Chapter Text
I like to talk to myself when I drive. Sometimes I make noises too—vrooom, vrooom—as if the kart isn’t loud enough already. It helps me think. Papa doesn’t like it. He says I look stupid, and if I don’t stop, I’ll never be fast enough. When I forget to brake at the right time, he makes me go around the track again. And again. And again. I don’t always know what I did wrong, but he won’t tell me. He just folds his arms and points back to the starting line. “Again, Max. Again.” Sometimes I ask what I did wrong. That’s when he gets angry. His voice turns sharp like metal scraping. “Are you stupid? Incompetent? An imbecile?” I don’t know what that last word means, but I know it’s bad. So I keep driving, my hands tight on the little wheel, my feet clumsy on the pedals. My chest feels heavy, but I don’t want him to see me cry. Crying makes him even meaner. I tell myself I’ll get it right this time. I have to. Papa’s eyes are the worst part. They’re so pale, so cold, like the sky in winter when you can’t find the sun. They never look soft, never kind. When he stares at me, it feels like I shrink inside my kart, like I’m too small to sit in it at all. When Papa is calm, it’s scary. His voice goes low, quiet, and it makes my stomach twist because I know he’s waiting for me to mess up. When he’s angry, it’s even worse. His words hit harder than his hands ever could. Sharp, cruel words that stick in my head no matter how fast I drive. “Incompetent. Imbecile. Worthless.” Always. Always. I grip the steering wheel until my fingers hurt. I try to keep my eyes forward, not at him, because if I look too long, I’ll lose my focus. If I lose my focus, he’ll punish me. Another lap. Another lecture. Another word I don’t want to hear.
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2012, Italy.
The car was quiet after the race. Too quiet. I could still feel the mistake buzzing in my head—the wrong move, the chance I’d thrown away. I wanted to ask Papa about it, to understand, but the air in the car was sharp, heavy, the kind of silence that made my chest tight. Finally, I spoke. “Papa, I—” He slammed the indicator on and pulled the car into a gas station. My heart jumped. He didn’t even look at me when he said it. Just one sharp command. “Get out.” I froze, staring at him, thinking maybe I’d misheard. But his pale blue eyes cut into me, colder than the night outside. He repeated it, slower this time. “Out.” So I opened the door. My legs shook when I stepped onto the pavement. The air smelled like gasoline and rubber. Cars hissed past on the road beyond, and I suddenly realized how alone I was. Fourteen years old, my race suit still sticky with sweat, my helmet on the seat beside me. I didn’t even know where we were in Italy. Somewhere far from home, far from anything. The taillights of our car glowed for a second before they disappeared. He drove off. Just like that. I stood there, blinking under the neon lights of the gas station, my hands balled into fists so I wouldn’t cry. If I cried, it meant I wasn’t strong enough. Minutes felt like hours. Every car that passed made my stomach twist—was he gone for good? Did he really mean to leave me here? I thought about walking, but I didn’t know where. I thought about calling someone, but who? Nobody else mattered but him. And then, finally, the car rolled back into view. The engine’s growl was familiar, but I couldn’t trust it. He stopped in front of me. Didn’t say sorry. Didn’t explain. Just unlocked the door and waited. I got back in, silent, because what else could I do? The drive after that was even worse than before. No words. Just the sound of the road and my own thoughts beating against my skull. That silence stretched into the whole week that followed. No advice, no comfort. Nothing. He wouldn’t even look at me. I told myself I had to take it, that this was how champions were made—through lessons that hurt, through punishments that cut deeper than bruises. But sitting in that car, fourteen years old, abandoned at a gas station only to be picked up like nothing had happened, all I really felt was small. Small, and afraid of the man who was supposed to teach me how to win.
