More Than A Driver (Reimagined)
Chapter 7 — previous, next
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summary: it's race day in bahrain and the tension is at the highest. an accidental press to a radio button reveals everything the world has been wanting to hear.
pairing: formula one + female!driver!reader
warnings/tags: protect luca romano!!! paddock drama, protective toto wolff, media scrutiny
reblogs, likes, and comments are so so appreciated! if you want to read more from me, kindly submit in my inbox !!! xoxo
mercedesamgf1 Bahrain International Circuit
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mercedesamgf1 Let's race. #F1 #BahrainGP #YNLN
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oscarpiastri Go get em ↳ user4 oscar showing support we love to see it !! 😍 ↳ user79 mutuals supporting mutualsss
user99 i'm a ferrari fan through and through but tonight i'm definitely rooting for Y/N. no driver should ever feel unsafe in the paddock.
lucaromano that's my champ right there ↳ user89 LUCA!!! thank you for protecting our girl ☹️ ↳ user62 get this man a massive raise, the race engineer of the year award, EVERYTHINGGGG
user80 Are we just not going to talk about the literal wall of security standing around her grid slot??? Toto is NOT playing around today ↳ user43 that's good imo. after what happened in that press room, she deserves to feel 100% safe
user77 i've never wanted a driver to win a race more than i do rn. best of luck, yn!!
The dry desert heat of Bahrain did nothing to clear the heavy, suffocating tension hanging over the Mercedes garage.
Sunday had arrived.
Normally, race day followed a perfect rhythm. Mechanics moved with practiced urgency, engineers huddled around laptops, and the distant roar of support races echoed through the paddock.
Today felt entirely different.
The air itself seemed heavy. Every conversation dropped to a whisper whenever someone important walked past. Security guards stood at the garage entrances with crossed arms and sharp eyes, and even the journalists lingering behind the barriers seemed unusually quiet.
You sat in the back corner of the garage, elbow resting on your knees, staring at the telemetry screens in front of you. Normally, you loved this part. You would be asking questions, studying every graph, and looking for tiny advantages. Today, the numbers just blurred together.
The high-pitched hum of generators filled the silence around you, and a wheel gun whirred briefly in the distance. You barely noticed. Instead, your mind replayed the same memory for the hundredth time.
The press room. The crowd. The questions.
And that man. Standing at the back, watching you. Smiling.
You didn't realize you were staring off into space until someone stepped directly into your line of sight.
"Hydration fluid's checked. Radio is ready as well."
It was Luca. He crouched beside you, holding a tablet against his chest. He looked exhausted, the kind of deep tiredness that comes from carrying too much stress for too long.
Yet, the moment he looked at you, he forced a smile. He did it because he knew you needed to see it.
"How are the jitters, champ?"
"They're there."
Luca nodded slowly. "The normal kind?"
You looked away. "No. Every time I look out... I just keep thinking about that guy. The one at the back. The one who smiled at me."
Luca lowered himself on a stool beside you. Around the garage, the mechanics continued working. Nobody interrupted or looked over, but you knew they were listening.
"Look at me," Luca said, his voice calm. "The garage is secure. The FIA have been monitoring every data stream. Toto has private security monitoring the paddock."
He leaned in closer. "And if somebody so much as breathes near this car without authorization about fifteen mechanics, me included, will tackle them before they get within three meters."
The finally earned the smallest hint of a smile from you.
"There she is," Luca pointed out immediately.
"I'm serious."
"So am I." He softened his tone. "Listen carefully, alright? I know this has been hell. I know everyone is talking about investigations, sabotage, and suspects. I know you've spent so long wondering if someone's targeting you."
The knot in your chest tightened because he was right. You hadn't slept properly in days. Every unfamiliar number on your phone made your pulse spike.
"But none of that changes one thing," Luca continued.
"What?"
His smile returned. "You can still drive."
You stared at him. "But what about the investigation?"
He shrugged. "Not your job."
"The FIA?"
"Not your job."
"The police?"
"Definitely not your job."
Luca pointed out toward the open track. "The car out there? That's your job."
Outside, you car sat beneath the garage, ready and waiting. For a moment, all the noise faded. You suddenly remembered why you started racing in the first place.
It was for that exact feeling when the visor drops, the lights go out, and the entire world narrows down to just the next corner.
Luca noticed the shift in your face. "There she is. There's our driver."
You rolled your eyes. "That was cheesy, especially for you."
Luca stood up. "Much better."
You grabbed your helmet from the table, its familiar weight settling in your hands. Luca waited as you pulled on your balaclava, then placed a grounding hand on your shoulder.
