Page 16 of Racing for Redemption
"The strangest thing about Tokyo," Anna says as we pause to watch the weaver's deft movements, "is how it can feel so crowded and so lonely simultaneously. Millions of people around you, all carefully avoiding eye contact on the subway."
"Have you made friends there? Outside of work?"
"A few. There's an expat community, of course, but I wanted to avoid just hanging out with other foreigners. I joined a pottery class—taught entirely in Japanese, which was terrifying at first. But it forced me to learn, and I've met some wonderful people through it. I still speak broken Japanese, though."
She pulls out her phone to show me photos of misshapen bowls and cups—her early attempts—followed by increasingly refined pieces. The most recent is a delicate tea bowl with a mottled blue glaze that reminds me of the ocean behind us.
"That's beautiful," I tell her. "You've always been good with your hands."
"Unlike someone I know who nearly failed that mandatory art class in university," she teases, nudging my shoulder.
"Engineering and business principles can't be applied to watercolors," I defend myself. "I tried."
As we walk, Anna shares more stories from her life in Tokyo—the time she got hopelessly lost in the subway system when she had to catch a train, and ended up in a suburb two hours from her apartment; her first experience in anonsen, where she accidentally violated several unspoken bathing protocols; the neighborhood grandmother who now saves vegetables from her garden for "the beautiful foreign girl with the big smile."
I listen, asking questions and laughing at her mishaps, but part of me is simply enjoying the cadence of her voice, the animated way she talks with her hands, the occasional Japanese phrases that now pepper her speech without her seeming to notice. This is the Anna I've known since we were kids, but also someone new—shaped by experiences I haven't shared, growing in directions I can only hear about secondhand.
There's something bittersweet in that realization. Our lives have diverged in significant ways since our school days. We're no longer sharing cramped student housing, or pulling all-nighters for exams. She's building cutting-edge tech systems in Tokyo; I'm running a struggling F1 team. Our day-to-day worlds rarely intersect anymore.
Yet, here we are, eating rice cakes by the sea, falling back into the rhythms of friendship as if no time has passed at all.
"I missed this," I say suddenly. "Missed you."
Anna's expression softens. "Me too. Video calls aren't the same."
"No, they're not." I kick at a small stone on the path. "We should do this more often. Meet somewhere in the middle of our crazy lives."
"Singapore next time?" she suggests. "I can fly direct from Tokyo."
"I’ll see about that, but it’s a tentative date." I’m already mentally calculating when I might have a free weekend during the Asian leg of the F1 calendar.
We reach a small pier extending into the calm waters of the bay. The morning sun has burned away the last wisps of dawn mist, revealing water so clear, we can see fish darting among rocks below. We sit at the pier's edge, legs dangling above the gentle waves.
"What about you?" Anna asks after a comfortable silence. "We've talked about my life, but you've been deflecting questions about yours since we checked in at the airport."
I sigh, knowing she's right. "It's complicated."
"I'm a literal tech scientist, Vi. I can handle complicated."
That makes me laugh. "Fair point." I gather my thoughts, trying to articulate the swirl of pressure, determination, and doubt that defines my current existence. "The team is... struggling. But you saw what happened in Abu Dhabi, or even the news prior to that."
She nods, waiting for me to continue.
"What the news doesn't cover is how the board is breathing down my neck, how the last sponsor is threatening to leave, how every decision I make feels like it could be the one that dooms uscompletely." I stare out at the horizon, where the blue of the sea blends seamlessly into the sky. "Sometimes, I think I'm in over my head."
"Everyone feels that way sometimes," Anna says gently.
"Not Dominic Harrington," I counter, thinking of Vortex Racing's confident Team Principal. "Not James Farrant."
"Please. Those men were born with an unearned confidence that would make dictators blush," she scoffs. "Besides, they have the luxury of being judged solely on results. You're being judged on results,plusbeing a woman in motorsports,plusbeing Frederick Colton's daughter."
She's right, of course. The triple burden I carry shapes every interaction in the paddock.
"What I'm trying to say," Anna continues, "is that you're doing an impossible job under impossible scrutiny. The fact that you haven't had a public meltdown, or punched a journalist, is already impressive."
I smile despite myself. "There was that one time I nearly threw a clipboard at a journalist..."
"See? Restraint!" She bumps her shoulder against mine. "But seriously, Vi. I know you. You'll find a way through this. You always do."