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2015
Formula one season
Seventeen years old and I was already in Formula One. People said it was too soon, that I wasn’t ready, but I didn’t listen. I never listened. I was here to prove I could do it better than anyone, no matter how old I was. Carlos was my first teammate—Carlos Sainz Jr. At first, I thought maybe we’d get along. We were the same age, both new, both trying to make our mark. But it didn’t take long before I saw how different we were. He laughed too much, he talked to people like the whole world was his friend. I didn’t like that. To me, it felt fake, disrespectful even. Like he wasn’t taking it all seriously enough. I told myself he didn’t work as hard as me. That he was careless, too laid-back. The truth was, I couldn’t stand how easy he seemed in situations where I felt pressure biting at my skin. He’d brush things off, while I carried every mistake like it was burned into me. So I grew cold. Bitter, even. Whenever something went wrong, my first thought was Carlos. I accused him in my head, sometimes even out loud. If he outqualified me, I convinced myself it was luck. If he had pace in the race, I told myself the car was different, the setup wasn’t fair. Always an excuse, always a reason why it couldn’t be me. I don’t think he meant to offend me most of the time. But I didn’t see it that way. I saw every smile of his as smug, every word as a jab. I built walls around myself, sharp ones. Nobody was going to get close, not him, not anyone. At seventeen, I didn’t realize how much of that came from me, from the way I saw the world. All I knew was that I was here to win, and if Carlos was in my way, he was already the enemy. March 15th, 2015. Melbourne. My first Formula One race. I was seventeen years old, the youngest on the grid, and I felt every eye on me like a weight pressing down. Cameras followed me, reporters shouted my name, but none of it mattered. What mattered was the car, the start, the laps ahead. In the Toro Rosso garage, Carlos was already in his seat, helmet off, talking to engineers with that easy grin of his. He looked relaxed—too relaxed. It irritated me. I barely said a word, just listened to my own heartbeat hammering in my chest. He glanced at me, smirked a little, then looked away. I hated that smirk. It felt like he was laughing at me, like I was just a kid playing dress-up. “Don’t overcook it today,” he said casually. “First race, you know.” I snapped back sharper than I should have. “Focus on yourself, Carlos. You’ll need it.” The silence after that was thick, bitter. It wasn’t the first time we argued, and it wouldn’t be the last. Our conversations were usually short, clipped, or ended with us turning away from each other. Even the silences between us carried teeth. When the lights went out and the race began, everything inside me switched. The nerves burned away, replaced with raw instinct. The car, the track, the speed—it all felt like home. For a few laps, I forgot Carlos, forgot the tension. It was just me against the world. But Formula One is cruel. On lap 33, the engine gave out. Smoke, silence, my first race ended before the finish line. I climbed out of the car, pulling my helmet off, heat rushing into my face—anger, disappointment, shame. I’d wanted to prove I belonged, and instead I was walking back to the garage with nothing. Carlos finished ninth, scored points. I saw him afterward, still smiling, surrounded by people congratulating him. He looked at me just once, not with pity, but with something else—something I read as smugness. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was just me. I turned away. I didn’t want his words, his smile, or anything from him. The gap between us only grew from there. Arguments, icy silences, two rookies thrown together but never once pulling in the same direction. My first Formula One race wasn’t the storybook beginning everyone wanted it to be. It was messy, tense, bitter. And it set the tone for everything that came next. The team hated it when Carlos and I sat next to each other. You could feel it in the air—like someone had stretched a wire between us and was waiting for it to snap. In the car, we were rivals. Out of the car, it was even worse, because now there were cameras pointing at us, microphones shoved in our faces, and sponsors who wanted us to smile like we were best friends. The PR team lined us up for “fun internet challenges.” Stupid games, quizzes, things that had nothing to do with racing. Carlos played along. He always did. He laughed, joked with the host, tried to include me, tried to make us look like a pair of excited rookies instead of two wolves circling each other. Me? I didn’t give a shit. I crossed my arms, answered questions with one word, and if they asked us to do something silly, I rolled my eyes so hard the whole world could see it. I wasn’t here to be a clown. I was here to drive. Carlos didn’t rise to it. That annoyed me even more. He kept being polite, respectful, even when I cut him off or gave him cold stares. Sometimes he’d glance at me with this tight smile, like he was telling himself to stay calm. I knew he was trying. I just didn’t care. I was seventeen, angry at everything, with too much fire inside me and nowhere to put it except the track. The team started worrying about the optics. “You two need to look like you get along,” they’d say before interviews. “You’re representing Toro Rosso, not just yourselves.” I’d nod, but the second the cameras turned on, I’d scowl or snap again. Carlos tried to balance it out, but that only made me colder. It was a PR nightmare, they said. Maybe it was. But at seventeen, I wasn’t thinking about PR. I wasn’t thinking about teamwork. I was thinking about winning, proving myself, showing the world that I was better than him—better than everyone. Carlos could play nice all he wanted. I wasn’t playing at all. We sat side by side in front of a white backdrop with the Toro Rosso logo plastered all over it. Two chairs, one table, cameras, and a stack of fan questions on cards. Easy stuff. At least, that’s what the PR people kept saying. “Just have fun with it,” they told us. Carlos sat straight, hands folded, smiling like he actually wanted to be there. I slouched, arms crossed, waiting for it to be over. The lights were too bright, the air too hot. The first question was simple: “What’s your favorite track?” Carlos answered first. “I think Monaco, because of the challenge. Every corner, every lap, you have to be perfect. It’s the kind of circuit that really tests a driver.” He said it smoothly, like he’d rehearsed. Then the camera turned to me. “Spa,” I muttered. “It’s where I grew up driving. It’s proper racing. That’s it.” Awkward pause. The host nodded too quickly, moved on. “Who’s the messiest roommate on race weekends?” Carlos chuckled. “That’s easy—Max.” He glanced at me with a playful grin. “Clothes everywhere. He forgets where he puts things.” I snapped back immediately. “At least I don’t take an hour in the bathroom every morning.” My tone was sharp, not playful. The room went a little stiff. The fans watching later online noticed. They always noticed. Comments piled up about how we didn’t vibe, how the tension leaked through the screen. Some joked we were like divorced parents forced to sit together for the kids. Others just said flat-out: they hate each other. The next card: “If you weren’t a Formula One driver, what would you be doing?” Carlos gave some thoughtful answer about studying, maybe something with business or engineering. I barely let him finish before I cut in. “I wouldn’t do anything else. There’s no plan B.” The host tried to laugh it off, but Carlos shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The silence after my words wasn’t funny. It was heavy. Bitter. That’s how the whole thing went. Him trying to keep it light, me shooting down every attempt. Two rookies side by side, supposed to be smiling for the fans, and instead showing exactly how far apart we were. The fans didn’t need to be told. They could see it all over our faces: Carlos and I weren’t teammates. We were rivals trapped in the same frame. The journalists didn’t take long to notice. Every Q&A, every interview, every fan video showed it: Carlos and I didn’t get along. The tension was obvious, even if the PR team tried to spin it. Headlines called it a “rookie rivalry,” “team friction,” even “the most bitter duo in F1.” I didn’t care what they wrote. I cared about the track.
