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Turn. Perfect entry. Perfect apex. Perfect exit. Charles Leclerc felt the car as an extension of his own body – every millimeter of asphalt, every bump, every whisper of the tires. For the first time in the last five Grands Prix, he was flying. For the first time in weeks, the car wasn't being finicky, wasn't vibrating, wasn't refusing to obey. It breathed in unison with him. Every corner opened up to him like a book, every trajectory laid down perfectly, every press of the pedal responded with instantaneous acceleration.
He could feel the pole. He knew he could take it. He had to take it after everything that had happened this season. He needed this victory like air. Like proof to himself that he was still the best. That he could still do it. The chicane was approaching. He shifted his weight to the left side, preparing for braking, his fingers already dancing on the steering wheel in anticipation of the perfect turn-in point. His heart was beating steadily, his breathing calm. He was in the zone. In the flow.
And at that moment, Brian's voice came through his earpiece.
"Big crash by Verstappen."
His heart stopped. Charles knew that tone. Brian wasn't saying this to be dramatic – he was just doing his job. Warning about yellow flags ahead. About the track being blocked. Standard protocol. A routine message. No panic in his voice. No unnecessary drama.
But Charles suddenly realized he had forgotten to exhale. The air was stuck somewhere in his diaphragm, heavy and hot, and he couldn't breathe in or out while Brian was silent. The taste of rubber and burnt metal from the cockpit grew sharper, almost tangible. He opened his mouth, and the words came out faster than he could stop them.
"Is he okay?"
His voice cracked. There was panic in it. A sticky, suffocating fear. And something else he didn't want to name.
"So be a double yellow in Turn 9. Be careful when you get there," Brian continued.
Double yellows. That meant Max had crashed hard. That meant he could be injured.
"All good for Max?" he asked, and his voice wavered even more.
Charles gripped the wheel so hard his muscles cramped. He needed to see the track ahead, but all he could see was the grey concrete of Suzuka. The same concrete that eleven years ago had become a grave for someone else's hope. Jules.
The name flashed through his mind like lightning. Along with it came images that Charles had carried inside himself for eleven years. He didn't think about them every day. He had learned to hide them behind smiles for the press, behind focus on his laps, behind statistics and graphs. But now they were breaking through with unstoppable force, crushing all the barriers he had built.
He remembered Suzuka. Grey rain. Grey sky. Grey concrete walls that had never seemed dangerous until they touched someone close to Charles.
He remembered that day. He watched as the crane lifted the wreckage of the car. A lifeless structure of carbon and metal that had recently been a race car, that had been a dream just an hour ago. It hung in the air, swaying on the cables, like a body on a gallows. And the whole world watched it. Through camera lenses, through the flashes of photographers, through the fogged-up windows of homes where millions of people had frozen in front of their screens. Everyone waited. Holding their breath. With their hearts stopped. With hope that was fading with every second, with every movement of the crane, with every moment of silence that grew heavier and heavier.
Everyone understood what had happened. Everyone had seen that impact. Everyone knew that hitting a crane at that speed was a death sentence. But no one dared to say it out loud. The words were too heavy. Too final. As long as no one spoke them, there remained a tiny, ghostly possibility that it would all be okay.
And then the news came.
"Jules Bianchi has died from his injuries."
Charles remembered the funeral. He stood in the crowd on the streets of Nice, clutching a folded photograph in his coat pocket that he couldn't bring himself to take out. He remembered the coffin being carried along the pavement, slowly, unbearably. How thousands of people stood along the roads, silent, crying, laying flowers at the church steps. How the air was thick with the smell of grief and other people's tears.
He remembered looking at Christine, who stood at the church entrance. She held herself straight, even though it seemed like she was about to break. And still, she smiled. Through tears, through pain – because Jules wouldn't have wanted her to cry. Because he always said that life was too short to waste on sadness. Charles hadn't understood then. How could you not cry when everything inside you was breaking apart? How could you not waste time on sadness when the pain was so immense you couldn't breathe?
"Not sure yet, I'll come back to you," Brian said.
