Strictly Off Record - PT7 OP 81
Pairing: Oscar Piastri x Reader
Tropes: Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Academic Stress/Comfort, Meet-Cute Flashback.
WARNING: contains swearing
Summary: The hardest part wasn’t the tire degradation or the Silverstone rain...it was standing in Oscar’s driver's room on Sunday morning, lying to his face about why you wouldn’t be on the pit wall. But when the British weather turns and McLaren is about to throw away a podium on a conservative strategy, you realize being a "good employee" doesn't matter anymore. Saving his race does. Even if it means breaking security protocols, screaming at the CEO, and betting the entire Grand Prix on a physics equation that only you understand.
Word Count: 3.2K (HOW DID I EVEN MANAGE THAT?)
A/N: Wow! This series has been a wild ride. From conceptualizing each chapter for days on end, researching accurate engineering concepts, down to not studying and living like a hermit for like 4 days to bring this to life. I'm honestly really, really happy that a lot of people here like this series. It touched my heart to read the comments (special shout out to @lyricsandvenom for being the sweetest human ever. I had such a rough few days and I think writing this story was just my saving grace. Thank you for your kind words, it really gave me the courage to edit this last chapter, which I am now really proud of.)
I hope you guys stick around for my Ollie Bearman Fic (FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES), I think it would also be an interesting series. I am having so much laughs writing it. I love you, readers <3 thanks for making this a blast <3 (VEGAS UPDATE: PIASTRI IS IN P4, PROUD OF HIM (LATEST UPDATE: OMG IM IN FERRARI DEPRESSION RN BECAUSE WDYM THE PAPAYA BOYS GOT DISQUALIFIED.)
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The hardest was pretending to be employed on a Sunday morning at Silverstone.
You stood in Oscar’s driver's room, the air thick with the scent of adrenaline, expensive cologne, and the low hum of pre-race tension. Oscar was buzzing. The P2 qualifying result had electrified him. You stood by his helmet, your fingers trembling slightly as you smoothed the lining, grounding yourself in the familiar ritual.
"The car feels amazing," Oscar said, catching his own reflection in the mirror, eyes bright and dangerously focused. "If we get a good launch, I can jump Max into Turn 1. What’s the strategy for the first stint? Are we pushing or managing?"
He turned to look at you, expecting Engineer Y/N to pull up a graph on her iPad to discuss deltas and degradation curves. Instead, your hands were empty. You were fidgeting with the visor of his helmet, refusing to meet his gaze.
"Managing," you lied. The word tasted like ash in your mouth. "Just... trust the pit wall. They have the data."
Oscar frowned, his hands pausing halfway into his fireproof gloves. The shift in his demeanor was instant. They? Since when was it 'they'? Yesterday it was 'we'.
“Exactly, which is where you will be…on channel 1?” he said slowly, the brightness in his eyes dimming by a fraction. He went still, studying you with an intensity that made your skin prickle. He knew your tell. It was that specific, tight smile, the one that plastered over your face whenever you were lying. It was the same look he ruthlessly exploited to clean you out on poker nights.
Looking at you now, wearing that same smile, he knew you were bluffing. He just didn't know why.
“I’ll see you there, right?” Oscar asked, trying to get whatever information you were hiding out of you.
“Actually…I…,” you started, but the words caught in your throat. Your voice pitched slightly higher, brittle as glass.
He stepped into your space, his hand finding the nape of your neck, his fingers brushing against the pulse that was hammering there. "Spit it out, love," he murmured, his eyes searching yours with a softness that made your chest ache. "Whatever it is, we can fix it. Just tell me."
“Okay, Zak wants me on the data console in the back of the garage today. Special assignment, he says.”
Oscar narrowed his eyes, stepping closer, invading your personal space. "The back? Why would he put our best strategist in the back where I can't hear you?"
“I’ll tell you after, okay, just not today," you whispered, finally looking up. His brown eyes searched yours, confused and concerned. You felt like you were about to shatter. "But I'll be watching. I'm always watching. Just drive fast and don’t overthink it, Ozzie.”
He opened his mouth to push, to ask what the hell Zak Brown had said to you after qualifying, but a sharp, authoritative knock on the door cut the silence.
"Five minutes to pit lane open!" the media officer called.
Oscar clenched his jaw, frustration rippling through him. He didn't have time to solve this mystery. He had to drive. But the knot in his stomach had nothing to do with the race.
He leaned in, pressing a hard, lingering kiss to your forehead. He breathed you in, grounding himself. "See you on the podium," he said.
