The Art of the Apex: Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5 || Part 6 || Part 7 || Part 8 || Part 9 || Part 10 || Part 11 || Part 12 || Part 13 || Part 14 || Part 15 || Part 16 || Part 17 || Part 18 || Part 19 || Part 20 || Part 21 || Part 22
Red Flame: Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3 || Part 4 || Part 5 || Part 6 || Part 7 || Part 8 || Part 9 || Part 10 || Part 11 || Part 12 || Part 13 || Part 14 || Part 15
One-Shots:
Jenson Button:
One-Shots:
Sparks
Sebastian Vettel:
One-Shots:
In the Background
Fernando Alonso:
One-Shots:
Charles Leclerc:
One-Shots:
Carlos Sainz:
One-Shots:
Max Verstappen:
One-Shots:
Lewis Hamilton:
One-Shots:
George Russell:
One-Shots:
Checo Perez:
One-Shots:
Oscar Piastri:
One-Shots:
Sunshine Among the Clouds
Behind Closed Doors
Lando Norris:
One-Shots:
Second Again
Soft Launch Lando
Love Notes
Ocean Eyes
A/N: I will be working through this and adding more as time goes on! I know I'm missing some drivers, but I plan on adding them later. For now, I'll work with these! Send in your requests or questions! I'll also add more tags when I have something written for each driver!
Summary: Back when Frida Montoya was just starting her F1 career, before Max was her driver and her champion, before she gave herself the liberty to love and be loved, Friday was just a girl. A girl who missed what it felt like sitting in a kart, a girl who almost disappeared from the world of racing. But she didn't, she came back, McLaren giving her the chance and marking this the beginning to what she would become.
Requested: Yes
A/N: I wanted to build up on Frida's lore and also keep adding to the story between her and Carlos. Let me know if you'd like to see any other stories!
Masterlist
2019 – Woking, England
Carlos Sainz had just launched the first episode of DONTBLINK, his new vlog series capturing life as a Formula 1 driver. It was the start of a new chapter with McLaren, a team rebuilding itself from the ground up. Energy buzzed through the factory, a mix of cautious hope and raw ambition.
Frida had slipped into this world without fanfare. She wasn’t a driver anymore, but she carried herself like she was still taking the corners faster than she should have. This was her first year, after graduating a month ago, interning with McLaren’s strategy department, shadowing the team’s senior race strategist and handling data simulations, sector analysis, and pre-race modeling. Quietly, she became indispensable, especially to Carlos.
They had history.
Years ago, they raced each other in Spain, long before sponsorships and press conferences, when the only thing that mattered was lap time. Frida was a rising star in the international karting scene, she had made waves and turning heads on the European circuits. Carlos remembered her as the girl with the sharp lines and sharper eyes. He had beaten her once. She had beaten him twice. The rivalry burned bright for a while, but life took them in different directions. She left racing, unvolunatily, before she could make the leap to Formula 4. He never stopped.
Now here she was, in his orbit again. Older, more focused, still fast in the ways that mattered.
Carlos didn’t say anything at first. Just watched her from the other side of the debrief room, his expression unreadable. Frida had grown used to people recognizing her name from old karting footage, but this was different. Carlos looked at her like no time had passed at all.
It was Lando who broke the tension. He gravitated toward her almost immediately, asking questions about race craft and setups, teasing her when she corrected his assumptions. He called her “Coach” half-seriously, and she rolled her eyes but never pushed him away. To him, she was the cool older sister who knew everything. To Carlos, she was the ghost of something unfinished, or rather somwthing they never really started.
Frida hadn’t expected to end up at McLaren. She had spent the last two years mentoring young karters and volunteering with development programs across Europe and the U.S., building a quiet but powerful reputation behind the pit wall, all while finishing her last years in college. When she applied for the McLaren internship, she didn’t think it would go anywhere. Then the call came. The recommendation letters from karting teams had opened the door, but the surprise endorsement from Jos Verstappen had sealed it. She had her suspicions about that one. Max had never said a word, but she remembered their last race in Genk. She had passed him cleanly on the final lap in the rain. He never forgot a loss.
By the time the third episode of DONTBLINK was filmed, Frida had settled into the rhythm of paddock life. She stayed off-camera, focused on the numbers, on strategy briefs and software models. But Carlos had other plans.
McLaren had organized a fan event—a karting challenge where guests could race against Carlos himself. It was meant to be lighthearted, fun content for the vlog. What the fans didn’t know was that Carlos had quietly enlisted a second driver. Someone who hadn’t touched a kart competitively in years. Someone he wanted to see on track again.
Frida didn’t agree right away. She tried to laugh it off, telling him she was rusty, that she didn’t want the attention, the scars from her acciddent becoming a prominent thought in her mind. Carlos just smirked. “I remember what you’re capable of. Don’t pretend you forgot.”
That was how she ended up there, standing just outside the frame as the cameras rolled. Carlos played his part for the vlog: charming, relaxed, hyping up the event. Lando was there too, doing commentary and teasing fans about the “mystery driver.” Frida waited in silence, her helmet in hand, watching it all unfold.
The scent of fuel and rubber filled the air. Her heart beat steady in her chest, but something stirred beneath it. It wasn't nerves or fear. This was something deeper. The sensation of returning to a version of herself she thought she’d buried came back with full force.
When she finally stepped out onto the track, some of the fans recognized her. A few shouted her name, others whispered in confusion. Carlos looked over at her, eyebrows raised, and nodded once. It was a silent acknowledgment of the past they shared, and maybe a challenge too.
She lowered her visor, slipped into the kart, and let muscle memory take over. This wasn’t a vlog anymore. This was personal.
The engine purred beneath her like an old friend greeting her after spending years apart.
Frida adjusted the strap on her helmet and lowered herself into the seat, the familiar creak of the chassis settling beneath her weight. Her gloves were slightly too big. The kart had been adjusted in a hurry. None of it mattered here. Not the film crew, not the fans watching from the sidelines, not even the cameras mounted on helmets and barriers to capture every angle for Carlos’s vlog.
None of it could touch the silence she found in those final seconds before the green light.
Carlos stood by the barrier, helmet tucked under his arm, his smile for the camera faltering for the first time that day. He had seen her in a kart before, years ago on sun-drenched tracks in Spain and Belgium, surrounded by boys who underestimated her until they were eating her dust. But this was different.
She hadn’t raced since the accident.
The crash in Lonato had been brutal. She didn’t talk about it often, but the paddock whispered. A fractured wrist, a concussion, and the death of the woman who had never missed a race: her mother. Everyone thought she’d come back. Frida Montoya was too talented, too driven, too fast to disappear. But she never did return.
Until now.
Carlos watched her tighten the straps and settle in, her expression wasbunreadable beneath the helmet visor. He should have felt proud, vindicated even, for convincing her to do this. But what filled his chest instead was a weight he couldn’t name. Something protective. Something familiar. He remembered her the way she was at fourteen, fearless and focused, teeth gritted as she dived into apexes like the world depended on it.
Carlos remembered the way her eyes looked in Barcelona two years after the accident when they ran into each other at a race and she flinched at the sound of engines in the distance. She had changed since that day. But here she was, back in the kart, surrounded by fans and filming crews, the past hanging between them like smoke.
The flag dropped.
Frida launched off the line cleanly, her reaction time sharp. Not perfect, she hadn’t driven competitively in years, but the instinct was still there. She took the inside line into the first corner, tucking into a tight angle that forced the fan beside her to back off. By the third lap, she was running in second, eyes locked on the kart in front of her.
Carlos didn’t cheer. He didn’t joke. He stood still, visor down, fingers twitching around the edge of his gloves.
She was fast. She wasn't racing like she used to. Fer decisions weren't wild or reckless. She raced with measured, quiet, relentless desicions. Frida wasn’t about to prove anything. She wasn’t beating Carlos or Max. This was about control. This was about reclaiming something that had been taken from her when her world shattered on a dusty Italian circuit.
Halfway through the session, she overtook the leader with a clean outside move, braking late and rotating the kart through the corner in a single elegant motion. It was the kind of move that could only come from someone who had once lived for this.
Carlos exhaled slowly. His chest ached in a way that surprised him.
Frida didn’t look toward the barrier. She didn’t glance at the camera. She crossed the line first and lifted her visor only after the engine sputtered to a stop. Sweat clung to her temples. Her breathing was shallow, but her eyes were clear. Frida Montoya was alive.
He walked toward her slowly, the rest of the world fading behind him—Lando’s laughter, the fans cheering, the producers scrambling to capture soundbites. None of it mattered.
She sat in the kart like it had never left her.
“I forgot what it felt like,” she said softly, not looking at him. “To be here. To be myself.”
Carlos crouched beside her, his voice low, private. “You looked like you never left. You know, I always thought you were destined for F1. I thought you'd be the first woman to sit in a car. I thought we'd have a chance to extend the rivalry.”
Frida blinked once, the sun catching the sheen in her eyes, but she didn’t cry. She wouldn’t let herself. Not here. Not yet.
“I thought I buried this part of me. I stopped thinking about sitting in an F1 car ad started thinking how could I build oe instead,” she murmured.
He reached for her glove and pressed his fingers to the back of her hand.
“You didn’t bury it,” he said. “You protected yourself.”
She pulled off her helmet to the sound of collective gasps. This was the crowd that hadn't really seen her before she put her helmet on.
There had been murmurs before the race. Some fans had suspected. A few recognized her stance, the precise way she approached corners. But most didn’t dare believe it until they saw her eyes, steady and familiar, framed by loose wisps of hair that had slipped from her braid.
Frida Montoya.
The name rippled through the crowd like wind over water. Some clapped. Others just stood there, stunned. A few had tears in their eyes—fans who remembered her from the early 2010s, the girl who had been destined for greatness before she vanished from the sport. The girl who had gone silent after the crash in Lonato. After the obituary that named her mother.
Now she was standing in front of them, flushed from adrenaline, her karting suit half unzipped at the collar, and a tired, almost shy smile on her face.
“Surprise,” Lando grinned, clapping his hands. “Our mystery driver is kind of a legend.”
Carlos didn’t say anything right away. He stood behind her, watching as the fans approached, some for photos, others just to say thank you. A little girl no older than ten hugged her without asking, then whispered, “You’re my favorite. I saw your videos.”
Frida crouched down to the girl’s level. “You race?”
The girl nodded.
“Then you’re going to be faster than me someday.”
The smile she gave that girl reached deeper than anything Carlos could have captured on film.
Eventually, the karting event wrapped up. The cameras powered down. The fans left with stories they’d carry for a lifetime. But Carlos lingered, standing by the fence long after the tents were packed and the crew had gone.
Later
Carlos sat in the small editing suite beside the media team, hoodie pulled over his head, a pair of headphones slung around his neck. They were reviewing the raw footage from the day, sorting through clips for the third episode of DONTBLINK.
He hadn’t meant to stay for the whole thing. Usually, he popped in, gave a few notes, and left. But this time, he couldn’t look away.
On the screen, Frida slid past the inside line, tires just brushing the white paint as she overtook a fan with effortless grace. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t performing. She was just...present.
“You want us to cut this down?” the editor asked. “Or leave the full sequence?”
Carlos didn’t answer at first.
He leaned back in his chair, eyes locked on the footage. Frame by frame, it played like memory. It wasn't just memories of the race or maybe the last time he raced against her. Memories of her came back more vivid than ever. The girl who used to chase him down in the rain, back when they were kids in oversized helmets and borrowed fireproofs. Frida, who disappeared, who had every reason to walk away and never come back.
But she did come back.
And he had seen the moment it happened: when the kart rolled off the grid, when she settled into the rhythm of the turns, when the past and present finally met.
“Keep it all,” he said finally, his voice quiet. “Show them everything.”
The editor looked at him, eyebrow raised wuth suspicions of Carlos's feelings bubbling under the surface. “Even the part where you stop talking and just...stare at her?”
Carlos smiled to himself.
“Especially that part.”
The lights in the editing suite buzzed softly overhead. Outside, the factory had gone still. But Carlos remained, headphones back over his ears, eyes tracing her movements on the screen. This wasn't just content or footage. This was something sacred. A promise kept. A piece of her returned back to him.
He didn’t know what this meant yet, not for them, not for her. But he knew one thing as he watched her cross the finish line again and again.
She was still a racer. And somehow, that mattered more than anything else.
Carlos Sainz x Engineer!Verstappen!Best Friend OC, Max Verstappen x Engineer!Best Friend OC
Synopsis: Frida Montoya was never meant to stay behind the pit wall forever. From her karting days with Max Verstappen to her rise as Red Bull’s lead race strategist, she’s played the game flawlessly, until Carlos Sainz begins seeing her as more than just Max’s engineer.
Frida is caught between legacy and loyalty, victory and vulnerability. Frida has to decide whether she will always belong to someone else's race, or is she finally ready to lead her own?
A/N: Sorry I've been gone for so long! I started school last month and I've been busy with homework and working too! I hope this chapter can be my apology for the long wait ❤️ On an unrelated note, did anyone watch Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle? I watched it yesterday, and I thought it was pretty good
Series Masterlist
March: Bahrain International Circuit; Round 1 of the 2024 Season
By the time the paddock landed in Sakhir, few people still spoke her name aloud.
The news cycle had turned. Headlines had moved on. The world of motorsport didn't wait long; not for grief, not for greatness. Whispers that once circled like vultures had quieted, replaced by new rumors, fresh rivalries, and championship predictions that made no mention of her.
Frida Montoya had vanished after Abu Dhabi. There were no press conferences, no cryptic Instagram posts, no confirmed plans. Even when Red Bull’s social media team left her out of the team photo carousel, the silence felt deliberate rather than forgetful.
But at 8:02 on Thursday morning, she walked into the Red Bull garage like she had never left.
She wore a new team jacket zipped halfway up, her badge clipped cleanly to the collar, a tablet tucked beneath one arm. The early desert sun lit up the tarmac outside the paddock tunnels, but the garage itself was still cool, humming with pre-weekend focus. Conversations stopped. Tools clinked to a halt.
A few mechanics glanced up, confused for a heartbeat. Checo caught her silhouette from across the garage and blinked, then smiled with something close to relief. Christian paused midsentence, tilted his head, and offered a subtle, knowing nod, as if the final piece of the puzzle had returned.
But Max?
Max Verstappen didn’t bother turning around. He stood exactly where he always stood on setup days: his arms braced on the counter, eyes fixed on a screen full of live telemetry. And yet, his smirk betrayed him before his voice did.
“Took you long enough,” he said casually, as if they’d only spoken yesterday, which they had.
Frida stepped beside him and slid her tablet next to his screen. “Your fuel map is still too aggressive for the second stint,” she said. “You’re pushing wear into the softs before Lap 19.”
Max turned just enough to glance at her, his grin widening. “I missed your nagging.”
“And I missed your stubbornness,” she replied, eyes already on the numbers.
The moment didn’t break. This was just how they worked. Two halves of a rhythm honed by seasons of chaos, precision, and something deeper than trust. The garage, once frozen in surprise, eased back into motion. Engines growled, radios crackled, and everyone finally exhaled.
Frida was back.
And they were back.
Later that evening, when the floodlights burned into the Sakhir sky and most of the press had filed their early stories, Frida stepped away from the main paddock path. She walked past the Red Bull hospitality unit and down toward the back lot, where the paddock faded into quiet.
Carlos was already there, waiting beneath a low-hanging lamp near one of the private Ferrari team entrances. He leaned casually against the side of the building, dressed in red, arms crossed but relaxed. He wasn’t surprised to see her; he had known for weeks. They had planned this return together, quietly and intimately, with no promises to the press or the paddock.
“You made them forget,” he said as she approached.
Frida tilted her head, puzzled. “Who?”
“Everyone. You made them forget how sharp you are when you want to be,” he said. “And now they’re going to remember.”
She gave him a small, crooked smile. “I didn’t come back to prove anything.”
Carlos reached for her hand. “I know. That’s why it matters.”
She stepped into him, letting the day fall away. His arms came around her like they always had. They were secure, grounded, warm.
“I kept the calendar clear after Melbourne,” he murmured. “Just in case you want to disappear to Mexico again for a few days.”
“Only if we bring a bottle of mezcal and pretend the world doesn't exist.”
Carlos smiled. “That’s already the plan.”
A few feet away, Max walked past with a Red Bull towel slung over his shoulder. He caught sight of the two of them and raised a brow. “If you’re done cuddling, some of us still need to win qualifying tomorrow.”
Frida didn’t miss a beat. “Then stop overdriving Sector 2.”
Carlos grinned. “She’s back, all right.”
Max laughed under his breath and kept walking.
Frida leaned into Carlos once more and whispered, “Let’s start the season right.”
“You already have,” he said.
And as the night rolled over the Bahraini sky, the 2024 season opened with drama or grand declarations (silly season was just beginning), and with quiet power that was anchored in love, shaped by Frida's absence over winter, and sharpened by her return.
Frida hadn’t just come back to the world of F1, she had come home.
Later
The Red Bull garage had emptied into its usual hush. The tools had been tucked away, tire blankets powered down, and telemetry screens dimmed to standby. Only the hum of generators remained, steady as a heartbeat.
Frida sat on the folding stool near the rear monitors, her elbows resting on her knees, headset in hand. The once-pristine device had traveled the world with her. Through championship runs. Through heartbreak. Through silence. She adjusted the settings with muscle memory, tweaking audio levels, cycling through radio frequencies, calibrating every button to her exact preferences. Her fingers moved with quiet precision, but her mind wandered.
She could still hear the way her mother used to say confía en ti, mija when nerves crept in. She could still see the way her grandfather smiled at her the first time she led a race strategy on her own. And she could feel Carlos—always Carlos—in the background of it all, never asking her to choose between love and ambition, only promising to stand with her no matter where she landed.
Footsteps broke the stillness.
Christian didn’t speak right away. He approached carefully, stopping a few feet away. His arms were crossed loosely, and his eyes were softer than usual, less team principal, more father of two who understood the weight of returning.
“You sure you’re ready?” he asked, voice low.
Frida didn’t look up. Her thumb hovered over the comms switch as she finished the last adjustment.
“No,” she said, honest and unguarded.
Christian stayed silent, waiting for what he knew was coming.
Frida finally placed the headset on the table in front of her and met his gaze. Her voice didn’t waver.
“But I know how to win. Even if and when it hurts.”
There was no bravado in her words. No fire-for-effect. Just quiet certainty, grounded in grief, sharpened in solitude, and wrapped now in something steadier than just fury and anger: love.
Christian gave a single nod. He didn’t offer encouragement or platitudes. He simply stepped forward and extended his hand.
“Then let’s win,” he said. Frida reached out and shook it, firm and clear.
Behind her, the door to the garage clicked open once more. Max leaned inside, still in his fire suit from the media rounds, hair tousled and a protein shake in hand. He didn’t say anything at first, just looked between the two of them. Then his smirk appeared.
“Am I interrupting a heartfelt Top Gun reboot?” he asked, eyes twinkling.
Christian rolled his eyes. “Go rest. You’ve got laps to lead tomorrow.”
Max grinned but turned his attention to Frida as Christian walked away.
“I knew you’d come back,” he said simply.
Frida tilted her head. “You sounded less confident when I told you I was staying in Mexico for all of winter break.”
Max shrugged. “I said I knew. Not that I didn’t have doubts.” He hesitated, then added, “It’s good to have you here. I mean it.”
Frida’s expression softened. “You’ve always had me. Just…not always here.”
Max gave a quiet nod and offered his fist for a bump. She tapped it gently, and he left her alone again.
She turned back to the headset on the table, letting her fingers linger over the padding. The numbers would come tomorrow: lap times, split deltas, tyre degradation graphs. But for now, the silence was its own data. And she was ready to listen.
From just outside the garage entrance, she heard her name.
Carlos waited there, leaning against the frame with his arms folded. His Ferrari fireproofs gone, and replaced with a team kit, collar open to the warm desert night. He didn’t call out again. He didn’t need to.
She walked to him, her stride slower now, more grounded.
“You looked good in there,” he said quietly.
“You always say that,” she murmured.
Carlos smiled. “Because it’s always true.”
They stood in silence, the hum of the paddock distant behind them.
“I’m going to make this season count,” Frida said finally.
Carlos nodded. “I know you will.”
“And when it’s done…”
He looked at her, something steady and solemn in his gaze.
“When it’s done,” he said, “we start the next lap. Together. Maybe you'll stay with Redbull, and I'll be in different team colors.”
Frida’s heart caught in her throat, knowing Carlos would follow her until the end of the universe if she asked.
She nodded.
In the quiet of the Bahrain night, there wasn't any need for declarations or promises. The work was ahead of them, and the future was to be written.
But this time, they would write it on their own terms.
