Chapter Text
1st September, 2024 — Monza.
Lando Norris had always known Oscar Piastri was the sort to do his talking on the track, and never anywhere else. Too bad for Oscar, then, because Lando had absolutely no filter, in or out of the car. So when Piastri had decided to put them both in danger out of nothing but sheer ego and, to make matters worse, had cost them the win, Lando's nerves—usually already frayed after a race—were now burning.
He'd known it. The second they'd been told to follow the ‘papaya rules’ in Hungary—that softened little name designed to make them forget they were fighting for their championship positions—he'd known their relationship was going to deteriorate. But strangely, the race that had ended a few hours ago frustrated him even more than Hungary. Because this time, Oscar had positioned himself as the predator rather than the prey.
His prey.
For at least the fifteenth time in the past two hours, his phone rings in his pocket. Eventually, Lando relents, pulling it out and answering the call. He presses it to his ear without taking his eyes off the front door across from him as he sits on the sofa.
Max Fewtrell's voice crackles through the speaker, drowned in interference.
“Where the fuck have you been, Lan? Everyone's waiting to celebrate with you.”
He can hear Pietra's voice somewhere behind him, and finally realises the crackling isn't interference at all. It's the bass from the speakers at whatever club they're at. Probably the ALTRO.
“Start without me,” he replies flatly, a tone Max clearly doesn't understand.
“Uh, mate, that's pretty much what we've been doing for the past three hours. Something happened?”
“You bet it did. I'll call you back, Max, alright? Let me just handle something.”
“That something wouldn't have anything to do with what happened today, would it? You better not do anything stupid.”
“Of course not. Have you ever seen me do anything stupid?”
“For the sake of our friendship, I'm not gonna answer that question.”
Lando is just about to say something about how there is surely no one more sensible or composed than him when the sound of the lock clicking in the front door pulls his attention back to it.
“Bye, Max. See you in a minute. Love you.”
He doesn't give Max the chance to answer before hanging up and slipping his phone back into his pocket so he won't be disturbed again. Oh, Fewtrell would fucking kill him if he knew where he was right now.
It’s only when the door finally opens, revealing Oscar's slightly broader frame, that Lando loses some of the courage he'd managed to muster up until then.
Oh, fuck it.
Oscar can go to hell, along with his stupid chocolate truffles that he keeps leaving on the coffee table as though they aren't practically begging to be eaten while Lando waits for him to come back from God knows where. Where the hell does he even spend his time after stealing P1 from him and costing him the win? Probably with Charles.
It’s only when Oscar turns the lights on and his gaze travels from the hallway into the sitting room that he finally seems to notice Lando's presence.
Of course, Oscar being Oscar, he doesn't flinch.
He doesn't move.
Anyone who didn't know him would have thought he was completely used to finding strangers appearing in his flat in the middle of the night, but Lando knows him. He notices the way Oscar's eyebrows draw together ever so slightly more than usual, the way his lips press into a thinner line.
He knows him.
“May I know what you're doing in my flat at this hour?”
Oscar doesn't ask how Lando got in. He already knows. After all, he'd been the one to give him a spare key.
“You ruined my race,” Lando replies, his features unusually sharp.
For a few seconds, silence hangs between them. It's Oscar's incredulous laugh that finally breaks it, only serving to piss Lando off even more.
“Go home, Lando,” he says before turning his back on him to take off his coat.
Norris steps towards him, his voice shaking with anger.
“Look at me.”
Oscar doesn't even acknowledge him. Lando steps closer, his anger building with every second Oscar refuses to look at him. By the time he reaches him, he snatches the jacket from his hands and pulls it away, leaving Oscar with no choice but to finally face him.
“Look at me,” he repeats, enunciating every word.
And Oscar has that calm Lando hates.
That infuriating calm that only makes him angrier.
The kind of calm that makes him want to throw Oscar straight through the enormous glass doors overlooking this bloody city.
“You ruined my race,” he repeats.
“A race, Lando. As you say, we were racing. I was faster, you were slower. It ends here.”
“You were going to send us into the wall!” he exclaims, outraged that Piastri can't even admit he's been in the wrong.
