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The sky over Barcelona is white as a sheet when Laurent arrives at the circuit. The paddock is a ghost town. Yesterday had been a riot- martial bedlam as every person on every team strained to erect structure, liaise with FIA delegates, spy on competitors, assemble the cars, and either make or fend off contact from the few journalists whose presence was allowed at the closed door testing. Today, this early, Security is still napping. The only other car besides Laurent’s is a sleek blue SUV which noses into the chauffeur lane behind him as if trying not to get caught.
Laurent pulls his coat tighter around himself and lets himself out before his driver has the opportunity to be chivalrous. He offers the man a tight smile, “gracias,” as he shuts the door and manages somehow to ignore the other vehicle as he turns to make his way to the paddock gate.
The guard on duty is yawning while he prods Laurent’s bag. His colleague is slow as he sweeps Laurent methodically with a metal detector and then takes his pass from him to do something with it on the computer terminal. Laurent’s fingers tap in rhythm against his thigh, an entire verse of whatever house beat the mechanics had been blasting yesterday, before he realizes and forces himself to still. He can’t quite keep from glancing in the direction he’d come from. There, the blue SUV is rolling to a stop. Laurent watches a man extract himself from the front before circling to the back. He pauses, one hand resting upon the door handle while his careful eye combs the surroundings. Only after he’s satisfied himself that everything is as it seems does the bodyguard pop the latch. Laurent’s heart skips a beat. He looks away before he can watch the passenger being guided out of the car.
“All good,” says Security as he hands back Laurent’s pass. “Have a lovely day, Señor.”
“Gracias.” Laurent hardly hears himself as he pushes through the turnstile. On the other side of the gate he pulls out his phone on reflex and nearly flinches when he finds the article he’d been reading in the car staring back at him. “I consider myself lucky really, because it could have been a lot worse,” says Max to Autosport, “I don’t blame Charles at all. I mean it’s just bad luck the brakes-”
Laurent drops his phone back into a pocket as if burned. Behind him, he can hear Max’s soft lilt as he says something to his bodyguard, and slows. There’s no one else around. In the distance, a forklift or a scissor lift or some other piece of machinery is beeping. Only that and Max’s voice color the still air of the paddock in early morning. Today, cars would touch track and they would see if it had all been worth it. Right now, Laurent misses his driver. He stops under an awning and turns to look.
It is not the first time that Laurent has seen Max since the accident. No, that was back in December. A subdued end of season briefing where Laurent fought to find words that were adequate. Max had only taken the stage at the end. Huddled as he’d been between two of his mechanics, one of their test drivers, and an engineer who’d left Mercedes for him; it had taken several minutes to wade through the assembled crowd. There’d been a soft chorus of “yea, Maxy!” “Attaboy!” Even a stray “tu tu tu tu-” that made him giggle and swat at Ole’s extended hand. At the stage, he’d taken the mic easily from Laurent’s damp palms. “First of all, I wanted to say thank you-”
Laurent had scarcely heard anything else. Under the lights, Max’s face was bruised black and purple. He hadn’t yet healed enough for them to fix the bend in his nose.
It’s fixed now though. And the surgeons had done a good job. Laurent breathes slowly as he watches Max slide through the gates. He’s all bundled up against the chill, team windbreaker thrown on overtop and zipped up to his throat. At a distance, he catches Laurent’s eye and grins, all squinty with it. He says something to his bodyguard which earns him a pat on the back as the man departs and then he is coming over. Laurent remains still as Max approaches. His gaze wanders anxiously over every part of him, cataloguing his loping stride, the straight line of his shoulders, the way his smile is still crooked all these weeks later. Nerve damage, they’d said.
He will always worry. But something in his chest eases as Max draws close enough to raise a hand in greeting.
“Good morning! Very cold, isn’t it.”
