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Lando Norris had been lulled into a false sense of security.
The first time he’d come over to have dinner with Oscar and his secret wife and daughter, it had been all banana bread, fairy lights, a farmhouse and chickens.
He’d left thinking, Wow, wholesome. Lovely. What a nice normal family.
He should’ve known better.
It started fine.
Felicity answered the door with her hair in a braid and Bee on her hip, wearing a linen apron. Later she started chopping parsley like she had a Michelin star.
Oscar was still in socks and a McLaren hoodie, casually setting the table. Brownies were cooling on the counter. It all felt aggressively wholesome.
Domestic. Wholesome. Normal.
And then things started to shift.
It began when Bee asked Lando if he wanted to see her “new diagrams.”
“Sure,” Lando said, immediately charmed. “What are we diagramming?”
Bee dragged a whiteboard the size of a refrigerator into the living room. It was already covered in rainbow-colored equations, scatter plots, and aerodynamic schematics. Some of it… looked familiar.
“This is what I think happened to you in Canada,” she chirped. “Your rear tyre temps didn’t match your front entry load.”
Lando blinked. “I—I’m sorry?”
“Don’t worry,” Bee said sweetly. “I made notes.”
Oscar, leaning against the counter like a man watching a nature documentary, just said, “She was bored yesterday.”
Lando turned slowly. “Did you… help her with this?”
Felicity didn’t even look up from the salad she was tossing. “Nope. But she did ask me how to pull GPS overlays from the broadcast feed. I think she reverse-engineered it.”
“She’s three,” Lando said, horrified.
“She’ll be four next month,” Felicity replied, like that clarified anything.
Oscar handed Lando a glass of water with the casual air of a man offering a lifeline. “She’s always like this. Felicity taught her indexing when she was two. They do Sudoku before bed. Last week she asked if brake bias feels different when I haven’t slept.”
Lando opened his mouth. Then closed it.
Bee, very seriously: “Do you think you overcorrected in Q2, or was your setup just inefficient?”
Felicity, completely deadpan: “You should’ve requested a suspension change after FP2. I told Oscar you’d feel the oversteer.”
Oscar nodded. “She called it Wednesday night.”
Lando looked down at his mashed potatoes like they might hold the answers.
“Am I being… debriefed?” he asked weakly.
Felicity gave him a sunny smile. “Consider it peer review.”
Bee handed him a drawing. It was a near perfect drawing of the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Labeled.
“You missed apexes here,” she said, pointing, “and your throttle trace gets nervous here. But you did very well on Sunday. Mama said your interview was mature.”
Lando took a long sip of water.
He had no idea how to respond to that.
Oscar just smiled, like this was completely normal.
***
Dinner was over.
Bee had fallen asleep halfway through explaining tyre conservation during variable track temp. Her whiteboard stood like a shrine to chaos in the corner, still covered in formulas and glittery annotations. Felicity was upstairs putting her to bed.
Oscar was stacking plates by the sink when Lando, quiet and still visibly rattled, came to stand beside him.
“Mate,” he said, softly. “This isn’t normal.”
Oscar glanced at him, then raised an eyebrow. “What part?”
“All of it. The tyre graphs. The whiteboard that’s bigger than she is. The fact that Bee casually says the phrase ‘aerodynamic turbulence modeling error margin.’ She’s three .”
Oscar shrugged, drying a plate. “It’s normal for Felicity.”
Lando frowned. “What do you mean?”
Oscar leaned against the counter, arms folded loosely, voice low with affection. “She’s the one who set the tone. Bee was never going to grow up in a house where questions got shrugged off or answers got dumbed down. That’s Felicity’s doing.”
Lando hesitated. Then, a little cautiously, “Okay, but like… how smart is Felicity, actually?”
Oscar sighed. Then exhaled. “She hates the word genius.”
“But…”
“She took multiple tests when she was a kid,” Oscar said. “Different versions. Different formats. She only ever mentions the lowest score she got.”