“You expect me to apologise? You started all of that, Lando. Don't you dare act like it was on me.”
“You mean Hungary? You would've done the same thing.”
“I wouldn't have.”
“Liar.”
“Oh, you know quite a lot about that particular register, don't you?” Oscar replies, a hint of sarcasm creeping into his voice.
The answer leaves Lando speechless for a few seconds. Oh, that one was nasty. He is just about to answer, ready to bury Oscar under the monologue he's been rehearsing in his head ever since that overtake at the Variante della Roggia, but Oscar beats him to it.
“For someone doing their best to ignore me, you seem particularly invested in my personal space.”
“Obviously, when the space in question keeps colliding with mine in the middle of a race.”
Oscar rolls his eyes, and the faint trace of anger Lando had seen in his eyes disappears. Of course. He's not going to give Lando anything more than the bare minimum of emotion he deems him worthy of.
Lando clenches his fists, but doesn't do anything when Oscar turns around to pick up the keys he'd left in the little orange bowl. He watches him slide them into the lock of his front door and pull it open, revealing the corridor beyond. Oscar doesn't bother looking at him as he leaves. He simply walks past him and heads towards the sitting room—and he can still smell Lando's scent clinging to the sofa, enough to tell him that he's been there for a while.
That thought alone makes him turn back with a final few words, his tone sharper now.
“It’s called motor racing, Lando. If a driver fresh out of his rookie season can achieve more in one year than you have in four, maybe you should start asking yourself the right questions.”
He regrets the words the second they leave his mouth.
But it's too late.
Lando is gone.
1 YEAR AND 8 MONTHS EARLIER
If there was one thing Lando would miss after Daniel Ricciardo’s departure, it was their countless games of ping-pong on Will’s desk —games that often ended with the Brit loudly accusing his teammate of blatantly cheating. Oh, and the Pictionary challenges for the McLaren Instagram account. And their morning debates over the proper way to pronounce flip-flops; seriously, who even used the word thongs? Oh, and the way they could tell whether Andrea was in a bad mood or not just by crossing paths! That one was particularly good.
After all, after two years in each other’s company—even if the first year had been spent getting to know one another—they had ended up sharing a huge part of their daily lives and routines. Perhaps even a little too much.
And yet, after Carlos’s departure two years earlier, Lando had promised himself he would keep his work relationships at arm’s length. The problem was, he and Carlos had clicked almost instantly. They shared the same interests, had the same sense of humour, and often even went on holiday together. And even though he had put on a brave face in front of the media, because, as his PR manager kept reminding him, he had to “avoid looking too emotional in front of those vultures in the press”, Carlos’s departure had affected him. That was precisely why he had found it so difficult to form a friendship with Daniel when he arrived at McLaren.
He knew that journalists and fans were already describing them as “the teammates of the year”, pointing out their striking similarities and constantly commenting on their humour and zest for life. And perhaps if Carlos hadn’t been the teammate he had been, Lando would indeed have developed an extraordinary friendship with Daniel straight away. But the truth was that he was terrified of falling back into his old habits: getting attached to people in a matter of weeks and giving them a part of himself almost immediately. His mother often told him not to give pieces of himself to just anyone, and Lando knew she was right. But how could he not, when that was simply who he was?
So Lando had waited a year before opening up to Daniel. More precisely, he had waited until the Australian had secured another two years on his contract before allowing himself to think that perhaps he could afford to grow closer to him.
But then, everything went to hell.
Within the space of two weeks, Daniel’s contract had become almost irrelevant in the face of the talent half the grid was fighting to sign: Oscar Piastri. Of course, Zak Brown won that battle, leaving Lando to say goodbye to his teammate.
And now Daniel was gone.
It had been two days since Lando had heard the news, and he still hadn't spoken to Zak about it. So he wasn't surprised when he heard six little knocks on his door, mimicking the opening theme of The Big Bang Theory.
“C’me in!”
