Lando Norris builds the most dangerous car on the grid and hands the keys to Oscar Piastri.
It’s the worst decision he’s ever made.
It’s the best decision he’s ever made.
A story about expertise and obsession. About two people who speak the same language and refuse, spectacularly, to say anything that matters.
Until they do.
rating: E
chapters: 8/? — ongoing (updated every 4 to 6 days - currently 63k words)
tags: billionaire lando norris, secret genius lando norris, corrupting the golden boy, competence kink, praise kink, slow burn, heavy angst, bisexual lando norris, repressed oscar piastri, lando norris is not a driver, lando norris is a mess, angst and fluff and smut, workplace relationship, boss/employee relationship, infidelity, forced proximity, shameless smut, angst with a happy ending
Learn about how our astonishing Aussie developed into a Formula 1 superstar.
Oscar takes us through the key moments that have shaped his racing career, from harnessing his competitive spirit, to competing against adults in remote control (RC) racing as a child in Australia, and moving to the UK at the age of 14.
“Cars were kind of always in my family, so there was always kind of the need for speed. You know, racing is very much a sport of just competing against other people, but ultimately you're competing against yourself as well and trying to make sure you get the most out of yourself every time. But definitely, wanting to improve, that's a big part of the enjoyment for me, is trying to be better than I was, and ultimately trying to be better than everyone else.
Since I was a kid, I always liked cars, I liked going fast, I was always very competitive, whether it was in sports, schoolwork, anything, I always wanted to try and do it either as fast as possible, or as good as possible, or both.
And then when I started racing, I got into it pretty naturally, and then naturally once you're good at something, and you have a passion for things around it, then you want to keep doing it. I grew up in Melbourne, Australia, for the first 14 years of my life, and then I moved to the UK.
I knew that it was a necessary step to try and make it as a racing driver. I wanted to be a professional, and going to Europe was the best way of doing that. In hindsight, it was actually a really nice experience, really cool experience, so I enjoyed it. But as a 14 year old kid, the idea of living at school didn't sound like the most fun, but if it meant I got to drive race cars, then that was good enough for me.
School was very accommodating for that, as long as I didn't cause any trouble, and still got pretty good grades, which I mostly did. So they were very good at letting me go and try and chase my dreams, which was very cool.
RC racing was in Australia, and the start of my racing career, if you want to say that. I was six years old when I started racing those, and it started out just me driving it around the backyard, school oval, anywhere really, and then started racing it.
I was racing against adults, or the next oldest person was probably a teenager, so to be eight or nine and racing against those people felt a little bit intimidating at times. I mean at that point, I didn't really care, I was just driving RC cars because I really loved it, but also kind of conscious that I was doing something that not many people do.
I did win eventually, yes, I won a national title in the, not the top division, but the second, which yeah was a really cool memory and cool moment. I mean still one of my first memories of success, that was a really cool moment.
The first time I went karting properly was a lot of fun. I spun on my outlap, certainly wasn't quite unnatural at start. But I found my feet pretty quickly after that, and some of the stuff I learned from RC racing transferred, probably a lot of it didn't.
I just really loved it, loved going fast, and then you know, once I started getting close to the pace. Then my competitive instincts really kicked in, and I wanted to know how to go faster, I wanted to do more laps to try and get closer, I wanted to race people and learn how to race that was a really cool journey as well.
My first time in a single seater was also very fun. It’s very different to anything I'd driven until that point, a lot faster on the straights, but on a much bigger circuit, just a very different way of driving. And once I drove that for the first time, I knew that that's what I wanted to do next after karting. I would say I picked that up pretty quickly and pretty naturally, and once I knew that I was naturally picking it up pretty well, then it encouraged me even more to try and chase that.
My first time in an F1 car was, the end of 2020, so I'd won the F3 championship, and I got a test day kind of as a reward for that at the time. That was just awesome, very intimidating. I still never forget the moment where my engineer for the day said: “okay, we'll just, quickly get your weight, and then you can jump in, and we'll go out in five minutes.”
I kind of felt like I needed about half an hour to build up to that point, for them it was just another driver getting in a car. But for me it was, getting in a car I've dreamt of driving for years, and also a very expensive one, and a very fast one. That was a really special moment, but then once you do your first laps, then naturally you try and push the limits, find where the limit is, and try and go faster. So that was a really awesome day.
You know, I started out racing, and I still go racing because I love it, and even when you don't think there's much to learn, there's always something to learn, and that's probably the biggest thing, is just never stop trying to improve.
Because quite frankly the other people on the grid are also fast racing drivers, so you need to have all those extra bits nailed as well, because they're not extra bits anymore, they're the bits that you need, and you need to look after yourself well.
You need to be a good team player, you need to work with, not just the team of around you, but the hundreds of people at the factory as well, so you need to be a lot of things. But you can be all of those things, and if you're not fast, then it doesn't really matter, but it would be nice to think that I wasn't just, you know, a driver in a time of success for the team.
I'd like to think that I was a driver that helps the success of the team, even if I don't become a world champion or, you know, none of that happens, and I think just being known as someone who went out racing as hard as they could, did everything they could to try and be the best, but also in the right way, that's an important thing for me as well. I think just being a true racer, a hard racer, but someone that was, very committed to the team and tried to make McLaren a better team.”
YIELD PIASTRI RAHHHHHH you've changed my life for the better and best omg one of the most compelling fics i've read i'm soo intrigued to see how things play out !! the tension !! also love the physics glossaries in the notes <3 thank youuu
AHHHH thank you so much omg 😭😭 this is genuinely so sweet, you have no idea how happy this makes me!!! i’m so glad you’re enjoying the tension and the way everything is unfolding, because i’m having the best time writing it and making everyone suffer just a little bit <3
and YAY i’m so happy the physics glossaries are useful!! thank YOU for reading and for sending this, it made my day <333
just finished pointing north and wow oh wow! they actually haven’t yet invented the words i need to describe how good that was. genuinely so indescribably, beautifully devastating 🩶
oh my god thank you so, so much 😭 this is such an incredibly kind thing to say and I genuinely don’t know what to do with myself. this is probably one of the loveliest compliments I could ever receive for this story, especially because that’s exactly the feeling I was hoping would come through. thank you for reading it and for taking the time to send this, it really means the world to me 🤍
Oscar gives Lando a compass for his fifteenth birthday. The needle always finds North. Oscar spends the next decade pretending he doesn’t know what that means.
27k words / explicit / underage sex / slow burn / childhood friends to lovers / heavy angst / happy ending / one-shot (absurdly long one-shot)