Friday Night
The wind swept softly through the Bahrain paddock, warm and dry even after the sun had disappeared behind the desert horizon. The floodlights buzzed overhead, casting silver glows onto the quiet asphalt. The first media day of the season was done, practices ended for the day, the sim sessions were over, and the world was holding its breath for the lights to go out on Sunday.
Frida stepped out of the Red Bull garage for some air and spotted him immediately.
Max sat alone on the edge of the pit wall, elbows resting on his knees, race boots planted firmly beneath him. He didn’t look like the reigning World Champion in that moment. He was just her best friend, taking a breath before the storm.
Frida crossed the tarmac and sat beside him without a word, her jacket still zipped up, headset now slung over her shoulder. She exhaled slowly as she settled next to him, their shoulders nearly touching.
Max didn’t glance at her, but his voice broke the silence.
“I kept your chair at the strategy table clear,” he said. “Just in case you changed your mind after skipping testing.”
Frida smiled faintly. “I didn’t change my mind. I just needed time. After my abuelo died, it was a hard adjustment.”
“I know,” he replied, finally looking at her. “But it felt weird. You’ve never missed the start of a season.”
“I didn’t miss the season,” she said. “Just the noise before it began.”
Max gave a small nod, the kind of gesture only she would catch. “Carlos told me you’d be here the whole time. Still feels good to see it.”
Frida rested her arms on her knees, watching the last of the engineers walk past in hushed conversation. “I had to be here. This is still mine. The work, the team…the fight. Even when it hurts.”
Max glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Still hurts?”
She didn’t lie. “A little. I think it always will. The memories I have of my abuelo will always be with me, but I also thought about my mom a lot, too.”
He was quiet again, letting the honesty hang in the air without trying to soften it.
Frida shifted slightly. “But I’m not here out of guilt. Or fear. I’m here because I love it. I still want this life. This is still home for me.”
Max leaned back on his hands, gaze fixed on the stars just barely visible above the lights. “Good. Because we’re going to need you.”
Frida turned to look at him. “We? I thought you had everything figured out without me.”
Max smirked. “I’ve had three world titles with you. I’d rather not risk going for a fourth title without you in my ear.”
She laughed softly, warmth cutting through the desert chill. “Careful, Max. That almost sounded sentimental.”
He nudged her shoulder lightly. “Shut up and help win me another race.”
They sat like that a moment longer, two veterans of a war only a few people truly understood. The last few seasons had tested them both. Grief, triumph, fractures, and healing. But this? This was new ground. A season not about proving themselves, but living in the moment they had helped build.
Frida tilted her head toward him. “Let’s make this year count.”
Max nodded. “We always do.”
And as the night deepened over Bahrain, neither of them moved.
Carlos Sainz x Engineer!Verstappen!Best Friend OC, Platonic!Max Verstappen x Engineer!Best Friend OC
Synopsis: Frida Montoya was never meant to stay behind the pit wall forever. From her karting days with Max Verstappen to her rise as Red Bull’s lead race strategist, she’s played the game flawlessly, until Carlos Sainz begins seeing her as more than just Max’s engineer.
A/N: Another update for Labor Day! I feel so soft when writing for Frida and Carlos. Especially since today is Carlos's birthday 💙
Series Masterlist
Tlaquepaque, Jalisco
The Week Before Departure
The house was quiet again, filled with the kind of stillness that came after days of mourning and remembrance. The scent of marigolds lingered in the corners, tucked into altars and woven into memories. Outside, the wind rustled the citrus trees with soft insistence, the branches swaying like they, too, knew what had been lost.
Frida moved through the house barefoot, the hem of her cotton dress brushing against old tile. Her hair was pulled into a loose braid, and the gold ring her grandfather had given her mother glinted faintly against her chest. She carried two mugs of café de olla, the cinnamon rising in slow curls of steam.
Carlos was outside in the courtyard, seated beneath the heavy shadow of the jacaranda tree where her abuelo used to sit every morning. His elbows rested on his knees, fingers knotted together, a quiet figure surrounded by cracked flowerpots and candle wax.
She handed him the mug, then sat beside him, knees tucked to her chest, her shoulder resting lightly against his.
For a while, they said nothing.
The night didn’t ask them to.
He took a sip. Then another. His fingers brushed hers. “Do you remember the first time I came here?” he asked, voice low.
Frida nodded. “My abuelo asked if you were the one who made me smile like my mother used to.”
Carlos huffed a soft laugh. “I didn’t know what to say.”
“You didn’t have to. He saw it.”
The silence stretched again, this time wrapped in the weight of absence. Of the chair that sat empty now. Of the photos that would never be updated. Of the goodbye that had come too soon, even though they’d known it was coming.
Frida swallowed thickly. “He waited for me. I think he knew I had to come back one more time before he could let go.”
Carlos didn’t speak. He only reached for her hand, and she let him, threading their fingers together like it was the most natural thing in the world. Because it was. Because they had fought too hard to pretend it wasn’t.
“You don’t have to leave next week,” he said gently. “Red Bull will understand.”
“I know,” she said. “But I need to. For me, not for them. I need to step back into that world on my own terms.”
He nodded. “Then I’ll be with you.”
Her eyes flicked to him, surprised. “Carlos…”
“I won’t get in the way. I won’t follow you into meetings or stand behind the pit wall. I just...I want to be there for you.”
Frida looked at him for a long moment, something warm blooming beneath her ribs. “You’ve already given me more than I thought I could ever have in this life.”
Carlos leaned in, pressing a kiss to her temple. “And I’ll keep giving it. Every day. As long as you’ll let me.”
Her voice was a whisper. “Even if I say yes?”
Carlos pulled back just enough to meet her eyes. “Yes to what?”
“To all of it,” she said. “To you. To this life. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not until after I’ve walked back into that paddock and reclaimed my place. But after that. When the dust settles. When I know what I want the next chapter to be. If I ask you to build it with me?”
“You won’t have to ask,” he said, voice raw. “I’ll already be there.”
Frida let out a soft, shaky breath. Then she smiled, something delicate and sure. “You always did drive with your heart first.”
Carlos chuckled. “And you? You make me want to stay in one place long enough to call it home.”
He kissed her then, slow and unhurried, the kind of kiss that made time irrelevant. Around them, the night deepened, crickets singing softly in the trees, the scent of earth and spice rising into the stillness.
And for a moment, there was no Formula 1. No strategy calls or pressure or legacy.
Just two people who had fought their way toward each other, over miles and heartbreak, through podiums and press conferences, in the middle of a world that never stopped spinning.
And now, finally, they had something more permanent than victory.
They had each other.
3 Days Before Departure
The sun was beginning to sink behind the terracotta rooftops, bathing the courtyard in gold. Light spilled across the old stone tiles and danced through the leaves of the lime trees, casting shadows that swayed like memory.
Frida stood in front of her grandfather’s altar with a quiet reverence. Marigolds, dulces, and a small photo rested among flickering candles. The sugar skull Carlos had painted with her niece sat near the front, the detail delicate and a little crooked, charming in the way only something made with love could be.
Behind her, the house hummed with life. Her cousins shuffled back and forth between the kitchen and garden, carrying pots of pozole and trays of pan dulce. Laughter spilled from the back door. Her tía was singing along to Luis Miguel on the radio. And her father, quieter than usual these past few days, was setting out chairs in the courtyard without being asked.
This was how you said goodbye here. With food and music. With the people who remembered your name before the world did.
Frida touched the edge of the photo frame, her fingers still for a long moment. Then she turned toward the house. She found Carlos seated on the steps, her younger cousin sprawled across his lap mid-story, animatedly explaining the difference between racing cars and the lucha libre wrestlers on TV. Carlos nodded seriously, humoring him, before lifting his gaze to her.
The look they shared was quiet. Certain. Nothing left unsaid.
He mouthed, "Are you okay?"
She nodded. "I will be."
Then her phone buzzed in her dress pocket. She stepped away, slipping into the shade of the jacaranda tree before answering.
“Hi, Max,” she said softly.
His voice was familiar, a little gruff from a day at the sim, but teasing in the way that meant he was still trying to keep things light. “Thought I’d get to you before Red Bull tried to send a private jet.”
“They haven’t, have they?” she asked, only half joking.
“No, but Helmut is circling like a shark. Said something about having you shadow him.”
Frida smiled faintly, the warmth in her chest tinged with something bittersweet. “Tell him to wait three more days. I promised my family I wouldn’t leave before the rosario.”
Max didn’t answer right away. Then, “How are you really?”
She looked up at the soft orange sky, at the gentle chaos of her home behind her. “I’m okay,” she said, and for the first time in weeks, she meant it.
“Good,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if I should call. I didn’t want to make this about racing.”
“It’s not,” she said. “It’s just you and me.”
He chuckled quietly. “You always know how to say things that make people shut up and feel everything at once.”
There was a long pause.
“Frida,” Max said, voice lower now. “I miss you. The garage misses you. But more than that, I’m proud of you. For choosing yourself.”
She blinked hard. “Thank you. I needed winter break to be a break from everything.”
“And for what it’s worth,” he added, “Carlos has always been good for you. Even when I didn’t want to see it.”
Frida smiled, soft and sincere. “He’s my peace, Max. You were my fire. I needed both to become who I am.”
He didn’t respond with words. Just a breath, full of weight and memory.
“Will I see you in Bahrain?” he asked eventually.
“Yeah,” she said.
“I was hoping that you'd say that,” he said. “Just know, whatever role you come back in, you’ll still be the smartest person in the paddock.”
She laughed. “Even smarter than you?”
“Only by half a tenth.”
She shook her head. “Go rest, Verstappen. I’ll see you soon.”
“See you soon, Montoya.”
The call ended.
She slipped the phone back into her pocket and returned to the courtyard just as her father called her name.
They were gathered now, her father, her cousins, her tíos and tías, and even the neighbors who had known her since she was a toddler, throwing pebbles at her brother. Her family didn’t need speeches. Their love was in gestures. In the way her father handed her her mother’s scarf without a word. In the way her tía whispered a prayer beneath her breath as she kissed Frida’s forehead.
In the way Carlos stood beside her, his hand pressed at the small of her back, steady and patient and unwavering.
This wasn’t goodbye forever.
But it was goodbye to the life she had lived before.
And when she stepped into the warm embrace of her family, when they cheered for her not as an engineer, not as the strategist who had helped win two world titles, but simply as Frida, their daughter, their niece, their daughter, she felt something shift.
She wasn’t running anymore.
She was returning.
The Night Before Departure
The lights of the town blinked below like tiny candles. From the rooftop of her grandfather’s house, Frida could see the tops of the old churches, the dome of the cathedral glowing softly against the navy sky. Somewhere down the street, a neighbor’s radio played a slow bolero, and the sound of a distant train bled through the wind.
Carlos sat beside her, his knees drawn up, a blanket draped over their shoulders. Her head rested against his chest, rising and falling with the rhythm of his breath.
Neither of them had spoken for a while. The news had reached the world not long ago. Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari. They shared in the kind of silence that only comes from knowing someone deeply, fully, without needing to fill the gaps.
Then, quietly, he said, “They told me in January.”
Frida blinked, lifting her head slightly to glance at him. His eyes were fixed on the horizon.
“Ferrari,” he clarified. “That Lewis was taking my seat.”
She shifted to sit up, the blanket slipping slightly down her back. “And you didn’t tell me?”
He met her eyes, regret written in every line of his face. “I didn’t want to ruin the time you had here. With your family. With your grandfather.” He paused. “I wasn’t ready to say it out loud.”
Frida didn’t respond right away. Her hand found his under the blanket, fingers curling around his.
“Carlos…” Her voice was soft. “You deserved better than that.”
“I know,” he said. “But I also knew…I wasn’t angry. Not really. I was just...empty. For a long time, I thought that seat was the only thing keeping me grounded. But now...”
He turned toward her, brushing a stray curl behind her ear.
“Now I know it's you.”
The words fell between them like a confession, raw and unarmored.
Frida leaned into him, forehead resting against his. “What are you going to do?”
Carlos gave a small, rueful smile. “I don’t know. Audi and Cadillac are options. I've also been in contact with James Vowels.” He hesitated. “Or maybe I just follow you wherever you go next.”
She pulled back slightly, eyes narrowing. “You’d really do that?”
He nodded without hesitation. “I would. Because I’m not chasing titles anymore, Frida. I’m chasing you.”
It disarmed her completely. She reached for his hand again, holding it tighter now. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “What if we did it?”
“Did what?”
“Got married.”
Carlos froze, but it wasn’t fear that flickered in his expression; it was awe. Reverence. Like she’d spoken a truth he’d been afraid to dream too loudly.
“You mean that?” he asked.
Frida smiled. “You know how I feel about contracts. But if I had to sign one, it’d be yours.”
His laugh was low and warm, tugging her closer. “I want that too. Maybe not tomorrow, but someday. I want to come home to you. Not just here in Mexico. Wherever we land, wherever we go.”
She nodded, eyes glassy, heart wide open. “Someday,” she echoed.
Carlos pressed a kiss to her temple, then another to her shoulder.
“I’ve already picked out the ring in my head,” he murmured against her skin. “Has a little red in it. To remind me how far we’ve come.”
Frida laughed, soft and shaking. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m in love,” he said. “What do you expect?”
The church bell tolled once in the distance.
And for a moment, there was no paddock, no calendar, no news cycle, no pressure.
Just a girl and a boy on a rooftop in Jalisco, dreaming of something that didn’t require a podium to matter.
Summary: At Ferrari’s home race, Solana Villarosa walks the line between devotion and pressure, cheered by the tifosi who chant her name with the same fire they reserved for legends. In a weekend thick with politics, tension, and quiet defiance, she doesn’t just hold her own; she claims her space in history by standing tall in the spotlight meant to drown her. The podium doesn’t need to be hers for the truth to be.
Warnings: Toxicity, team politics, strained teammate relationships
Words: 2.5k+
Previous || Next
Monza, Italy – September 2016
The Temple of Speed roars even before the first engine fires to life.
Solana Villarosa walks through the Monza paddock, the red of her Ferrari fireproofs standing out against the gray of the asphalt and the chaos of camera flashes. The Italian air is thick with late-summer heat and tension, laced with the scent of espresso, rubber, and expectation. This is home soil for Ferrari, and every breath she takes carries the weight of legacy. Her footsteps echo through a crowd that watches her with equal parts awe and scrutiny.
Scarlet banners hang from balconies and flutter from grandstands. Her name is scrawled across homemade posters held up by children in red hats and by fans who have followed her since her debut. But every cheer is laced with judgment, every smile shadowed by doubt. Solana has lived long enough in this world to know that love in Italy is as fervent as it is fickle. Today, she is a gladiator. Tomorrow, she might be a ghost.
The pressure should feel familiar by now, but today it has a different edge. Monza isn’t just Ferrari’s home. It’s a proving ground, a cathedral of speed and history where champions are either born or broken. And she knows what people are whispering in corners and writing in editorials. That she’s outracing Sebastian too often. That her form this season is unsettling the hierarchy. That Ferrari might already be hers, whether she claims it or not.
She pushes the thought aside and focuses instead on the mechanics prepping her car. Marcos, her engineer, meets her with a nod and hands her the latest data sheet. His faith in her has never wavered, not even when the politics inside the team threatened to drown them both.
"Everything looks solid," he says, walking beside her toward the garage. "Temps will rise during the race. Tire management is going to be key."
She scans the telemetry. "Let me know if Vettel shifts to an undercut. If he tries to box early, I want the gap."
Marcos smirks. "Already programmed it. You just focus on driving."
Solana suits up, slipping her helmet on as if donning armor. When she straps into the car, the world narrows. All that remains is the circuit ahead, the rhythm of her breath, and the grip of the track beneath her. The fans chant her name as engines ignite, the sound rising into a thunder that seems to shake the sky.
As she pulls out of the garage and onto the grid, she finds her place.
Not just in the lineup.
But in history.
The Build-Up, Tifosi, and Tension
The tifosi swarm in waves of red, their chants echoing across the paddock with the fervor of true believers. Monza breathes Ferrari, and this year, the chants are not just for Sebastian Vettel. They’re for her too.
“Solana!” one fan cries out, hoisting a handmade sign that reads La Reina della Rossa beside a Mexican flag.
Solana Villarosa lifts a hand in greeting, her eyes hidden beneath dark sunglasses. The roar of approval that follows is deafening. It pulses through her veins like adrenaline, but beneath the warmth of their devotion, there is a familiar pressure: expectation wrapped in affection. Every step she takes on Italian soil feels like walking a razor’s edge.
Inside the Ferrari motorhome, the energy changes. The joy outside gives way to silence, professionalism bordering on brittle. Tension curls in the corners of the room like smoke. Engineers speak in clipped tones. Staff pass each other with brisk nods. The spotlight is bright on both Ferrari drivers now, and not everyone is comfortable with that.
Sebastian Vettel stands near the espresso machine, pretending not to notice her. He doesn’t say hello. Solana doesn’t offer one.
The joint press conference has been scheduled for days, a media necessity that feels more like a duel. Reporters fill the seats, microphones lined like weapons. The air is heavy with anticipation, waiting for cracks to show.
“Solana,” a journalist begins, voice clear over the hush, “Is there competition within Ferrari now that you’ve scored more podiums this season than your teammate?”
Solana meets the question head-on, her tone steady, composed.
“There’s competition in every corner of this sport,” she replies. “But inside Ferrari, there is only one goal: to win. That’s what unites us.”
Sebastian nods beside her, his smile tight. “Exactly.”
The room picks up on the subtle shift in his posture; the way his jaw clenches, the way his foot taps beneath the table. The cameras catch everything.
Solana remains still. Not dismissive, not defiant. Simply present.
And in Monza, under the scrutiny of the fans, the press, and the very heart of Ferrari, that is its own kind of power.
Family in the Stands
It's a rare occasion; her parents have flown in from California, joined by her two younger brothers. Solana spots them near the paddock, all dressed in Ferrari red. Her mother’s hair is pinned back in soft waves, her father proudly holding a homemade sign that reads: ¡Vamos Solana! Nuestra campeona roja!
The sight roots her more firmly to the ground than any press conference or debrief ever could.
Daniel stands beside her, his arm brushing against hers as he follows her gaze. “Your dad looks like he’s ready to jump the barrier,” he teases, warmth in his voice.
Solana lets out a soft laugh. “He probably would if I started from pole.”
Daniel reaches down, gives her hand a gentle squeeze. “You’ve built all of this from scratch. You know that, right? They see it. Everyone does.”
Her throat tightens, emotion rising like a tide she didn’t expect. “I just want to make them proud,” she says, her voice quieter now.
“You already have,” he replies, steady and certain.
Solana doesn’t say anything more. She just watches her family across the barriers, her fingers tightening around Daniel’s for a moment longer.
Because sometimes, before the lights go out and the world roars to life, what matters most is knowing who’s in the stands—cheering not just for the driver in red, but for the daughter, the sister, the dreamer who never stopped pushing forward.
Track Walk and Pep Talks
Solana joins Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen for the track walk that Friday evening. Charles was there for an event hosted by the Ferrari Driver Academy in honor of being in Monza. The golden Italian sun slants low across the Monza tarmac, casting long shadows that stretch between the curbs and the trees lining the circuit. The Temple of Speed has seen decades of legends, triumphs, failures, but in this quiet, golden hour, it belongs only to them.
Charles kicks a loose bit of gravel near the Variante Ascari, his brows furrowed in thought.
"Do you think I could ever take pole here?" he asks, half serious, half hopeful.
Solana lifts her sunglasses onto her head and glances back at him with a small grin. "Not if I keep taking it from you."
Max, walking just behind them, lets out a low chuckle. "I’d say I’d block you both, but that never works."
She fires back without missing a beat. "That’s because I’m an expert in late braking and charming marshals."
Charles laughs, finally relaxing, his nerves softening. Max kicks at the grass with the toe of his sneaker, content in their shared ease. They walk the final sector together in companionable silence, their steps falling into rhythm beneath the fading light.
For just a moment, it's not about qualifying gaps or sponsor obligations. It’s not about internal team politics or fractured relationships. It’s not even about Ferrari, Red Bull, or GP3.
It’s about the hunger they all carry. The belief that there’s still more to build. More to become.
And in that shared space, where ambition isn't rivalry but recognition, they aren't opponents. They're the future.
Solana lets the quiet settle into her bones, knowing that soon the roar will return. But for now, with her protégés at her side and the sun bleeding gold across Monza’s sacred ground, she allows herself to hope.
Just for a moment.
Then she takes a deep breath and keeps walking. Because greatness never waits. And neither does she.
Race Day–A New Kind of Victory
The sun burns high over the Monza, casting long shadows across the pit lane. The roar of the tifosi is thunderous even before the lights go out, their chants rolling over the grandstands in waves of red and gold.