Lando waited.
Oscar glanced over. “One-sixty.”
Lando choked. “That’s the lowest ?”
Oscar nodded, like he’d just said, ‘she bakes good muffins.’
“She rounds it down when people ask,” he added. “Doesn’t want anyone treating her differently. She never tells people the others. Said it felt gross. Said it made people expect her to be perfect instead of human.”
“Mate,” Lando whispered. “That’s, like… Einstein numbers.”
Oscar shrugged. “I know.”
“She could be running a think tank.”
“She’d rather raise our daughter,” Oscar said simply. “And tile bathrooms. And fix old engines. And make bread.”
“She’s been raising a kid, tiling bathrooms, baking bread , writing a doctoral thesis and telling me my tyre strategy’s garbage—and she’s out here pretending to be a normal person?”
“She is a normal person,” Oscar said with a smile. “She just happens to be the smartest one in most rooms.” Oscar looked fondly toward the staircase. “She’s brilliant. Not just smart— brilliant. But she’d rather teach Bee how to mix concrete than talk about test scores.”
“...She terrifies me.”
Oscar grinned. “She terrifies everyone.”
A pause.
“Except you,” Lando said quietly.
Oscar shrugged. “She’s my wife.”
Lando shook his head. “You’re not even the smartest one in your own house.”
Oscar just shrugged. “Never claimed I was.”
“So… she’s a doctor,” Lando finally managed.
Oscar glanced up. “Technically, yeah.”
“Technically?!” Lando spluttered. “She has a PhD in mechanical engineering from Oxford . That’s not ‘technically.’ That’s Doctor Piastri .”
Oscar’s smile widened. “She doesn’t use the title.”
Lando blinked. “Why not?”
Oscar shrugged. “Says it either puts her on a pedestal or paints a target on her back. She earned it. But she doesn’t want it to be a wall between her and other people. So she leaves it off.”
Lando was quiet for a second. “She got a doctorate while raising a toddler. And doesn’t even use the title.”
“Because that was never the point,” Oscar said softly.
“Then what was the point?”
Oscar glanced toward the stairs. “Proving she could . Making sense of the chaos. Showing Bee what it means to finish something—even when it’s hard.”
Lando’s voice dropped. “What about Bee?”
Oscar stilled. “What about her?”
“Have you… tested her? For IQ or anything?”
Oscar shook his head. “No. Felicity doesn’t want to.”
Lando frowned. “But why?”
“Because when Fliss was a kid, that number became her whole identity ,” Oscar said. “Her parents had her tested. A lot. Every number came back sky-high. Her family turned it into her whole identity. She stopped being a person and started being a benchmark. They gave her a number. A label. ‘Gifted.’ ‘Advanced.’ ‘Exceptionally high functioning.’ You’d be amazed how fast people stop treating their child like a child once that happens—and start treating the child like a product.”
Lando’s brows furrowed.
Oscar kept going. “Every teacher expected brilliance. Every mistake was a crisis. Every success wasn’t surprising—it was required . And every time she tried to be a kid, or just… ordinary for a second, someone reminded her what her number was. What it meant she should be doing.”
A pause.
“She doesn’t want that for Bee,” Oscar went on. “She wants her to love learning. To be curious because it’s fun , not because someone told her she’s supposed to be special.”
Lando was quiet for a long moment.
And then, finally: “That’s… actually really beautiful.”
Oscar gave a small smile. “Yeah. It is.”
“Don’t you ever want to know? Like, just out of curiosity.” Lando asked curiously.
Oscar smiled faintly. “We already do know. We live with her.”
“Mate,” Lando said again, more quietly this time. “You live with two terrifyingly brilliant people.”
Oscar smiled, easy and proud. “I know.”
***
GRID GROUP CHAT
Lando:
guys
guys
guys.
Charles:
what did you do
Lando:
i just had dinner at oscar’s place again
his daughter.
she has a whiteboard.
bigger than her.