Zak pushes the door open just enough to slip through the doorway—a habit that reminds Lando of his mother—before stepping inside. Brown doesn’t bother commenting on the state of his office, carefully avoiding the miniature helmet replicas Lando’s designer regularly sends him. It’s something of a miracle that Zak manages to reach the orange sofa Lando is half-sprawled across without tripping over anything.
“Hey there, champ! How is it going? I see you’ve finally found a use for that office!”
Lando catches his hand with a smile, greeting him warmly despite his current state of mind.
“Where else am I supposed to put my future World Championship trophy? That’d be embarrassing. I pretty much live here now.”
He’s only half-joking. The reason Zak knew he would find him here was probably because Lando hadn’t moved much since hearing the news, mostly trying to avoid the journalists waiting outside his flat. (Max had made the big mistake of trying to come and see him there and paid the price for it.)
“Talking about that…”
There we go.
“I thought maybe we could talk about the Oscar situation,” Zak continues. “Or the Daniel situation. Call it whatever you want.”
He’d rather not call it anything at all, but it doesn’t look like he has much of a choice right now.
“Sure. New teammate. Another Aussie, huh?”
“Yeah, let’s hope that one works out better, eh?”
“Did you have a hard time terminating Daniel’s contract?”
Zak scratches his chin, a habit Carlos had been the first to pick up on whenever he started talking about contracts and financial details.
“Eh, you know, he got a little payout on his way out. He’ll be fine.”
“Does he have offers from other teams?” Lando asks, even though he already knows the answer. The driver market is already closed for the season, and every team has its line-up.
“It’s a tough market. But I think he’ll find his place somewhere. Let’s focus on us for now, okay?”
Lando gives him a smile and nods, knowing Zak doesn’t want to dwell on the subject. Now that he looks at him more closely, he notices that he seems more tired than usual. Selfishly, Lando hopes those dark circles are more to do with relationship problems than the technical issues keeping everyone awake with the 2023 season just around the corner.
But he knows better. In terms of pure performance, the car simply wasn’t up to the job in 2022. They had spent almost the entire year battling Alpine for fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship, and it was ultimately the blue-and-pink team who came out on top with 173 points against their 159, 122 of which had been scored by Lando. Clearly, Zak was counting on Oscar to turn things around and do better than his predecessor, but if Daniel had struggled to adapt to the MCL36, Lando seriously doubted that a rookie who had never driven a Formula 1 car before would score much more than Daniel’s meagre 37 points.
“When’s the car unveiling again?” Lando asks, forgetting that for the fifth time this week.
“Tomorrow at three! Charlotte will explain everything to you at tonight’s meeting. I might be absent, actually.”
“Looking forward to seeing Mrs Brown again?”
Zak rolls his eyes and pats Lando on the thigh before standing up, his broad frame suddenly making the office feel a little smaller. Some might find him more imposing in that position, but Lando has known him for so long that he sees him more as a funny uncle than as a serious CEO. After all, Zak was the first person, back in his karting days, to see potential in him that Lando himself still isn’t entirely sure he possesses. But he also knows that McLaren still have a long way to go before becoming a top team, and that, for now, they are still far from achieving anything in their current state.
“Alright, see you at eight, champ. And if not, I’ll see you tomorrow at the car unveiling.”
Lando brings the side of his hand to his forehead in a mock military salute, and Zak finally leaves for good, letting the atmosphere settle again in the office that feels far too big for what Lando actually does with it.
The rest of the afternoon flies by. Lando joins Josef for his daily training session, and although his joints are screaming in agony by the end of the particularly intense workout, he barely has time for a quick shower at the gym before he has to make his way to the pre-car-unveiling meeting.
The meeting is on the top floor, but Lando still has to cross the entire area reserved for the drivers to get there. So it comes as no surprise that he takes a little detour to his favourite place: the heritage gallery. It isn’t just his favourite because nobody comes here after five — although that certainly comes in handy when he doesn’t feel like running into Josef after skipping a training session — but also because this is where Zak used to bring him back when he was still driving a badly set-up kart.
He called it “the McLaren museum”. A huge room filled with aisles leading to different eras in the team’s history. From 1974 with Emerson Fittipaldi, through the eighties with Prost and Lauda, all the way to 1999 with Mika Häkkinen.
