19. ISOLATION

/Charles/

- Oh, you know I slept with Max?
“The burning sensation is an instant and flares up unexpectedly along with Pierre’s voice that reaches me with his typical enthusiasm; immediately after I spit what I was drinking into the glass. After I do that I put it aside with no intention of continuing with the cocktail.
I look at him with wide eyes, turning red and certainly more expressive than ever.
- What did you do with him? - I ask more shrill than I wanted.
As soon as I realize that I have reacted more exaggeratedly than necessary, I bitterly regret it. I look around the place where we went out with our girlfriends for a double date. Every now and then we do it, these are the last days of freedom because the new season is about to begin and we have decided to spend the day and then the evening together. As long as our girlfriends are such.
At the moment they’re in the bathroom because fortunately they always move in pairs and, always fortunately, they get along.
So he and I are left alone at the table and he had the great idea of ​​shooting his revelation.
All around there are people minding their own business, the place is one of our favorites where a certain type of people hang out and make us go fairly unnoticed. You just have to know where to go or maybe you just have a lot of people around you. When the crowd is big whoever you are they don't always notice you, at most a few greet you and shake your hand, but more than that doesn't happen right now.
- I slept with him, you know at that event organized by Red Bull... Bulls on Ice. Since we were in Holland and we ran on ice we could only do it during the day and consequently we arrived the night before, we stayed there and stayed together. I don't know why the bed was a double bed, maybe they wanted to save money...
Pierre is talkative but even in his talking a lot he doesn't tell me the things that interest me.
- And how the hell did you end up fucking? - my heart beats so hard, suddenly, that for a moment the people surrounding us vanish, the music becomes a background that at times I don't even perceive. Everything disappears, there's only him and Max in bed together fucking and I'm burning.
It's such a quick moment that it's almost indistinguishable, but I know I'm burning, because usually I'm in my damn fog and I feel really good there.
Pierre looks at me without understanding.
- Fuck? And who fucked? - he tells me as if I'm crazy. But now I'm going to strangle him. I slam my hand on the table between the four glasses, one of which has my spit in it, and I lean towards him threatening and irritated.
- You! - I growl through gritted teeth.
- But I said I slept with him, not... oh! - he exclaims suddenly realizing. - You understood sleep in the sense of going to bed with him! No, I actually meant sleeping in the same bed! We didn't fuck! - and he even starts laughing, the asshole!
I narrow my gaze and it becomes that of a murderer, in fact I'm about to pierce him with the straw that he sucks with his cherry red lips from the strawberry drink he's sipping. Between that and the sweet smell, he looks like a strawberry himself.
- Next time, speak up! You gave me a shock! You and Max having sex together! It’s all ok, but there's a limit to madness!
I don't know why I'm so emphasizing how crazy it would be, but Pierre first laughs and then he looks at me mischievously.
- And what's wrong with that? He's a nice guy, in his own way. More than anything, you know... he's a type. He has so much personality that he ends up being liked when you have a little to do with him. Overall, though, he's not bad. I know you hate him, but if you went deeper with him I think you'd eventually change your mind.
His talking about Max like that irritates me again, I still feel that part of my chest burning but I ignore it, only showing disapproval and hatred.
- Psychopathic personality! If you like him, fuck him, you'd definitely be able to get him into bed and not to sleep! You're a handsome boy, you know how to please others! I don't know how things are between him and Daniel, but he doesn't seem faithful to me.
The memory of that night when he tried to kiss me comes back quickly and while he laughs more amused than I would like, since it seems like he's taking the piss out of me, I need to know what they talked about.
- And what did you say to each other, anyway? Why do you say he's not bad?
I pretend to be indifferent, as if we were just talking for the sake of it, but in reality I'm very interested.
I don't want Max to ruin Pierre.
He chuckles, always too amused and mischievous, and then continues, I'd like to know what he thinks but I realize it's better not to know.
- He says he took Daniel's departure badly even if they're still together. It seems to me that it's not going very well. And then he wanted to know if we're together, because we seem like a couple.
For a moment, staring carefully into his eyes to understand what he's saying, I perceive something else that in the end he keeps to himself. I know when he doesn't tell me everything, Pierre has no secrets for me and at least they talked about me, but the fact that he asked him if we're together after he asked me too, strikes me.
- He's really sure that we're a couple, huh? - I say more to myself. He seems to know what I'm talking about.
- Yes, he told me that you had already answered him, but he was convinced.