Laurent takes the hand Max offers him and squeezes. Then relents, and reaches up to clasp Max’s shoulder instead. “Good morning, Max. How was your flight?” Up close, he looks happy, Laurent thinks. Something like thrill in his eyes and the tenser parts of his jaw. The scar bisecting the left side of his face is very pale now, folding into a deeper line as his lips draw back over his teeth. He looks hungry. Keen, in a way that has Laurent making a mental note to inform Rupert and perhaps also warn GP.
It sends a little shock through Laurent’s nervous system. Max’s excitement is so infectious. He’d missed it, almost more than the glow of the race weekend itself.
“It was alright, yea,” Max says. His hands fiddle in his pockets. “The plane was able to get here early so I went straight to the hotel. Slept like a baby.”
Laurent chuckles, which makes Max scrunch up again, pleased. Then he asks, “You were here uh yesterday. How did everything go?”
“Good,” Laurent nods. “Very good.” His tongue feels heavy in his mouth, frozen as every memory of the day before comes crashing over him. He wants to tell Max everything. He wants to give him a gift. “Jon did splendidly,” he says at last. “Both garages look sharp, cars are all assembled and ready. I think everyone is eager to be on track.”
“Hmm,” Max says, “I hope so.” His gaze has drifted over Laurent’s shoulder, brow furrowing as he turns to glance around the still paddock. “Are we the only ones here? I didn’t think it would be so early, you know, when I left the hotel. I thought there might be traffic.”
Laurent follows his gaze. There’s a woman he recognizes from the Williams garage who strides past them without acknowledgement. A group of what look like service workers stand on a balcony overhead, sipping from paper cups and chatting. Somewhere, the forklift still beeps. “It’s a little early,” Laurent agrees. “I think we are the first from the performance team.” Max turns his head to look down the rows of motorhomes, wan sunlight glancing off the plastic siding. Laurent checks his watch. “Hospitality should be nearly finished with setup. You should go, they’ll make you something. Did you have time to have breakfast yet?”
“I think I am alright,” says Max. Which, Laurent thinks, means ‘no,’ but is also more of a problem for his trainer. He makes a mental note of it. Max’s gaze is still locked on to the motorhomes, squinting against the gleam of an oversized Mercedes logo. Laurent looks harder at him. A question forms at the tip of his tongue and it takes effort to hold it back. He waits.
Max must find whatever he’s looking for or else make up his mind. He turns back to Laurent and says, “Actually, I was wondering if it’s alright for me to see the car?”
Laurent twitches. Technically, there are many reasons to say ‘no.’ The boys had worked all day yesterday to get it together, to assemble the chassis and install the engine and make it good and clean and nice for when it was time for Max to strap in. Traditionally, at least for race weekends, they would do a little reveal. Whip off the white sheet and down some Red Bull with whatever club music they’d been listening to thudding like a heartbeat in the background, revelling for awhile before it was time to bolt on the tyres. Today, they would surely want to show Max. They would want to see his face when he saw what they’d made for him.
But Max knows this as well as Laurent does, and still, he is asking. The scar on his face is very pale. His stare is implaccable as the tide. And really, there is almost nothing Laurent would ever wish to deny him. A small peak couldn’t hurt. “I think,” Laurent replies, “we can go to the garage.”
Max’s eyes widen fractionally, like he hadn’t expected to get what he wanted this time. Then he smiles, “yes, that would be perfect.” He nods once to himself, then gestures down the corridor of buildings that line the way to the pits and nods to Laurent. “Lead the way.”
Together, they make their way through the paddock. Laurent has been racing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya since before Toro Rosso was called Minardi, back when Jos wore Arrows black and orange and clutched his tiny son as a dragon clutches treasure. The memories overlap sometimes. Laurent has to focus to recall the particular layout the organizers had chosen for them this week. In his periphery, Max is nothing like his father.
“You said Jon was good yesterday?” Max rasps as they walk past McLaren.
“Hm? Oh yes, he was perfect,” says Laurent. “We knew he would be good from how well he’s done with the other garage, but I think he’s even more eager now for the challenge. The set-up was very efficient. The whole team is, ah, very motivated.”