"You ready?"
Slowly, you slid your helmet on. The sounds of the garage dulled, replaced by the rhythm of your own breathing. The fear and uncertainty were still there, but underneath it all, your determination had finally return.
Luca grinned. "Let's show them who we are."
Walking out onto the grid felt like stepping directly into a storm.
The grandstands on either side of the circuit were packed tight. Thousands of voices merged into a constant roar that pressed against your helmet. Heat shimmered above the asphalt and distorted the cars ahead into wavering silhouettes.
But the moment you lowered yourself into the cockpit, the chaos outside instantly dulled.
Inside, the noise didn't vanish. It just became background. It turned into a steady, vibrating hum beneath the surface of everything.
And then, a strange calm settled over you.
Toto appeared at the side of your cockpit, his presence cutting through the grid's chaos. He leaned over the halo, his face composed.
"Drive your race, alright?" Toto said, his voice low and steady, carrying easily over the roar of the grid. "Leave the rest to me."
You met his gaze and gave a firm nod. There was no hesitation, and no need for words. He held your gaze for a beat longer, then straightened up and stepped back.
Around you, the grid began to clear. Mechanics moved, ripping away the tire blankets in swift motions and stepping back in unision. Final checks were completed with hand signals and sharp nods.
One by one, the cars came alive, their engines snapping into life nad vibrating the air with aggression.
You exhaled once, slowed and controlled.
Five red lights. Each light held just long enough to stretch the silence into something almost unbearable.
Then—they went out.
Your reaction time was absolutely flawless. The exact millisecond the five red lights vanished, your fingers dropped the clutch with perfect precision.
By the time you reached the heavy braking zone of Turn 1, you had already swept cleanly past the Ferrari on your left. You held your line tight, avoided the chaos of the midfield behind you, and claimed P2, slotting yourself behind the leading Red Bull.
"Wonderful start. Wonderful." Luca's voice crackled loudly over the radio, bubbling with genuine excitement and a massive wave of relief.
"Clean air behind you now. Gap to the leader is 1.2 seconds."
For the next thirty laps, the race became a masterclass. The car felt absolutely amazing, responding to your slightest touch like an extension of your own body.
You were hunting the leader down, corner by corner, lap by lap. The paralyzing fear and anxiety that had gripped you all weekend had completely burned away, replaced by pure competitive fire.
By Lap 34, your patience paid off. You had closed the distance down to just eight-tenths of a second, placing you firmly within the DRS zone.
The granstands erupted into a roar every time you flashed down the main straight, your rear wing snapping open to give you a massive burst of speed.
"You're faster than him through Turn 4 and all of Sector 2," Luca updated you. "Keep the pressure exactly where he is. He's starting to struggle and his rear tires are overheating. The win is on the table today, it's yours for the taking."
"Copy that," you breathed heavily, sweat stinging your eyes beneath your visor as you braced your neck against the force of the next corner. "I see it. I'm setting him up."
What you couldn't see from inside your car was that the Mercedes pit wall had just thrown all racing protocols out the window and descended into absolute chaos.
Halfway through the race, a cyber-forensics unit had finally broken through the final layer of encryption on a hidden server belonging to Alistair, the engineer suspected of messing with your car.
It wasn't done by brute force; it was the result of emergency legal orders that only get issues when something has gone wrong. The data didn't just show a small breach. It revealed something worse.
Back at the garage, a massive header flashed across Luca's secondary monitor: CHAIN OF CUSTODY VERIFIED—FINAL BRIEF ATTACHED.
Luca stared at the screen, his face completely pale as he tried to process the information. There were pages of structured analysis, bank transfers, and secret emails.
It wasn't a messy leak; it was an organized, clear trail that mapped out total criminal intent.
He leaned closer to the monitor, his breath catching in his throat as he traced the filed upward. Pure panic set in. Luca's hand hovered over his radio console.
For the first time in his career, he had no idea who he was supposed to call first. Does his call Toto? The team lawyers? Strategy? FIA?
He decided to open a private line to Toto.
"Toto, I need you—" Luca started, his voice incredibly tight. But as he looked back at the monitor, a final name loaded at the bottom of the document. A signature buried deep under the legal layers came into view, and his stomach dropped.
In a moment of pure reflex panic, Luca moved too fast. His brain was processing something he emotionally couldn't handle, and his hand slammed down the radio console.
But his palm missed the private team button. He accidentally missed the master routing switch, the one that connected the pit wall directly to the broadcast feed.
Inside your cockpit, you only heard a faint click and a bit of distortion in your earpiece, like a door briefly opening. But out in the real world, Luca's raw, unfiltered voice blasted out to millions of fans watching at home and over the live feed.