Solana breathes deeply behind the visor of her helmet, the roar of the Ferrari engine vibrating through her spine. She starts P2, a heartbeat behind Lewis Hamilton, with Daniel just behind in third. Sebastian Vettel, oddly subdued all weekend, sits in fourth, though she doesn’t need to glance at the screens to feel the weight of his presence.
The lights blink out.
The start is clean. Hamilton darts forward into Turn 1 with his usual mechanical precision, but Solana tucks into his slipstream, defending fiercely from Daniel, who lunges at her through Curva Grande before backing off. Behind them, chaos brews. By Lap 12, she’s holding her ground in second, while Vettel begins to struggle on worn softs, increasingly erratic on corner exits.
Then, Lap 27.
From her mirrors, she sees it—a flash of red veering too aggressively. Vettel dives on Bottas into the braking zone at Variante della Roggia. Contact. A puff of carbon. Vettel spins into the runoff, the crowd gasping audibly as the replay floods every screen. The radio crackles with frantic updates, but she already knows.
He’s out of contention.
It isn’t satisfaction that blooms in her chest. It’s something more complicated. A quiet ache at how bitter a legacy can taste when it's built on resentment. But she doesn’t have time to linger. Daniel's on the attack again, this time more desperate. Her engineer’s voice, steady as ever, cuts through the storm.
“Solana, Daniel’s within DRS. Defensive mode. Tire wear is even.”
She nods, lips pressed tight behind her visor, "Copy."
Every lap becomes a war of restraint—of throttle finesse and brake timing, of not letting the noise get in. Daniel lunges at Parabolica but can’t make it stick. She holds him off through Lesmo 2. By Lap 45, the gap stabilizes. Her tires scream in protest, but her rhythm is like ice.
And when the checkered flag falls, she crosses the line in second.
Hamilton wins.
Daniel finishes third.
But it’s not the scoreboard that takes her breath away. It’s the sight of her family, standing near the Ferrari garage in a sea of red, their handmade sign fluttering proudly: ¡Vamos Solana! Nuestra campeona en rojo.
Her father, normally reserved, is on his feet shouting. Her mother’s hands are clasped at her chest, eyes glassy with pride. Her brothers lean over the barrier close to parc fermè, grinning like fools. She wants to freeze that image. Bottle it forever.
On the podium, as the British and Italian national anthems plays, Solana stands tall. The scarlet suit clings to her frame, dusted with champagne and sweat. In one hand, she lifts the Mexican flag.
A girl from California. A daughter of Mexico.
A driver who was never supposed to get this far.
The crowd doesn’t just cheer. They chant.
“Villarosa! Villarosa! Villarosa!”
And in the post-race interview, as the camera closes in and the sun gleams off her cheekbones, her voice cracks with emotion.
“I just…I wanted to show that this place—this sport—can belong to anyone who fights for it. Gracias a todos, por creer en mí.”
And in that moment, surrounded by noise, legacy, and love, Solana Villarosa doesn’t just stand on the podium.
She belongs to it.
Back at the Hotel
That evening, the roar of the tifosi fades into the quiet intimacy of a small restaurant tucked just off one of Monza’s cobbled side streets. The walls are worn stone, the tables dressed in white linen, and the air carries the scent of roasted garlic, basil, and wine. Candlelight flickers against the windows as the last light of day slips below the horizon.
Solana sits at a corner table with her family—her parents on one side, her two younger brothers animatedly recounting the race on the other. Daniel sits beside her, his hand resting lightly on her knee beneath the tablecloth, grounding her with the ease of his touch.
Her mother leans in and gently squeezes her hand. Her voice is soft but steady, laced with pride.
“Estás haciendo historia, mija.”
Solana looks down at her wine glass, then up at her mother, her smile small, tired.
“Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it,” she says. “The politics. The way they look at me. The loneliness. Even the good days feel like a war.”
Her father’s expression shifts, quiet strength settling behind his eyes. He places his fork down and meets her gaze.
“Every time you put on that helmet, you carry more than just yourself,” he says. “You carry Jules. You carry Charles. You carry every little girl who’s been told she doesn’t belong. Every boy who’s ever been afraid of being different. You don’t race alone, mija. You never have.”
The words sit heavy in her chest, like a truth she’s always known but rarely allowed herself to feel.
She nods slowly, blinking back the sting in her eyes. “I just wish I didn’t have to fight for every inch.”
“You do,” her mother says, “because you’re changing the road for the ones who will come after you.”
Daniel hasn’t spoken much, but he watches her from beside his glass of Barolo, his eyes never straying far. When her family steps outside for a moment, letting the night air cool their flushed cheeks, Daniel leans in and brushes his knuckles down her arm.
“You were brilliant today,” he murmurs. “Not just fast or smart. You led, even when you weren’t in the front.”
She swallows, the words hitting harder than she expected.
“Sometimes I wish I could let go of the pressure for just one race,” she says, her voice barely audible over the soft clink of cutlery in the background. “Just drive. Just be.”
He reaches out and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers lingering there.
“I wish I could take the weight from you,” he whispers. “Every last bit of it.”
She leans into his touch. “You don’t have to. Just stay close.”
“I will. Always.”
Later, back at the hotel, with the hum of the city quiet outside the windows, she lies curled into his chest, the world stripped away. For a long while, they don’t speak. They don’t need to. His hand rests on her hip, drawing slow, steady circles. She listens to his heartbeat and lets herself breathe.
Not as Ferrari’s wildcard. Not as a symbol or a headline.
Just as Solana. A woman who had fought for her place. And found someone who never made her explain why.
She closes her eyes.
And for the first time in a long time, she doesn’t fall asleep preparing for battle.
She falls asleep imagining what it might feel like to stay.
PAIRING: dirtbag!carlos sainz x cheerleader!reader
WORD COUNT: 4.2k
SYNOPSIS: carlos sainz was a punk. a teenage dirtbag, if you will. he wasn’t popular, he wasn’t part of a clique. you were the opposite. pretty, smart, and a cheerleader. it was natural for him to fall for you, it was the way high school worked. high school didn’t work where the popular cheerleader would fall for the loner, right?
A/N: based off of “teenage dirtbag” by wheatus!! thank you to @cursed-carmine for the ribbon dividers <33
TWS: cursing, terrible high school clichés, not proofread
Surprisingly, Carlos Sainz had never been popular in school. He had his little group of guy friends and he stuck with them all throughout every grade. Everyone told him that high school would be different because he’d had his growth spurt. They said he’d get lots of attention from girls.
He didn’t.
He’d come to the conclusion that your popularity in high school was solely based off of who you sat with on the first day of school, who you’d smiled at in first period in freshman year. He had always been shy so unfortunately for him, by the time he came around to everyone, it was too late.
It never bothered him too much. He never really wanted to be popular anyways. Sure, at times he wished he had the audience, the attention, but he was never really someone who felt like high school was the end all be all. He hadn’t thought that way until he saw you.
You were destined to be popular since day one. You were a cheerleader. You had an older brother who was sort of a jock and was a junior. You were smart. You were pretty. Of course you would be popular and loved by all. Carlos was so sure for the longest time that popularity in high school wasn’t necessarily based off of anything, that the popular kids weren’t remarkably talented or attractive or really exemplary in any category. Their popularity was just chance. With you, however, he felt completely different.
Since the first day of high school, he’d been crushing on you. “Crushing” was putting it lightly. He’d first developed his little crush in freshman year. Now he was a senior and hopelessly in love with you. You’d never spoken to him once. Hell, he was pretty sure you didn’t even know he existed. He was also confident that even if you did knew who he was, you wouldn’t care. His friends vehemently agreed, to his disappointment.
He would go to all of the football games – reluctantly accompanied by his posse – just to see you cheer. He knew it was desperate and funnily enough, he didn’t care. It’s not like you noticed him so why shouldn’t he go see you? Isn’t that what everyone else did? Surely two-thousand other teenagers weren’t that enraptured in football? Was it a crime to respect the art of cheerleading?
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:·
The first time you remembered really noticing Carlos was sophomore year. He was in your pre-calculus class. You didn’t notice him until second semester. He had always sat in the back, throwing things at his friends and to put it quite frankly, acting like a moron. You had always sat up in the front, answering questions importantly and dutifully, to the rest of your peers’ gratitude.
It was just after winter break and your pre-calc professor had gotten entirely fed up with Carlos and his antics. He moved him to the front, right beside you. Teachers tended to do that with you. You were a good example, in athletics, academically advanced, and overall, a good person to diffuse the nonsense from a piece of work like Carlos. You two hadn’t spoken once.
It was now senior year. You had noticed Carlos and his bitch-pack attending every football game. Honestly, you were surprised, you hadn’t expected someone like him to show up to support the school’s athletics.
You couldn’t deny that Carlos had grown into his looks. In sophomore year, he was awkward and gangly, the typical look for a wannabe punk. Now, however, he looked like he worked out and took care of himself. He didn’t look awkward or gangly. He looked like the type of guy that girl’s would secretly crush on, too scared to say anything for two reasons. One, he looked intimidating. Two, what would their parents say if they brought someone like that home?
You didn’t have a crush on him though, or anything of the sort. You had a boyfriend who was on the football team. It was cliché but sometimes clichés were clichés for a reason. It was just convenient. Your boyfriend was a few inches taller than you, he was muscular, and ridiculously athletic. It made sense that the two of you were together. You two looked good together. He was the type of guy parents liked, no matter how he acted with his friends or behind closed doors. He would always put on a chivalrous look for your parents. They ate it up. You just smiled.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:·
Last night had been a particularly brutal win from the football team. The ref had been on edge, the cheerleaders sat horrified, the audience was practically teetering on insanity. Of course, Carlos had gone, observing you lovingly, ignoring the comments from his friends.
He had history with you. He sat diagonally behind you which, in his favor, allowed him to look at you more. He watched you as you took notes, erased things, squinted at the board. All of it. Your mannerisms were so endearing and alluring. He couldn’t help but want to gaze at you forever.
“Carlos! Carlos!” whispered a voice. He blinked out of his haze, his heart racing ludicrously fast when he realized that it was you whispering his name.
“Huh?” he mumbled, completely confused. Why on Earth were you talking to him?
You glanced back at the front of the room anxiously, making sure the teacher didn’t catch the two of you. “Do you have a spare pencil? Mine broke.”
Here you were. Asking for a pencil. From him. God, it was like a dream come true.
He nodded immediately, handing you his own pencil. “Here. Keep it.”
You smiled sweetly at him, the smile tugging up your lips and scrunching your eyes. “Thank you… Carlos?”
He nodded in confirmation. His heart felt like it was going to shatter through his rib cage. He could practically hear it reverberating throughout the room.
You nodded your head back at him. “Thank you, Carlos.”
He dipped his head in recognition. In truth, he didn’t have an extra pencil. He just didn’t want you going around asking everyone else for pencils. He had nothing else to write with and sat staring stupidly at the paper before him, not even slightly regretting his choices.
The class ended a little while later. He debated talking to you. The fluorescent lights above him seemed like a spotlight in this momentary dilemma, only adding to his nerves. He really shouldn’t be this nervous to talk to you, you barely knew his name and probably didn’t give a single damn about him. Something about you made nonchalance impossible.
The smell of erasers and the feeling of linoleum beneath him filled him like a drug and for some reason, he found himself approaching your desk hesitantly. You looked up immediately.
“Hi Carlos,” you greeted warmly, handing him his pencil back. “Thank you for this.”
He shrugged and shook his head, putting his hand out as if to decline your offer. “Oh, don’t worry about it. You can keep it.” He paused for a moment. “I was just wondering if I could borrow your notes. I didn’t have a pencil so I couldn’t, you know, take notes.”
Your lips parted slightly in surprised. “Oh, I’m so sorry! Of course, here.” You quickly fumbled for your notebook and handed it to him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that was your only pencil. Just have the notebook back to me tomorrow, okay?”
“No, don’t worry,” he reassured kindly. “And I’ll have it back by tomorrow, scouts’ honor.”
Your brows furrowed. “Huh?”
“Scouts’ honor? Isn’t that a thing you guys say?” he questioned, his tone slightly unserious.
You laughed, your eyes scrunching slightly. Carlos’s heart clenched at the sound of your sweet laughter. “No, Carlos, I’m a cheerleader, not a girl scout.”
“Okay, okay, ‘m sorry,” he huffed jokingly before swaggering out. You couldn’t help but stare after him. He was entirely different than what you’d expected.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:·
Carlos knew it was ridiculous to flirt with you, or even expect a friendship with you. He knew that. You were practically dating a brick wall, mean, tough, and stupid. What you saw in that man was far beyond Carlos.
He’d tried to give him benefit of the doubt, maybe he just had a rough exterior but was really a nice guy. It was a futile hope but a hope nonetheless. That was squashed when he rammed into Carlos as the he passed in the hallway with nothing more than a grunt of inconvenience.
Your boyfriend clearly was a dick.
Carlos didn’t know much about the guy. All he knew was that he lived a few doors down from him. He drove a nice car, wore a varsity jacket, the whole package.
He and Carlos were two very different men. On one hand, it was very disappointing and hurtful that you were dating a blockhead like him. On the other hand, it almost gave Carlos hope. If you could see the good in a dickhead like that, surely you could see the good in him, right?
After he lent you that pencil, Carlos’s life became instantly better and worse simultaneously. The two of you began to recognize each other. You’d give each other soft, small smiles at each other when passing in the halls. You’d glance at him during class, occasionally making a face when your teacher said something particularly outrageous. You’d make small talk with him before and after class – it was very reassuring to him when he learned that you weren’t just a vapid, moronic cheerleader but actually a very intelligent and comedic woman. However, there were also downsides. Your dickwad boyfriend caught on. He wasn’t as stupid as he looked. Carlos was convinced that if he found out about his infatuation with you, he’d get his ass kicked.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:·
It sounded cliché but Carlos was never a fan of school dances. Ever. Even in freshman year when he and some girl from his gym class came to the mutual agreement to go together. His friends had hyped him up and so had hers but it really was a mutual agreement, like a business deal. Carlos didn’t want to go and she had just been dumped so he agreed to take her in hopes of making her ex-boyfriend jealous – and secretly you too. It had worked and they were making out by the end of the night. Carlos had walked home.
With that being said, now, as May rolled around, Carlos was filled with a typical sense of dread. It seemed as though every corner he turned in school was occupied by a girl being asked to prom by a guy with a huge sign with some corny inside joke or one-liner plastered on it in a homemade fashion. Every corner he turned matches were being made.
He knew that would never be him. As bitter as he was about school dances, he’d grown to accept that. Now, as a senior, he was pretty numb about the whole affair. It helped that he was friends with a bunch of loners, to put it bluntly, who also seemed to have the same stance on high school functions.
The bright, spring sun beat down on Carlos like a reminder of his burning misery as he walked from the school building to his car.
He heard the scene of the crime before he saw it. He heard a fresh batch of giggles that he could recognize anywhere, under any circumstance. There was a rhythmic crunch of gravel and a male laugh. That was when he spotted you. You and him.
You, clad in your cheer uniform, were in the arms of your boyfriend. You two were surrounded by a handful of your friends, other bitchy cheerleaders and varsity dickheads. He knew not to pause for too long and stare so he kept walking. The hot sun only taunting him. He glanced at the ground adjacent to your feet in passing. There was a poster-board with the words “GO TO PROM WITH ME?” in a dark marker, most likely sharpie. The words were written in a sloppy, rushed handwriting that only further clenched Carlos’s heart miserably.
Carlos didn’t quite know why that had affected him so much. He knew he’d never go to prom with you. Even if you somehow’d miraculously fallen for him, you would never be caught dead with him, especially not at a school dance. He didn’t know what he was thinking.
When he got home, his best friend had called him. Carlos told him what he’d seen. His companion instantly went into a slew of terrible comments, about both you and your boyfriend. He let him talk horribly about your boyfriend but when he began to dish out on you, Carlos interrupted, “Hey, no, don’t say that.” And he stopped.
As twisted and sick as it may seem, that did make him feel slightly better. Not the vulgar commentary about you but the bits about your boyfriend and how “he’s a dick.”
“Man, I gotta run. My mom is yelling at me to get off the phone and help her with dinner,” his friend muttered. He could hear the comical irritation in his voice and it almost brought a smile to his face. “Sainz, she doesn’t know what she’s missing. Just… just don’t pay it too much mind, yeah? Don’t worry about her. Alright, I gotta go. Talk later.” The phone made a click noise and he was gone.
Maybe his friend was right. Maybe you didn’t know what you were missing.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:·
A secret part of Carlos almost wished you’d ignore him, that you’d treat him like scum, maybe even tell him to his face that he’s nothing more than a dirtbag. That wasn’t you though and that’s why it hurt so bad. You still chatted with him amicably in history, you still smiled at him in the halls, you two still shared school supplies when the other needed it – it had progressed past pencils, eventually it became a highlighter, eraser, and by this time it had even been loose leaf paper.
He had a bit of satisfaction amidst this whole ordeal, a bit of light in the darkness. Your boyfriend clearly still thought of him as a threat. He would shoulder check Carlos in the halls, glare at him, and scowl whenever they made eye contact. Part of that pleased him and even gave him hope. Did he really think he was capable of stealing his perfect, popular girlfriend? Who knows?
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:·
Doomsday had arrived.
Prom was on a Friday and almost every student skipped that day. The girls would group up, go get their hair done and their nails done. The boys would group up, simply to hang out before the big night. It always had a huge fervor surrounding it.
Carlos had been convinced into going to prom. One of his friends had a girlfriend and she had convinced him to go and in turn, he was making the rest of the friend group to come along. That included Carlos.
The whole day he had this insistent feeling of existential dread. He really didn’t want to go to prom but as he’d already agreed to go with his friends and already purchased tickets, he just swallowed down his affliction and drove over.
When he walked into the high school gymnasium, he was mildly impressed with how they’d given the shitty place such a makeover. The lights were low, there were balloons bobbing around, ribbons on every surface of all sorts of coordinating colors and shades, pop music was blaring, and there were tables stacked with food and drinks on the edges of the gym.
Of course, he’d habitually scanned for you but he didn’t see you. He just swallowed the lump of unhappiness, letting it travel down to his stomach and sprout like a seed, filling his body with desolation and gloom.
When he’d spent enough time with his friends, standing around and talking with some overly saturated, untouched red punch in a sickeningly bright red solo cup, he decidedly made the choice to head out. He waved his polite and haste goodbyes before speeding out.
He instantly saw you. Instantly.
You were sitting on the curb outside the front of the gymnasium that connected to the parking lot. It was weird seeing your hair hanging around your shoulders, rather than your typical, mandatory high pony tail.
He didn’t really register a reason as to why you were sitting outside, slightly confused.
That was until he saw your shoulders shake and heave.
He approached you slowly, like he was approaching a wounded animal in a forest.
“Hey, Y/n?” he asked hesitantly as he came up beside you, squatting down so he was eye level to you. He plopped down on the curb next to you, leaving an appropriate and respectful amount of space.
You looked up at him with watery, red eyes, your mascara and eye makeup slightly smudged. Even sitting down he was a bit taller than you. His heart broke for you, because of you. He hated seeing you like this. Usually you were so upbeat and cheerful. It was so uncharacteristically unlike you to be so unhappy.
You looked so upset but to Carlos you were still gorgeous. Gorgeous wasn’t even a word to do you justice, even in your state of misery. You were truly beautiful. Your dress was stunning. He didn’t know much about dresses, or fashion for that matter, but he couldn’t help but feel like that dress was perfect for you. It looked so right on you. Everything about you was so captivating.
“Carlos?” you mumbled, your voice hoarse and painstakingly shaky.
He nodded. “Yeah. It’s me.” Then he jokingly added, “The pencil guy.”
Your face cracked into a slight smile before something hit you like it hurt to smile and you sobbed slightly, letting your head drop forward.
His heart clenched painfully. “Can I… come a little closer?” He asked it quietly and hesitantly, not wanting to overstep anything. He really wasn’t trying to take advantage of you. He just wanted to be your shoulder to cry on.
You nodded, your bottom lip wet and trembling. Carlos scooted closer to you and put his arm precariously around you, pulling you into his comforting embrace. You immediately collapsed into him, curling up against the hard, unrelenting pavement and resting your head in his lap as you cried. He rubbed your arm soothingly, mumbling and murmuring sweet nothings to get you to stop.
Finally, when you’d collected yourself, you sat up and looked him in the eyes. Your bloodshot, sore eyes meeting his wide, soft, concerned ones.
“Do you wanna talk?” he offered gently, craning his head down slightly so you two were eye to eye. He had this way of comforting. It was really gentle and tender, not at all patronizing. You felt yourself coming to a realization.