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Carlos stayed with Toro Rosso until 2017. By the United States Grand Prix that year, he switched to Renault. He didn’t even say goodbye to me. Honestly… he didn’t deserve one. I’d spent years tolerating the polite act, the constant “let’s play nice” crap, while keeping my head down and focusing on driving. He wasn’t a teammate. He wasn’t anything to me beyond another obstacle on the grid. Then came Daniel Ricciardo. Daniel was… different. I had never met anyone like him before. There was a warmth to him, a confidence that wasn’t loud or aggressive—it just existed. He smiled easily, laughed in the right places, and somehow, without even trying, he made people like him instantly. Everybody loves Daniel. Everybody. I didn’t love him at first. I was wary, a little bitter. The team was buzzing around him like bees, and I was already on edge. I didn’t need someone else’s charm clouding the focus. I was focused. Always focused. But Daniel… he didn’t back off. He talked. He joked. He even poked fun at me a little, and I wanted to snap, wanted to show him that I wasn’t impressed. But he didn’t flinch. Not once. His warmth wasn’t fake, it wasn’t calculated. It was real, and it made people want to be around him. I kept my guard up. Of course I did. But slowly, as the days passed, I noticed something. His words didn’t hit me the way everyone else’s did. His smile wasn’t a challenge. His confidence wasn’t competition. He didn’t make me feel small, or irrelevant, or angry. For the first time in a long time, someone in the paddock made me feel… like I could actually breathe without bracing myself. And that confused me. Papa came sometimes. Rarely, but enough that I could feel the weight of his eyes on me before I even got out of the car. I always knew when he was there—the pale blue stare, cold and unyielding, searching for mistakes before I even made them. He never said a kind word. Not once. Not a “good job” when I passed someone cleanly, not a “well done” when I held the car on the limit. His words were always sharp, like blades sliding across the taut skin of my ego. “You’re soft today.” “Too cautious.” “Do you even know what you’re doing?” It didn’t matter that I had raced perfectly by anyone else’s standard. To him, perfection wasn’t enough unless it met his standard. Every compliment I might have wanted, every tiny spark of pride I could’ve felt, he cut it down before it could take root. Sometimes I tried to meet his expectations, to drive flawlessly just so he might say one word that wasn’t venom. But it never happened. I learned quickly not to hope. And yet… I still craved it. Even at seventeen, even in Formula One, I wanted him to nod, even once, to acknowledge that I was capable. But his stare never softened. His praise never came. All I got was the reminder that nothing I did was ever enough. I gripped the steering wheel tighter. I pushed harder. Faster. Sharper. Because if I couldn’t earn his words, I would earn the track instead. Daniel met Papa for the first time in the garage before a race weekend. I watched from the side, helmet in hand, heart pounding like always when my father was around. Daniel walked up with that same warmth he carried everywhere—a smile that seemed to pull the tension out of the room before it even had a chance to settle. “Mr. Verstappen, it’s such a pleasure to meet you!” Daniel said, eyes bright, voice steady, with that sweet accent of his. He extended his hand. Papa didn’t smile. Didn’t move. Just stared with those pale blue eyes, sharp and assessing, like he was trying to figure out if Daniel was worth his time. Daniel didn’t flinch. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I’d love to know more—your career, your approach, how you shaped Max into the driver he is today.” He sounded genuinely curious, not sycophantic, not nervous. Just… interested. Respectful. Papa’s lips pressed into a thin line. He nodded slowly, nothing more. I could feel the silence stretch between them, a heavy, tense bubble that Daniel didn’t pop. Instead, he continued to ask questions, smiling politely, letting Papa talk without interrupting. I wanted to roll my eyes. Papa never let anyone talk without judgment—he tore them apart with one cold glance. Daniel, though… he was unfazed. He listened, asked more questions, joked lightly without being intrusive. I saw a flicker in Papa’s eyes that I hadn’t seen before—something almost like… respect. Or maybe calculation. I couldn’t tell. To the public, Papa’s reputation was complicated. Some fans despised him for being harsh, unyielding, impossible. Others called him practical, saying he made drivers stronger. Standing there, I realized both were true at the same time. Daniel didn’t care. He treated my father like a person, not a legend or a monster, and for a moment, I saw that Papa didn’t know how to handle it. Daniel left that meeting smiling, still full of warmth, still confident, still somehow making Papa talk without saying much himself. I stayed quiet, helmet heavy in my hands, feeling that strange mix of awe and frustration. I couldn’t figure Daniel out yet—but I knew something was changing.