Crofty had been mid-sentence, his voice pitched high as he narrated your chase. Brundle sat right beside him, eyes glued to the live timing screens.
"—this is not supposed to be on any public feed. Toto, are you seeing this?!" Luca shouted, his voice sharp and fractured.
Crofty cut himself off instantly. "Uh... a bit of crossed wires there from the Mercedes pit wall," Crofty said quickly, trying to smooth it over for the millions of viewers at home. "An accidental broadcast from—"
"Alistair's hardware was routed through a shell company owned by Horner. It was Red Bull. Christian Horner ordered the sabotage on her car. It's right here in the final—"
Suddenly, a loud burst of digital static tore through the channel like a blade. On Luca's console, the audio line collapsed into a flat, dead silence.
Crofty was the first to find his voice, though the usual booming, energetic tone was completely gone.
"Right... well," Crofty stammered. "An extraordinary... unprecedented audio transmission there, seemingly from Y/N L/N's race engineer. We... we apologize for the nature of that broadcast, but Martin, I don't even know what to say to that."
"David, if what we heard is accurate..." Brundle paused. "We are no longer looking at a sporting penalty. We are looking at a full-scale criminal matter here."
"Christian Horner named directly by Mercedes's Luca Romano," Crofty breathe, finally finding his professional footing. "Accusations of deliberate sabotage against the rookie."
Crofty took a breath, trying to bring focus back to the track even as social media began to explode globally.
"An absolute bombshell dropped in the middle of the dessert. We will, of course, bring you updates from the FIA and both teams the exact moment we get them. But for now, Y/N is still hunting down Verstappen for the lead of a race that had just become historical for all the wrong reasons."
Inside the car, the sudden noise of Luca's voice over the radio and the immediate echo of his words sent a literal shockwave through your entire body.
Horner.
You brain completely rejected the information for a split second. The team principal of Red Bull. The man who stood on the podiums with his drivers, who smiled for the cameras, who ran the most dominant team on the gread.
Your hands shook violently against the carbon-fiber steering wheel, your grip slipping against your gloves. You were flying toward the heavy braking zone, but your mind was completely gone, trapped in a terrifying tailspin of horror.
Because your mind was entirely somewhere else, you missed your braking marker by a mile.
You slammed on the brakes in a panic, locking up the front tires violently. A massive, blinding cloud of white tire smoke erupted from the rubber, filling your vision.
Reacting on pure survival instinct, you violently overcorrected. The car spun across, tires screaming, before sliding deep into the dusty gravel trap outside the corner.
By the time you dragged the heavily flat-spotted car out of the gravel and back on the tarmac, four cars had already flashed past you in a blur of engines.
You had dropped from P2 down to P6. Your hands were trembling so hard that you could barely hold the steering wheel straight against the violent vibrations caused by your tires.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Luca choked out over the radio, his voice cracking with an immense wave of guilt, panic, and sheer horror at what his mistake had caused. "I hit the wrong master switch on the panel. I didn't mean to broadcast it. I didn't mean to—"
"Is it true?" you demanded, interrupting hin. Your breathing was shallow and ragged, and tears of pure anger and adrenaline pricked the corners of your eyes. "Luca, is it real?"
Before Luca could even attempt to answer, Toto's voice cut in heavily.
"All of it is true. It is all true," Toto said, his voice steady. "But right now, you focus on the track. You bring that car home. Do not let him take this race away from you too."
The people didn't even seem to be watching the race anymore.
A collective, defeaning uproar surged through the circuit as security vehicles and FIA officials converged directly on the Red Bull garage. The timing was completely surreal: cars were still on track, while right back at the garage, an operation was taking place.
And in that moment, the entire paddock understood. Christian Horner was being formally detained. He wasn't being escorted out for questioning later, and he wasn't quietly removed behind closed doors.
It was happening right there, in front of everyone, in the middle of live Grand Prix.
Mechanics stood frozen. No one spoke. No one needed to. The silence inside the garage was heavier than any engine noise outside could ever be.
On track, the race continued, but it no longer felt like the center of anyone's universe. When the checkered flag waved, it felt entirely ceremonial and empty—an obligation rather than a celebration.
You crossed the finish line in a lonely, exhausting P6. There was no celebratory radio message waiting for you, and no immediate flood of relief from the pit wall.
You rolled into parc fermé and turned the engine off. Instantly, your world shark. The absolute silence inside your helmet made your own breathing sound incredibly loud.
