Summary: For more than a decade, Formula 1 has kept them in orbit. Carlos Sainz Jr. is chasing wins, contracts, and the weight of expectation. Elena Vasilakis is building her dream career behind the pit wall, one strategy call at a time. From DAMS to Ferrari, they grow side by side but never in step, always the right people, never the right time. Until...
Disclaimer: MDNI.
Author Note: I feel like there isn't enough Carlos content fics wise. This is my attempt to remedy that! So this will be a SMAU x Long Form Fic mix. A Smau between every chapter!
Also... So it did occur to me that it's confusing with Elena being with Mercedes. HOWEVER, this fic framing is following Carlos's career moves. So that is why this is the "Renault Era" even if Elena is at Mercedes.
See the masterlist for AOTA here.
ENJOY!! Please comment and like! It makes me all excited for people to enjoy something as much as I do!
Pre Season, 2018
Brackley was quiet in a way that completely unnerved her.
It wasn’t the frantic quiet of a garage between sessions, when everyone was simply waiting to be told where to run. This was deliberate and very polished. It was the kind of silence that came from people knowing exactly what they were doing and seeing no need to announce it.
The doors slid shut behind her without ceremony. No shouted greetings. No radios crackling over one another. No engineers leaning out of bays with coffee cups and opinions. Just the soft hum of lighting and the faint, ever present whirl of machines doing their jobs efficiently and without complaint.
At Toro Rosso, noise had been a form of camouflage. If something went wrong, it disappeared into the chaos. Someone else was always louder, faster, more impatient.
Here, there was nowhere to hide.
She had been here for nearly a week already and had yet to step into the bay with the car. Onboarding and employee training took forever. Mercedes were much more… meticulous than Toro. Not that she could complain, when a team had a 4 consecutive year World Constructor Championship streak, it was wise to not question the methods.
Elena adjusted the strap of her laptop bag and forced herself to walk at a normal pace through the front office weaving through the building. Not rushed. Not hesitant. She knew that rushing read as panic, hesitation read as uncertainty. She suspected both would be noticed as she made her way to the bays of the facility.
Mercedes didn’t do drama. It didn’t need to hide behind any of that. The walls were white, the floors immaculate, the workstations arranged with almost clinical symmetry. Even the air felt filtered, it was cooler, cleaner, stripped of excess anything.
She caught her reflection in a glass panel as she passed. Same clothes she’d always put on, slacks and a team polo. Everything was the same except the colors on her shirt.
And yet.
She felt like she once again had stepped into a world she had no business being in. Elena knew better though. As Ashton had once told her, once you learned a new garage it would be like breathing.
Her badge opened the door to her assigned bay with a quiet click. Valtteri Bottas’s name was printed neatly on the placard, centered and understated. Nothing about it demanded attention. It simply existed, confident that attention would arrive on its own.
“Hey,” someone said, warm and unhurried. “You must be Elena.”
Bottas stood from the workstation, offering a hand without any fanfare. His smile was easy and practiced in the way of someone who had learned that a friendly face put people at ease faster than anything else.
“Yes,” she said, shaking his hand. “I am.”
“Good. I’m glad they gave you to us.” Not me. Us. “I was here for conditioning and sim training but I figured I would stop by.”
Her brows lifted despite herself. “That’s very kind of you, I look forward to working on your car this season. Mercedes has quite the reputation”
Bottas’s smile widened, just slightly. “It’s because we have quite the car, and the drivers aren’t half bad either.”
She snorted before she could stop herself, then pressed her lips together. Bottas only chuckled, clearly unbothered.
“I mean, Number One and Number Three, a lot of pressure to walk into a garage under.” She said, glancing at the rough carbon frame that seemed to have just been taken out of a wind tunnel.
“You will do fine,” he added, turning back toward the data screens waving his fingers, “As long as you understand what it all means you can learn the rest. Heard you are a quick learner.” He paused, stuffing his hands in his pockets slightly, “I also heard, that once you settle, we’ll wonder how we managed without you.”
There it was. Casual. Unadorned. Offered without expectation of gratitude.
“I want to manage expectations,” Elena said, and meant it. “Wait- who told you that exactly?”
The morning passed in clipped exchanges and precise observations. No one spoke unless there was something worth saying. When questions were asked, they were answered fully, not defensively, not competitively. It was efficient in a way that made her hyperaware of every word she chose. At least she was finally given assignments to do beyond onloading paperwork.
The W09 had been designed to have slimmer sidepods with more sculpted bottom flares to create strong downwashing vortices that sealed the underfloor. She had been asked to comb over the testing results to ensure that it was boosting diffuser performance like they had hoped.
It was not lost on her that this was a test. Not of the car, not really, but of her.
She felt no anxiety about that part.
If it proved her value quickly? She would take a fine tooth comb to the data.
At one point, a man leaned against the edge of the bay, coffee in hand, eyes flicking between screens. She wasn’t completely unaware of who he was. James kinda oversaw everything. When she’d been hired, he’d been the Motorsport Strategy Director, and since then, the titles had shifted, rearranged by internal logic and external speculation. The gossip blogs called it a lateral move.
