8. ONE DAY

/Max/

“It wasn’t a given that we would end up in the same hotel even though this was highly likely. It’s the most convenient location-wise.
However, I don’t know why when I see him I always feel happy and enthusiastic, perhaps because of what Daniel and I were saying the other day.
He was my rival, the only one in fact, of my childhood and adolescence. He pissed me off so much on the track that when we separated each going our own way (literally), I realized the value he had.
No one to oppose me and make interesting the races that I won all too easily.
My father may have had unorthodox methods, but in the end the result is what counts. He made me a decent driver and every now and then I manage to win, even though here in F1 I’m struggling quite a bit. But little by little I’m getting there and I know it will get better.
It’s nice, really, but winning easily because I had no rivals wasn’t as fun as when I did it against Charles.
When I found out he was coming to F1 I found myself catapulted to those good times, when I really liked racing and I understood why I liked it so much.
Because I won against him who was so good and tough.
A real bastard with an angel face. Him and his being perfect and clean in appearance to then throw me off the track because he hated me.
Of course he hated me and it was reciprocated, but then we grew up, we separated and I was able to clarify my ideas, understand his value and I thought it was the same for him.
I had imagined interesting races between us again in the name of overtaking at the limit. Everything that had made me happy as a kid.
Yet when he met me first in the hall he left no escape, it was obvious that he didn't feel anything.
The smile only reached his lips, he responded cordially because that's what good guys do, but he wasn't excited at all to see me again and to be here competing against me.
I was disappointed and even when I went to Daniel, I thought about it the whole time.
He didn't like me then and he still does. The other times I had had the same impression, but they were always particular circumstances that were not reliable to understand him. Today he was unmistakable.
Charles has always really hated me and continues to do it, he wasn't amused in racing against me, he never has been.
Now he contains himself because he's an adult, but I could see it in his face the lack of enthusiasm in seeing me again.
Daniel tried everything to cheer me up even after we settled into the room, but there was no way, so tired of teasing me in vain he went to look for the others and I followed him feeling guilty.
I have never been a lively, sociable boy full of friends, but since I arrived in F1, thanks to Daniel I have become one, I'm having a good time and I don't know if I can call them friends, but little by little I'm feeling better and better among others and I'm happy to come out of my little shell. I don't want to regress because of anyone, so Max, react.
When we reach the others downstairs, I follow Daniel thoughtfully and still silently without really paying much attention. We stop at Seb, Lewis, Kimi and Fernando who are here at the hotel bar having a coffee, Seb is the one holding the wards as always because he strictly wants an Italian espresso and so he’s trying to explain what it consists of and how it has to be to be good, as if in a hotel bar like this they don't know.
Daniel, Lewis, Kimi and Fernando make fun of him, I laugh quickly brightening up, but while they’re putting on a show talking to this poor bartender who hasn't done anything wrong to be put in the middle of their tantrums, from another table in the back I hear voices speaking in French and when I turn I see Charles, Gasly, Ocon and Stoffel together also drinking a coffee.
When I spot them, my brain shuts down and I distance myself from the funny scene I was witnessing. For a moment there’s no one else, they all disappear.
I don’t even notice that Stoffel is teasing Pierre by casting unmistakable glances towards Lewis and Seb, I don’t see how much they’re laughing and having fun. I only notice Charles and his handsome face, even more delicate and perfect than when he was a teenager.
I see his mouth curved into a smile, I see that he’s joking about Pierre more and more, but I also see his serious and sad eyes.
Charles is smiling and joking, but even with them who are definitely his friends from the circuit, he’s serious.
So it wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t the problem. He didn’t make that face for me.
Charles speaks apparently calmly, the others laugh, but none of his smiles ever reach his eyes, which from afar and from the outside are even more noticeable. They’re a discordant note in the overall picture.
Charles has lost his smile, the authentic one. The one I remember well the last time we raced together on the go-kart, in that distant 2013, yet not that much.
But for him, centuries must have passed, that's how it seems seeing how adult he’s now, despite his young features.