Charles didn't respond. His throat had seized up. He was looking straight ahead at the asphalt rushing under his wheels, but he couldn't see the apex or the trajectory. He could only see Jules. Jules, who had stood in front of him a couple of weeks before Suzuka, smiling that calm, slightly mysterious smile of his.
They were sitting in a café in Nice. The sun illuminated Jules's face, making him look younger, brighter, almost boyish. Jules was talking about Formula 1 so easily, so naturally – as if it were something that already belonged to him. As if it were inevitable.
Charles stayed silent. He was afraid to say that word out loud. Afraid even to think about it too clearly, too loudly, because thoughts had a habit of coming true – but only the ones he feared. The ones he dreamed about never did. The ones he feared always did. And Formula 1 was too big a dream. Too distant. Too impossible.
He clenched his fingers and listened to Jules, but inside, everything was tightening with fear. Fear that he would never make it there. That he didn't have enough talent. That he wouldn't be able to do it, that he just wasn't good enough. That all those years of training, karting, all those wins in the junior series – they meant nothing. That Formula 1 was a world for other people. A world he wouldn't be allowed into. He wanted to tell Jules this. Wanted to confess how afraid he really was. Wanted to ask: "What if I don't make it? What if I can't do it? What if I end up being nobody?"
But the words got stuck in his throat. They were too heavy, too honest, too real. And Charles was afraid that if he spoke them out loud, they would become reality – that fate would hear his fear and make it come true. So he just sat and listened. And was afraid to even breathe too loudly, because what if this dream, so fragile, so impossible, would shatter from any careless movement. But Jules, it seemed, could feel his fear. He looked at Charles a little longer than usual, and something warm flickered in his eyes. Something understanding.
"Someday," Jules said quietly, "you'll be standing on the podium. And I'll be watching you, and I'll be proud."
Charles looked up. He didn't know what to say. The words were stuck in his throat.
"And you'll be there with me?" he finally asked, his voice trembling slightly.
Jules threw his head back and laughed – brightly, openly, infectiously. He leaned forward and clapped Charles on the shoulder.
"Of course. Where else would I be?"
His eyes were laughing. The sun illuminated his face, making it look almost boyish. Charles just nodded and smiled back. And he believed it, because Jules never lied. He looked like he knew some secret he wasn't ready to share yet. Charles didn't know then that this promise would be the most painful one. That Jules would go somewhere else. That in a few weeks he wouldn't be able to hug him, wouldn't hear his voice, wouldn't see that smile. That the words "I'll be there" would turn into a huge void that nothing could fill.
And now, eleven years later, Charles sat in the cockpit of a Formula 1 car and heard his engineer say, "Not sure yet." The world slowed down. His heart was pounding somewhere in his throat. He was ready to pray to every saint he'd never known, just to hear that Max was okay.
He thought about Max. He remembered how at the start of the season they had stood next to each other at a press conference. Max had looked tired. There were shadows under his eyes, his shoulders were tense, his smile was strained. Charles had wanted to ask if he was okay. Wanted to walk over, put a hand on his shoulder, say something warm. But he hadn't done it, because they were rivals. Because the cameras were watching. Because you can't.
And now Max had crashed his car. And Charles didn't know if he was alive. He had hated Max. Hated how he drove. Hated his aggressive defending, the way he blocked the trajectory, his reckless attacks that made Charles's blood run cold. He hated him because Max was faster. Because he extracted from the car what wasn't there. Because he took risks that Charles was afraid to take.
But that was exactly what Charles loved about him. He loved Max's madness. Loved his obsession, his stubbornness, his inability to give up. He loved him so much it frightened him. And he'd never told him. He was afraid Max would push him away. Afraid it would destroy that fragile friendship-rivalry they had. Afraid that Max didn't feel the same way.
Jules had taught him courage on the track. Taught him not to fear speed, risk, death. But he hadn't taught him not to be afraid to love. And now Charles sat in the car, gripping the wheel, and thought that perhaps he was too late. Perhaps he had lost someone he loved again because he hadn't dared to say it out loud.
"Max is okay," Brian's voice broke into his thoughts like a lifeline. "He got out of the car."