You nodded and slowly – to prevent another onslaught of emotions – explained that your boyfriend had dumped you only an hour ago for no reason at all.
“I don’t even know why he did it,” you claimed earnestly. You blinked sadly a few times. “I was gonna break up with him soon too. He just beat me to it. I mean, I had reasons as to why I didn’t want him as my boyfriend anymore. He just… I think he just got bored of me, honestly.”
Carlos, the ever-loving man he was, nodded, listening intently. “If you don’t mind me asking, why were you gonna break up with him?”
You glanced at him. You were pressed against his slide, curled under the wing of his arm, feeling the warmth radiating from his body. It was so sweet and intimate and you found yourself almost willing to spill all your secrets. He just had that kind of presence.
“Because I didn’t like the kind of person he was,” you stated matter-of-factly. Your eyes were still slightly red and sad but you had an absolution in your tone that gave Carlos hope.
“Yeah, he’s a dickhead,” added Carlos before he could stop himself, shock meeting his eyes immediately. “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t–“
You threw your head back and laughed. That was the first time in weeks you’d truly laughed like that. It felt good. It was music to Carlos’s ears.
“Don’t apologize,” you said reassuringly. “He is a dickhead. That’s a fact.”
He grinned and shook his head in amusement.
The two of you sat, a comfortable silence filling the air. You two were wrapped in each other’s arms, Carlos holding onto you to keep you warm and comforted. Really, your presence, no matter how heartbroken, was more of a comfort to him. He used to pray viciously for times like these. Pray was putting it lightly. He used to silently beg to have a chance like this. You rested your head against his chest, toying with his tie absently.
“You know,” you began quietly, “he never liked you. My boy– my ex-boyfriend.”
Carlos felt his heart stutter, unsure of the emotion that filled him. “Oh, yeah?” he questioned, his tone uncertain. “Why’s that?”
You inhaled.
“He felt like you were a threat,” you explained honestly. “He knew we’d become friends. He thought it was weird. It was weird. I never used to talk to random people in my classes, to be frank. I usually just stuck to my close group of people. Everyone else was kind of out-of-sight-out-of-mind to me. I get why he thought it was so weird. We clicked so easily. He felt like at any moment you’d swoop in and win me over.”
Carlos listened closely, his heart speeding up as he listened to your confession. “Does his… insecurity… make sense?” he asked carefully.
You sat up a little in confusion. “Hm? What d’you mean?”
He stopped rubbing your arm and just let it stop halfway up your upper-arm. “Is what he’s saying true to you? Was he right for considering me a threat?”
You put your hand over his. You whispered, barely audibly, “Yes. He was.”
Carlos’s heart nearly stopped. He felt like he could fly, like he could do anything. He stayed quiet though, not wanting to break the silence, not wanting to fuck things up.
You sat up completely now, glancing over your shoulder to look at him. You could still hear the faint sound of music from the gymnasium and it served as a repellent. “Let’s go for a walk.” You stood up and began to walk slowly, knowing he’d follow.
He instantly scrambled up and began to walk alongside you. “Yes, ma’am.”
You smiled and shook your head in amusement.
As the two of you walked through the warm night air, your hands remarkably found each other’s, intertwining gently and nervously, afraid to break the connection that surged between you two.
Carlos was the first one to break the silence after a while. “It’s getting late. I should take you home.” Carlos wanted to spend the whole night with you but he knew you’d just been heartbroken. You’d clearly grown apart from your ex-boyfriend but still, you’d just been dumped. On some level it had to’ve hurt. He didn’t want to take advantage of you and he also didn’t want to be your rebound.
You nodded, slightly surprised by how respectful and tender he was. Any other guy you knew would’ve tried to make a pass you on some level. “Yeah. You’re right.”
He led you to his car and opened the door for you. He drove you home through the night air, thick with possibilities and something new.
You had instructed him on how to get to your house from the school, giggling at his terrible sense of direction. When the two of you finally reached your house, he got out, opened your door, and walked you to the door – something your now ex-boyfriend would’ve never in a million years done. It felt good, being cared about like this.
The two of you silently gazed at each other under the bright light above your front door, the loud sound of cicadas buzzing in your ears.
“Give me your number,” said Carlos suddenly, as if the idea just came to him.
Your eyes sparkled eagerly before you frowned slightly, the sparkle not disappearing, only dimming momentarily. “How will you remember it?”
“Hold on.”
Carlos jogged to his car and dove in, rummaging hurriedly. You laughed, your sounds of amusement sweet to Carlos. He came running back with a pen and handed it to you.
“Here,” he said, slightly breathlessly. “Write it on my hand.”
Your nose and cheeks turned a slight pinkish as you laughed again, now more softly and quietly. You took the pen and held his hand, feeling the bones and veins on the back of it, writing your number in the palm. You capped the pen and handed it back to him.
“Thank you, Carlos,” you said softly.
He shook his head. “Anything for you.”
You smiled, the joy reaching your eyes and crinkling your face. You got on your tippy toes and leaned in, kissing his cheek and leaving a lipstick stain.
“See you Monday,” you murmured, looking up at him as you dropped back down to your normal height, your eyes soft and wide, lashes fluttering and blinking under the harsh light.
He chuckled softly, his heart pounding and his cheeks red. “Yeah. See you Monday.”
“Call me,” you added firmly.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, kissing the top of your head and grinning as he walked away.
Carlos Sainz x Engineer!Verstappen!Best Friend OC, Platonic!Max Verstappen x Engineer!Best Friend OC
Synopsis: Frida Montoya was never meant to stay behind the pit wall forever. From her karting days with Max Verstappen to her rise as Red Bull’s lead race strategist, she’s played the game flawlessly, until Carlos Sainz begins seeing her as more than just Max’s engineer.
A/N: I'm back! Sorry for the hiatus! My work schedule has been hectic and I finished classes I was taking over the summer!
Series Masterlist
Tlaquepaque, Mexico
The air in Tlaquepaque carried the warmth of home in every breath. It smelled of roasted chiles from the corner taquería, of sun-warmed terracotta, of the faint bite of fresh cement from the neighbor’s half-finished patio. It was a scent that clung to memory, that followed Frida Montoya through every airport and paddock, the kind of scent that reminded her who she had been before Formula 1 made her a name instead of a person.
She walked the narrow stone streets with her sunglasses pushed up into her curls and her mother’s silver necklace resting against her collarbone. No Red Bull navy. No headset digging into her temples. No stopwatch in hand. Just a soft cotton sundress, worn leather sandals, and the slow rhythm of a place where time never seemed to sprint the way it did under the glare of floodlights and tire smoke.
Children played fútbol along the edges of the street, their shouts bright against the hum of the late afternoon. A neighbor’s radio played Vicente Fernández somewhere in the distance. Grandmothers swept stoops with wide, easy arcs of their brooms. Her tío’s laughter rose over the hiss of a grill in the courtyard, the smell of carne asada thick in the air. And in the kitchen, her abuela rolled masa with a precision born of decades, muttering that “los van a pedir antes de que termines de saludar,” because in this house, tamales appeared before greetings were even complete.
Frida paused at the doorway of the Montoya home and let her shoulder rest against the weathered frame. The walls were faded in the sun. The tiles in the courtyard were cracked in places from too many wet summers and heavy footsteps. And yet, nothing in Monaco, Madrid, or Milton Keynes could match the quiet anchor of this place. Here, she was not just a strategist or a headline. She was her mother’s daughter. Her abuela’s pride. A girl who once sat cross-legged in the courtyard, building Lego karts and dreaming of speed.
She heard footsteps behind her before she felt them, and then Carlos was there, moving with the easy comfort of someone who had already begun to fit himself into the rhythm of her world. He wore a soft white T-shirt and light jeans, his hair still damp from the shower he had taken after their morning walk through the mercado. He glanced around with that slight smile she had learned to recognize, the one that meant he was quietly absorbing everything rather than trying to own it.
“Tu casa…” he murmured, letting his hand rest lightly against the sun-worn wall, “…es más bonita de lo que imaginé.” You're house...it's prettier than I imagined.
Frida laughed softly. “You imagined it?”
“Claro que sí. I wanted to know where you come back to when you disappear on me.” Of course I did.
“I don’t disappear,” she said, though her voice softened as she glanced back into the courtyard, at the sight of her abuela scolding Carlos’s attempt to help with the masa earlier. “I just…come home.”
Carlos moved closer, his hand brushing hers, and she let their fingers intertwine. Here, away from the cameras and the din of engines, she didn’t have to think about how it looked. She could just feel the warmth of his hand and the quiet reassurance that he was here because she wanted him here. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her temple, and for a moment she let herself lean into his chest, the simple, steady thump of his heart grounding her more than any podium ever could.
The kitchen door creaked open, and her abuela stepped out, drying her hands on her apron. Her eyes, sharp as ever, softened at the sight of them.
“Fridita, dile a este muchacho que va a comer aunque diga que no tiene hambre,” she said, waving a hand toward Carlos. Fridita, tell that boy he's going to eat even if he says no.
Carlos laughed and answered in careful Spanish, “Sí tengo hambre, pero no quiero robarle la comida a la familia.” I'm hungry, but I don't want to take food away from your family.
Her abuela scoffed. “Eres familia si Frida te trajo aquí.” You're family if Frida brought you here.
Frida’s chest tightened, warm and certain. There was something grounding about hearing those words, about feeling the invisible threads tie tighter between her two worlds—the one she had fought for and the one that had always been hers.
Later, Max arrived, as promised, but quieter than usual. He leaned against the doorway with his usual folded arms, watching her family with a bemused expression. He didn’t need to say much; he didn’t even need her to translate. Max had been part of her life long enough to understand the unspoken language of homes and the comfort of belonging somewhere. He caught her gaze once, and there was no edge, no frustration anymore—just the faint smile of a brother watching his best friend finally let herself be happy.
When the sun slowly moved across the sky, the courtyard glowed with string lights and the smell of charred peppers and cinnamon from the café de olla. Carlos sat with his arm draped along the back of Frida’s chair, his thumb tracing slow, idle circles over her shoulder. She laughed easily in Spanish with her cousins, translated for Max when he asked about the stories they told, and felt the weight she had carried all season slide off piece by piece.
She didn’t have to choose between the life she had built and the love she had found.
Here, in the red and gold heart of Tlaquepaque, Frida could finally be all of herself.
And for the first time in a long time, she felt ready for whatever came next.
The walls were sun-faded, and the tile in the courtyard bore the hairline cracks of decades of summers and hurried footsteps. But none of that mattered. This was home. Hers. Always had been.
For once, there were no numbers flashing in her periphery, no endless loops of tire degradation models running through her mind. No screens. No cameras. No radio in her ear barking split times and strategy calls.
Just quiet.
Just home.
And him.
And Max, already seated on the low stone wall under the shade of the guava tree, had a cold glass of agua fresca sweating in his hand. He had arrived quietly as always, his long legs stretched in the sunlight. He fit strangely into the Montoya courtyard—this Dutch whirlwind who belonged to a different world—but he didn’t seem out of place. He had been here enough times to know how to stay in the background, letting the warmth of the family fold over him like a borrowed blanket.
Frida’s abuela shuffled out from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron, and the scent of tortillas followed her like a cloud. “¡Mijita!” she called, her voice warm and commanding all at once. “Ven, no te me quedes ahí nomás mirando.” Honey! Come here. Don't just stay there staring at me.
Frida smiled and went, hugging her grandmother tightly. She felt the familiar brush of her abuela’s rosary against her shoulder and the soft kiss pressed to her cheek.
“Estás flaquita,” her abuela said immediately. “¿No te dan de comer en esos garajes de carreras?” You're skinny. Don't they feed you in those garages?
“Sí me dan, abuela,” Frida said with a laugh. “Pero extraño tu comida.” They do feed me, Grandma. But I miss you cooking.
“Pues vas a comer hoy,” her abuela declared, already turning toward the kitchen like a general returning to the front line. You're going to eat today.
From his corner, Max smirked, and Carlos—standing near the door with a basket of limes—looked at Frida like she was the most natural thing in this sunlit world. His polo clung to his back in the heat, and his hair was pushed up messily from where her little cousins had been tugging on it earlier. He had spent the whole morning helping her tíos set up the courtyard for lunch, moving chairs and rinsing out the big clay cazuela without complaint.
It was a domestic rhythm that felt disarmingly normal.
Frida sank into one of the worn patio chairs, tilting her face to the light. Carlos wandered over and set the basket of limes on the table beside her. His hand brushed the top of her shoulder before he crouched to meet her gaze.
“¿Estás bien?” he asked softly, his voice pitched for her alone. You okay?
Frida nodded. “Más que bien. Aquí…todo se siente más fácil.” More than okay. Here...everything feels so much easier.
Carlos’s lips curved into that quiet smile that was just for her. “Me alegra.” I'm glad.
Max watched from the wall, catching her eye just long enough to give a small nod. He didn’t intrude, didn’t tease. The look said everything he needed to: I see you. I’m happy you’re happy.
The sounds of home wrapped around her. Her uncle’s laughter echoed from the kitchen window. The distant call of a street vendor selling pan dulce floated down the alley. The fountain in the courtyard burbled steadily, its sound mingling with the low hum of cicadas in the afternoon heat.
Carlos shifted to sit beside her, their hands brushing before settling together, fingers interlaced without thought. She let her head fall lightly against his shoulder, feeling the world outside the walls fade.
For once, there was no race to chase, no strategy to calculate, no pressure to perform.
Only this.
Only home.
Only them.
The sun dipped over Tlaquepaque the following evening, softening the courtyard into a wash of golden light. Lunch had stretched lazily into the afternoon. Frida’s abuela insisted on piling her plate with more than she could ever finish—tortillas, frijoles de la olla, roasted calabacitas dusted with queso fresco. The table was crowded with cousins and uncles, neighbors leaning over the low stone wall to wave, and Reyes Sainz laughing in her gentle, melodic way with Carlos’s younger sister, Ana.
Max had surprised everyone by asking for seconds of mole, his Dutch tongue tripping over a polite “gracias, señora” that earned him a kiss on the cheek from Frida’s abuela. He sat between two of her cousins, letting them explain the rules of a fútbol street game he would never play but listened to with the patience of someone who understood what this moment meant.
Frida watched the scene like a snapshot of two worlds colliding in the best possible way. Carlos sat close enough that his knee brushed hers under the table, his thumb absently stroking the back of her hand on the bench between them. He looked more relaxed than she had seen him in weeks. Gone was the clenched jaw of race days, the furrowed brow of someone who carried an entire team’s hopes. Here, he was just Carlos. Hers.
Reyes leaned closer from the other side of the table, her voice soft in Spanish meant only for Frida.
“Hace mucho que no te veía tan tranquila, mi niña.” It's been a long time since I'm seen you this calm, my girl.
Frida exhaled slowly. “Yo tambien.” Me too.
Her abuela, across the table, caught the tail end of the conversation and nodded knowingly. “Tu mamá estaría contenta de verte aquí, así de feliz.” Your mom would have been happy to see you here, to see you this happy.
The words hit with a weight and a warmth that Frida had learned to carry in equal measure. She blinked quickly, forcing the tears to stay where they belonged.
“Sí… la extraño todos los días,” she said quietly. “Pero aquí siento que todavía está… en todo.” I miss her every day. But here, I feel like she's still here, everywhere.
Reyes reached over and squeezed her hand. “Lo está. Siempre estará. A veces se necesita regresar a casa para sentirlo de nuevo.” She's here. Always. Sometimes you need to come back home to feel her again.
Carlos’s fingers tightened gently around hers beneath the table, and when she met his gaze, it was steady and unspoken. He understood. He didn’t need to say a word.
As the meal wound down, her uncle pulled out his battered guitar, filling the courtyard with the soft strum of old rancheras. The neighbors clapped along. Max even smiled when Frida sang a few quiet lines, her voice rough with disuse and memory. For a moment, she wasn’t an engineer, wasn’t a strategist, wasn’t the woman holding the weight of Red Bull’s title fight in her hands.
She was just Frida Montoya from East LA, her mother’s daughter, her abuela’s pride, and now, the woman leaning into Carlos Sainz’s shoulder as if he had always been part of this place, of this story.
By the time the sun began to slide behind the rooftops, painting the tiles in amber and rose, the courtyard was littered with empty plates and lazy laughter. Her abuela scolded Max in Spanish for not wearing a hat in the sun. Carlos’s sisters had joined the younger cousins in teaching him the steps to a simple folklórico dance, and Reyes looked on with that soft, knowing smile of hers.
Frida stayed seated, soaking it all in: the hum of family, the heat of belonging, and the quiet certainty that for the first time in a very long time, she wasn’t living between two worlds. She had chosen one.
And when Carlos leaned down to kiss her hair in front of everyone, she didn’t pull away.
Because this, she realized, was the part her mother had always wanted her to find. Not the podiums or the trophies, but the place where love and home met in the same breath.
The courtyard had emptied slowly with the fading light. Plates were stacked, the last of the cafecito sipped, and the cousins had vanished to chase a stray fútbol into the street. The sounds of Tlaquepaque at dusk drifted in: the call of a street vendor, the hum of a distant radio, the uneven echo of church bells marking the hour.
Frida leaned against Carlos on the balcony just above the courtyard, her head resting on his shoulder. The night air smelled of rain and grilled corn from the corner stand. Below, the fairy lights her uncle had strung along the stone wall flickered like tired fireflies.
She could feel Carlos’s chest rise and fall beneath her cheek, steady, grounding. He had one arm around her waist, the other holding a sweating glass of agua fresca, and for a few minutes, she thought she could live in this stillness forever.
The sliding door behind them opened with a soft scrape. Max stepped out, hoodie on, hair damp from a quick shower. He carried a soda instead of a beer and leaned against the railing on the opposite end of the balcony. For a while, he said nothing, letting the quiet wrap around the three of them.
Finally, he spoke. “It’s everywhere again.”
Frida lifted her head slightly. “What is?”
He didn’t look at her. “The talk. That you’re leaving.”
Carlos stiffened beneath her, his hand pausing against her waist. Frida felt the weight of both men’s attention now, the softness of home colliding with the cold hum of the paddock that never truly left her.
“They’ve been saying it all season,” she said evenly. “IndyCar. WEC. Every time I take a meeting or leave a garage five minutes early, they decide I’m walking away.”
“Christian called me earlier,” Max admitted. His voice was quiet, but the undercurrent was sharp. “He wanted to know if I thought it was true.”
Frida exhaled, long and slow, staring out at the street where the last light caught the wet cobblestones. “Do you?”
Max met her eyes now, and for a moment, she saw the boy from Zuera again, the one who hated losing, hated change even more, the one who needed her as the constant in the chaos.
“No,” he said finally. “I know you. But I also know F1. And I don’t like how it eats people alive.”
Frida swallowed hard. “I’m not leaving. Not now. Not like this. Not because of whispers.”
Carlos’s arm tightened around her, his warmth pulling her back into the moment. “And not because someone else thinks they can decide your story,” he said quietly, almost to himself.
Max’s jaw flexed, but he nodded. “Good. Because I don’t want to win without you.”
Frida felt the words settle deep in her chest. They weren’t romantic. They weren’t a claim. They were a reminder of the bond they had always shared—unshakable, unspoken, built on every lap and every call since they were kids chasing karting dreams.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, voice steady now. “But I am learning how to belong to myself first.”
Carlos pressed a kiss to her hair. Max looked away, giving them space he would never admit he was offering. Below them, the streetlamps flickered on, and the soft hum of the city wrapped them in a pocket of quiet, safe from the world that would start spinning again soon enough.
so ocean eyes is the closest ive ever gotten to my actual career in any fic ever and when I saw the title marine biologist I immediately had to like because I never get to see the animal planet side of women in stem. this made me so happy
I'm so happy to bring representation where it matters! I'm on the engineering side of women in STEM, but I grew up wanting to be a marine biologist or anything along those lines! I'm grateful to have an amazing marine biologist professor and a few friends in the field that I get to talk to!! I absolutely love the animal side of STEM!
Synopsis: She's always near fish. He loves her enough to ignore that. Hating fish and having a marine biologist girlfriend was not on anyone's bingo card
Tags: Fluff, fish, minor use of Y/N
Masterlist
Y/NsMarineLife
Liked by lando, lnfour, mclaren, danielricciardo, and 34,986 others
Y/NsMarineLife: Cutting nets and saving shells. New dive, same mission 🐢✅
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lando: You're braver than all of us
user1: she's a literal hero doing hero work
mclaren: We support planet-saving girlfriends! 🧡
Y/NsMarineLife: admin you should join one of our trips!
mclaren: summer break is around the corner 👀
user2: How did lando even bag her when he hates fish???
lando: I love her enough to look beyond gills
lando
Liked by Y/NsMarineLife, danielricciardo, oscarpiastri, and 74,837 others
lando: If she says the waves are louder than the grid, I'm going to believe her ❤️🙂↕️
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danielricciardo: She's got podium vibes
Y/NsMarineLife: Where's my bottle of champagne Danny?
danielricciardo: Where's her bottle of champagne Lando?
lando: were literally on the beach???
oscarpiastri: excuses
Y/NsMarineLife: Your hoodie smells like sea salt now sorry not sorry
lando: as long as it smells like you ❤️
georgerussell63: simp
lando: Sorry I love my girlfriend???
user3: how did lando managed to bag a genius???
alex_albon: Bro I wish I knew
The photo was an accident.