A not very relaxed pose on the chair and that laugh so out of tune. His smile almost seem sad like the eyes. Does anyone notice that he's grotesque? Seems like a punch in the eye.
For a moment I feel melancholic.
I spent my childhood and adolescence envying him for how happy he was with his father, every time I saw them I envied and I wanted to be him so much, that in the end I regretted not even trying to be his friend. We have always been just rivals and now maybe he doesn't even consider me that anymore. It seems like he has forgotten me, almost.
He knows who I am, of course, but for him it makes no difference whether I am here or not. He’s not as happy as that time I learned he would move to Sauber.
Where has that happiness gone that I have always envied him?
In the cemetery with his friend Bianchi and his father?
With a nudge I’m called back by Daniel who repeats the question.
- Do you also want this phantom espresso before the barista resigns? - he repeats the joke that made everyone laugh and I laugh promptly replying with another bullshit: - Only if Seb does it!
Everyone calls him Seb on the circuit, so I adapted straight away.
He’s one of the drivers I admire and respect for what he has done here at Red Bull and in general throughout his career; he’s a great driver, there’s no question about it. The fact that he has won 4 world championships in a row with the team I now race for, fills me with dreams and hopes. If he has done it, I want to do it too. Not because I consider myself at his level or better, but because I also want to leave my mark like he did here. He’s the most successful driver for Red Bull, the home hero, and I want to join him. I want to be another home hero. I want to become as successful as him, leave my mark, make my name heard everywhere.
They say that only with certain cars can you think of winning a world championship, before Seb, Red Bull wasn’t among them, but now it is thanks to him who has shown that it’s possible. I’ll do the same. I’ll win because with Red Bull it’s possible.
Being with him, as always, fills me with vitality and combativeness. Not that I miss it, but sometimes I feel like I'm losing the point.
Sometimes I almost don't remember why I do it. Maybe because I know I have to and often I forget that I do it because I want to.
I want to win, I want to be successful, I want to do it because I really like it.
Sometimes I get lost, but being around people like them does me a lot of good, it reminds me that I have a dream too. A dream of mine and not imposed by my father. Maybe at the beginning it was his dream, but now that I'm here among the most successful drivers of the last thirteen years, I want to be on their level. Not their heir or worthy.
I really want to have what they achieved.
One day I'll be here again drinking an espresso with them and there will also be my world championships to shine. And no one will call me Mad Max, Crash Kid or overrated.
They'll all know my name and eat their damned tongues. I deserve to be at this table drinking this coffee with the most successful people of the last years of F1.
When I turn towards Charles and his group I do it without realizing, but I catch him looking at me just as I was laughing and making jokes with the most envied group of the moment. Yet his gaze, which he immediately looks away, wasn’t full of envy like Pierre's. I'm sure I saw amazement in his sad eyes.
Who knows if winning a GP will erase that sadness? I would really like to see it.

His voice reaches my ear peremptorily and while he tells me the usual things I start to get nervous as always. I don't realize it, but I'm swinging my foot on the ground with the toe pressed.
It would also be a splendid spectacle, the one that opens up in front of my eyes, but I don't even realize it.
- Second row is not bad, but if you don't take advantage of it at the start it will be useless. Start next to Vettel, don't rest on your laurels! You have to aim for the lead straight away, don't settle for fourth place. Get into the mentality of victory.
I would like to tell him if he understood that in front of me I have Lewis, Kimi and Seb, but he would dehumanize me and I don't want to hear him. I just want to enjoy his absence. He follows me whenever he can, but luckily he can't always. It depends more than anything on where we're going and what race it is.
This is the first of the season and we're on the other side of the hemisphere, so luckily he didn't follow me.
If I were in a crucial moment of a season where I wasn't doing well enough, he wouldn't let me go. But for now I'm enjoying my freedom.
Or I would try, if he didn't oppress me with his usual phone calls. Every time I do something with the car, be it testing or qualifying, he calls me straight away to tell me the obvious. Nothing my engineers haven't already told me. Does he think they're idiots? Or that I am? I didn't go completely stupid all of a sudden, damn it!