For a long moment, you didn't move. You rested your forehead against the steering wheel, your gloved hands gripping it loosely, just inhaling slowly to try and calm your system.
When you finally climbed out, the paddock felt too bright. You didn't look toward the podium, you didn't look at the giant screens, and you didn't look out the buzzing crowd.
You pulled your helmet off, head damp with sweat, and walked straight into the Mercedes garage.
The entire team was already gathered there, standing in a quiet, tense circle. Luca stepped forward first. He look completely wrecked, his face filled with an immense weight of guilt.
"I am so deeply sorry. The radio broadcast... I ruined your race. I didn't mean to—"
You didn't let him finish. You took one step forward, closing the distance between you and pulled him into a tight, sudden hug.
"You found him, Luca," you whispered against his shoulder. "You found who did it. That's all that matters."
Luca gripped your firesuit tightly, anchoring himself. Behind him, Toto stepped forward. He didn't interrupt, but he placed a large, grounding hand on your shoulder to let you know that situation was finally under control.
Cameras were already pressing against the barriers, their flashes strobing constantly like distant lightning, but Toto subtly shifted his frame to block their line of sight, protecting you from the lenses.
"He's in custody," Toto said. "Horner will never step foot in this paddock again."
There was no triumph in Toto's voice, only pure resolution. Around the garage, engineers exhaled for the first time in hours, while others just stared at the floor, wondering what this meant for the future of the sport.
You stepped out from the garage and looked out at the circuit. The desert sun was brutal and bright, illuminating a paddock filled with historic chaos.
But the paralyzing fear that had followed you ever since your crash in Suzuka—the terrifying certainty that someone was trying to destroy your career from the shadows—was completely gone. It wasn't just delayed. It was permanently removed.
You took a slow, deep breath, and for the first time in weeks, it didn’t feel like you were breathing under pressure. You hadn’t stood on the podium today, you hadn’t heard your national anthem, and you weren't holding a trophy.
But standing there with your team, you understood something far bigger than a race victory. The race results would fade and the headlines would change, but the truth had finally been dragged into the daylight in front of the entire world.
POST RACE INTERVIEWS
🎙️Lewis Hamilton
[Reporter]: Lewis, the FIA has officially verified the data packet. Christian Horner directly ordered the sabotage on your teammate's car. What is your reaction to this?
[Lewis]: I'm honestly... I'm just sick to my stomach. We talk about rivalry, we talk about the pressure to win, but this is a sport where we risk our lives every single week.
To find out a Horner, someone supposed to be a leader, weaponized technology to sabotage a competitor's vehicle? It's evil. There's no other word for it.
My thoughts go out to Y/N. To have her dreams targeted, to have her safety compromised by a powerful grown man playing sick corporate games... it makes me furious.
🎙️Max Verstappen
[Reporter]: Max, the FIA has just officially confirmed the digital forensic data. Christian Horner had been implicated directly. As he leading driver, what is your reaction?
[Max]: Look, I am completely disgusted. Completely. I am out there racing my heart out, fighting fair and square on the track, and to find out that the head of my own team is behind the scenes doing... doing criminal stuff like this?
What Christian did didn't just sabotage Mercedes; it risked Y/N's life and honestly, it disgraced everyone who wears this Red Bull uniform. I don't care who he is. I have absolutely zero respect for what he did, and I cannot work with someone like that.
🎙️Lando Norris
[Reporter]: Lando, the grid is in complete shock. What is the feeling among the drivers right now?
[Lando]: Honestly, it's just pure disbelief. We joke about drama, we joke about Drive to Survive, but this is real life. Christian literally endangered a driver on the grid.
Y/N has been an absolute breath of fresh air in F1, she's a brilliant racer, and to find out she was being targeted by the head of Red Bull just because they couldn't beat her fairly?
It's pathetic. It ruins the integrity of everything we do. Max [Verstappen] is right to completely disown him. The guy is a monster for risking her safety like that.
🎙️Y/N L/N
[Reporter]: Y/N... I don't think anyone in the history of broadcasting has ever had to ask a driver this question. You have just driven a brilliant, heart-stopping race, all while the global broadcast exposed that Christian Horner is the one in charge of all of this.
What is going through your mind right now?
[Y/N L/N]: To be honest... I'm still trying to process it. When you're in that car, you have to block out the noise. You have to. So to find out that a rival used a shell company to plant something in my car... just terrifies me.
We put our lives on the line the second we're in there. We accept the risks of racing, but we don't accept the risk of being hunted, you know?
I'll let Toto and the police handle Christian. My job is to drive. If Horner wanted to stop me from racing, he should have tried harder, because I'm not going anywhere.
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