Max makes a vague noise of affirmation and bobs his head. There’s a line in his forehead now as he stares down at the pavement. Without intending to, Laurent finds his own features hardening and forces himself to relax. They turn right at the Audi building.
“Matt came by to visit,” Laurent offers after a beat. Then adds softly, “I think he mostly came to spy on us.”
Max turns to blink at him. “Really?”
Laurent takes a deep breath and lets it out as a sigh. Even so, he injects some amusement into his voice, lets it bend his face to better let Max in on the joke. “I am told,” he says, “he had to be chased out with a broom.”
For an instant, Max’s eyes are very wide. The furrow there vanishes as his brows lift in open incredulity. Then, it’s like the bursting of a soap bubble. Max laughs like a boy, open mouthed and all creased up over it. The noise is sort of like a dog being sick and a little bit like gravel striking carbon fiber and Laurent would not be unhappy if he got to hear it every single day of his life- his career, at the very least.
“Really? A broom?” Max giggles. “It was Jon, wasn’t it? Yes, I think he’ll be very good in my garage. He can help defend our secrets.”
It’s still cool, this early and this deep into the winter in Barcelona. But the sun is doing its best and Laurent is starting to warm up. There’s a little smile caught in Max’s lips that stays there as they wade through the still paddock. Yesterday had been unseasonably balmy. Perhaps today, Laurent thinks, it could be warm as well.
“I am sure Audi is going to be very happy with him,” Max says after a while. “It is of course good for him, and I’m happy he gets to pursue his own opportunities. But I’m still going to miss him, a bit.” The last part gets dragged out in a sigh. Like an admission of guilt. Laurent turns his head in time to watch Max’s expression being raked clean, schooled into something only slightly less devastating than it was.
Laurent Mekies was once an engineer. His eyes and his hands and his brain remain his most reliable assets- and the same could never be said of his heart. Right now it throbs feebly in his chest. A bait fish struggling on a hook. Laurent swallows in order to wet his dry mouth and says, “yes.” A pause. “I think the team also misses him.”
Max glances sideways at him. He is walking on Laurent’s right which makes not looking at the gash on Max’s left nearly impossible. Laurent feels his gaze flick down and wrenches it away immediately. He’s seen enough, he scolds himself. There’s no need to keep checking. Max’s face had once been flayed, slashed down to the bone in a freak accident that could have killed him. Now? It was fine. It was rude to stare.
“Yea, I’m sure that’s true,” Max says. Then adds, “except for his brother.” When Laurent looks back at him, he mimes smacking someone with an imaginary shop broom and waits for Laurent to laugh at him before breaking out in a grin. All creased up over it.
The rest of the walk is quiet. Max is still chipper, but the same hunger Laurent had sensed at the gate boils closer and closer to the skin as they approach the garages and the car he’d come to see. Even when he smiles, Max stares straight ahead. There are little dark smudges under his eyes. His hands fist and unfurl, over and over again in the pockets of his windbreaker.
So. He was probably lying about sleeping last night, Laurent thinks. He probably came in early and without breakfast because he was impatient, anxious and eager to do something about it. And if this were Yuki or Liam or Isack, Laurent might call him on it. He might ask again, how much sleep he’d had. Send him back to hospitality with threats of informing his trainer- which Laurent would of course do anyway because it was Rupert’s job to know. It was Laurent’s job to support him. And together, they would ensure that Max got a twenty minute nap and at least an english muffin or something before they strapped him into the cockpit for testing. High fives all around.
Max is not Yuki or Liam or Isack. His eye twitches at the thud-clang boom of a dumpster, somewhere, being emptied into a truck. There’s a scar on his left side that Laurent can’t stop looking at. At Monza, they’d put Max onto the hards because he’d been starving all weekend, and it was unanimously agreed upon that it would be more feasible to strategize around a safer tyre than to try and hold him back when he was like this. That look in his eye then is the same as now. The same as it was in Abu Dhabi.