1999.
Sometimes Lando can’t quite believe that McLaren’s last truly remarkable year was that long ago. Obviously, when he first joined the team, Mark Berryman — his manager — kept telling him it would only be a stepping stone. A team to pass through before finding something better. But the more time went by, the harder it became for Lando to imagine leaving his team.
“I see we had the same idea.”
Normally, he would have been surprised to hear a voice at this hour in the heritage gallery, but he recognises Daniel’s immediately, and a smile appears on his lips almost automatically.
“Woah, how long has it been?” Lando turns towards him, leaning his back against the glass case displaying Senna’s trophies that he had been staring at. “You’ve even had time to grow a beard!”
“Oh, you know, two weeks is plenty of time to change careers. I was considering becoming a lumberjack, but apparently they don’t accept beardless applicants, so I had to get a transplant…”
They both burst out laughing, and Lando reaches for his hand before pulling him into a hug. Daniel leans against the glass beside him, his gaze drifting towards the cars displayed in front of them, more specifically the ones from 1988.
“I knew I’d find you here,” Daniel says. “Dodging the meeting?”
“Not even. How do you know about the meeting anyway? It’s staff only.”
Daniel nudges Lando in the ribs with his elbow.
“Am I not allowed to say goodbye to my teammate of two years? Freya told me about the meeting. She wanted to save me from having to run into my replacement.”
“Oscar Piastri.” Lando draws out each syllable.
“Oscar Piastri,” Daniel sighs dramatically. “I think I’ve heard that name more times over the past few weeks than I’ve heard my mum’s in my entire life.”
“You think it’s gonna go to his head?”
“It’s definitely gonna go to his head.”
“It would’ve gone to my head.”
“You already have a big head.”
This time, Lando is the one who elbows him in the ribs. Daniel laughs, and a comfortable silence eventually settles between them. And as if Daniel knows that this exact silence will inevitably give Lando plenty of time to overthink, he breaks it before he has a chance to dwell on it for too long.
“I’m not sad, you know? I mean, I obviously am quite nostalgic already, but I’m grateful for what McLaren has given me despite everything. And I hope you get along with him. He’s got quite an impressive track record for a rookie.”
“Yeah, I know. F3 champion. F2 champion. It’s pretty much all anyone’s been talking about lately, but honestly, Daniel, how many F2 champions have actually managed to adapt to a Formula 1 car? Sometimes it doesn’t mean anything.”
“We’ll see. But watch your back anyway, Lando.”
“I will.”
They both straighten up at the same time, and Daniel gives him one last little pat on the back.
“Alright. See you in March in Bahrain?”
“See you in March in Bahrain,” Lando replies with a smile.
They exchange a quick handshake, and eventually, Lando watches Daniel leave the McLaren Technology Centre for the last time. He doesn’t linger in the room for much longer either, knowing he’s probably already late for the meeting he was supposed to have been at ages ago.
He hurries through the corridors, wondering why everything is so poorly lit in this building, and knocks on the conference room door when he finally reaches it. No one answers. Lando knocks a second time, wondering if perhaps Andrea is hard of hearing, but still nothing.
Oh, fuck it.
He reaches for the handle, opening the door as he prepares to apologise for barging in, only to look utterly foolish when he sees that the room is empty… and the lights are off. The only thing proving he hasn’t come to the wrong place is the half-erased whiteboard, where the running order for the next day’s car unveiling is still written.
Oh shit. He’s done it again.
It’s not as though he didn’t try! But Lando has this unfortunate tendency to get lost in his own thoughts without realising how much time is passing around him. Only then does he have the good sense to pull his phone out of his pocket and check the time.
9:45 p.m. Thank God Zak probably wasn't there.
He would’ve heard about it already if he were. With a sigh, Lando slips his phone back into his pocket and heads towards the corridors leading to the lift, only pulling it out again a few minutes later when it vibrates against him.
“Hello?”
“Hey, mate!” Max Fewtrell’s voice rings out from the other end of the line. “How’s it going?”
“Good, you? I just missed a meeting without even realising it, so now I have no idea what time I’m supposed to show up tomorrow for the event.”
