Mind of Steel | Part two | L.N.

CXI

"Alright everyone, we are joined here today with Leah Norris," Matt smiled as he leaned forward. They had contacted Leah shortly when she arrived in Zanvoort. They wanted to do a short show with her while she had time because they had never featured her on their show before.

"We are very excited to be here with you Leah and thank you for sparing us some time," Tommy added as he adjusted his glasses. Leah smiled.

"Yeah, well everyone else has always talked about how fun you both were, so I thought I might as well join you all for a podcast," Leah reasoned as she took a drink of her water.

"We know you have a podcast of your own, with Isabella and Cassidy?" Matt asked.

"Yeah, we haven't posted on it in a while though since Isabella doesn't live close to me and hey both have kids, our schedules aren't matching up anymore," Leah reasoned as she adjusted her mic so she wouldn't have to talk super loud.

"That's alright, would you be willing to answer a few random questions if we asked them?" Tommy asked. They all knew she was sometimes sensitive toward the subject matter in the questions."

"Of course, fire at will," She laughed as they both smiled.

"Okay, do you want to start out with the deep ones first or wait and work our way into them?" Matt asked her as he pulled out his paper.

"We can work our way into them, I don't want to traumatize your listeners just yet," Leah laughed a little as she fixed her hair.

"Alright, so we will start off with the most obvious one. Will you be residing with Red Bull for next year?" Matt asked.

"When will this podcast come out?" Leah asked. Matt and Tommy looked at one another unsure why she would ask that. "Is it going to come out after the media day on Thursday?"

"Yes," Tommy laughed.

"Okay, well you guys are going to get an exclusive," Leah smiled as they leaned forward. "I will be retiring after this year. It was supposed to be posted over summer break, but I talked Christian into postponing that since I didn't want people to know the reasons behind it, but this will be my last season in Formula One since I have medical issues."

"If you don't mind me asking, how severe are they?" Tommy asked.

"I have crashed too many times, without visible injury, my brain has taken on most of the damage, so the doctors assume that if I crash I will have bleeding on the brain and will most likely die, but I don't want to freak anyone out. I have a seventy to thirty percent chance of living. So I'm not extremely worried about it," Leah reasoned as Matt and Tommy both put their hands to their hearts.

"Do you have any idea what you will want to do after this?" Matt asked.

"I was thinking of maybe helping Susie with the F1 Academy or becoming a couch for any other females that want to go into F1, F2, or F3. I'm not sure yet, I love racing and that's all I've grown up knowing so it feels weird to be so young and have to retire from something I've spent my life thinking I was going to be doing til I was forty," Leah fiddled with her ring.

"You are right, this is an exclusive," Matt sighed. "How are you dealing with all of this? I mean how long have you known and kept it from everyone?"

"Yeah, so this isn't going to go well because I've kept it from quite literally everyone on the grid other than Max because he figured out about my condition.  Lando doesn't know anything about me retiring and I wish I wouldn't have to tell him," Leah rand her hands through her hair as she sighed. "I just don't want to drag him into all of this. It doesn't really affect him in any way, I just want him to focus on his career so he can continue racing."