I shrug my shoulders and pretend that I don't care and luckily the girls come to my rescue, I think that the conversation would have ended badly. Even if I had investigated by pushing him to tell me what they had said, I think I would have dug my own grave. I'm the first one who doesn't want to tell him that Max tried to kiss me. I don't know why I'm hiding it from him and I don't know what Pierre is hiding from me about them. I doubt that something of the same kind happened since he would tell me without any problems, knowing him; more than anything I think they talked about me but he knows I don't like it when they do it behind my back, so maybe he doesn't want to tell me for that reason.
But that's okay. Knowing him, sooner or later it will come out because then he forgets what he says or doesn't say to me.
When the girls come back, I disappear to get another round of drinks with the promise of going dancing on the dance floor and I think about it briefly. That burning sensation when I thought they had slept together almost shocked me.
I know what it was.
That was jealousy. But for Pierre or for Max? Maybe both?

Bless the mirrored sunglasses. They can't see my eyes even if they try.
Great invention.
All my efforts to get used to emotions and not lose control go to hell. I would like to know what the fuck went wrong with me, what I did wrong in my life to be so idiosyncratic towards strong emotions. Maybe I expect too much from myself, maybe it just takes me longer to do something that is not as easy as I thought, even if it’s right, and in the meantime I have arrived here in the first official GP with Ferrari.
Melbourne welcomes me with my usual team made up of the inevitable Joris and Andrea, but I’m so tense that the whole time it’s as if I were alone. I isolate myself a lot and I call myself an idiot.
Let's start, dear Charles.
If last year I was excited because I was in F1, what I feel now that I’m in Ferrari for real is abysmal. I have no terms of comparison.
The emotion hits eating me from the inside and it’s only Thursday, we’re doing the first things with Ferrari: they take me, they give me things to wear, they tell me where to go and what to do. Filming day, autograph session, time with the fans and the media. Meetings with the whole team, the track walk. A whole set of commitments that are always the same as every Thursday of a race weekend.
This morning there were the first official shots as a Ferrari driver and I was there to pose in the uniform and they said to me ‘Charles, smile’ and I really thought about doing it, but when they showed me the shots I saw that I wasn’t smiling at all and then we took them again and I was still there trying to smile.
So now that I’m in the paddock for more photos, autographs and other things with the fans, I deeply bless the sunglasses and Seb.
I bless Seb because he focuses all the attention on himself, luckily. He’s literally a stage animal and I’m grateful for that. He laughs and makes people laugh, he’s comfortable with a microphone in front of him and he’s perfect in everything he does. Even if I wanted it, I don’t know if I’ll ever be like that.
I’m there and I live off his reflected light while I wonder if it’s clear from the outside that I’m a fish out of water and that I feel bad. Not physically and maybe not even emotionally. But in some way I feel bad.
It's not that I hate these things, I'm rather indifferent to them and maybe I just need to make peace with this media aspect, let's say, but that's not what really bothers me. It's more that I feel like I'm drowning and I don't know why.
I need to isolate myself, to be alone, to distance myself and I know that it's happening because I'm being hit by too many things all at once and too strong and yet it's nothing because I keep telling myself that it's only Thursday.
The screams and the cheers devastate me in a particular way.
Smile Charles. Smile and be nice because that's what they expect from you now that you're a Ferrari driver and you're here next to someone who has won 4 world championships.
All this attention is suffocating me and luckily the morning commitments end giving me the chance to take some time for myself.
Time that I gladly take to gather myself in a corner of the Paddock.
I don't even know where 'here' is. But I'm 'here' anyway, I perceive the coming and going and the noise around me, but it's an outline that doesn't really reach me. I'm sitting on some steps and I unzip my red shirt while I lean with my elbows on my knees rubbing my face with my hands, my fingers under the glasses that I'm careful not to take off.
Am I smiling? I think I'm not doing it.
I really don't know if I'll make it. I'll have to, sooner or later they'll accuse me of not knowing how to smile, of not being able to deal with the fans, of not being kind and lovable. They'll call me an asshole and they'll all bust my balls.
I can't breathe, and yet it's not that hot.
I thought that realizing what my shortcomings were and my problems with emotions and trying to overcome them would help me. But I was wrong. I don't feel improved at all and now that I'm here in the middle of this thing called Ferrari, which is not just a car to drive but something much bigger, enormous, I realize that I wasn't really ready despite all the preparation for this very moment. A moment I've dreamed of since I was a child and watched the Monaco GP from my balcony.