“Can’t you ask someone?”
Lando thinks for a few seconds. He doesn’t want to give himself away to Zak, Andrea will definitely tell Zak, James takes two days to reply, and Freya probably doesn’t know. Which leaves…
“I don’t have Piastri’s number.”
“Ask Brown for it?”
It sounds so simple when Max puts it like that. Lando weighs up all his options, and he doesn’t have many, considering he’s completely forgotten — again — what time the event is supposed to take place. And if he turns up too early or too late, there’ll be a horde of journalists waiting for him outside the McLaren Technology Centre this time.
“I don’t think I have much of a choice, fuck.”
“The good news is you can go home! Pietra had the brilliant idea of calling the police over the noise, so the journalists have all gone home.”
Lando sighs in relief.
“Thank God for your girlfriend.”
“Too far, Norris.”
He laughs and steps into the lift before pressing the button for the ground floor.
“Okay, thanks, Max. I’ll call you tomorrow. I’m gonna text Zak.”
“Got it, sleep tight.”
Lando lets him hang up and brings his phone back in front of his face so he can open his conversation with Zak. Their last messages date back two weeks, when Zak had sent him Oscar’s statement on Twitter.
“I understand that, without my agreement, Alpine F1 have put out a press release late this afternoon that I am driving for them next year.
This is wrong and I have not signed a contract with Alpine for 2023.
I will not be driving for Alpine next year.”
Lando had simply reacted to his message with a thumbs-up and hadn’t bothered going to look at the tweet in question.
Without thinking too much about it, he types whatever comes to mind.
“Hey Zak, can I get my new teammate’s number?”
Zak reads the message almost immediately, so Lando keeps staring at his phone as he steps out of the lift and reaches the entrance hall. His reply comes just as quickly, as usual.
“Zak Brown shared a contact: Oscar Piastri.”
As Lando adds the number to his contacts, he hears a voice behind him.
“Heading home, Mr Norris?”
Lando looks up from his phone and gives Freya, sitting behind the reception desk, a small smile.
“How many times have I told you to call me Lando?”
Her cheeks flush slightly, and she mumbles an apology, looking a little embarrassed. Lando doesn’t make a fuss, instead answering her original question.
“Yeah, my mate told me the vultures have finally left my nest. See you tomorrow?” He gives her a wave and heads towards the doors, but turns around at the last moment. “Oh, and Freya, you wouldn’t happen to know what time the drivers are supposed to arrive tomorrow, would you?”
The blonde gives him an apologetic smile and shakes her head. Lando sighs and thanks her anyway before continuing towards the exit. The sudden cold makes him shiver, so he quickens his pace towards his car, typing a reply to Zak with one hand while searching for his car keys in his pocket with the other.
“Let’s hope he doesn’t post a tweet about Lando Norris messaging him without his agreement. lol.”
He sends the message before finally reaching his car, letting out a sigh of relief as he settles into the driver’s seat and the heating kicks in automatically.
With any luck, Oscar is a little more organised than him and will be able to give him the exact time he’s supposed to turn up the following day. Charlotte had insisted enough times on the “no contact with the press” rule that Lando already grimaced at the thought of her finding out he’d been photographed on such an important day. Apparently, he was supposed to maintain a “very low-key” image until at least pre-season testing — something that was already proving difficult with the number of parties he’d attended since New Year’s.
Just as he finally starts the car, he straightens up at the sound of a notification from his phone. He frowns for a moment when he sees that the message is from a number he hasn’t saved.
“?”
At first, he thinks his number might have been leaked somewhere, but he quickly realises that the message is simply a reply to something he himself sent a few minutes earlier:
“Let’s hope he doesn’t post a tweet about Lando Norris messaging him without his agreement. lol.”
Oh shit.
Oh shit.
As if to make absolutely sure he’s just made the blunder he thinks he’s made, Lando swipes frantically back to his conversation with Zak…
But no.
The last message really is the one from Brown giving him Oscar’s number.
The number he’s just sent a jab about Oscar to.
A jab containing his full name.
Fuck.