Very calmly, Laurent asks, “how is Lilly?” And listens while Max tells him.
It is easy after that.
Laurent has heard all the jokes by now and no longer resents them. Oracle Red Bull Racing was a cult, they said, even more so than the Scuderia. The team operated under the thumb of Max Verstappen. And the primary objective of everyone from the janitors at the factory all the way up to senior management, shareholders, and the team principal boiled down to this: keep Max happy.
It was all bullshit of course. An exaggeration at best and bald conspiracy at worst. And it also missed something crucial. They hadn’t given Max the car last year. Max had given them everything and then some, more than they would ever even wish to ask of him. Still, he had missed the title by two points. Truthfully, Laurent thinks as he listens to Max speak softly of all the things he loves, there was no reason not to want to please him. He should be happy. And if the car isn’t enough, this might be all Laurent could do for him.
He prunes that thought before it can stretch any further. The bad future is not something he can afford to dwell upon, not while he’s trying to coax Max into some semblance of ease.
Despite Laurent’s efforts, Max’s answers grow increasingly monosyllabic as they reach the pit proper. Everyone’s doors are still down. Faint voices and the clatter of tools drift out from behind the shuttered garages and spill onto the asphalt. Max paces down the lane as if possessed, sucking the chill air through his mouth and nose and exhaling in big puffs of exhaust like an agitated bull. Laurent has to lengthen his stride just to keep up. He doesn’t want to look at the ‘1’ above Lando’s garage, but Max turns his head as they pass by and squints, expression unreadable. The track just beyond lies silent. Untouched.
At the pedestrian door, Laurent moves ahead to badge them both in. Max makes a little darting motion with his body as the keypad beeps and Laurent wordlessly steps aside to let him through. Max is chomping at the bit now. He could not soothe him if he tried. He trails after Max like a shadow as they thread their way through a labyrinth of narrow corridors, locked offices, and the warding thresholds of other teams to at last reach Red Bull. Max badges them in this time. Motion activated fluorescents come on as they enter and pass the driver rooms. Max turns left, strides past the mechanics’ lockers and emerges into the cave of the garage interior.
There, car 3 lies like a body beneath a tarp. Frankenstein’s monster, unborn on the slab.
Max pauses within kissing distance of the hindwing. His back, still turned. Laurent cannot see his face, only the straight lightning rod of his spine and the way the rest of him- every line of his frozen body- bends inexorably towards the shrouded form of the RB22. He says. Nothing.
Laurent gives Max a wide berth as he circles to the opposite side of the garage. He rests the small of his back against a workbench, gripping the edges on either side of himself to keep his hands quiet. Like this, he watches as Max creeps forward, padding sneakily around the veiled machine as if it might wake at any moment, disturbed. His head tilts this way and that, birdlike and curious he takes it in. His eyes dart. Very keen.
“The mechanics finished all the initial set-up yesterday,” Laurent murmurs as Max comes closer to his side. “I have heard the engine running in the chassis."
Max hums. “What does it sound like?”
Like an engine, Laurent thinks. Like a heartbeat, like the roar of a flash flood in Interlagos or the caterwaul of the grandstands and the garage, that night in Abu Dhabi when Max had missed his fifth. It sounds, Laurent thinks, like you.
“It sounds,” Laurent says, “like an engine.”
Max smiles, lets out an amused little puff through his nose. His hand makes a soft grasping gesture towards the car, then stops. He glances back at Laurent. “Can we, if it’s ok, take off the covers?” he asks.
Laurent hesitates. The drapes could be a chore to get right sometimes. And really, it would be better to just wait for the rest of the garage. But Max is still staring at him. His scar is a jagged lightning bolt which breaks him in two around the socket of his left eye and Laurent can’t stop looking at it. He can’t stop remembering Abu Dhabi, the fireworks for the incumbent world champion and the way they’d glinted off of Hannah’s bared teeth. Gianpiero’s shattered expression, once he’d realized what had happened to Max in turn five. The feeling of that victory Max had bled to give to them.