What kind of arrogant, presumptuous person am I, uh dad? If you were here, what would you say to me?
While I try to understand it, I feel someone else sitting next to me and doesn't touch me or anything. I look at him and a radiant Seb welcomes me with such joy that I believe I said something funny without realizing it. But in reality he doesn't laugh at me, he smiles at me, and I must say with incredible sweetness. Paternal, I dare say.
- The first week will go like this. Whatever you do for the first time in red will be like this. Don't expect to recover quickly. But from the next GP it’ll be much better. Don't expect to be able to get used to this stage from today or tomorrow. Because it's a stage, it's not just a car. You'll realize it even better, but you'll see that from the next one it’ll already be better. Don't have any expectations of yourself, for this. None of us do, not because we don't think you're not ready, you are and surely as soon as you get in the car you'll feel better, but it's everything else that there is beyond driving on the track, which is difficult, here. If one day you change and try other teams you’ll realize that no environment will be like this, I tell you because I know.
Seb speaks with incredible calm and even if I think he’s talkative, his calmness reconciles me and I realize that my shoulders are less tense and my hands are not trying to break my fingers together.
I even breathe better. I look at him scrutinizing him through our dark glasses and he smiles at me and speaks to me fatherly. That's what he is. Fatherly.
Why should he do it?
Who asked him? Not that I'm not happy, but he’s the first Ferrari driver and everyone knows that I’m here to steal the first drive from him, that my ambition is that, that everyone points to me as the new future hero champion of F1. He’s not obliged to do it. My race engineer should do it or the Team Principal who from this year is Binotto.
Why is he doing it? And above all, how did he understand it?
- Was it so obvious? - I ask in a more childish and dejected tone than I intended. He smiles encouragingly, raising his sunglasses, his blue eyes are clearer on this beautiful day and they’re really beautiful and lively.
- You were so tense that I thought of taking a bow and playing the violin using you as a string, but I'm not good at playing!
The imaginative joke makes me laugh a little, partially unloading my nerves. I still don't understand why he does it, but I'm glad he did.
Seb is a mystery, an incredible charismatic mystery, but I’ll try to learn everything I can from him,
- if I stay here will I bother anyone? - I then ask without answering anything about his advice. He smiles again, shrugging his shoulders.
- You can stay wherever you want, you also have a wonderful personal room in our motorhome if you want.
I nod.
- Yes, I know, but I need some air and tranquility. I’ll recover and get used to it, as you say. Just need a little.
He nods and when he gets up he smiles and doesn't touch me, although I see that he does it with everyone - a pat, a handshake, a half hug and in some cases even a real hug. But he saw that I don't like contact. It took him so little to understand me.
I think that in some way he’ll influence me more than I think, over time. I’ll never be as cheerful, exuberant and affectionate as him, perhaps, but I think I’ll absorb a lot of him trying to assimilate as much as possible. Because if I want to become a champion, I have to learn from champions and it's not just a question of driving. Driving well is not enough. There’s much more and dealing with Seb I realize this.
Instead of getting into our Motorhome, he gets the paddock  texting someone on his old cell phone and then goes towards the Mercedes one.
With an amused smile I put my AirPods on my ears and activate my favorite playlist, the depressive one with songs that are more tear-jerking than the others. For now I'm still like this. One day I think I'll be able to change it, just as I'll be able to not have need dark glasses to smile. One day I know I’ll be convincing because I’ll really smile with my whole face, because I’ll be truly happy. I’ll have that something extra that I’m missing now and that doesn't allow me to completely emerge from my fog that continues to accompany me despite my efforts.
Dad would say that I expect too much from myself. Here is what he would say. Basically what Seb told me and it’s true, they’re right.
I’ve to be more lenient, give myself more time. I cannot expect to reach 100 without passing through 50.
Shortly after, some noise attracts my attention and when I turn my head to see where it’s coming from, I find some familiar faces that I knew I could meet today.
George and Alex run towards me laughing and waving, for a moment I feel like I have not grown up, I feel like I’m still in the lower categories where we raced together and were never separated. For a moment I feel like I’m emerging from the fog. This year they’ve also moved to F1; I knew it, but I hadn't managed to catch them yet. Without thinking too much I get up and go towards them, greeting with handshakes and pats, we touch shoulders as usual. As I greet them I feel their enthusiasm and I realize that they haven't changed a bit since the days when we raced together until recently.