I know what to do when you're on the second row, but I don't know if he knows that we're at the beginning, the cars still need to be improved, we don't have much confidence with them yet and above all at the moment we're not yet at the level of Mercedes and Ferrari. Not to mention that in front of me are drivers of a certain calibre. Not just any rookies or idiots.
In spite of myself I know what to answer: - Yes of course I always aim for victory! You know I hate being behind, fourth position is not satisfactory for me.
I repeat what he always told me. He's right, that's the mentality you need to have.
He may be questionable as a father and a human being, no one can say it better than me, but when it comes to racing he knows what he's talking about and knows how to help me from a technical and professional point of view.
He would be a good coach for some young, talented, stubborn and undisciplined person like me who needs a strict method to emerge and show off his worth.
He's good, I can't tell him anything. When I have doubts about certain things he always knows how to give me good advice and there's never a time when he tells me something that's not right about racing.
But his voice and the way he talks to me always remain gripped by my rebellious spirit. He can say the most sensible and right things in the world, he can help me and motivate me as much as he wants, but there will always be a part of me that hearing him speak will make me grab the railing like a fool. As soon as I realize the state I'm in, I bite my mouth and tense up even more. My father continues to give me unsolicited and obvious but correct advice, when he then concludes with his typical motto.
- Don't say 'yes' because I know you and you’ll surely screw everything up like always!
With this I'm about to tell him to fuck off, something I've never had the courage to do, but two arms hold me from behind with sweetness and determination at the same time. I immediately relax against him, leaning on his strong chest. I close my eyes after having rolled them back in exasperation, but finally his mouth kisses my neck and gives me peace despite that asshole of a father of mine continues to talk on the phone.
I nod, I don't know what to say anymore honestly, I go on autopilot and then he finally lets go of me.
When I hang up, I throw the phone on one of the two chairs on the terrace and curse through gritted teeth, frowning.
Daniel holds me tighter, cradling me in his arms, he continues to kiss my neck and cheek, turning me better towards the night city that can be seen very well from here. Only now do I really start to see it even though it's been in front of my eyes for ten damned minutes already.
I know almost nothing about Melbourne, much less what that splendid old building is, but I know that we’re in one of the most beautiful hotels in the city and the most popular because it’s also close to the track. It’s not always a given that the drivers choose the same hotel, but that is the tendency even if it depends.
As I watch the night show that opens up in front of my eyes, I let myself be positioned and slowly I feel relaxing more and more. It takes him a while, in the meantime in a wonderful silence on his part, which is not at all a given, he lets us be cheered only by the noise of the city below us and the sensation of the wind blowing pleasant and fresh.
After an indefinite time, he whispers softly without ever letting go of me from behind, in this sweet reassuring embrace that now, hysterical as I am, I would only accept from him.
- Better?
I nod. I would like to talk, vent to him and tell him what I think about my father, explain our situation, share something but I know that if I did it would be the end. I would never stop talking and I would end up saying things that I don't want to be expressed out loud.
If I don't say them they don't exist. If they don't exist, they have never hurt me. If I have nothing that has ever hurt me, I'm fine. I'm just fine, that's how I want to be. Good.
I thought I was free of him once I entered F1 and came of age, I went to live on my own and I believed that it was finally over, my prison, and at first it seemed like that, in fact I was happy, but I was just deluding myself.
I'm not free. As long as I race in F1 I’ll never be, but I can't stop without repaying him for everything he has done for me or he would kill me and that's not even for that, maybe. I'm not afraid of him anymore, it's not like when I was little and I did what he wanted out of fear or in any case I went against him knowing I would get a sonorous physical lesson.
It's not like that anymore. Now it's more mental. I can't go against him and displease him in any way because he's my father and he did everything he could to make me successful in F1. Now that I'm an adult I understand how big his sacrifices were, but he made them for himself. To live his dream through me that he couldn't live.