“Of course,” Laurent says, and stands up from the counter to help.
He doesn’t expect Max to undress the car as easily as he does, but maybe he should have. Max is as methodical here as he is in the cockpit. Wherever his hands touch the car, he is sure. The little snaps come apart for him one by one between his fingers until at last the sheet can be drawn away and the body is laid bare beneath the lights. Max’s nostrils flare. He rolls his half of the covers into a neat bundle to be set aside on a countertop and stalks closer. Stepping up to the sidepod, one hand rises, reaches. His fingertips skim the titanium of the halo and pause, just barely touching. Wordless, Max lifts his head to fix Laurent in his gaze.
Max is asking for- something. Laurent doesn’t know what. But in this, just as in everything else, there is very little he would ever wish to deny him. Laurent nods. Max’s mouth twitches gently, and then his hand is moving again. Laurent watches him take the crown of the halo into his palm and squeeze. Once, like a firm handshake. Then again, his knuckles going white with it, lips drawing back over his teeth, grinning like a dog as his eyes roam all over this thing they had made for him.
“Very nice,” Max says. He releases the halo, fingertips skimming over the side as he withdraws. Slower now, he circles, scrutinizing every inch of carbon fiber like someone at a museum, determined to see everything. Laurent finds his fingers drumming against his thigh and forces them still.
“This is new,” Max says, gesturing around the roll hoop. “I always liked how the shark fins looked, on the V8 cars.”
“Old school,” Laurent agrees. Seb had won titles in a car like that. He’d taken his maiden victory in a car like that- the STR3, which Laurent had made for him back when he was still an engineer at Toro Rosso, and Jos’s tiny son was a memory of no particular significance.
Sebastian had left Red Bull in part because they had failed to give him the car.
Max’s gaze flicks back and forth between Laurent and the RB22. Laurent’s feeble engineer’s heart quivers inside of him. He doesn’t want to think about what his face is doing right now, so instead he crosses his arms and stares until Max finally looks away, caught. A metallic rattle reverberates in from the outside as a neighboring garage opens its doors. Max stalks around to the front suspension and crouches to put his face mere centimeters from the bouquet of pushrods he finds there. Laurent watches his brow crease. And then go slack as he straightens up. He peers sideways at Laurent, white scar flashing in the dim.
“I’m excited to drive it,” Max says. Then adds, “they wouldn’t let me for awhile, you know,” and smiles, all scrunched up like it was funny.
There had been a GT3 car Max had been excited to drive during Abu Dhabi; that he’d mentioned, beaming, in between stints on the track and in the media pen and with marketing and his trainer and everyone else whom he was obliged to. In the end, someone else had done those laps. Max had been recovering at home, too mangled to get a helmet on.
Last year had been an aberration. Abu Dhabi, a disaster. Laurent had been there to watch as Max tore through the field like something great and terrible, foretold, after he’d only qualified 7th. Once more, they had failed to give him the car. Once more, Max sought to close the gap by himself. With just four laps to go, Max had clawed his way to within striking distance of the two Ferraris dueling for the lead. Charles and Lewis were fighting like devils, heedless of the threat from behind, and Laurent had seen it before it happened. The geometry of the double overtake revealed itself before his eyes, the cars falling into position like the planets aligning, just so. Once more they hadn’t given Max the car. By the end of this lap, it wouldn’t matter. Laurent held his breath. Next to him on the pit wall, Helmut Marko let out a sigh.
And then. Contact.
Charles’ brakes exploded. The SF-25 had had enough. Him and Hamilton went careening into the runoff, a Ferrari one-two up in smoke. Max had sawed furiously at the wheel to prevent a spin of his own and just barely managed to hold on. A shout, overlapping cries of shock and dismay from all up and down the pit lane. In the noise, it had taken several long seconds before anyone realized something was wrong.