Charles took a deep breath. The air finally entered his lungs – noisy, convulsive, burning. He exhaled and realized he had been gripping the wheel so hard his knuckles had gone white. He forced himself to unclench his fingers, wiggle them, get the blood flowing again.
"Is he injured?" he asked, his voice still trembling. "Badly?"
"I don't know," Brian replied. "But he's on his feet. Walking to the pits."
Charles closed his eyes for a second. For one moment, he allowed himself to feel the hot, painful relief. Max was alive.
By the final Q3 run, the tension had reached its peak. The Red Bull Ring was breathing heat. The asphalt was melting under the wheels, the air was shimmering with the roar of engines, and a thick smell of hot rubber and overheated metal hung over the track. Ferrari looked like the favorite. Leclerc had shown killer pace throughout the entire qualifying session – the car obeyed him like an extension of his body – and it seemed like pole was already in his pocket.
Charles went out for his final lap. He attacked the track with aggressive settings, biting into the asphalt on every corner, extracting every last drop from the car. But Russell wasn't letting up. The Mercedes was breathing down the Ferrari's neck, and the tension between them was almost tangible – like a taut string ready to snap at any moment.
The third sector decided everything. George entered it with the cold determination of a man who couldn't afford a mistake. He completed the lap perfectly – not a single lock-up on braking, not a single unnecessary slide on exit, not a single lost tenth. He was flying down the asphalt at maximum speed on the straight, and the car seemed like one whole with his body. It wasn't a machine – it was an extension of his will, his desire, his desperation.
He flew through the remaining section like a bullet. Like an arrow released from a bow that knows no way back. As if his entire career had been preparing him for this one single moment. He crossed the finish line.
"Russell takes pole. 1:06.113. The gap is 0.236 seconds," Brian's even voice came through the earpiece.
Charles stared straight ahead. Second. 0.236 seconds.
Two tenths. Twenty-three hundredths. A moment. One breath. One heartbeat. That's what separated him from pole. That's what stole the victory he had so desperately wanted.
If this had been a few Grands Prix ago, he would have been screaming into his helmet, losing his voice until the mechanics ran up to the car. He would have sat in the cockpit, teeth clenched, tears of anger burning his eyes, and he would have hated himself. He would have been angry at the world. At the car. At the tires. At the team. At himself. At Russell, who had taken advantage of Max's crash. At the FIA, who had checked that lap and still let it stand.
But now everything was different. Charles realized he didn't feel the familiar bitterness. Didn't feel that desperate, burning rage that usually flooded him after such failures. Instead, there was something else. Relief, flowing through his veins, drowning out the disappointment.
He had lost pole, but he had seen that Max was alive. If someone had offered him a choice – pole or the chance to see Max whole and unharmed – he would have chosen Max. Without hesitation, without any "buts."
Because pole could be taken in the next race. Could be earned again. Could win dozens of poles, hundreds, if luck allowed. But Max was one of a kind. And Charles had already lost someone he loved once – he couldn't survive it again.
Charles smiled through his exhaustion. Right now, he wanted only one thing – to walk up to Max. To make sure he was breathing. That Max was real and still there with him.
Leclerc took off his helmet and walked toward him. Not thinking about cameras, the press, or that millions of people would see this right now. He just walked up and stopped a step away from Max.
"You're an idiot," Charles said. His voice was trembling. "You're a complete idiot."
"Nice to see you too." Max smirked.
Charles looked at him. At the man he loved almost as much as he was afraid to lose. He nodded at Max toward a spot where the cameras couldn't reach and led Verstappen after him. And then, tightly, desperately, he hugged Max. Max froze for a second, and then his arms slowly rose and hugged Charles back.
"Everything okay?" Max said quietly.
"No," Charles whispered into his shoulder. "You can't do this every qualifying session."
Max tensed. He understood what Charles meant. Max knew how the Jules story had affected Leclerc. Knew how Charles still carried it inside him. He felt the trembling in Charles's shoulders, the dampness on his neck, and understood that Charles was crying.
"Teach me not to be afraid," Charles whispered.
Max took his hand, so warmly that Charles's breath caught.
"I will," Max replied. "I promise."