It was a promise backed by a silent, burning resolve. He didn't know exactly what had happened, but he knew who was responsible. He decided right then: the moment he stepped off that podium, he was going to shove the trophy in Zak Brown’s face and have a serious conversation with him, even if it meant risking his entire career, because nobody made you look this small and got away with it.
You watched him walk out the door, the papaya suit a bright flash against the grey corridor. “Good Luck, Ozzie," you whispered to the empty room.
———————
Lap 25. Oscar was feeling…lonely.
It was a strange thing to feel while driving at 200 mph surrounded by twenty other cars, screaming engines, and a crowd of three hundred thousand people. But the cockpit felt hollow. Usually, your voice was in his ear, A specific calm that grounded him, that anchored him in the chaos.
Today, he had Randy.
"Gap to Sainz is 1.4," Randy said. His voice was too loud. "Pace is steady."
"Copy," Oscar gritted out, his knuckles white on the wheel.
The car was behaving well enough. P2 was solid, and he was successfully holding off the charging Williams in his mirrors. But this was Silverstone, and the British weather had a cruel sense of timing. The horizon shifted violently. Over Stowe corner, the sky bruised a deep, ugly purple, plummeting the temperatures.
Oscar felt it instantly. It wasn't a gradual shift; it was sudden and violent. The steering wheel went light in his hands, as if the tires had turned to stone. The grip had simply evaporated.
"Track temp dropping," Oscar reported, wrestling the wheel as the rear stepped out. "Fronts are cooling down rapidly. I’m having a hard time wrestling this car.”
"Copy, Oscar. Keep pushing. Target lap is 1:30.5."
Oscar grit his teeth, a flash of anger spiking his heart rate. Don't tell me the target, he thought furiously. Tell me how to control this thing.
And like all his other races, the car had to fucking snap.
It happened at Turn 9. The rear axle just gave up. The McLaren twitched violently, sliding sideways at 160 mph. Oscar caught it with lightning reflexes, his wrists snapping the wheel to lock, but the momentum killed his speed. It was like driving on ice.
Lando flew past him. Then the Williams. His P2 became P4 in the blink of an eye.
“Randy, I have no grip!" Oscar yelled, the panic finally breaking through him. "Tires are stone dead! I’ve lost the reins! What is happening?!"
"Copy, Oscar. Box, box."
Oscar breathed a sigh of relief. Finally. He prepared to dive into the pit lane. "Copy. Box for Softs?"
"Negative, Oscar," Randy’s voice came over the radio, calm and clinical. "Box for Hards. We are fitting the Hard compound."
Oscar nearly missed the pit entry button. "Hards?" he snapped, his usual cool demeanor cracking. "Randy, the track is freezing. The Hards will never switch on. That is the wrong tire."
"We need to cover the one-stop strategy, Oscar. The Softs won't make it to the end. We believe the Hards will pull through."
Fuck me, where are you? He thought, looking desperately, Where the fuck is Y/N?
———————
You couldn't watch it anymore.
From the garage, tucked away like a shameful secret, you watched the onboard camera. You saw his hands working overtime, fighting a losing battle with the car. You saw the despair in the way the car moved.
"He has rubber, he just has no heat!" you screamed at the monitor, startling a mechanic next to you.
You looked over at Zak, who was pacing, rubbing his face with both hands, looking like he had aged ten years. On the main feed, the camera cut to Andrea out on the pit wall; even through the pixelated screen, the tension in his jaw was visible.
They were about to throw the race away because they were what? Trying to save bloody tires?
You looked at your laptop bag in the corner. Inside was the thesis. You knew it wasn't just a paper; it was the answer. Yesterday, that specific thermal model had secured a good qualifying position for the team. Today, it was the only thing that could stop a double-podium finish from turning into a midfield disaster.
You weren't an employee anymore. If you stepped onto that pit wall, Zak might actually have you dragged out by security.
But as you watched the telemetry, you watched a guaranteed P2 evaporate because the team was following a handbook instead of the physics. Since the start of Silverstone, you hadn't been trying to save your boyfriend. You had always been trying to save the race. It had always been about the points, and not the person. If you didn't intervene right now, McLaren was handing crucial Constructor points to Red Bull on a silver platter.
You grabbed your laptop. You walked past the mechanic. You walked past the security guard who tried to grab your arm. You marched right up to the pit wall gate and shoved your way through the crowd of engineers.
"Excuse me," you said, shoving your laptop under Andrea Stella’s nose.
"What are you doing here?" Zak demanded, spinning around, his face turning a dangerous shade of red. "Security! Remove her!"