Blood on the broadcast. On his onboard, Max was gashed. He was driving half-blind, his visor in pieces from a piece of debris that had come off one of the red cars like a missile. Lando Norris inherited third place behind George Russell and his first title behind a safety car. The Ferrari drivers limped from their wrecks in shame.
Chris Lullham had been the one to test that GT3 car while Max had been recovering at home. Lullham drove good laps. Come springtime, Max would drive a Mercedes at the Nürburgring.
Between then and now and afterwards, no one knew what would happen. Last year had been a failure because they had failed to give Max a car worthy of his talents. No one wants to talk about what might happen if Max were to leave them for someone who could. The subject silences whole rooms, leaves senior staff looking haunted and infirm. All winter, Laurent has held himself calm and rational and very very still as he'd arranged a future for his team, and felt wounded afterwards. Right now, Max is excited to drive. His face is ruined. Laurent’s heart is a sickly runt of a thing, shaken after Abu Dhabi and still cowering at the spectre of loss.
“It is very different from last year.” Laurent hears himself say. The team is different. Max is different. Laurent had been drafted only after Christian’s hubris had caught up to him. Helmut had been on notice already after Qatar. Matt Caller had followed Jonathan to work on the Audi project, Michael Manning left for Williams, and GP had been nearly destroyed; emerging from the horror of the year he’d had only because Max still needed him. The team hadn’t given Max the car last year. Max had given them everything and then some and had still missed the title by two points.
Max nods sagely. “Definitely it’s smaller. I didn’t think I would notice it that much, but even without being in the cockpit it feels,” he makes a vague gesture with his hands, “tighter. More nimble. Maybe Monaco this year will not be as much napping.”
Laurent offers him a smile that feels brittle even to himself. He feels nauseous. His back aches where the workbench takes his weight, digging in to hold him upright while he white knuckles his elbows. At the car’s flank, Max’s head tilts almost ninety degrees to peers between the louvers. At the engine sleeping inside. The scar folds in on itself as he grins, doglike and keen again as he beholds this newborn thing. Dutch oaths tumble softly from his lips. “Our own engine,” he sighs. Then his eyes snap to Laurent’s. “Ben was here?”
Laurent nods. “Yes. The engine was healthy yesterday and we have good data from VCARB. Ben will be here today for when we run on track. We will have Pierre as well of course, and the technicians and engineers from Dearborn.”
“That’s good,” Max says. “I really need to give him a thank you, I think. Did you know, when I was younger my dad wanted me to be with Mercedes. He said they were better because they were a factory team.” His eyes crinkle. Nerve damage deforms one side of his mouth when he bares his teeth. “Now we are a factory team. So I was right in the end about staying. I will really have to thank Ben, we could not have done it without him.”
Laurent had been a team principal before. He’d thought he had known what it was to love a driver. He had known what it was to support them and to guide them and rear them up strong, and then. To see them disappear into the lion’s den. First Liam, then Yuki, now Isack. Carlos had been Max’s teammate once. And Laurent had been there with him for the single race they’d snatched from that roaring maw in 2023. Laurent hadn’t won anything since. Not until Max brought him the sprint in Belgium. Not until their first meeting, when Max had told him, “my goal is to stay with this team.” When Max had leaned in, eyes burning, indifferent to the fidgeting of his manager sitting next to him, and had told Laurent, “If the car can do it, then I will make sure that it does.”
The fastest race in the history of their sport. Pit lane to podium. From a deficit of over a hundred points down to two. “We could not have done it without you,” Laurent thinks.
Words are inadequate. Maybe, Laurent thinks, he should have stayed an engineer. Surely, his heart was never meant to contain anything so mighty as Jos’s tiny son. He stares straight ahead as Max drifts over to the worktop, coming to rest close enough for Laurent to feel the heat radiating from his side like an overworked PU. Max is quiet. Laurent, helplessly mute as together they look upon the car that Max was excited to drive.