He’d just lifted his phone to call her back to the towels when he caught it—her arms outstretched, hair damp from the ocean, the hem of his hoodie brushing the backs of her thighs as she spun barefoot across the sand. The waves rolled in behind her, frothy and gold-edged in the last hour of sun. She wasn’t posing. She didn’t even know he was watching. She was just…existing. Joyfully, wildly, entirely hers.
Click.
She turned when she heard the shutter. “Did you just take a picture of me?”
Lando grinned from where he stood, hands tucked into the sleeves of his own hoodie. “Maybe.”
“You’re supposed to ask, you know,” she teased, walking back toward him. The seafoam gathered at her ankles, then rushed away again like it didn’t want to leave her either.
“I didn’t want to ruin it,” he said softly.
She blinked. “Ruin what?”
“That,” he said, tilting the phone in her direction. The screen glowed between them, and for a moment she was quiet, staring at herself suspended mid-step: arms open, face tilted to the sky like she belonged to the horizon.
“That’s not how I see myself,” she whispered.
“It’s how I see you,” he replied.
She looked up at him then, eyes full of something wind-swept and open. The kind of look that made Lando forget every press conference and every podium. The kind of look that made even the ocean feel still.
He didn’t post the photo right away. He just kept it.
Something for himself. Something to remember the version of her that belonged to no one but the waves, and maybe, maybe a little bit to him.
Y/NsMarineLife
Liked by lando, lnfour, carlossainz55, and 77,463 others
Y/NsMarineLife: land creature meets reef nerd. 12/10 diving buddy
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lando: I only screamed once
Y/NsMarineLife: You were very brave 🌟
user4: how did you even get lando in a wetsuit, much less under the ocean???
carlossainz55: I thought you hated fish?
lando: eating them and swimming with them are very different things
Y/NsMarineLife
Liked by lando, maxverstappen1, kellypiquet, and 83,673 others
Y/NsMarineLife: Has your lab partner ever been 14 feet long and curious? She's a cool guy 🦈
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lando: Okay, hear me out. What if you just don't swim with sharks??
Y/NsMarineLife: She's my lab partner though 😔
user5: She said apex predator rights!!!
maxverstappen1: You scare me more than turn 1 at Monza
Y/NsMarineLife: Good.
lando: good
kellypiquet: Good
Y/NsMarineLife
Liked by lando, SafeSeaProject, mclaren, and 62,789 others
Y/NsMarineLife: Rescued my research bestie, who had to be airlifted off the reef (she's okay!). Marine fieldwork isn't always glamorous, but it's real 🙂↕️🚁
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lando: Please don't be the one they airlift. Like, ever
SafeSeaProject: Field safety is always our top priority!
Y/NsMarineLife: It was a pleasure to work alongside you guys today!
ResearchBestie: tagged and safe just like the turtles! Thanks for saving the day
Y/NsMarineLife: Rescuing you since our uni days 🤭
The call came in the middle of media day. Lando ducked behind the hospitality unit, phone pressed tight to his ear, heart racing faster than it ever did behind the wheel.
She was fine. She kept saying she was fine. But her voice was hoarse, and there was wind in the background—waves crashing against the side of the boat, radios crackling. He could hear someone giving instructions in clipped tones, and the rotor of a rescue chopper spinning somewhere overhead.
“Everyone’s okay,” she said immediately. “I just wanted you to hear it from me.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed, one hand buried in his hair. “What happened?”
“A shallow reef survey. Mia panicked, got tangled near the anchor line. The current picked up. She couldn’t breathe properly, and her gear started slipping—” Her voice shook once, then steadied. “I pulled her out. Got her stabilized. Called the chopper just in case.”
Lando closed his eyes. “You got her out?”
“She’s okay. The EMT said she would’ve blacked out if we’d waited any longer.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. Just listened to the open sea behind her, the distant murmur of radio chatter, and the sound of her breathing—frayed at the edges, but still in rhythm.
Lando sat on a stack of spare tires, forehead resting in his hand. “You also swam with a tiger shark two days ago.”
She laughed, weak but real. “She was calm. Curious. I stayed out of her path.”
Lando shook his head, overwhelmed with something between admiration and exasperation. “You save someone from drowning, and you hung out with a tiger shark before the weekend even starts? Do you ever take a normal week at the office?”
She laughed—quiet, exhausted. “I don’t think I remember what normal looks like when my office is the entire ocean.”
“You’re insane,” he murmured, voice softer now. “You’re absolutely bloody insane. And you’re the most badass person I know.”
“I’m not,” she replied. “I was scared.”
“But you didn’t freeze.”
“No,” she admitted. “I didn’t.”
He didn’t answer right away. Just listened to the sound of her breathing—steady, tired, alive.
“Lan?” she asked softly.
“I hate that I’m not there,” he said finally. “I hate that you’re always the one holding it together when shit goes wrong.”
“You’d do the same for me.”
“Yeah, but my version of danger is carbon brakes and bad strategy calls. Yours is shark-infested reefs and emergency extractions.”
There was a pause, then a quieter voice: “You don’t think I’m reckless, do you?”
“No,” he replied, almost instantly. “I think you’re brave. And smart. And you care more than anyone I’ve ever met.”
She exhaled, and he could picture it—her eyes closing, shoulders relaxing against the rail of the boat. The storm in her chest finally easing.
“I just need you to come home,” he added, voice nearly a whisper. “Eventually. In one piece. That’s all.”
“I will,” she promised. “I always do.”
Later, she’d send him the photo: her underwater, camera steady in her hands, a great white shark approaching in slow, silent curiosity. No panic. No fear. Just awe.
And then the other: the bright-orange flash of the rescue suit, the helicopter cable slicing the sky as her colleague was lifted into safety.
Two different sides of her, Lando thought.
And he loved both.
lando
Liked by Y/NsMarineLife, lnfour, carlossainz55, and 82,473
lando: Don't let her tell you I'm not romantic. I literally made a heart underwater 🫶🏻
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Y/NsMarineLife: Okay, Fine, You win this one
lnfour: lando under the water? Is that new merch we smell??
user6: okay so is this going on the wedding invites 👀
lando: yes
Y/NsMarineLife
Liked by mclaren, lando, SafeSeaProject, sebastianvettel, and 56,921 others
Y/NsMarineLife: baby corals are finally tagged & thriving. One reef at a time 🪸
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lando: I miss you, but the ocean needs you more ☹️❤️
Y/NsMarineLife: I miss you more 🥹
scienceuser5: textbook technique ✅
Y/NsMarineLife: You know it! Gotta keep up the technique to train the new interns next week!
user6: She's a literal genius???
Y/NsMarineLife: No, I'm just a girl who really loved mermaids growing up 🙂↕️🧜🏻♀️
lando
Liked by oscarpiastri, Y/NsMarineLife, carlossainz55, and 73,734 others
lando: certified d(r)iver. certified hers (she dared me to get my scuba diving license)
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Y/NsMarineLife: You were holding my hand 95% of the time
lando: certified simp.
carlossainz55: It's giving clingy
lando: It's giving I love my grielfriend very much
oscarpiastri: teach him not to panic near jellyfish pls
user7: ocean-core boyfriend era
The wetsuit still clung to his skin when they surfaced, hair plastered to his forehead, saltwater clinging to his lashes. She pulled her mask off and grinned like the sun had just come up under the waves.
“You didn’t panic this time,” she said, breathless.
“I never panicked,” Lando replied, spitting out the regulator and half-choking on the words. “I just…adjusted quickly to the pressure change.”
She laughed, pulling herself up onto the side of the boat with practiced ease. “You clung to me like a baby sea otter.”
“Because I trust you!” he protested, grabbing the railing behind her and climbing up, voice lighter now, the adrenaline beginning to fade. “Also, you told me the fish might bite.”
“They nibble,” she said, tugging her hood down and wringing the water from her braid. “Gently.”
He flopped down beside her, wetsuit half-unzipped, water pooling around them. “You finger-gunned a GoPro mid-dive.”
“Because you were so serious,” she teased, pulling up the preview on the camera screen. Sure enough, she was grinning behind her mask, pointing dramatically at the lens, while Lando was floating just barely in front of her, trying to look cool.
“Send me that,” he said, already reaching for his phone. “I need the world to see what I put up with. What I do for love.”
She tilted her head toward him. “You sure you’re okay? It was a deeper dive than we planned.”
“I’m better than okay,” he said, quieter now. “It’s the first time I’ve ever felt completely…still. Like the world stopped spinning down there.”
She smiled again, this time softer. “That’s what I love about it.”
He watched her then—not as a driver or just her boyfriend, but as a man sitting next to a woman who understood something deeper than words. Who lived her life beneath the surface, chasing things worth saving.
“Next trip,” he murmured, “don’t make me wait so long.”
She leaned her shoulder against his and whispered, “Next trip, you’re coming with me from day one.”
Y/NsMarineLife
Liked by lando, DeepBlueResearch, jensonbutton, and 75, 582 others
Y/NsMarineLife: today's agenda: whale counts, bad coffee, and missing my boy from 4000 miles away ❤️🩹🐋
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lando: tell the whales I say hi
DeepBlueResearch: marine biologist romance core
Y/NsMarineLife: my own crew???
user8: lando's crying, isn't he
Y/NsMarineLife: I definitely am
The ocean was steel gray that morning. Not stormy, not angry, just still and heavy. The kind of quiet that made you feel small in the best way. The kind of cold that bit through the seams of her jacket and left salt on her lips.
She sat cross-legged on the edge of the deck, binoculars balanced in her lap, her boots damp from spray. Somewhere out there, a humpback breached and vanished just as quickly, like a dream dissolving in daylight.
She didn’t snap a picture of the whale.
She took one of her boots instead, muddy, scuffed, braced against the edge of the world — and the binoculars cradled loosely between her gloves. A silent timestamp. Another day of counting things that moved too fast, and missing someone who made the waiting feel less empty.
She sent the photo to Lando with no caption. Just let the image speak for itself.
A few minutes passed. Then her phone buzzed.
Lando:
You’re the bravest person I know.
Also, you owe me a whale pic. That wasn’t a whale.
That was boots and existential dread.
She laughed, breath fogging in the cold air. Typed back:
You:
Didn’t want to post the whale. Felt selfish keeping it just for me.
Lando:
You always share the good stuff.
I miss you.
Also you look extremely tiny on that deck.
She paused. Took a breath. The wind lifted a curl of hair across her cheek.
You:
I miss you more than the sun out here.
And that’s saying something.
Later, Lando reposted her photo with a caption that simply read:
“She’s 4,000 miles away and still closer to me than anyone else.”
And somehow, she felt it.
Even out there, surrounded by silence and sea.
lando
Liked by Y/NsMarineLife, alex_albon, carlossainz55, and 73,836 others
lando: We played coral together, and that somehow felt more serious than moving in 🪸💍 (She rolled her eyes and smiled)
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Y/NsMarineLife: I smiled because you panicked at a sea cucumber
danielricciardo: How do I become coral and get planted with love? asking for a friend 👀
mclaren: This is the most eco-friendly Lando we've yet to see
alex_albon: Someone tell me how he managed to pull a girl who restores ecosystems
oscarpiastri: Someone tell me how he managed to pull a girl who spends half her time around fish
They didn’t talk much down there. Couldn’t, really, not with being underwater, and the hush of the reef around them. But they felt everything.
The dive was part of her restoration project started by Y/N and her research crew, an effort to rebuild a section of reef decimated by storms, ocean acidification, and bleaching. Small coral fragments were zip-tied gently to artificial structures, the first step in coaxing life back into the skeleton of what once was vibrant and wild.
Lando moved carefully beside her, his buoyancy still a bit inconsistent, but his focus unwavering. He watched as she guided his gloved hands, showed him how to anchor each coral sprig without damaging the delicate tips. Her eyes met his through the mask and gave the softest nod, You’re doing it right.
And for a moment, it wasn’t about diving, or science, or even the reef.
It was about trust.
About planting something together with no guarantee it would survive, and doing it anyway.
When they surfaced, their fingers found each other even before their masks came off.
“You were amazing,” she said, peeling back her hood, cheeks flushed from the cold.
“I was slow,” he laughed. “Pretty sure I got passed by a parrotfish.”
“You didn’t need to be fast,” she said, tugging him toward the boat. “You were present. That’s what matters.”
He looked at her then, windblown, soaked to the bone, radiant in that quiet, undemanding way of hers. Like the reef itself. Steady. Resilient. Full of unseen life.
“Do you ever think,” he murmured, “that maybe we’re not just planting coral?”
She tilted her head, curious.
“Maybe we’re planting something else,” he added. “Something that grows slowly. Quietly. But strong enough to outlive storms.”
She blinked, not in surprise, but in understanding. Her fingers squeezed his. Once. Firm.
Summary: Absent from the cameras and the races, you leave Lando little notes so he knows you're there, watching and loving him. What starts off as a small thought turns into something sacred for Lando. You may not physically be there, but you're always with him.
Tags: Fluff, no use of y/n
Masterlist ❤️
It begins in Bahrain.
The season opener hums with a familiar kind of tension, the one that lives in early morning shadows and the hum of air guns echoing through the paddock. The team is already at full throttle, mechanics rushing, engineers speaking in clipped code over radios, and Lando barely keeping up as he drags himself from one meeting to another.
The sun hasn't fully risen, and everything still smells like desert and fuel. He's tired. Not physically, he's fit, sharp, ready, but tired in the way the mind gets when too much expectation clings to your skin.
He walks into the garage, still pulling on the sleeves of his base layer, and reaches for his helmet bag without thinking. His fingers close around fabric, muscle memory guiding him toward his balaclava, but something else slips out, so light it floats more than falls, landing on the bench beside him.
A scrap of paper. Folded once. Just big enough to be intentional.
At first, he assumes it’s part of a checklist. Some team note. He’s already moving past it when the words catch his eye.
You’ve got this. Like always. Show them why they talk about you.
No signature. No name. Just those words, in handwriting that pulls him to a full stop.
He knows that script. Knows the little curve of the y and the way you underline when you're trying not to sound too sincere.
It’s yours.
And suddenly, the noise of the garage dulls. The world narrows to that one piece of paper held between his fingers. His lips part, as if some quiet breath of surprise is trying to escape, but no sound comes. Just a smile, small, instinctive, and only for him.
He reads it again.
The note feels warm despite the chill of the early hour, as if the sentiment clung to it long after your fingers let go. He folds it gently and slips it into the chest pocket of his race suit, pressing it flat against his heart.
He doesn’t say a word about it. Not to the mechanics. Not to the engineers. Not even to you.
But when he straps into the car that afternoon, visor down and heart steady, the words whisper beneath the roar of the engine.
And for the first time that day, he feels a little less alone.
🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡
By the time the calendar turns to Melbourne, the rhythm of the season has started to settle into his bloodstream: flights, media, race briefings, more media, track walks, sleep in unfamiliar hotel beds, and an endless cycle of chasing performance that feels just out of reach.
Albert Park is radiant in that early-autumn sunlight, the kind that makes the asphalt glitter and turns the paddock into a maze of sunglasses and sharp edges. Lando is focused, head down, going through the motions on Saturday afternoon. The morning had been chaos, and qualifying hasn’t been kind. P13 on the grid. Not a disaster, but not where he wants to be. Not where he knows he should be.
The frustration is quiet, coiled in his chest like a knot he can't quite loosen. He hasn’t said much to the team, not because he’s angry, but because he’s trying not to let it show. He’s learning how to carry the weight without adding to theirs.
It’s just before lights out on Sunday when he finds it.
He’s suiting up in the back of the McLaren garage, surrounded by the low hum of engineers and the occasional sharp call over comms. He reaches for his gloves, pulling one free, when something crinkles inside the lining.
He pauses, frowning. Then carefully unfolds the paper tucked deep inside the wrist.
P13 to P6? Manifested it. And smile like you mean it. Your happy face scares the engineers less.
The corner of his mouth lifts before he can stop it.
It’s your handwriting again, familiar and messy in the way it always is when you’re trying to write quickly but still make it legible. The words hit him like sunlight through a cracked window. He exhales, low and quiet, a breath that feels steadier now than it did seconds ago.
No one sees. They’re too busy. Heads down. Focused on the data, the setup, the strategy.
But for him, time stills for just a moment.
He folds the note carefully, slides it into the pocket of his fireproofs, and flexes his fingers inside the gloves with new purpose. P13 isn’t a sentence, it’s a challenge. One he suddenly feels very ready to meet.
And when he walks toward the car, helmet tucked under his arm, someone shouts something at him about tire temps, and he turns around, grinning.
Real, bright, wide.
The kind of smile that doesn’t just reassure the team.
The kind of smile that means he’s carrying something more than pressure.
He’s carrying you even while you're far away, putting in time to finish your master's.
🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡
By the time the calendar reaches Austria, it has become a ritual.
The Red Bull Ring sits nestled between hills of dense green and late summer haze, the sound of engines echoing off mountains like thunder. It is a weekend crammed into itself: sprint format, tighter schedules, less breathing room. Through it all, Lando still finds a moment, every time, to reach for his helmet bag with just a little more care than he used to.
He does not tell you that he has started checking for your notes before every race, quietly hopeful in the seconds before a session begins, fingers moving gently through gloves, under suit sleeves, between visor cloths. It has become his quiet superstition, something no one knows about. A habit born from affection and belief, not performance. A secret shared between him and the space where you are never physically present, but always find a way to exist.
It is not something he would ever say out loud. And you never ask.
Not once have you hinted at the notes or sought credit for them, even though he knows you must wonder if he sees them at all. He knows you’re waiting for a reaction, some clue that they matter. But you never press, never make it about you. That silence, the patience in it, means more to him than he knows how to articulate.
He never says thank you.
Not because he isn't grateful. He is. Deeply. More than he can begin to express. But gratitude feels too small, too formal, too shallow for what the notes have become.
They're not just encouragement. They're sacred. Like a whispered prayer pressed between folded paper and fireproof fabric. Like a promise tucked into the seams of a life that moves too fast to hold onto anything for long.
That weekend in Spielberg, as the sky threatens rain and the sprint shootout looms, he finds one inside his balaclava pouch. Folded tight. Familiar.
Today doesn’t have to be perfect. Just brave.
Go give them something to talk about.
He reads it once. Then again. Slowly, like he’s savoring something sweet.
The words settle beneath his skin.
He doesn’t show it on his face. Not when he walks into the garage, not when the mechanics clap him on the shoulder, not when the lights go out and the car jolts forward into the blur of the sprint.
But he keeps it with him, through every turn, every lap, every breath he holds during a tight overtake.
That night, he places the note beside the others. He’s been saving them all, tucked safely in a box he keeps zipped in his carry-on, hidden between spare chargers and a balled-up hoodie that smells like your shampoo.
He touches the corner of the paper once before closing the lid.
Still no thank you. Still no conversation.
But he thinks, he hopes, you can feel it anyway.
🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡
Zandvoort arrives soaked in orange smoke and thunder.
The Dutch Grand Prix is always electric, a homecoming for Max and a sensory overload for everyone else. The grandstands vibrate with flares and chants, and the smell of rain clings to the circuit like a second skin. The weather plays tricks all weekend: quick bursts of showers followed by sudden sun, the kind of unpredictability that turns qualifying into chaos and the race into something half-raced, half-survived.
Lando handles it like he always does: sharp, reactive, calm beneath the surface even when the pit wall is losing its head. But even he has his limits.
By Sunday morning, he's tired. The kind of tired that comes from weeks of travel and scrutiny, of being in the mix but not quite where he wants to be. Zandvoort is a tight track, and P2 in qualifying had felt like a victory, but he can already hear the murmurs of doubt in the paddock. Can McLaren hold its position? Can he handle the pressure from behind?
He pulls on his fireproofs in the back of the garage while the skies threaten to open up again. The sound of air guns whirs outside, engineers moving through strategy changes for the hundredth time. He reaches into his suit bag for his gloves, and something slips out with them, thin, familiar, folded twice.
His chest tightens as he picks it up.
The paper is soft from the humidity, smudged slightly at the edges, but the handwriting is unmistakable.