For him it wasn't enough that I got to F1, he always wanted me to win and not just GPs, as has fortunately already happened. He wants me to win world championships and I can't give up without having done so. Only when I've won them will I be truly free from him or he will never stop talking and I'll never have my true real peace. I can't live with someone who throws my shortcomings and my faults in my face for life. That wouldn't be life.
I know perfectly well, I understood it after the first full season in Red Bull.
I had deluded myself believing that it was over and that's not even the point.
I like it, damn it.
I like F1.
I like racing with cars. When I do it I feel exactly how I would like to be every moment of my life.
Free. But for now I only feel free when I race.
And I like winning, I like it a lot too, like crazy, to the point of wanting the fucking world championships, damn it.
I have dreams of my own now, I have desires. I understood it the first day here in Melbourne, drinking that coffee with Seb, Lewis, Kimi and Fernando.
I want to be like them. A winner. A fucking winner. Shut everyone's mouth because everyone has always criticized me. But I want to be mainly because I like it. I like being a winner.
That's why I get so pissed off with myself, when I hear or see my father.
Because in the end I want the same things he wants and I wouldn't stop even to put an end to this mental torture, because now I want it too.
We have the same damn fucking dream and it annoys me like crazy.
So no, I don't talk about it and pretend it's a normal conversation with my usual cumbersome father that he's used to by now.
I like Daniel because he's not intrusive, he's smart. He knows things by himself, they don't have to be told to him. He's understood that I have a tense relationship with him and every time I see him or hear him he just stays close to me and waits for it to pass. If it doesn't happen right away, he knows what to do and at this point, with a mischievous smile that I do on purpose to trigger myself, I turn towards him and put my arms around his neck. I leave no room for words, no explicit requests are needed.
I push him into the room while I kiss him and he, laughing against my mouth, tightens his grip on my waist and lifts me up, heading towards the bed where he lays me down, where he’ll make me his, definitively erasing that unpleasant feeling that man always leaves me with.
Let's say that I haven't gotten rid of him yet, but I'm working on it. In the meantime, thanks to Daniel and his body, I know how to stop him from ruining my days.

While we're weighing ourselves I bump into Charles in his red and white Sauber suit with his helmet still on. Our eyes meet, we look at each other, we recognize each other, it’s hard to do otherwise with our names written on us, but he doesn’t even make a gesture.
He ignores me as if I weren’t even here.
He weighs himself before me, then he goes off to his garage in perfect silence.
All weekend we’ve passed each other continuously, it has happened and will happen more driving in the same races, but he’s never made a gesture or spoken to me.
I thought it would be different to find ourselves here together as adults, but evidently his snobbishness has grown with him, he had it as a child, or at least I thought he had it, but now I’m sure of it. Maybe he thinks I could infect him and that they’ll start calling him Crash Kid too.
It’s a normal nickname for new arrivals, at least that’s what Daniel told me to lighten the mood. I don't actually think that's true, some have had it, yes, but not all. There’re those drivers who are perfect right from the start, see Lewis. Let's see how this little snobbish prince, who doesn't even give a damn about me, will manage.
Fuck you, Charles, you and whoever you think you are. It's not my day, anyway.
I already know what awaits me as soon as I get my phone back and for a moment I hope that someone steals it even if I know that it's not possible.
Damn.
I can almost hear his damn arrogant voice scolding me with disappointment.
'Really Max? Not only did you not maintain your position, which would have been disappointing anyway, but you actually made it worse. You finished sixth, Max. Sixth. Is that how races are run? Where do you think you'll get with that loser attitude? But I knew it would end like this anyway. I wasted my money! I should have gotten a private jet and traveled around the world, not just flying you up and down Europe to get you the best parts for your car or to make you do the races that matter! What a waste of time and money, Max!’
I can already hear it, it’s his favorite tune. He loves to tell me that. I think if I started winning a lot, he’d feel bad. He’d be more pissed off at giving me compliments and not having anything to yell at me.
You piece of shit. But one day I’ll really show you. I’ll win. Not just GPs, but some fucking shitty world championships! And then I’ll fuck off from your life!
Damn!”