Light slips idly through the seams of the garage door. Time passes in agony, the way it had at Abu Dhabi, and Laurent struggles to say- something. He can feel Max sneaking glances at him. It’s the only warning he gets before Max pitches sideways, bumping against Laurent’s side like a wave falling upon wet sand. He recedes. Then, just as quickly, reaches to take Laurent’s closest shoulder in his palm and squeeze. Laurent flinches. Max does not let go.
His fingers are iron. When Laurent at last manages to wrench his head up to meet him, Max’s eyes are burning. There’s power in his grip, a healed laceration across his face, and his voice is very soft now. “We will show them, Laurent,” he says. “It is a long season.” The smile on his lips is genuine.
“Does he even know?” Laurent thinks.
At Abu Dhabi, the team had been distraught. They would never- never- ask Max to bleed like that. They had come alive after Zandvoort because Max had revived them. On the podium in Monza, he’d been their angel. In Baku, a titan, stealing fire from the gods so that they might see the way. That long night in Brazil, both garages had been starving, desperate for the chance to tear the car apart and try again. They’d been shaken after Qatar because Max had been shaken, furious and inconsolable after a row with Helmet that had spilled out of the conference room and echoed into the garage. “I was just like him!” Max screamed. “He’s a boy! Nineteen fucking years old, first year! He doesn’t deserve-”
Laurent had overheard it along with the rest of them. In his mind, the image of Jos’s tiny son had bobbed to the surface as if it had always been there, a photograph taken just yesterday. He remembered the fearsome teenager Jean Todt had tutted at, and finally. Laurent had understood.
The thing they all fear is this: the car will not be enough.
The car had not been enough at Abu Dhabi. Max had wanted to close the gap by himself. GP’s voice had been flat and rigid as a pane of glass when he’d asked Max, very calmly, to please pull over and retire the car as soon as he was safely able.
“No!” Max snarled. Behind the safety car, he’d swerved, holding his head at an angle just to try and see around the mess of his ruined visor. Laurent had never seen Hannah look so pale. Everything they had tried to give to Max to help him lay destroyed in the runoff at turn five, up in smoke with the Ferrari 1-2. “We’ve come all this way,” Max hissed. “We’re not going to stop now. I just need- tell me when-”
Laurent’s heart was done in that night. On the onboard, Jos’s tiny son was bleeding. In fear and desperation, Laurent had thumbed the radio button and said something he had regretted ever since. “Max, Norris is already in third.”
Silence.
GP’s eyes were white all the way around. “Laurent, he isn’t going to stop.”
Laurent’s hands were shaking then. “He has to,” he seethed. “He’s injured. There’s no way he can- he’s going to hurt himself even worse.” Distantly, he was aware of the Ferrari pit wall exploding at the other end of the lane. He was aware of their garage, Max’s mechanics wailing from somewhere behind him. Helmut Marko going deathly still in his chair.
Just then, Max had cut in. A burst of static, the crackly heave of his breathing as he labored through the twists of the final sector and flew past pit entry. “I am going to finish this,” Max said, “so you can either please help me or just- leave me the fuck alone.”
There had been nothing else for them to do that night. They would never- never- ask him for this. But when Max had become determined to take that victory, how could they have possibly denied him? For three more laps, GP had held Max’s hand behind the safety car, spurring him onwards to the end. Laurent had spent that time begging race control for a red flag which never came.
Sometimes at night, Laurent still sees the boy that Max was. The images are seared into his mind; the child Jos had clutched at, the teenager who had horrified Jean Todt, their boy made to bleed onto the track at Yas Marina. Max had done it for them in love and rage, for the team that would never ask him to, after they had failed to give him the car he deserved. If they fail again this year, Max might leave to drive for Mercedes. If they fail again this year, Max might do something worse.
He might stay. Stay, and keep bleeding for them until he was finished. One of the finest racers to ever grasp a steering wheel, undone by the team who’d held him since he was small.