You don’t need to be on the podium to make me proud. But I hope you get there anyway.
(PS: Your hair looked amazing in FP3. Don’t argue.)
He exhales, slow, controlled, as if the words have knocked the air out of his lungs and replaced it with something steadier. He reads the note again, this time a little slower, as if it might say more if he lets it sit long enough. A smile breaks across his face, one no one sees, and for a moment, the pressure eases. Not because it goes away, but because you’ve reminded him that the weight does not define him. That your love is not conditional. That even when he falls short, he's seen. And known.
And that apparently, he looked excellent doing it.
He tucks the note into the sleeve of his race suit and walks out into the noise with his chin a little higher.
The race is messy. There's chaos with the rain, strategy gambles that leave cars sliding helplessly, red flags and nervous team radios, but Lando stays grounded. Calm in the storm. He watches the opportunities open and close and pushes when it matters. And by the final lap, when the clouds begin to part and the crowd is back on its feet, he crosses the line in P2. Not a win, but the next best thing.
When it’s over, when the team’s cheers are beginning to fade and the champagne hasn’t yet dried on his suit, he finds a moment to breathe.
In the cool-down room, with sweat still clinging to the back of his neck and adrenaline humming beneath his skin, he reaches into the inner pocket of his suit and pulls out the note again.
He reads it once more. Then kisses it, just a light press of lips to paper, like a thank you in a language he’s not quite fluent in. He folds it carefully and slides it into the slim leather wallet tucked into his duffel, alongside the others he’s kept from previous races.
That night, after media and debriefs and photos and hours of pretending that he hasn’t been thinking about you the entire time, he finally texts you.
Lando:
You were right.
About the podium.
And the hair.
A minute later:
Lando:
I hope you know how much it means.
Every word. Every race.
Thank you.
The reply comes quickly:
You:
I always knew you’d get there.
And I’ll keep writing them until you stop needing them.
(Which, for the record, I hope is never.)
He stares at the screen for a long time, then types something simple.
Lando:
Don’t stop.
And for the first time in a long time, he feels completely at peace.
🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡
You never ask him about the notes after that.
Not once.
Even as the season stretches into its most demanding stretch: back-to-back race weekends, relentless media scrutiny, and the growing pressure of podium expectations, you never once bring them up. You never ask if he’s read them, never seek validation or acknowledgment. You just keep writing, folding, tucking them away like secrets meant only for him, like whispered words slipped beneath a locked door.
And Lando never lets on how many he’s kept.
Not to you. Not to anyone. Not even when Oscar finds one, creased, water-stained, and only partially legible, half-crumpled beneath the seat in the McLaren garage in Singapore.
It must have fallen out of his suit during a driver change or between debriefs. Lando had noticed its absence earlier that morning, a quiet panic slipping down his spine when it wasn’t in its usual place. But with a race like this, he couldn’t stop. Not to retrace steps. Not to recover something so small, even if it felt like a piece of him.
Oscar had picked it up absently, brow furrowing as he unfolded it. Lando caught the flicker of recognition in his teammate’s expression—confused curiosity edged with amusement—as his eyes skimmed the words.
You’re not here to survive. You’re here to shine.
(PS: whoever keeps doubting you can eat gravel.)
Oscar looked up with a smirk, holding the note between two fingers. “Secret pen pal?”
Lando didn’t blink. “It’s personal.”
Oscar raised both brows, clearly clocking the tone, but let it go, slipping the note wordlessly into Lando’s palm.
A few hours later, during the mad shuffle between media, grid prep, and strategy briefs, one of the engineers made a passing joke, something lighthearted, tossed into the air without much thought. A quip about how “Norris seems to drive faster whenever he gets a love letter first.”
The whole garage laughed. Lando smiled too, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Because they didn’t know.
They didn’t understand what those notes meant—how they weren’t just romantic, or encouraging, or quirky little quirks of a girlfriend who wanted to make him laugh before lights out. They were grounding. Tethering. A quiet ritual that had become as essential to him as the helmet on his head, or the team radio in his ear.
They were the only part of his world that wasn’t broadcast to a camera or measured in tenths.
They were his.
Yours.
The one soft thing he got to hold without having to share it with anyone. Not his teammate, not the fans, not even the paddock. A sacred thread of intimacy strung from circuit to circuit, country to country. Something untouched by grid gossip or social media captions.
Even now, as the Singapore night stretches humid and electric around him, and the lights from Marina Bay reflect off his visor like stars, he knows that one of your notes is folded and safe in the lining of his race suit, pressed close to his ribs, where no one can see.
He doesn’t need to read it again to remember what it says.
He just knows that when the five lights go out and the chaos begins, it will still be there, wrapped against him like a shield, reminding him that someone, somewhere, sees him exactly as he is and chooses him anyway.
🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡
It all comes to a head in Abu Dhabi.
The Yas Marina paddock is glittering under the floodlights, all sleek surfaces and ceremonial polish. It’s the final race of the season—the last qualifying session, the last chance, the end of a year that has demanded more than anyone expected and offered less than it sometimes promised. But Lando is calm in the way a storm is calm at its center, pacing through the McLaren garage with his helmet bag clenched in one hand and adrenaline humming through every nerve.
There’s pressure, of course. There always is in Abu Dhabi. Even when the championship is out of reach, even when the headlines are already focused elsewhere. Expectations don’t end just because the calendar does.
He’s running through tire strategy and sector data in his head when he feels it, something tucked inside the front zipper of the bag. Not a balaclava, not gloves. Thicker. Folded twice, the edges soft and worn.
His breath catches in his throat before he even sees the handwriting.
He knows.
His hands move before he can talk himself out of it. He peels back the paper and reads slowly, once through, then again, like the weight of the moment requires it to be absorbed in layers.
This is the last one for the season.
You already know how proud I am. But in case the noise gets too loud or the pressure gets too sharp, remember this:
You are brave.
You are brilliant.
You are loved.
More than you think. And exactly as you are.
—Your favorite person who’s definitely not crying while writing this.
The words hit him harder than they should. Harder than they ever have. Maybe because it’s the end, or because he knows deep down how much he’s relied on these letters—how they became a tether to something softer, something real, in a world that rarely allowed him to be anything but composed and fast and fine.
He presses his lips together to keep from showing too much. Then folds the note carefully, reverently, and slips it inside the front pocket of his race suit, just over his chest.
He doesn’t tell anyone.
Not when he straps into the car. Not when he qualifies fourth under the floodlights, just behind the Ferraris, jaw clenched with focus. Not when he climbs out of the cockpit and shrugs off the cameras with that usual grin, all charm and calm surface tension.
But midway through media debrief, surrounded by noise and repetition and the blur of microphones, something shifts.
He pulls out his phone beneath the table, thumbs moving quickly, urgently, like the words have been building in him for months and can’t be held in any longer.
Lando:
I found them all. Every single one.
I kept them.
I love you. I love you so much.
He doesn’t wait for a reply.
Instead, and to the confusion of his PR handler, he quietly excuses himself from the roundtable, tugs the zipper of his race suit higher, and walks straight out the back of the media center into the heavy, glittering dark of the Yas Marina night.
The air is thick with heat, still clinging to the asphalt from the day, even as the breeze shifts off the water. Floodlights paint the paddock in gold. Engines whir in the background, but the rest of the world is far away.
He dials.
You answer on the third ring, breathless, like you’d been waiting with your phone already in your hand.
“Lan?” you say, voice tight with concern. “Are you okay?”
He doesn’t speak right away. He looks out over the marina instead, eyes skimming over the reflections dancing on the surface of the water, and lets the weight of the season settle around him like armor finally being set down.
“You’ve been with me all year,” he says at last, his voice rough but steady.
There’s a pause. You say nothing, caught in the tenderness of the moment.
He exhales, then adds, quieter this time, “Thank you.”
You laugh, but it catches halfway through. He can hear the emotion in it, and you can feel it.
“You weren’t supposed to notice all of them,” you admit, your voice trembling, a half-smile audible even through the crackle of the call. “It was just supposed to help. I know I missed out on a lot of races this year. I didn’t want to make it a thing.”
He smiles into the dark. “I noticed every single one. Even the ones that got crumpled. I just...didn’t know how to say thank you without ruining it.”
There’s silence again, but this one feels full, like a breath held between two hearts.
Then, after a beat, he says it. Finally. Fully.
“I’m done hiding how much I love you. We've been together for so long, and I haven't dared to say it. I'm a complete muppet. So I’m saying it now.”
You don’t respond right away, and that’s okay. Some words don’t need to be met. They just need to be received.
He closes his eyes, lets the quiet stretch, lets the truth of it settle around him.
And for the first time all year, he feels weightless.
🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡
That night, long after the fireworks have burned out over Yas Marina and the last of the podium confetti has been swept away, Lando sits alone in the corner of the McLaren hospitality suite, tucked beneath a low canopy of string lights that flicker against the dark like tired stars. The music from the team’s quiet celebration hums in the background, and voices fade in and out as people filter in and out of the tent, but he has already slipped into the kind of silence that comes after a long, brutal season.
He scrolls through the photos on his phone, fingers slowing as he reaches one near the end of the roll, taken minutes after the final flag had waved. It’s him, caught mid-laugh, unzipping his suit as if he’d barely had time to breathe since climbing out of the car. His cheeks are flushed, curls damp with sweat and victory, the harsh glare of floodlights bouncing off the rubbery surface of the tarmac behind him. Smoke still lingers in the air from pyrotechnics and celebration, and the crowd in the background is a blur of color and sound, but he isn’t looking at any of that.
He’s smiling, wide and real, the kind of grin that doesn’t get filtered through PR or performance. His eyes are lit up with something more than adrenaline, something lighter. Softer. It isn’t a perfect photo. The focus is slightly off, the angle a little tilted, but it captures exactly what matters.
There’s no tension in his shoulders. No mask. Just joy. Just Lando.
And when he sees it, sitting there alone in the afterglow of the season’s end, he knows exactly what he wants to say.
He doesn’t tag anyone. Doesn’t need to.
He hits post.
lando
Liked by yourusername, lnfour, mclaren, and 67,345 others
lando: Wherever you are, thank you for being there every step of the way. My best result of the year? Loving you. 💌
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🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡
It takes only seconds for the likes to flood in, the comments to pile up with heart emojis and speculation, with fans asking who he’s thanking, whether it's a friend, a teammate, a mystery girl they’ve missed all season.
But none of that matters. Because the only person it’s meant for already knows.
Somewhere back home, most likely in the apartment you share with Lando, the TV playing his interviews, maybe even reading the caption through glassy eyes, you’ll understand the weight of those words. You’ll remember writing the notes, each one in quiet solitude, and left for him to find. You’ll remember how you never once asked for recognition, how you were content to love him from the edges of the frame.
And now, he’s letting the world know that the most important part of his season wasn’t the podiums, or the overtakes, or the numbers next to his name on a leaderboard.
It was you. It was always you.
And even if the caption only makes sense to one person, that’s enough. Because it means everything.
So, I'm pretty sure I'm about to get broken up with tonight, so if you see an influx of angst-based gics, just know I'm channeling things into my writing. If it does happen, I'm pretty sure I'll be fine! Anyways, if y'all want some angst, it may happen.. It's 50/50 right now lmaoooo
Hi! I really loved your Jenson one shot and your Daniel series 💕
I was wondering if I could request something with Seb? Like, maybe reader has been a part of his life since they were kids? Or maybe reader and Seb met when he started at Redbull and reader is working as a young PR intern? Friends to lovers kind of trope??
I love your writing style and would love to read what you come up with!
In the Background
A/N: I hope you like it! I know Sebastian was a menace, but he's also human. Enjoy ❤️
Tags: Fluff
Masterlist
Sebastian Vettel x Fem!PR Reader
You weren’t supposed to be seen beyond the occasional glance when you slipped into frame holding a clipboard or quietly ushered a driver toward a waiting camera. The job posting hadn’t said that, not outright, but it was clear enough in the tone: Support Staff. PR Intern. Keep your head down, keep things moving, stay in the background.
And yet, despite that, there you were. Standing in the heart of the Formula 1 paddock in early 2009, heat shimmering off the asphalt, media crews swarming like hornets, the piercing whir of tire guns echoing down the pit lane. You were barely out of university, credentials swinging from your neck, lungs full of adrenaline and nerves. Formula 1 had always felt like some far-off galaxy, orbiting just beyond reach: polished, glamorous, sharp around the edges.
Now you were completely surrounded by it.
You learned quickly. You had to. There was no time to adjust, no room for mistakes. You memorized media schedules, juggled logistics between team meetings and press scrums, and fielded calls from journalists who didn’t care that you were new. Most of the drivers barely noticed you. They were wrapped in their own worlds: laps, sectors, setups, sponsorships. To them, you were a ghost in the machine.
But Sebastian Vettel looked at you.
Not in the way that made you shift awkwardly or wonder what he saw. It wasn’t flirtation. It was curiosity. Genuine and open. He had just arrived at Red Bull Racing, freshly promoted from Toro Rosso after that miracle win in Monza the previous year. Still only twenty-one, he carried himself with a kind of sharp, boyish intensity that hadn't yet been polished out of him by corporate media training. He was fast-talking and faster-thinking, always a little restless, and never quite as serious as people expected him to be.
He still laughed with his whole chest. Still bounced on his heels before interviews. Still looked around like he couldn’t believe he belonged here, even though his lap times said otherwise.
You remember the first time he really acknowledged you, not just glanced past you, but saw you. It was during the Chinese Grand Prix, your third race weekend. A British journalist mispronounced the name of a German town where one of his early karting rivals had come from, dragging it through the mud with an overconfident drawl. You didn’t mean to speak up. It just slipped out, instinctive and quiet.
“It’s pronounced ‘Gummersbach.’ The ‘ch’ is soft. Like Bach.”
Sebastian turned toward you, eyebrows raised, and then smiled, wide and amused.
“Danke,” he said, still half-laughing. “I was too polite to say it, but that was painful.”
You smiled back, an equal mix of startled and relieved. You hadn’t been scolded. You’d been seen.
From that moment, something shifted. You weren’t just another intern holding a clipboard anymore. Not to him.
You started to notice how often he’d catch your eye before press conferences, the silent question in his expression asking if you were ready before the cameras started rolling. You started timing your breaks with his media commitments, offering him water, or gently nudging him away from pushy interviewers when he looked like he needed the escape.
It wasn’t official, not yet. You still had to chase down quotes and write blurbs for race programs. But without anyone really saying it aloud, you began to orbit each other—two young professionals thrown into a whirlwind of fame, pressure, and performance. You didn’t know what it would become. You didn’t know how long it would last.
But you knew that something had started.
And for the first time since arriving in the paddock, you didn’t feel like you were on the outside looking in.
Sebastian had quirks. Not the carefully engineered kind of eccentricities some drivers wore for branding, but genuine ones—odd, charming, deeply human. He named his cars as if they were living things, as if each chassis had a personality he had to tame before it would trust him on the track. First there was Julie, then Luscious Liz, and later Kinky Kylie. He never explained the names beyond a grin and a shrug, and no one pressed him on it. That was just Seb.
He sang, too. Always a little off-key, always under his breath, usually in the garage when the mechanics were elbow-deep in the car and the press had been cleared out. Sometimes Queen, sometimes The Beatles, once even ABBA during a rainy weekend in Spa. He had this uncanny ability to slip past the pressure and the noise, to make the paddock feel less like a warzone and more like a playground. You never understood how he managed it, not with the weight he was starting to carry, but he did.
He left notes for the team on the garage whiteboard: messages of encouragement, doodles in Sharpie or crayon, sometimes full of inside jokes that only the crew understood. He once brought you back a novelty pencil sharpener from a sponsor event in Tokyo, shaped like a miniature cow in a kimono. You asked him why, slightly amused, and he just grinned and said, “It reminded me of you,” before walking away with no further context.
He liked trivia. He liked learning. On slow media days, he’d wander into the press room and lean against your desk, casually pointing at countries on the race calendar as if the world itself were a quiz show.
“What’s the capital of Azerbaijan?” he asked one morning in Istanbul, while you were juggling a dozen media briefings, two sponsor calls, and your fourth cup of bitter coffee.
“Baku,” you muttered, not even glancing up from your screen.
He clicked his tongue and tilted his head. “Show off,” he said, but there was no bite to it. Just the fondness of someone who had come to enjoy testing you and maybe needed the normalcy your presence gave him.
You rose from intern to junior PR assistant by the start of 2010, just as the stakes began to climb. When Seb started winning, your job shifted dramatically. It was no longer about learning the ropes. It was about holding them together.
Race weekends became battlegrounds. Press conferences, especially after on-track drama with Webber, turned tense and tightly controlled. Post-race interviews demanded more than just polished soundbites; they became arenas where every word was dissected, misquoted, and spun into headlines. The world had crowned Sebastian a future champion, and with that came scrutiny that gnawed at his edges, whether he admitted it or not.
The more he succeeded, the more the world demanded of him. Everyone wanted a piece: fans, sponsors, journalists, the public. And you watched, week after week, as he gave them what he could while trying to keep something for himself.
But no matter how high the stakes climbed, he never stopped being kind to you.
Even when he was exhausted and hollow-eyed after a difficult qualifying. Even when he'd just finished answering the same question sixteen different ways. Even when the team expected him to represent Red Bull as a flawless, untouchable champion, he never forgot you were there.
He’d sneak you extra desserts at team dinners, sliding them across the table like contraband with a conspiratorial wink. He’d pull you aside after especially rough media days, voice low and sincere, and ask, “You okay?” even when it was him who’d been under fire from half the paddock.
And maybe that’s when everything began to shift.
Because you started advocating for him more fiercely, too. Not just out of duty, but out of something deeper. You became fluent in his silences, how he fidgeted with his ring when he was overthinking, how his sentences got clipped when he felt cornered, how he went quiet when the noise in his head got too loud. You learned to cut interviews short before he reached the brink. You mastered the art of inventing fictional scheduling conflicts when Sebastian needed a break. You deflected questions designed to provoke, rerouted conversations that veered too close to sore spots, and stood between him and headlines waiting to paint him in villainous brushstrokes.
By the end of 2011, after the most dominant season of his career so far, you were no longer just a member of the PR team.
You were his PR officer—officially, in title, and unofficially, in every way that mattered.
You were the one Christian Horner called when the press started circling too early. You were the one Helmut Marko side-eyed but always listened to. And you were the one Sebastian looked for when he climbed out of the car, still unbuckling his gloves, gaze sweeping past the flashing cameras and frenzied journalists until it landed on you.
He needed you, not just for the interviews or the image. You grounded him. You reminded him, in a world obsessed with speed and perfection, that he was still allowed to be human.
And somewhere, between the media centers and long-haul flights, the late nights spent rewriting press statements and the quiet moments before the lights went out in parc fermé, something between you began to blur. It wasn’t love, not yet. But it wasn’t just professional anymore, either.
The night after Sebastian clinched his third consecutive World Championship, the Red Bull hospitality suite buzzed with celebration. Champagne flowed like water, music thumped through the temporary walls, and team members laughed louder than they had all year, as if releasing every ounce of tension they had carried from Melbourne to São Paulo.
But Sebastian wasn’t in the center of it.
You found him instead in the farthest corner of the suite, half-hidden behind a column draped in Red Bull livery, seated on a worn padded bench meant for crew debriefs and quiet coffee breaks. He was still in his race suit, unzipped to the waist, arms folded loosely as he swirled a half-filled glass of sparkling water. The motion was absent, almost meditative, like he wasn’t really looking at it at all.
The glass caught the overhead lights and sparkled like champagne, but you knew he hadn’t touched a drop. Not tonight. Maybe not in weeks.
“Not drinking?” you asked quietly, slipping past the thrum of noise to reach him.
He glanced up with a faint smile and shook his head once. “Too tired. Too wired. I don’t know which one it is.”
His voice was hoarse, threaded with fatigue, the kind of tired that didn’t come from laps or travel, but from the weight of being who he was expected to be, day after day, for an entire season that had demanded more than most.
You sat down beside him, your own legs aching from hours on your feet, your voice worn raw from interviews, press briefings, and the endless juggling act of a title fight that had come down to the final race.
For a moment, neither of you said anything.
The noise of celebration carried on just out of reach, distant and muffled, like it belonged to someone else. In this quiet corner, it felt like the season was finally exhaling.
He nudged your shoulder gently with his own. “You did well this year,” he said, voice softer now, closer to the version of him that the cameras never quite caught. “Thanks for putting up with all my crap.”
You let out a quiet, tired laugh and tilted your head toward him. “It’s not crap. It’s… character.”