With them is Lando Norris, when I then moved to F1 he raced with them and I know they were always together, he also moved to this side of the fence this year.
I don't know Lando very well, but I know who he is and in a short time he makes himself known with a lot of enthusiasm and participation and even if I thought I could isolate myself somewhere, it seems that this will not be the case.

As much as I tried by attaching myself to Alex and the others, the only moments in which I felt alive and serene again were when I was in the car, but Seb had told me that it would go like this so I just try to stay calm knowing that the next GP will go better.
What really makes me relax is knowing that when I drive, even if it's a Ferrari, I'm fine and in control of myself. Until I get into my fire-red single-seater I don't even feel like I'm awake. I try to take part in any activity with maximum commitment, even if it's just simple chatter.
I've done everything I had to do, whatever it was, whether personal or for Ferrari, whether for the race or for other things outside, but I realize that I've come to my senses, alive and serene only when I've taken the wheel back in my hands, there everything cleared up and the fog dissolved. Only when that happens do I realize that I've been holding my breath and that I've continually forced myself to do what I felt I had to do.
It takes time, I tell myself. But I have to keep trying. Try to get out at all costs and in all ways from this fog that insists on accompanying me.
I know that I'll do it because I want to and if I put something into my head, I can do it.
Only one thing surprises me, as I prepare for my first official race, as I get dressed after the usual pre-race rituals with Andrea.
I'm surprised that the effect of the Ferrari that I thought would make me go crazy, making me lose control more often as it had happened in the fall, has actually vanished quickly, leaving me more disoriented than ever, like a rookie outside his safe haven.
I don't want to give this impression, but if I was afraid of not knowing how to manage my emotions and ending up losing control and screwing up, maybe I can actually rest easy.
I'm afraid I can't lose that control so easily. Maybe now this fog has become stronger than before and protects me from what scared me, going out of line, going overboard, exaggerating.
So maybe I don't need to do anything except drive. Maybe I just have to stop being who I think I should be, what others expect, what I should be, what they tell me or think I should be.
Maybe I just have to stop and that's it.
Maybe I just have to drive.

I know where Max is, right next to me only in the front row, moved up a few centimeters compared to me. I know who is in front of me, behind me and who is next to me, slightly further back than me and behind Max. I know where everyone is, I have them fixed in my mind because I’ll have to avoid them as soon as we start. I'll have to avoid them and overtake as much as possible, but in particular one above all. Because he’s the one I know how he moves, especially at the start and if he doesn't start in pole. He has other cars around him, just like me, so he'll be forced to do certain things and I know what it is and I’ll take advantage of it. I’ll overtake him immediately, I know how to do it, I know I can do it.
Thinking about this the adrenaline makes me tremble and breathe fast, I feel the furious heartbeats in my throat that seem to be about to kill me. Am I dying?
But finally the traffic lights turn on one by one indicating that the race is starting, my heart goes furiously into my throat, I can't breathe, but then the traffic lights go out and everything stops, my heart, my breathing, my anxiety.
Everything stops and relaxes, for a millisecond it's even silent, but immediately after that hell explodes with roaring engines, screeching tires that emit stink, the heat that sets fire and the vibrations. Those come in mass from everywhere, perhaps from the asphalt itself and not just from my car, but I don't think of anything anymore, I don't notice anything anymore.
As soon as we start the world accelerates and fades and disappears and there's only Max in my head. Max, Seb and all the others here around me. But Max is my reference. He's the one I have to get past. I’ll take Seb's slipstream and put him immediately behind me, because that's the only thing that matters to me and as I fixate on that and move to achieve my goal, the adrenaline rushes through my veins again and with it the feeling of being alive, the excitement and the joy.
Real joy.
I'm here. I'm just here on the track. All I have to do is run, go through the corners, stay on the track, avoid cars and overtake. Overtake, run and race.
Overtake Max, of course.
As I planned, I manage to get him behind for a fraction of a second, it's difficult, we're wheel to wheel and if we're not careful we'll touch like we used to, but we've grown, we've gained experience and to avoid an accident at the beginning, he's not too aggressive and so I manage to pass him. It's a very short moment, but I'm doing it. If there weren't all these cars around I would do better. I know it's not done, I know it well, we're all still here grouped together trying to get out of the initial part, but as soon as I recognize Max's car coming from behind, still stuck as if I hadn't really overtaken him, it's as if I suddenly woke up.