Max is still looking at him, a little furrow forming between his brows as he registers Laurent’s shame- preparing more reassurances he should never have to give. All winter, Max has been recovering. Training has tempered the fine lines of him, left his cheeks hollow and his eyes hard as bone. The bruising is just residue now, caught in his lower eyelid. The scar, a seam. At that end of season debrief, Max had taken the microphone from Laurent’s clammy palm with ease. Even now, he is excited to drive.
Max hadn’t wanted to stop in Abu Dhabi. He would've done anything that night to bring them that gift, one last victory to show the world what Red Bull was made of. Laurent had been a coward then and he’d regretted it ever since.
With effort, Laurent extricates himself from Max’s hold and stands to face him. His knees creak as they take his full weight. Max remains half seated against the worktop, looking up at him. If Laurent squints he can still see it, the boy and then- yes, there, the man he’d become. There are four stars on Max’s race suit now, one for each title he’s brought home. He has daughters of his own now; three cats, a puppy dog, and a GT3 team besides. Come springtime, Max would drive a Mercedes at the Nürburgring. Right now, he has a keen and hungry look about him, and he is there in their garage because he wants to be.
Like this, it is easy for Laurent to reverse their positions, reaching out to lay hands on Max’s warm shoulders. Like this, he rallies his trembling heart.
“Yuki has been doing the simulations,” Laurent tells him. “Pierre is confident. Ben thinks the engine is at least as good as the Mercedes. But…” Laurent’s fingers twitch, his resolve flexing under the strain of every awful decision he’s had to make since Abu Dhabi as he’s arranged the team’s future. If Max notices, he’s kind enough not to mention it. He only leans forwards, pushing into Laurent’s grip until his hands regain their steadiness. “Nobody knows for sure,” Laurent finishes.
“We will find out,” Max insists. “We did it last year, we can do it again.”
“No. No, Max. We-” Laurent can only shake his head. This reassurance is not for him. He needs Max to understand it the way he himself had come to understand it. The team loves him. They’ve held him tight at every race he’s ever won and they’d never wanted to stop. They had wanted to go to him that night in Abu Dhabi. They were crowding the barriers and howling like dogs, cheering and weeping as the stands erupted with his song and Max was helped into the waiting ambulance. Last year, they hadn't given Max the car. They’d forgiven themselves because Max had forgiven them. Even now, they stare down the Mercedes and the MCLs and the Astons as if it’s 2021 again, now or never, and all the world is their enemy.
Words are inadequate, but Laurent does his best.
“Max. We are so proud of you.” The fastest race in the history of their sport. Pit lane to podium. From a deficit of over a hundred points down to just two. “So proud of you,” Laurent repeats, his heart surging with it. “You are at the center of this team. The car is different from last year, and we will work hard to make it better. We will give you what you need to fight. We will do- whatever it takes for you to win.”
Max’s eyes widen almost imperceptibly. For a moment, he is a boy again, their boy. A boy and a lion and an archangel and a titan. Something precious and something sharp. Great and fell and terrible. Leonine and doglike. A slip of a thing, trailing his father into the Arrows garage and pushing himself into Laurent’s palms like a housecat.
Max drops his gaze, letting out a bashful little snort as he stares at the floor. Laurent squeezes his shoulders once and lets him go. When Max looks up again, the scar is deep, a pale line of surf ripping the ocean in two. His eyes flash like steel. Max says, “Together. We will do it together.”
Laurent can only nod. Like that night in Abu Dhabi, there is nothing else for them to do. Outside, the other teams are all waking up, opening their garages to rouse their sleeping machines. Yesterday had been unseasonably balmy. Ben had been there and so had Pierre and the engineers and technicians from Dearborn, and together they had affirmed their engine was healthy. Perhaps today could be warm as well. Today, they would hit the track to see what they were really made of. The car will have to be enough, Laurent thinks as he watches Max’s starving gaze flick back to the cockpit. It was made, after all, with love.