Inside the building, people understood what James now was under the title of "Chief of Strategy” meant. James was Toto Wolff’s right hand.
“Settling in?” James asked, tone neutral, observational rather than probing.
“I am,” Elena said, turning slightly in her chair, placing the video of airdrafting on pause “Still learning the flow.”
A faint smile as he placed the coffee down onto the desk next to her, “Good. That part matters more than people admit.” He nodded toward the car. “So, I came to talk to you about when we go to Pre-season. I know they told you that you'd stay here… But, we want you to be on the aero correlation for testing. The first race weekend of the season is not how we want to throw you in. Taking you to testing can help you understand how our decisions actually get made when time compresses.”
Her attention sharpened, this is what she had been wanting. “Yes sir, absolutely, anything to help the team. I want to help make the car strong this year.”
“Alright, good. Well, when you finish with the sidepod dynamics data and send it to Henry, go to the 3rd floor, and speak with the logistics team. Consider it your second assignment that isn’t onboarding paperwork.”
It wasn’t framed as encouragement, but she felt it land that way.
“I’ll make sure to stop before going home today, thank you.” she said, nodding as she grabbed her pen to add the visit to her checklist.
James inclined his head once, already disengaging from the conversation, wrapping his fingers around the coffee, picking it up. “Don’t thank me yet. Pre season testing is efficient. It is not gentle, and is not for the faint of heart. But, it is a good starter for you to prove what you are made of.”
Elena was left back to her wind tunnel screenings for a few moments before another voice cut into her attention.
“You’ll want to watch the clocks here,” Tony Ross, Valtteri's race engineer said, almost conversationally, filling the space James had left.
Elena looked up again, “For the workload? I got that message already, I’ve got 3 more test videos to watch before lunch.”
He smiled, thin and knowing, shaking his head just slightly. “For visibility, they value time and effort here. But, it doesn’t matter how quick you do the work, they will find things for you to do. So work wisely, you will find a balance.”
Then, as if remembering himself, he added, “And leave before Toto does. Or he’s gonna think you are trying to outwork him.”
She blinked, her head pushing back in slight disbelief. “You’re joking.”
“Oh, I guess you will find out eventually.” he said, already walking away with a little laugh.
She filed it away. Another rule. Unwritten. Absolute. It felt like a lot, the new environment, the new rules, but she couldn’t help but think back to her first days at Toro Rosso.
Everything had once felt too formal and quiet there to her, but as she learned to listen and melt into the flow, it got loud, welcoming. This was just another step.
Elena felt far too opinionative and stubborn to work in this environment. All the meetings she had attended so far were minimal interruptions as plans were said aloud. It wasn’t collaborative, but instructional. By lunchtime, her head ached, not from stress, but from restraint. From holding herself so still inside the lines of a system that tolerated no excess movement.
She took her tray and stepped into the break room of circular tables, the air was warmer, not in the temperature but the feeling, it was noisier, less sterile. This felt more like what she was used to. She had even been invited by one of the Data Intake Specialists to sit with them during lunch, but being the first one of the group into the lunch room, Elena just grabbed a table.
After a few moments of adjusting the food on her tray, determined to not touch her fork until her new acquaintances joined, a shadow fell across the table.
“You’re the new one.”
She looked up. Lewis Hamilton had already set his tray down and taken the opposite seat. He said it like an observation, not a challenge. She tried to keep her heart rate down, he was just another driver, the kind which she worked with plenty, but he was also a 4 time world champion, and incidentally one of her and Cami’s favorite topics when it came to gossip in the paddock (Courtesy of the 2016 championship battle being one of Cami’s favorite topics in racing, ever).
“So I’ve been told,” Elena replied.
His gaze lingered, assessing without intrusion, slowly nodding as he pushed his tongue against the back of his teeth. “You’re quieter than they had expected.”
“I am still observing,” she said. Then, after a beat, “Unfortunately.”
A breath of a laugh escaped him. Barely there.
“You’ll be fine,” he said, standing. “But, once you get comfortable, I would expect you to start using your voice. It is the only way for you to be heard, and people need push back to grow.”
He left as easily as he’d arrived.
Elena sat for a moment longer, the words settling. Around her, the room continued its measured hum of people in conversation.
She placed her fork in the food and took a bite, determined to make the Mercedes team her home.
It didn’t matter how long, she would learn the language, and she would speak it fluently.
I had something better for this but I don’t know how to say this anymore
I’m no longer supporting BWT Alpine Formula One Team as a team. I’ll continue to support the drivers who are sponsored and or drive for the team. But I no longer can support such terrible team management anymore. I’ve been an alpine fan since I was little, it is in my blood as someone who grew up in France. I hope you guys understand.
I will be supporting the following teams and or sponsors: MoneyGram Haas F1 Team and Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber Ferrari.
Can someone tell me if this is true? Because It would be very interesting news. She needs to renew her team for real. Camila mija, dime si es verdad o no, pa empezar a celebrar? Can we?