"Look at the graph!" you shouted, pointing at the jagged red line on your screen, dodging the security guard's hand. "The Hards won't work! The core temp is too low! If you box him, he drops to P15 and stays there!"
"The Softs are dead, Y/N!" Andrea argued, though his eyes darted to your screen, seeing the logic. "He has no rubber left!"
"He has rubber, he just has no heat!" you insisted, your voice shaking with adrenaline. "My thesis predicted this! If we superheat the brakes, the heat bleeds into the rims and reactivates the tire from the inside out. We have to keep him out."
“That is all theoretical!" Zak yelled, standing up. "You are fired! Get off my wall!"
"It's not theoretical, it's math!" you screamed back, tears of frustration pricking your eyes. "Zak, you fired me because you think I'm blinded by love. But you're the one who's blind! You're ignoring the data because you can't see past my relationship. I am doing this for the team, not for Oscar! If you box him, he loses. If you burn the brakes, he wins, and we become the Constructor’s Champions."
The garage went silent. Andrea Stella stared at you. He looked at your laptop and then looked at Zak. The timing screen was showing Oscar hemorrhaging time.
Andrea Stella reached out and pressed the OVERRIDE button. "Disregard," Andrea said calmly into the radio. "Stay out. Engineer L/N has the call.”
Zak sputtered, his face turning a shade of purple that matched the stormy sky. "Andrea! You are undermining my authority! She is a liability!"
Andrea didn't even look at him. He stood tall, his voice low and lethal, cutting through Zak's bluster like a knife. "I am not undermining you, Zak. I am saving us from looking like amateurs. You want to fire the only person in this garage who actually understands the tire chemistry because of God knows what? A tabloid headline. Sit down and let her work. We can discuss your 'authority' when we have the trophy. Until then, get out of her way."
You didn't care that the CEO of McLaren Racing looked ready to explode or that Andrea had just staked his own reputation on your theory. Right now, the yelling was just white noise. You had a job to do.
You didn't wait. You grabbed the headset, and your hands were shaking
"Oscar."
———————
Oscar was entering the final sector. He was angry. He was going to have words with Zak. He was going to tear the garage apart.
Then, he heard it.
"Oscar."
It wasn't the polite intern voice. It was the 3 AM, 'I solved the equation' voice. It was the voice that grounded him when the world was spinning too fast.
Oscar’s heart skipped a beat. Y/N.
"I'm coming in!" Oscar argued, just to be sure it was real. Just to hear your voice in his ear. “I can't keep it on the track, Y/N!"
"Negative! Do not box. Stay out. Set Brake Bias to 48 percent. Move it Rearward. Burn the rears."
"48?!" he shouted. "I'll lose the rear under braking! The car will spin!"
"I know," you said. He could hear the smile in your voice. It sounded terrified, but utterly confident. "It’s going to feel wrong. It's going to feel like you're breaking the car. But it will heat the rims and switch the rears back on. Trust the math, Oscar. Trust me."
Oscar looked at the pit entry line fast approaching. He had a split second to decide. Trust the team principal who signed his paycheck, or trust the girl who knew his tire data better than he knew himself?
He didn't even blink.
He swerved away from the pit lane at the last possible second, tires screeching. He flicked the rotary dial on his steering wheel. Bias 48.
"Trusting you," Oscar breathed out.
The next two laps were terrifying. Oscar had to change his entire driving style. He had to stomp on the brakes to generate the heat, feeling the car shudder, fighting the lock-ups, wrestling the machine through every apex. Smoke poured from the front wheels.
"Temps are rising," he muttered, watching his dash through the violent vibrations. "Rear surface temp is... 90. 95."
Suddenly, the car bit.
It was instantaneous. The grip came back like someone had turned on a magnet under the track. The sliding stopped and the car hooked up. The tires were alive.
"The grip is insane!" Oscar laughed, the sound bordering on delirious relief. He threw the car into Copse corner flat out, faster than he had all day. "The car is on rails! Fucking hell!"
“Damn fucking right it is," your voice whispered in his ear, thick with relief.
Oscar grinned. He chased down Carlos and Lando. Finally, he chased down Max. He crossed the line to P1, setting the fastest lap of the race on old tires that shouldn't have worked.
"That," Oscar said on the cool-down lap, his voice soft, "was the craziest thing we have ever done. Nice work, Engineer."
Parc Fermé was chaos. The cameras, mechanics, and FIA officials swarmed the car.
Oscar jumped out of the cockpit. He didn't take his helmet off immediately. He stood on the nose of the car, scanning the crowd. He saw you standing near the back of the barrier, looking unsure, clutching your laptop like a shield.