The world has neither disappeared nor is it full of fog.
As soon as I see him in the mirror and then here next to me again, as soon as I understand that I'm really racing with him again for the first time in years, something explodes in me and suddenly everything is reduced to him. Only to him.
The world is made up only of Max Verstappen who is overtaking me again, I try to stop him but to avoid stupid accidents in my opening race in Ferrari, I can't do much and unfortunately he manages to pass me, but from here on in my eyes there’s only the ass of his Red Bull which I’ll stick to at all costs to get him back.
I have to succeed. I have to overtake him again.
I have to give him one or two back. And this one too.
I have to teach him lessons and make it clear that I am not inferior to him.
I absolutely have to stay behind him and put pressure on him, sooner or later he’ll make a mistake because he always makes a mistake and I’ll be there to take advantage.
But the race continues in its length and difficulty and neither of us make a mistake. I follow him without ever giving up, I always do what I can, the maximum of my possibilities to not make a mistake and have the possibility of overtaking him, but unfortunately at a certain point the asshole in front of me overtakes Seb who was in front of him and from then on I have no more chance of reaching him. The piece of shit manages to finish on the podium in third position. Considering that he started fourth and finished third while I was fifth and finish fifth, it’s fucking unacceptable and shameful.
Not for the position itself or the lack of improvement, but because in this race he did fucking better than me. This burns me. My only goal for this race was to overtake Max and keep him behind. This is what I set myself knowing that I couldn’t do great things. Once I got past him I could aim for the podium, maybe, but considering that the two Mercedes and Seb were in front, I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I was aware that fourth place was my duty. Above all it had to be mine to take it from Max.
Damn bastard, you've really improved, in the end!
But you're still not perfect, your style is still that of a madman who drives against a demon and not against other drivers. You've improved a little, I'll give you that, and I didn't expect it. Normally you would have made a mistake and I was counting on taking advantage of that, but this time you were perfect, but I know it won't always be like this. Next time I'll be the one to make you kiss my ass.
When I get out of the car and put my feet back on the ground, I realize that only he lights me up like a hysteric.
I feel drunk even without being, I'm still shaking all over, I'm sweaty, tired and I don't know what else, but there's this frenzy, now. This absurd frenzy that I can't understand and before I realize what it is, I'm instinctively looking for him with my eyes.
He's there in front with the other winners, together with Lewis and Bottas. He greets them, compliments them, celebrates an extraordinary first race.
Damn. My revenge is only postponed, don't think I've forgotten it. I feel my face pulling into an amused smile inside my helmet where I am dying of heat, my heart is beating very hard in my chest, I feel the emotion that flows in every part of my being, leaving enthusiasm and desire to resume this conversation with him, but a hand hits me on the back turning me, when I turn I see Seb who holds out his hand and compliments me, he’s fourth, in front of me. Fourth or fifth position doesn't matter at all, that doesn't piss me off. What piss me off is not being up there, first. To be precise, in front of Max.
But I'll get there. Damn, if I get there.
I shake his hand and thank him for the compliments on my first extraordinary race, I say with disappointment that I hoped to catch up with Max, commenting severely on his overtaking at the beginning, Seb belittles it saying that I was very good and not to think about it. Let's go together to weigh ourselves and yes. While I'm here talking about the race with him and I meet other drivers who compliment me, while I try to understand if one of them is Max, I realize something.
I'm alive again. The fog hasn't returned. Maybe it'll come at home, but I doubt that I'll just have to think about how to inflict on Max the lessons he deserves. Could it really be him who helped me, who pulled me out of my forced isolation?”

NOTES: still in Charles's world, a Charles who at the time was really very closed and isolated, struggled to let himself go and was always very tense in public events, but who found relief by getting in the car. Their first race that year went like this, with Charles who for a moment had almost managed to overtake Max but who was then caught and who chased him for the whole race. 
I imagined a moment between Charles and Seb, again because every now and then I need to include him. Seeing things now after so many years, I still realize that somehow Charles seems to have absorbed a bit of Seb's ways, his smiling and having fun among others and the crowd typical of Seb, his charisma, his feeling at ease in every situation. And it's something that came to him over time, because at the beginning he was really very rigid. 
The misunderstanding with Pierre at the beginning of the chapter was absolutely necessary, I practically wrote the previous one just for this scene. As well as the final piece. Max has a certain power over Charles and he’s finally starting to realize it. Until next time. Kisses Akane