Page 11 of A Man's World

“No, actually Luca promised me a little walk around the track,” I said with as much sweetness as I could muster, “plus I figured it would be a good time to get all the details on this weekend’s Hermes F1 strategy,” I added with a wink. Francesco’s face told me he didn’t think the last part of my sentence was amusing, but I didn’t care – Fiona, our Valkyrie F1 strategist, would get a good laugh out of it.

Francesco nodded and gestured for me to follow him. The Hermes garage was beautiful and well-designed. I was impressed, but I guess that’s what decades of Formula 1 races got you – a well-oiled machine.As we approached Luca's driver’s room, I knocked on the door gently.

“Come in,” Luca yelled from the other side of the door. I’m unsure what I expected from Luca's room, but it definitely wasn’t this. I suppose I was expecting whatever I saw when I walked into Henri's room – an absolute mess. But instead, I was greeted with what could only be described as serial killer cleanliness. His room was in immaculate shape.Luca must have noticed the shock on my face because he let out a dry chuckle.

“Not all men are slobs like your brother.”I wanted to retort something sassy back to him, but honestly, it was a slight relief to know that some men could pick up after themselves.

“Shall we go?” I responded.

Luca nodded, and we exited the garage quickly, heading towards the track. The Miami track was brand new to F1, so several of the teams were out, walking around the track and analyzing everything from the curbs to the width of the straight. As we continued to walk down the track, I saw a bright green shirt ahead of us.

“Oliver!” I called out, causing the green shirt to turn around. Luca groaned, clearly not interested in chatting with Oliver, but I made a point to ignore him and continued to wave Oliver over.

“If it isn’t Little Ms. Sassy Dubois,” Oliver announced, running up and giving me a big hug, lifting me ever so slightly off the ground. He nodded to Luca, who nodded back, doing his best to put his eyes anywhere but Oliver’s face.

“Miami treating you well?” I knew Oliver lived in Los Angeles, and he visited Miami often, but there was still no hiding his excitement every time he visited the city.

“It’s marvelous as always. How about you, Luca, enjoying the deeply rooted Cuban culture and cuisine?” Oliver knew the answer. There wasn’t a cultured bone in Luca's body as far as either of us was concerned, but it was still fun to watch Luca squirm. Luca only nodded, clearly looking around the track, searching for a way out of this conversation.

Where was his friend Edward when he needed him?I internally giggled to myself.

“So Edward says you’re all going to drinks this evening. That sounds fun.” I knew Oliver was itching for an invite, but we needed to sell this an intimate evening between a couple and their two closest friends.

“Don’t worry, we’ll save the good drinks for Sunday once we celebrate my win,” I said, winking at him. He grabbed my shoulder playfully, giving me his big Oliver laugh.

“Well, if we’re going to get to drinks this evening, we better finish this track walk,” Luca bit out, clearly done with this conversation.I reluctantly nodded in agreement. There was still a lot to do before tomorrow’s Free Practice sessions.

Luca and I finished the rest of our track walk in complete silence. As we passed Éliott on the way out of the track and back to the pit lane, he waved at me, giving me a little squeeze on my arm and a wink as he walked by. I gave him a look that said, “Please, God, save me,” but Éliott was gone before I could force him to talk to me. As soon as we made it back to the garages, I dropped Luca back off at Hermes and headed back to the Valkyrie garage without saying anything else to the Hermes group.

“Have a nice track walk?” Fiona asked, raising her head from her computer screen as I walked into her office. I gave her a look that, in my opinion, said it all. She just chuckled and handed me a tablet.

“Here, go finish reviewing the track analysis. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

I spent the next several hours reviewing the track analysis that Fiona had put together and discussing various race strategies with the team. It wasn't until I saw Lizzie pop into my driver's room that I lifted my head, checking the time on the clock.I set the tablet down and turned to see Lizzie, all smiles and bubbles as usual.

“Alright, Georgie, ready to go conquer the world?” Lizzie asked, a sparkle much too bright in her eyes for my liking.

“You mean ready to go feed the media dragon?” I replied sarcastically, raising one eyebrow at her.

“Same thing,” she quipped back. I had to laugh. Never a dull moment with Lizzie.

We made our way to the media center, where all the other drivers were waiting. Truth be told, these media days were some of the better ones because at least I had four other drivers in the conference room with me. They always split us up between four groups, five to six drivers per session, so you were never with your teammate. If a couple of drivers had a crash in the last race, the FIA would make sure to put them together. In the FIA’s eyes, the more drama, the better, especially if the BBC was filming that press conference for Full Throttle, their Formula 1 documentary show that had been airing for the last several years.

Typically, the FIA put Henri and I together. They enjoyed the sibling banter back and forth, although they learned their lesson when they added Edward to our session. I don’t think the media got any of their questions answered, and Edward spent half the interview in literal fits of laughter.

I walked into my segment, and of course, sitting next to my seat was Luca.

Oh, FIA, how you never let me down.

Undoubtedly, there had been some whispers in the paddock after our track walk and dinner last night. While it hadn’t blown up on social media, the team was expecting this press conference and tonight’s drinks to give us the push forward that everyone wanted – everyone except Luca and I.

I nodded at Luca, who got up and gave me a mini hug.

“Twice in one day, Cara, lucky me,” Luca said quietly, but not quiet enough so that the front row of journalists couldn’t hear. I just smirked at him and sat down, thankful that Eric, a 6x World Champion and one of my driving mentors, was to my right. He gave me a fist bump and a knowing look.Nothinggot past him. From my understanding, Hugo had filled Eric and Otto, another one of the older drivers, in on the drama because they were the ones most likely to say something to me about it, and they were always the first two drivers to defend me during negative press interactions.

The conference started with the usual questions on the track, possible strategies other teams would take, and managing under volatile weather. Miami in May was known for rain, and tomorrow’s weather report was inconclusive. It would either be blistering heat or pouring rain. No in-between.

“So Georgia, how does it feel to be back in America, racing Formula 1 cars?”

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