He didn't care about the cameras. He didn't care about the "No PDAs" rule Zak had screamed about for weeks. He vaulted the barrier in one fluid motion.
"Oscar!" the media officer yelled. "The weigh bridge!"
Oscar ignored them. He walked straight up to you and lifted you off your feet in a crushing hug. He buried his face in your neck, smelling the faint scent of rain, anxiety, and home. He held you like you were the only solid thing in the world.
"You," he whispered, pulling back just enough to look at you through his open visor. His eyes had an intense happiness that reminded you why this was all worth it. "You are a mad scientist."
"I told you to trust the math," you laughed, wiping a tear from your cheek, your hands resting on his race suit.
"I didn't trust the math," Oscar said, his voice low, intimate, meant only for you. "I trusted you."
He put you down, but he didn't let go. He kept his arm firmly around your waist.
The only problem was that Zak Brown was approaching. Honestly, Oscar didn’t give two shits about what he has to say. Oscar stared at his boss, his chin lifted, his expression challenging. Go ahead, the look said. Try.
Zak stopped a few feet away. He looked at the P1 trophy waiting on the podium, and then he looked at you.
"I was... incorrect," Zak admitted. It looked physically painful for him to say. He took a breath, "I must admit that I may be blinded by your… unique situation. Y/N, I apologize. You didn't act like a girlfriend today. You acted like a true Prodigy."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a lanyard, your pass.
"Wait, what?" Oscar frowned, his grip on your waist tightening instinctively. He looked from the pass to Zak, then down at you, confusion clouding his features. "Why does he have your pass?"
You just quietly squeezed his hand, trying to keep the peace, but Oscar’s mind was already racing. He looked at your civilian clothes. He thought about the "special assignment" in the back of the garage. He thought about your brittle smile this morning. The pieces clicked into place with a terrifying clarity.
"You fired her," Oscar said. It wasn't a question. His voice was dangerously calm, but the ice in his eyes was sharp enough to cut glass. "The special assignment… that was a lie. You stripped her credentials after she saved my qualifying lap?"
"Oscar," Zak started, raising a hand.
"With all due respect, Zak," Oscar interrupted, stepping forward, shielding you with his body. "That is absurd. You fired the only person in this paddock who figured out the issues we’ve been fighting for? Because she dates me? If she hadn't broken into the pit wall today, I would be P15 right now. She risked everything to save this team from a mistake you were about to make."
The paddock went quiet around them. Oscar Piastri, the calmest man in Formula 1, was publicly dressing down his boss.
“Oscar, I know," Zak said, holding his ground, though he looked suitably chastised. "Which is why I am trying to fix it." He held the pass out to you. "Permanent contract. Lead Strategist 2."
Oscar looked at the pass, then at you, waiting for you to tell Zak where to shove it.
You reached out, your fingers brushing the lanyard, but you didn't take it immediately. You looked Zak Brown in the eye. The fear that had ruled your life, the fear of being found out, of being a liability, was gone. You had the leverage now.
"I will think about it," you said coolly.
Zak blinked. "You'll think about it?"
"If I come back," you said, your voice steady, "there are no more secrets or biases. No more pretending we're strangers. The relationship will be public."
"Y/N, the media—" Zak warned.
"Let them talk," you cut him off. "I don't care about them, Zak. If people want to say I only got the job because of Oscar, let them watch the telemetry. I trust my data, and I trust my driver. I'm not hiding anymore."
Zak looked at you for a long moment. He saw the resolve in your face, the same stubborn brilliance that had saved his race. He let out a short, defeated laugh.
"Fine," Zak said, handing you the pass. "Whatever you want. Just make sure the car stays fast."
"Deal," you smiled, clipping the pass back onto your shirt where it belonged.
Zak muttered something, walking away to deal with the press.
Oscar turned to you, ignoring the cameras flashing around you. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind a warm, heavy affection. He reached up, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear, his thumb grazing your cheekbone.
"You know," he murmured, a crooked grin spreading across his face. "You're terrifying when you get serious. It's incredibly hot."
You laughed, the sound bright and free. "I have my moments. Now go get your trophy, Driver Piastri."
“Wouldn’t have done it without you, Engineer L/N,” he said.
He leaned down and kissed you, not a forehead kiss, not a hidden peck, but a real, searing kiss right in the middle of Parc Fermé, for the cameras, for the team, and for the world to see.
“My fucking Mad scientist," he whispered against your lips.
“My world champion," you whispered back.
THE END
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