Red Bull only picked her to get a fat cheque from F1.'

'No real talent.'

'Morgan is a shit show recently, don't lie.'

Fuck. These comments were breaking me. I can't continue like this. Most of the drivers had seats for next year, but not me. Red Bull hadn't spoken to me, but I hadn't made an effort to speak to them either. Lando was booked in for a few more years, everywhere else was filling up. I need to decide what I want to do next year soon.

——

It was now Saturday. Qualifying was shit, in my opinion anyway. P6. Not much I could do now. Lando was P4 though. I was happy for him, well deserved.

Christian and Helmut called me for a meeting after the quali interviews. It was over and done with pretty quickly. I was very excited after that though because I realised my birthday is next week! 21! It's a big year. Lando's is November 13th I think, I'm a year younger than him. I wanted to do something nice for him, but I had no idea what yet.

Race morning came quickly. Saturday night was spent watching Netflix, taking a bath and relaxing. There was heavy rain in Sochi all morning. The race was set to start under safety car conditions. Hopefully it would go ahead, luckily it did. All 20 of us drivers lined up on the grid. Ready for a rolling start, the SC pulled into the pits, the lights went green and we were off. Charles was in front of me, but not for long as I dived in front of him. Bam. Got past him without a scratch into the second turn.