He turned to look at you then, really looked—eyes slightly red from the effort of keeping it all together, a shadow of something heavier still resting just beneath the surface. He didn’t smile for the cameras this time. No polished grin, no sponsor-friendly quip. Just a small, worn curve of his lips, and something soft behind his eyes.
“You make it easier,” he said after a beat, his voice lower now, vulnerable in a way it rarely was. “Being myself. Around you.”
Your heart stilled, caught somewhere between disbelief and recognition. You had spent three years walking beside him, rising through the ranks just as he had, supporting him in the good moments and standing between him and the worst. You had seen him win races, crash out, rage at the team radio, and charm the media with quick-witted smiles.
But this? This was not a performance.
This was Sebastian, stripped bare of the mask he wore for the world. This was the boy who had gripped your hand in the chaos of Monza all those seasons ago, the man who still looked for you first when he climbed from the car, the soul behind the headlines.
“You’re good at being yourself,” you replied gently, trying not to let your voice catch. “Even when it’s hard. Especially then.”
For a moment, he didn’t respond. He just stared down at the fizzing glass in his hands, like it held all the answers he still couldn’t articulate. Then, almost imperceptibly, he leaned closer, shoulder pressing against yours with a kind of familiarity that felt earned, not casual. His fingers brushed against your knee—not by accident, not by intention either, just a quiet point of contact that lingered.
He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to.
And you didn’t move away.
You sat there together in the dim light of a season’s end, surrounded by noise and glory and expectation, and yet it felt like the whole world had narrowed to just the space between you.
Your chest ached with the quiet realization that something had shifted. Not all at once. Not dramatically. But something real.
And when he finally exhaled and leaned back with a sigh, eyes closed for just a second too long, you wondered if this, this, was the moment you’d been moving toward all along.
A season destined, on paper, to be perfect. Nine consecutive victories. Four straight titles. A level of dominance that would echo through history books and highlight reels for decades to come. But behind the gleam of stats and trophies, everything felt different. Sharper. Lonelier. Heavier.
Malaysia cracked something wide open.
Multi-21, Seb. Multi-21.
The words looped endlessly through the paddock in the hours after the race, echoing from garages to media pens. Fans shouted it online. Journalists latched onto it like wolves with bloodied teeth. The press ran with headlines that spun the moment into betrayal, arrogance, and a dangerous shift in perception. It didn’t matter that he had won. In the court of public opinion, Sebastian Vettel had committed the ultimate sin: disobedience.
He passed Mark Webber when he wasn’t supposed to.
He won when he was told not to.
And they hated him for it.
You found him after the race, not in the post-session debrief or the press gauntlet you had half-prepared him for, but behind the Red Bull hospitality unit, crouched low on a transport crate beneath a flickering floodlight. He was still in his race suit, arms resting on his knees, helmet abandoned beside him like he couldn't bring himself to carry it any longer.
He looked up when he heard your footsteps, but barely. His expression was unreadable, too blank to be tired, too drawn to be calm.
“They think I’m the villain,” he said before you could speak, his voice rough from radio strain and restraint.
You crossed your arms in front of you, unwilling to play along with the story the world had already written. “Are you?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he stared straight ahead, eyes tracking something invisible on the far wall of the paddock. The silence between you pulsed, thick with years of victories, interviews, strategy meetings, airport lounges, late-night calls, and everything you had carried for him, with him.
“I don’t think so,” he said finally. “But I’m tired. Tired of trying to be the good guy, the smiling champion, the perfect teammate. I’m tired of explaining myself to people who've already made up their minds.”
His tone wasn’t bitter. It was weary. Fractured at the edges. This wasn’t the Sebastian who threw jokes into press conferences or bounced through the garage humming Beatles lyrics. This was the version of him he rarely showed: quiet, stripped bare of spin and strategy.
You lowered yourself onto the crate beside him, your shoulder brushing his, the heat from his body clinging to the night air.
“You don’t have to explain anything,” you said, your voice soft but steady. “Not to me.”
That was when he looked at you...really looked. And what you saw in his face made your breath catch.
He wasn’t just exhausted. He was unraveling.
He had spent years being the golden boy, the wunderkind, the rising star who matured into a champion. But with every title, the expectations grew more suffocating, the praise more conditional. Win the right way. Speak the right way. Smile when they want you to. Back off when the radio tells you to.
You had watched him carry it all with a quiet resilience, refusing to let the world see how much it wore him down. But now, in the shadow of that one moment, one overtake, one team order ignored, it had finally caught up to him.
“I should’ve told you this sooner,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “But I think I need you. Not just for media briefings or to make me look presentable when I’m falling apart. I need you in a way I don’t know how to put into words without ruining everything.”
You tried to hide the way your breath hitched, your pulse quickening. You had stood beside him through it all, from the tentative beginnings in 2009 to podiums and press scrums, to the days when the only thing keeping the headlines from spinning out of control was your intervention. But he had never said it out loud before.
Not like this.
You tried to deflect. Lighten it. “You mean someone to carry your weird car-name ideas past legal?”
He laughed. Not just a polite chuckle, but a real, worn laugh that came from the gut. The kind you hadn’t heard in weeks.
He shook his head and looked down at his hands. “I mean, someone who knows me. Someone who stays. Even when I forget how to be nice. Even when I snap, shut down, or say the wrong thing. Even when I’m not anyone worth PR-ing.”
You exhaled slowly. The weight of the moment settled in your chest, full and undeniable.
“I’ve always stayed,” you said, barely more than a breath. “You just didn’t look up.”
He turned his hand toward yours, hesitant at first, as if he wasn’t sure he deserved to be met halfway. But you didn’t hesitate. You took his hand in yours and let your fingers tangle together, a simple gesture that felt like a promise long overdue.
There, in the quiet dark behind the hospitality unit, at the height of a season that would go on to cement his legend, something far more personal fell into place.
The boy who once whispered apologies after media stumbles and left notes in crayon.
The girl who once carried clipboards and stayed in the background.
Now here, in the stillness after the storm, finally sitting side by side as equals.
Not a press officer and driver.
Just two people who had weathered everything together, and who, perhaps, at last, were ready to stop pretending it was just professional.
Summary: You've been dating Lando for a few months on the down low. No one, including the media, the fans, and especially not your older brother, Carlos, has caught on. But Lando gets into a silly, goofy mood and decided soft launching during summer break is a good idea. Will chaos ensure?
Tags: Fluff, SMAU, use of y/n
A/N: So this is my first SMAU, so it's probably a little rough. I wanted to try something new for a Lando fic
Masterlist ❤️
lando
Liked by lnfour, carlossainz55, and 23,767 others
lando: stepped into somehing good 🧡🤍
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lnfour: 👀
carlossainz55: Do you have something to share with the groupchat?
user1: OMGGGG A SOFTLAUNCH???
user 2: That doesn't look like Oscar's foot 🤭
oscarpiastri: Thankfully it's not
lando: you wish it was you 👀
user 3: no more lando no-rizz lmaooo 😗
It starts with a post.
Not a selfie. Not a tagged photo. Just a picture of your shoes touching—white sneakers, sole to sole, perfectly aligned like puzzle pieces. The lighting is cozy, casual. Nothing dramatic. But it’s intimate in the way that says: this isn’t just anyone.
The caption?
“Stepped into something good.” 🧡🤍
No tag. No name. Just implication.
And now… chaos.
You’re lying face down on the bed, trying to muffle your laughter into the hotel pillow, while Lando—fresh from the shower, towel slung dangerously low—is checking his phone with a grin like he’s just cured world hunger.
“Lando,” you groan. “You soft-launched me with my own shoes.”
He shrugs, clearly very proud of himself. “They’re good shoes. Sentimental.”
You peek at the screen. “Carlos commented. You’re dead.”
Lando reads the message aloud with a smirk:
“Do you have something to share with the group chat?”
“See?” he says, tossing the phone on the bed. “Could’ve been worse. He’s chill.”
Your phone buzzes again, but this time it’s not yours that vibrates.
It’s his.
Lando glances at the screen, and the color visibly drains from his face.
Incoming Call: Carlos Sainz
Your eyes widen. “Oh no.”
“Nope,” Lando says immediately, scrambling backward on the bed like the call might physically burn him. “No, no, no.”
“You have to answer,” you say, already laughing. “You posted it.”
“I was being romantic!” he hisses, clutching a pillow to his chest like it’s armor. “I didn’t think he’d be on Instagram within thirty seconds.”
Your phone pings again.
Carlos: Tell Lando to pick up.
Lando flinches. “He’s texting you too? How would he even know it was you?”
“Oh, he’s serious. He knows those shoes, Lando.”
The phone keeps buzzing.
“Answer it,” you tease. “Maybe he just wants to talk.”
“He never just wants to talk,” Lando mutters, reluctantly swiping to accept the call. He puts it on speaker.
“Hola,” he says, with the shakiness of a man who has made terrible choices.
There’s a beat of silence.
Then Carlos’s voice comes through, low and threatening in that very older-brother-who-lifts-weights-for-fun way:
“Tell me that picture wasn’t what I think it was.”
Lando opens his mouth. Closes it.
You’re barely holding it together.
“Technically,” Lando says carefully, “it was just a pair of shoes.”
Another pause.
“You’re unbelievable,” Carlos mutters. “Shoes? Really? That’s how you announce it? On Instagram? Without telling me?”
Lando sits up straighter. “Okay, first of all, I didn’t announce anything. I soft launched. That’s different.”
You bury your face in the sheets, wheezing.
“I swear to God, Lando—”
“Carlos, wait!” Lando blurts. “I swear I was going to tell you, properly. Like, with dinner! And a handshake! And maybe a presentation with charts!”
“You’re an idiot.”
“That’s fair,” Lando mumbles.
You finally sit up, still grinning. “Hey, Carlos?”
He softens just slightly at the sound of your voice. “Are you okay?”
You glance at Lando, now pink in the face, and beam. “Yeah. I’m happy.”
There’s a long pause. Then Carlos sighs.
“Fine. But if you hurt her—”
“I won’t!” Lando says, already tripping over himself. “I’d rather crash the car into a wall. Like, a big wall. A solid one.”
Carlos groans. “God help me.”
Then the line goes dead.
Lando exhales like he just survived a hostage negotiation.
“That went amazing,” he says, lying flat on his back.
You raise an eyebrow. “That was terrifying.”
“Yeah,” he agrees. “But also? Kinda worth it.”
You curl up beside him, both of you staring at the ceiling, soft smiles shared in the quiet.
“…You’re still posting that Uno picture later, aren’t you?”
“Oh, absolutely,” you laugh at Lando.
LittleSainz
Liked by oscarpiastri, carlossainz55, iamrebeccad, and 63,543 others
LittleSainz: Should I absoluely destroy him? ❤️
View all comments
oscarpiastri: Absolutely
carlossainz55: Yes.
user3: First Lando and now, y/n?? What is going on? Is it soft launch season???
user4: my money's on lando and y/n soft lanching each other 😗
user5: nurse, she got out again
Lando squints at his cards like they’re a complex F1 telemetry readout. You’re trying not to laugh, legs curled beneath you on the couch, phone still warm from where you just posted the photo to your story.
“You’re taking this very seriously,” you tease, hiding your grin behind your cards.
“I just don’t trust you,” he mutters, side-eyeing the two wilds you’ve already dropped. “You play UNO like it’s personal.”
“Because it is personal,” you reply, slapping a red +2 onto the pile with a little too much satisfaction.
Lando groans, flopping backward against the cushions. “See?! That’s exactly what I mean. Aggressive. Violent.”
“Strategic,” you correct, drawing another card.
His phone pings. Then again. Then three more times in rapid succession.
He reaches for it with a suspicious frown, unlocks it, then pauses mid-scroll.
“Babe,” he says slowly, “what did you post.”
You smile sweetly. “Nothing incriminating.”
“'Should I absolutely destroy him?'” he reads aloud. “With a photo of me? In a towel? Playing UNO??”
“It was a soft launch callback. The fans love it.”
As if on cue, his phone lights up with a message from Carlos:
Carlos: Uno? Really? This is what you two are now? Domestic chaos?
Another from Oscar:
Oscar: If she wins, you’re never living it down.
Lando stares at you, eyes narrowing. “You coordinated this.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, laying down your next card. “Blue skip.”
“You traitor.”
He lunges for your phone and you yelp, scrambling to hold it above your head as he dives after you, the deck scattering between you both. You’re breathless with laughter, his curls tickling your neck as he tries to swipe your phone and you wriggle out of reach.
Eventually he pins you down, arms caging you, smile wide and breathless.
“You’re evil,” he murmurs, nose brushing yours.
“And you love me,” you reply.
He doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah. I do.”
You stop squirming.
His smile softens. “We’re good at this,” he adds quietly.
“Soft launching?”
“No,” he says, leaning in to kiss you. “Loving each other.”
And for once, the comments go quiet in your head.
You forget the cards. The chaos. Even Carlos.
Because you’ve already won.
LittleSainz
Liked by lando, carlossainz55, lnfour, iamrebeccad, and 67,456 others
LittleSainz: Forever my favorite person 🧡 tagged: lando
View all comments
lando: my forever and always 🧡
LittleSainz: Love you ❤️
carlossainz55: I think I'm going to be sick
LittleSainz: Hater 👎🏻
user4: I've been vindicated 😤
user5: okay maybe you weren't delulu
user6: Carlando lives on, but like in a different font 🥹
oscarpiastri: She's way out of your league
lando: do you enjoy being a hater????
oscarpiastri: yes ❤️
You’re curled up on the couch in one of Lando’s hoodies, legs tucked beneath you, phone buzzing on the coffee table with constant notifications. You should probably turn it off. Or at least mute Instagram. But something about the chaos is... kind of sweet.
People know now.
And they like you. Or at least, they like you together.
Lando walks into the living room holding two mugs of tea, hair still damp from the shower, wearing a soft smile and no shirt, just gray sweats and his usual sleepy charm.
He sets your mug down in front of you, then leans in to kiss your forehead.
“Still reading comments?” he murmurs against your skin.
You hum. “Oscar called you a troll.”
“Yeah, well. He’s just mad because I have better hair.”
You laugh, and he plops down beside you, pulling you into his lap without asking. His arms loop around your waist as he presses his face into the crook of your neck like it’s his safest place.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“More than okay.”
He exhales, fingers drawing idle shapes on your thigh.
“I thought it’d feel scarier,” you admit, playing with the edge of his sleeve. “Being known as someone other than Carlos's sister.”
He pulls back just enough to look at you. “You don’t have to be anyone you’re not. I’m not sharing you with the world. I’m just... letting them know who has my heart.”
Your breath catches.
“You’re kind of good at this,” you whisper.
“At what?”
“Being mine.”
His smile turns lopsided. “Practice. Lots of it. Years of yearning, tragic pining, a few near-death moments, a very scary older brother who happens to be one of my best friends.”
You laugh again, burying your face in his shoulder. “Carlos literally commented ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’”
“And then liked the post. Passive aggressive and supportive. King behavior.”
“God, we’re insufferable.”
“Yup. Public menace couple. No going back now.”
He tilts your chin up, brushing a soft kiss against your lips. It’s not rushed or showy or dramatic, just...real. Warm. Certain.
And when he pulls away, he doesn’t go far.
“I’m proud of us,” he says quietly.
You smile. “Me too.”
The world can watch. Comment. Screenshot. The whole circus.
But here, in this room, with his hand on your knee and your head on his chest, everything is quiet. Whole.
Summary: Spa isn't just a track, it's somewhere Solana needs to prove that she's still in the game. It's not always about winning, but it is about proving she's worked hard enough to be seen as a threat.
Warnings: Teammate rivalry, smut
Words: 2.6k+
A/N: Sorry for being absent! I appreciate all the love the Oscar fics have been getting! I'll probably put out another Oscar fic and transition into Lando and Seb! I'm two weeks away from finishing these accelerated courses!
Previous || Next
Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium – August 2016
Spa always felt like the edge of the world.
The circuit snaked through the Ardennes forest like an old secret, surrounded by towering pines and mist that moved as if alive. The air smelled of rain and rubber, the kind of scent that clung to fireproofs and lived in the lungs of drivers long after they left. The skies above could shift from serene to storming in a heartbeat, and everyone in the paddock knew Spa demanded respect. It was not just a track. It was a test.
Solana Villarosa arrived with her passport stamped with momentum and her soul still slightly bruised from Hockenheim. The tension from that weekend had not fully left her body; it lingered in her shoulders, in the back of her neck, in the way she stared out the window of the rental car as they drove through the wet Belgian hills toward the circuit.
She had taken P2 in Germany, but the cost of it, the battle with Sebastian, the unspoken lines crossed, the statement it had made within Ferrari, had settled deep into her bones. It wasn’t the finish that haunted her. It was the silence afterward. The glances. The quiet divide that had widened between them with every debrief.
But Spa brought a different kind of rhythm. Here, the challenge was written in elevation changes and unpredictable weather, in corners that still carried ghosts. Eau Rouge. Blanchimont. Pouhon. They weren’t just names. They were thresholds.
Her first walk through the paddock that Thursday morning was met with nods and half-smiles from mechanics already soaked through their jackets. The rain came and went in bursts, and her fireproofs stuck to her skin before she even reached the garage. But Solana welcomed it. Spa didn’t allow for façades. It stripped you bare and she had no desire to hide anymore.
When she stood beside her Ferrari, the SF16-H glistening under the flickering garage lights, her eyes flicked toward the names carved into the paddock’s history. Drivers who had mastered this place. Drivers who had been broken by it.
She had come here to do more than just to survive. She had come to carve her name into its rhythm.
Marcos handed her the weather sheets and a damp clipboard. “Light rain for FP1. Maybe heavier by the long runs.”
She nodded, scanning the data. “Perfect.”
He gave her a look. “Perfect?”
Solana looked up at the sky outside the garage, then back at him, a calm certainty in her voice.
“If Spa wants to throw a storm at me,” she said, tightening the strap of her gloves, “then let it.”
And as the first drops hit the tarmac, cold and deliberate, Solana Villarosa climbed into her car, her heart steady beneath the weight of her suit. Some circuits were made to be conquered.
But Spa?
Spa was made to reveal who you really were.
The Paddock: More Than a Rivalry
Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium – August 2016
The media buzzed like static in the background—persistent, prickling, impossible to ignore.
By the time Solana Villarosa reached the Ferrari hospitality tent, she had already fielded three questions about Sebastian Vettel and none about the car’s upgrades. The whispers that had followed them since Monaco had only grown louder after Hockenheim. Every camera, every column, seemed desperate to frame them as two gladiators sharing one chariot.
“Are things improving between you and Vettel?” a reporter asked as she stepped off the curb, voice pleasant but eyes sharp.
Solana paused just long enough for the cameras to focus, her expression polished to near perfection. “We’re both focused on bringing results to Ferrari,” she said evenly. “The rest is noise.”
Behind her, footsteps echoed over the concrete. She didn’t have to turn to know who it was. Sebastian passed with the ghost of a nod, stiff and automatic. She kept her gaze forward, her jaw still.
She didn’t return it.
Later that afternoon, the clouds hung heavy over the Red Bull motorhome, the scent of ozone lingering in the damp air. Solana, now a constant visitor, ducked under the awning, brushing a few stray raindrops from her sleeves. Through the glass, she saw Max pacing, one hand dragging through his hair, the other clenched in frustration.
“Max,” she called as she stepped inside.
He turned quickly, a frown already etched deep into his brow. “I keep locking up in Sector 2,” he said before she could ask. “Every damn time through Pouhon. I’m bleeding time into the straight.”
Solana nodded once, reading the tension in his posture the way a mentor reads telemetry. “Try shifting the brake bias forward just before you enter Pouhon. Not by much. Just enough to stabilize the rear as you come off throttle.”
Max blinked. “Forward? That’s…backwards.”
“It’s counterintuitive,” she agreed. “But it works. That’s what I do every lap.”
He stared at her for a moment, then let out a breath that was half-exasperation, half-relief. “That’s why you’re you.”
She gave him a faint smile. “That’s why I’m still here.”
He shook his head with a grin now forming, the tension softening at the corners of his mouth. “Gracias, Mother Sol,” he said, a mixture of mockery and gratitude in his voice.
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t call me that.”
“Too late,” he laughed like the boy he was, already walking toward the simulator. “It’s canon now.”
Solana stood there for a moment, watching him disappear down the hallway, her arms folded across her chest. He would fight for everything, just like she had. Maybe harder. But not smarter, not yet.
“One day you’ll win here,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “Maybe not today. But soon.”
And with that, she stepped back into the misty paddock, the storm clouds overhead echoing the ones she carried in her chest, dark, rolling, but never enough to keep her from the circuit.