Esteban:
cute 🥹
Lando:
NO
NOT CUTE
IT HAD EQUATIONS
ABOUT
MY
TYRE PERFORMANCE IN CANADA
Pierre:
wait what
Lando:
she told me i should’ve requested a suspension change after FP2
and then GAVE ME A DIAGRAM
Oscar
:
Be grateful
It had glitter
Lando
:
you’re TOO CALM about this
your child is a genius
your wife is a genius
and you’re like “haha brownies?”
Max
:
this is the best thing I’ve read all day
Lando is actually spiraling
Alex:
wait Bee is THREE right??
Lando:
YES
THREE AND A HALF
AND SHE SAID “AERODYNAMIC TURBULENCE MODELING ERROR MARGIN” OUT LOUD
WITHOUT BLINKING
Lando:
you know what
max
i want you to meet oscar’s daughter
i just think it would be extremely funny
for someone other than me to be told their apex was emotionally insecure
Charles:
what
George:
her what was
Oscar:
it made sense in context
Lando:
SHE SAID MY THROTTLE TRACE WAS NERVOUS
AND THAT I WAS DRIVING LIKE I HAD COMMITMENT ISSUES
Carlos:
and she’s… how old?
Oscar:
3
(nearly 4)
Alex:
i’m sorry, are we skipping over the fact that your daughter has stronger analytical skills than half the grid
Fernando Alonso:
she’s a visionary
Lando:
she said my “driver confidence curve was showing signs of emotional fatigue”
and then offered me a drawing
of the circuit
with my insecurities highlighted in glitter marker
George:
she gave you therapy.
that’s not an insult. that’s a gift.
Lance:
i would like to respectfully
not
be perceived by oscar’s child
Logan:
wait does she do like
feedback for everyone now? Not just Oscar?
could she maybe help me
Lando:
i want you to sit across from her, max
and watch her diagnose your lift-off timing
while hugging a frog plushie
Oscar:
Button the frog. He’s essential to the process.
Charles:
i would pay money to watch this
Lando:
this is pay-per-view content
max verstappen vs oscar’s toddler
loser has to do arts and crafts and reflect on their driving flaws
Max:
fine
bring her
but if she mentions my 2021 turn-in angles I’m leaving
Oscar:
she already has opinions
just so you know
Lando:
i need to see Max get peer-reviewed by a preschooler.
Oscar:
She
is
very thorough.
Daniel:
bro why didn’t you warn us your kid was a data analyst in disguise
Oscar:
You didn’t ask.
Lando:
@everyone also
HIS WIFE
SHE HAS A DOCTORATE
IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
FROM OXFORD
AND JUST. DOESN’T. MENTION IT
Charles:
Pardon?
Alex:
WHAT IS HAPPENING
Lewis:
Hold on. Hold on.
She has a PhD?
Oscar:
Technically yes. She doesn’t use the title.
Max:
Of course she doesn’t
Of course you married someone terrifying and secretly brilliant
This explains… everything
Alex:
so you’re telling me
Oscar lives with TWO geniuses
and is just…vibing???
Oscar:
I bring snacks. That’s my role.
Lando:
She reverse-engineered my Q2 data for fun
FOR FUN
While making dinner!!
George:
That’s love.
Or war. Possibly both.
Carlos:
Honestly sounds like Oscar’s entire household is smarter than the entire paddock combined
Yuki:
Do the chickens also do calculus or
Oscar:
No comment.
Fernando:
i want to meet the wife.
Lewis:
me too actually.
Lando:
good luck
she’ll probably fix your floor issues and then critique your suspension setup while baking a pie
Yuki:
can she bake for us also???
Oscar:
Yes. She bakes.
Also she tiled our bathroom.
And wrote a thesis while Bee was napping.
Lance:
I feel like a potato.
Lando:
i need a nap just from being in their house
Carlos:
can she also explain ferrari strategy to ferrari
Carlos:
no one can do that. not even god.