A Weekend with Charles
Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium – August 2016
She slips away on Saturday afternoon, ducking out between debriefs and engineering meetings, trading the Ferrari hospitality suite for the scrappier heartbeat of the GP3 paddock. There are no cameras here, no scripted interviews—just Charles, hunched beside the ART Grand Prix pit wall, helmet in his lap, brows furrowed in focus.
He notices her before she speaks.
“Nervous?” she asks, voice light but knowing.
He glances up and nods. “I don’t want to let anyone down. Not my team. Not Jules.”
Solana crouches to meet his eyes. “Jules didn’t help in raising you to play it safe. He believed in how you read a race. So do I. You’re not here to survive this series, you’re here to finish what he started.”
Charles blinks against the pressure behind his eyes, the weight of expectation heavy but familiar.
“Merci tantu,” he murmurs. “I needed that.” Thank you.
The race that follows is pure execution. Spa is brutal and legendary, but Charles makes it look smooth. He defends when he needs to, attacks when it counts, and manages the tires with a precision that silences any remaining doubt. He finishes on the podium, again, and extends his points lead with the kind of maturity that turns heads up and down the paddock.
Later, after parc fermé, Solana waits near the trucks, away from the flashbulbs. When he finds her, he doesn’t speak. He just hugs her. Long, tight, grounded.
“You’re ready,” she tells him quietly. “Not just for the rest of the season. For the next step.”
He pulls back, smiling now.
“I want to make him proud. Both of you.”
She rests a hand on his shoulder. “You already have.”
And by the end of the year, when Charles Leclerc is crowned the 2016 GP3 Champion with ART Grand Prix, it feels less like a surprise and more like an inevitability.
He didn’t just carry a legacy. He earned one.
The Belgian GP – Dancing in the Rain
Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium – August 28, 2016
The sky cracks open just before the anthem.
It's not a drizzle or a warning. It's a downpour. The kind that turns tarmac into glass and visibility into a guess. Mechanics scramble to switch compounds. Engineers mutter about timing deltas and tire windows. Spa, already a circuit of chaos and glory, now becomes something else entirely: unforgiving, mythical.
Solana starts fifth. Her SF16-H is perched on a narrow strip of wet asphalt, the rain pelting her visor, her gloves already damp through the seams. She adjusts the toggles on her steering wheel without looking. Her mind is elsewhere, not far, just ahead. Eau Rouge. La Source. The car in front. The race unfolding lap by lap like a knife being drawn.
The lights go out. The spray is immediate.
There's low visibility. Cold tires. Nerves wrapped in fireproofs.
By Lap 10, she’s in fourth, hunting Bottas through the mist with the patience of a woman who’s learned to let the track come to her. When she takes him at Les Combes, it's clean, confident, and precise. The kind of overtake that earns respect, not just points.
Just ahead, Daniel holds second behind Rosberg. Solana sets her sights on him for a lap or two, but he is too sharp in the wet, too consistent through the second sector. And somewhere between Stavelot and the Bus Stop chicane, she realizes what her car is capable of and what it’s not.
"Balance okay?" Marcos asks in her ear.
She nods even though he cannot see her. "Car feels planted. Fronts are warm."
Over the radio, a voice crackles. Daniel's voice coming through a special connection Redbull and Ferrari had surprisingly approved.
“You’re magic in the rain, Sol.”
She exhales, smile tugging at her lips. “So are you. Stop flirting and finish your lap.”
He laughs, and the sound cuts through the storm inside her.
When she crosses the line in third, she barely remembers what it feels like to breathe. Rosberg wins. Daniel second. Solana third.
But the moment she parks the car and removes her helmet, the noise returns in full: cheers, static, champagne, applause. Another podium. Another step toward the impossible.
In the cooldown room, she watches Daniel quietly from across the space. Cameras circle like vultures, but he doesn’t look away. He crosses the room when no one’s watching and presses a water bottle into her hand like it’s a secret. When their fingers brush, something flickers, warm and tethered.
“You were flying out there,” he says, eyes soft.
She shrugs. “You just got to Turn 1 faster.”
He tilts his head, speaking to Solana softly in the way that only Danny knew how to do, “I’m buying you dinner for that defense into La Source.”
Later
The rain hasn’t stopped. It softens against the windows like fingertips, threading through the stillness of their hotel room in a rhythm that soothes more than it stirs.
Inside, the world is dim and warm. The bedside lamp is off, but the glow of the city below casts fleeting shadows across the ceiling. Solana lies on her side, tangled with Daniel beneath the cotton sheets, their bare legs intertwined, her hand resting just above his heart.
Neither of them speaks for a while. The silence between them is full, but not heavy. It pulses with everything left unsaid, everything they don’t have to explain.
Daniel runs his fingers gently through her hair, curling the ends behind her ear, then resting his palm at the nape of her neck. His voice is quiet, almost lost in the rainfall.
“You could’ve won today.”
She doesn’t open her eyes. “I didn’t need to.”
His fingers pause.
“I mean it,” she murmurs. “Sometimes it’s not about chasing first. Sometimes it’s about showing the world you can stay in the fight. That you won’t disappear just because the conditions are impossible.”
Daniel exhales, something between a laugh and a sigh. “You don’t just stay in the fight, Sol. You're rewriting everything.”
She tilts her head just slightly against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm beneath his skin. “Do you ever wonder if they’ll remember us for the right reasons?”
His thumb strokes her shoulder, thoughtful. “All the time.”
They fall into another pocket of silence, but this one is different. Not weighed by doubt, but opened by trust. Outside, the streets below glisten, lit by the scattered glow of shop signs and traffic signals, a world still turning while theirs holds still.
“I want this,” Daniel says eventually, so softly it feels like a confession. “Whatever this is. However long it lasts. I want it.”
Solana lifts her head, her eyes meeting his in the dark. He’s always been good at hiding behind smiles and laughter, but not with her. Not now. She leans in slowly, pressing her lips to his with quiet certainty. A kiss that speaks without needing to ask.
“Then take it,” she whispers. “I’m yours.”
He touches her face like he’s memorizing it, tracing the curve of her jaw with a reverence that makes her ache. His eyes search hers, and whatever restraint was holding him back all day, through the race, the interviews, the weight of everything unsaid, fractures.
There’s no hesitation when he kisses her this time.
It’s not soft. It’s not careful. It’s need.
Their mouths crash together, hands fumbling beneath the sheets. Her fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt, tugging it over his head, and then he’s everywhere, pressing into her, his breath heavy at her throat, his palms running down her sides like he’s trying to commit her to memory through touch alone.
She gasps when he lifts her, arms tight around his shoulders, her legs locking around his waist. There’s a desperation in the way their bodies find each other, a silent demand to feel something real after a weekend of control and chaos. She’s never been one to yield easily, not on track, not in life, but here, with him, the surrender isn’t weakness. It’s release.
He lays her back on the mattress slowly, reverently, but the hunger in him doesn’t fade. It burns brighter. His hands explore her like she’s something sacred, like every inch of her has been earned through years of shared glances, quiet loyalty, and private battles.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he murmurs, breath hot against her skin.
She shakes her head, voice catching. “No. I want all of it. I want you.”
What follows isn’t gentle. It’s intense. It’s tangled sheets and muffled moans, nails on skin and the kind of closeness that leaves her breathless. He moves inside her like he’s trying to carve her name into the silence. Their rhythm builds fast, messy, beautiful; two people who know each other too well to pretend anymore.
She arches into him, moaning his name like a promise, like a prayer. His hands never stop moving, anchoring her, grounding her, worshipping her.
And when it ends, when they both collapse, sweat-slicked and gasping, limbs entwined in the aftershock, it feels like they’ve broken something open between them. Like this wasn’t just physical. Like it never has been.
He brushes damp strands of hair from her forehead, still catching his breath, and presses a kiss to the hollow of her throat.
“You’re everything,” he says against her skin.
She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t need to.
Because here, in this small room miles from Spa’s roaring straights and press pens, Solana Villarosa isn’t the one under fire. She isn’t the threat or the symbol or the story.
She’s simply a woman who has given everything to stay in the game, and found someone who sees the whole of her.
And that night, for the first time in what feels like forever, she sleeps.
Summary: To say that Germany would be a turning point would probably be an understatement. What's a girl to do when you out qualify your teammate on his own turf?
Warnings: Sexism, teammate rivalries
Words: 2.5k+
Previous || Next
Hockenheimring, Germany–July 2016
The Hockenheim paddock hums with heat and tension, the kind that settles under the skin and builds in the bones. The sun glints off garages and transporters, warming the asphalt until it breathes steam. Germany, this weekend, is not just another race. It is Sebastian Vettel’s home Grand Prix, and for Ferrari, it feels like a test, a proving ground, a place where legacy looms large in the rafters of every hospitality unit.
For Solana, it is also a battleground.
She arrives early Friday morning, hours before the usual bustle, already in full Ferrari red. Her sunglasses hide the wear in her eyes, but the set of her shoulders betrays nothing. She walks with purpose through the paddock, nodding to crew members, stepping over cables, ducking into the cool shade of the garage. The heat is intense, but she hardly notices. She has lived under far worse, Monaco in May, Malaysia in April, the press gauntlet after Spain.
Hockenheim is just another test, and she has grown used to being tested. Still, she feels the eyes on her: German press, old Ferrari staffers. A few quiet glances from the Ferrari's old guard who still cling to the belief that number one should mean number one man. She doesn’t give them anything. No flash of emotion or reaction. Just clipped greetings and a calm focus that reads, unmistakably, as control.
Sebastian, by contrast, seems lighter. Not relaxed, but self-assured. He laughs more in the media pen, slapping backs, speaking in his native German with journalists who have followed him since karting. Hockenheim is his arena, and he knows it.
Solana watches him from a distance during Friday track walk, her engineer murmuring telemetry into her ear as they pace through the first sector. She nods, takes in every bump, every camber, every inch of tarmac. Her mind is already moving through strategy, not legacy. But the air crackles between her and Sebastian when they pass one another at Turn 6. He says nothing. Neither does she. But his smirk holds a challenge, and her silence, an answer.
Friday – Team Tensions and Broken Smiles
Hockenheimring, Germany – July 2016
The air in the Ferrari motorhome carries the heaviness of a summer storm that hasn’t yet broken. Outside, FP1 has wrapped under hazy skies and humid tension. Inside the debriefing room, the mood is even thicker.
Solana Villarosa sits with her race suit unzipped to her waist, arms crossed as she studies the printout in her lap. Her P4 lap time from the morning session came on a used set of softs. Clean. Consistent. Purposeful. Sebastian Vettel, meanwhile, finished seventh after a twitchy run through the stadium section and an aborted flying lap. His expression, when he walked in, already held the bite of someone not used to trailing shadows.
The engineers begin reviewing corner differentials and aero load distributions. Solana listens carefully, adding a note here and there, her voice measured but firm. She doesn't speak to impress, only to inform, but that, in itself, has always been a kind of provocation.
Halfway through the session, she begins describing a subtle rear instability she felt in Turn 12, unsettling but manageable. Her race engineer nods, agreeing with her notes about traction sensitivity under lateral load. She begins to explain how it connects to the updated floor they tested in Austria.
That’s when Sebastian cuts in.
“I think the balance issue is tied to aero load, not traction mapping,” he says, loud enough to shift the room’s energy.
Solana looks up slowly, her eyes flicking from the telemetry to him. She doesn’t raise her voice. She doesn’t even shift in her chair.
“Except we isolated aero instability during wind tunnel tests last week,” she replies, her tone steady. “That variable was controlled. You’d know that if you had reviewed the post-test data from Fiorano.”
He leans forward slightly, the muscle in his jaw tightening. “We don’t need your speculation right now.”
“I’m not speculating,” she replies, sharp enough to silence the low clatter of typing. “I’m reporting what the car gave me. Maybe try that.”
The words land like a slap, not shouted but surgically precise. For a moment, no one breathes. The head of aerodynamics glances at the team principal, who clears his throat and shifts the conversation back to tire degradation.
“Let’s stick to the data,” Maurizio says flatly, trying to smother the fire with neutrality.
Sebastian doesn’t respond. He doesn’t have to. He stands abruptly, the movement scraping chair legs against the floor, and walks out without looking back.
The door hisses shut behind him.
Solana remains where she is, posture composed, eyes back on her printout, though her grip on the paper tightens just enough to leave creases. Beneath the surface, her pulse drums against her ribs like it’s looking for a fight. But she refuses to let it show. Not here, not in front of the team. Because that would be giving him what he wants, a break in her calm.
Around her, the engineers begin to shift back to their notes and numbers, eyes flicking between one another, unsure of which side to fall on. Solana doesn't move; she absorbs the silence, owns it. She has earned this seat in red. Every kilometer. Every debrief. Every podium.
And if Sebastian can't see that, it is not her burden to correct him. It is only her job to be faster, smarter, unshakable.
That, she can do.
Saturday – Team Bonding Night
Ferrari Hospitality, Hockenheim – July 2016
The patio of the rustic inn just outside Hockenheim was strung with warm lights that swayed gently in the summer breeze. Long wooden tables stretched across the terrace, filled with Ferrari red: engineers, mechanics, hospitality staff, and the drivers gathered for a rare moment of calm amid the pressure of race weekend.
Laughter rippled through the crowd, mixing with the clinking of wine glasses and the scrape of silverware over plates of fresh pasta and grilled vegetables. It was the kind of evening meant to ease frayed nerves, to remind everyone they were a team, even if not everyone always acted like one.
Solana Villarosa sat near the end of one table, her red jacket draped over the back of her chair, a half-full glass of Sangiovese in hand. The tension in her shoulders had finally started to loosen.
To her left, Charles Leclerc leaned forward, his elbows on the table as he listened closely to a story one of the mechanics was telling about a pit stop gone wrong in 2014. His laughter was quiet, still a bit shy in a room filled with people who had been part of the Ferrari machine far longer than he had. But beside Solana, he seemed more at ease.
Across from her, Marcos, the race engineer who had been with her since the start of her Ferrari journey, pushed his plate away and wiped his hands with a napkin.
"Your long-run pace in FP2 looked good," he said, not quite loudly enough to draw attention, but clearly intending it for her ears alone. "I reviewed the telemetry again with Simone. You’re still fighting a bit of understeer into Turn 12, but nothing we can’t dial out tomorrow."
Solana nodded, setting her glass down. “I felt it too. I was chasing grip more than I should have been. Let’s try trimming the front wing angle in the morning.”
Marcos smiled. “Already queued it. You’re two steps ahead of us, as usual.”
Beside them, a few of the mechanics raised their glasses in her direction, and someone toasted in Italian. She couldn’t catch every word, but she heard her name and the word grinta, grit.
Charles turned toward her with a grin. “They’re saying your corner exit today was molto cattiva, in a good way.”
Solana laughed, finally relaxing. “Tell them I’ll show them meaner tomorrow.”
He raised his glass. “To mean and fast.”
They drank, the wine warm on her tongue. For a moment, the weight of everything, the headlines, the tension with Sebastian, the constant need to prove she belonged, melted away into the hum of familiarity and hard-earned respect.
Later, after dessert was cleared and the patio lights dimmed to a softer glow, Solana stepped away from the table to get some air near the edge of the gravel path that curved around the vineyard. Her braid brushed over her shoulder as she tipped her face toward the breeze.
Footsteps crunched behind her. She turned to find Marcos approaching, hands in his pockets.
“You good?” he asked quietly.
She hesitated, then gave a slow nod. “Getting there.”
He tilted his head, studying her. “You don’t need their permission to lead. You’ve earned it ten times over.”
Solana looked past him to the table, where her teammate sat surrounded by engineers, his smile too polished, his voice too loud. “Sometimes it still feels like I have to be perfect just to be allowed in the room.”
“You don’t,” Marcos said firmly. “You just have to keep being you. That’s more than enough.”
She smiled, small but real. “Thank you.”
They stood there for a moment, the night air filled with the scent of lavender and something earthy. In the distance, someone started a round of toasts again.
And for once, Solana didn’t feel like an outsider at her own table.
She felt like she was Ferrari.
Race Day – Duel at Hockenheim
Hockenheimring, Germany – July 2016
The Hockenheim circuit shimmered in the July sun, heat rising in rippling waves off the tarmac. The paddock pulsed with expectation. This was Sebastian’s home race, and for Ferrari, a weekend thick with legacy and national pride. But it was Solana Villarosa who stood on the grid, her red helmet contrasting with the Mexican flag on the side and marigolds on the other, gleaming beneath the lights as she prepared to go to war.
Sebastian started second. Hamilton was on pole. And just behind them, Solana waited. When the lights blinked out, the launch was brutal. Sebastian surged forward, aggressive as ever, elbows wide like a man trying to prove something. Solana held her line through the first corners, never backing down, the Ferrari twitching beneath her in the dirty air. She stayed composed, even as the rhythm of the race began to batter the tires and blur the track.
The Mercedes pulled away, as expected. But the battle for the soul of Ferrari raged behind.
By Lap 38, the temperature had climbed past thirty degrees, and so had the tension. Solana had been reeling him in for five laps, watching the strain in his corner exits, the early throttle lifts. Her tires were worn, too, but her pace was cleaner. Her lines are more precise. Her patience is sharper.
Then it happened at turn 6. She dove for the inside, testing him. He blocked hard, crowding her onto the outer curb. Her car skated, back end dancing, gravel kicking up in her wake. She barely caught the slide. The radio stayed quiet.
It was not a defense. It was a message: He wanted her to back down.
But what Sebastian never understood, what he refused to accept, was that she had been here first. She had been wearing the prancing horse before he’d even shaken hands with Maranello. She had earned her seat without legacy or titles; she earned it with time and grit, with loyalty. This wasn’t just a team to her. It was a part of her name.
On Lap 46, she responded. Turn 6 again. This time, she lifted early, baited him into over-committing the corner. As he ran wide on exit, she cut low and tight beneath him, the nose of her SF16-H slicing past the rear of his car like a knife through silk. The switchback was flawless. It was clean. It was absolutely undeniable.
"Villarosa takes P2 from Vettel at Hockenheim!" The commentary roared across Europe.
She didn’t celebrate. She just drove. Lap after lap. Smooth and ruthless.
Hamilton took the checkered flag. Solana crossed the line in second. Sebastian came home fourth.
The moment she stepped out of the car in parc fermé, the heat hit her again, but this time it came from inside. She removed her helmet slowly, hair clinging to the back of her neck, jaw clenched.
Sebastian stood by the garage, still in his gloves, eyes fixed on anything but her. She walked toward him, every step measured.
“You try that block again,” she said calmly, “and I will file a complaint with the stewards. You nearly put me in the wall.”
He glanced at her, barely. No apology. Just that familiar, quiet entitlement.
She didn’t flinch.
“You weren’t here first,” she said. “And this team doesn’t revolve around your shadow. It never did.”
He said nothing.
She stepped in closer, just enough to make the silence between them burn.
“This isn’t just your team,” she said, her voice colder now. “It’s ours. The sooner you understand that, the better we’ll all drive.”
He finally looked at her then, no apology, no anger. Just the faintest crack in the mask he wore so tightly. But she didn’t wait for an answer. She walked away toward the podium cool-down room, head held high, body aching, soul alight.
The grandstands still echoed with cheers.
They weren't for Ferrari or for Sebastian.
They were for her.
Later
That evening, long after the press conferences had ended and the adrenaline had cooled into something quieter, Solana stepped out onto the balcony of her hotel room. The lights of Hockenheim flickered in the distance, muted against the deepening sky. Her skin still held the heat of the day, her muscles aching with the familiar weight of the fight she had just endured.
She dialed home.
It rang once.
Then twice.
“¿Bueno?” came her mother’s voice, warm, steady, always grounding.
Solana’s breath caught, just for a moment. “Hola, Mamá.”
“Ganaste otra vez, mi niña,” her mother said, pride flowing through every word. You won again, my girl.
Solana leaned her forearms against the cool railing, her voice quiet. “No gané. I didn’t win. But I didn’t back down either.”
There was a pause. Then her mother spoke again, softer now, but unwavering, “Eso importa más. That matters more. Y mija…te vemos. Todo de ti. We see you. All of you. Don’t let their fear shrink your light.”
The words broke something loose inside her. Not pain, not exactly, just the tenderness of being truly seen. A tear traced down her cheek before she could stop it.
Behind her, the balcony door opened. She felt Daniel’s arms slip around her waist, pulling her back into him with the kind of ease that only came from knowing when not to speak. His chest was warm against her spine, his chin settling lightly on her shoulder as if to say: I’m here. I’ve got you.
Solana didn’t move. She let the silence hold her. Let the words from home soak into her skin like balm. And for a moment, between the roar of Germany and the hush of her mother’s voice, she allowed herself to feel it all, pride, exhaustion, and the steady beat of a heart still fighting.
Not for recognition. But for the right to shine, exactly as she was.
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