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Chapter Text

It was never a good sign to enter the paddock with this many cameras pointed at you. In Formula 1, that kind of attention usually meant you’d done something wrong.

But Oscar, dressed in his usual maroon shirt and drawstring jeans, thought he hadn’t done anything wrong.

He’d die on that hill. And that theoretical hill just happened to be Turn 3 at the Red Bull Ring last weekend. 

The move was clean. Ambitious, sure. But clean. Max had left the door open. Oscar had gone for it.

They’d both ended up in the gravel—DNF, zero points, disaster.

But only one of them got blamed.

“You should’ve known better,” they’d said .

“He was leading the race.”

“It was supposed to be a 1–2.”

Oscar wanted to scream. It could’ve been a Red Bull 1–2. It should’ve been, if they just let him race Max.

But they made him the villain because he dared to try and win.

The thing about Red Bull was that it never pretended to be fair. They never pretended to be democratic.

They weren’t Ferrari, who flirted with equality until it collapsed mid-season. They weren’t McLaren, who smiled through gritted teeth and said their drivers were “free to race.”

Red Bull was honest—brutally, coldly honest. They had a number one driver.

And it had always been Max.

Oscar knew that.

He knew it the moment he was promoted from AlphaTauri to this godforsaken team.

He knew it when he sat through winter briefings where every car design choice seemed to lean toward Max’s preferences.

He knew it now, walking through the Silverstone paddock like a schoolboy returning after detention—his uniform still crisp, but everyone remembering what he did.

He’d been part of the system for years. Horner spotted him in 2017 through Arden. Oscar had barely turned seventeen. But Christian saw something and fast-tracked him. Pushed him through the ranks like a man assembling a chessboard in fast-forward.

Oscar paid it back with results.

F3 champion in 2020. F2 champion in 2021. Rookie years, both. No second chances. No learning curve. Just wins.

They gave him the AlphaTauri seat for 2022. As a rookie he drove the thing like it was made of chewing gum and wishful thinking, and still, he stood on the podium twice. Spa. Baku. Wet races, tight margins. He made it happen.

So when Red Bull declined to extend Pérez’s contract at the end of 2022, the path was clear.

He was fast. He was consistent. He was next.

2023 was the test. The RB19 was a monster, a car made for domination. In his first year in Red Bull, Oscar delivered four wins, multiple podiums and clean qualifying.

And yet, Max won seventeen.

Because of course he did.

Max Verstappen wasn’t just the team leader. He was the measuring stick, the standard, the gravity everything else bent around.

Oscar didn’t hate him for that.

He hated how much he understood it.

He entered the Red Bull hospitality and was immediately hit by a wall of overly chilled air and tension disguised as professionalism.

The usual white-glass serenity was there—precision lighting, neat branding, coffee machine hissing softly in the corner—but the energy shifted the moment the door clicked behind him.

The PR team was already waiting. One of them—Elena, sharp blazer, even sharper smile—stepped forward, iPad in hand. The others flanked her like a podium formation of anxiety.

“Morning, Oscar.” Her voice was pleasant. Measured. She glanced toward the glass doors behind him, where the cameras were still trying to shoot through the reflection. “We saw the media pack following you in. Just want to get ahead of things before the press pen starts poking.”

Oscar said nothing. He let his bag fall onto the bench. His maroon shirt was already sticking to the back of his neck.

Elena continued, tone brisk now. “Obviously, everyone’s going to ask about Austria. We’d like to keep our messaging aligned, if possible.”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. If possible.

“Christian’s already made a statement,” she said. “He called it a mistake that won’t happen again. Max said—” she checked the iPad like it was an indictment—“you were a bit too optimistic on the brakes.”

Oscar scoffed. “Right. Max would know all about brake application.”

That earned him a tight look. A shifting of weight in polished shoes.

“I mean,” Oscar added, unbothered now, “he was brake-checking me.”

Elena blinked. Then, slowly, she smiled like someone trying to negotiate with a grenade.

“We’d, uh—yeah, we’d like to steer away from that term.”

“What term?”

“Brake-checking,” she said carefully. “It’s… inflammatory. Suggests intent.”

“There was intent.”

She didn’t answer that. Just gave a half-shrug like she was smoothing out wrinkles on a narrative they all knew was going to be a tough sell.

“Tomato, tomato,” someone else from PR muttered behind her, too softly to be meant for Oscar’s ears.

He heard it anyway.

“So what can I say?”

Elena beamed like they were finally getting somewhere.

“Something neutral. Something like… ‘we’re moving on as a team,’ or ‘the team’s debrief covered everything and we’re focusing on Silverstone.’ That sort of tone.”

Oscar nodded once. “Got it.”

Half an hour later, Oscar found himself in the media room, changed into full team kit—navy and red layered too sharp against his too-pale complexion. He looked like a proper Red Bull driver, which was the point, he supposed. Branding came first. 

He had a can of the drink in hand, fingers curled around it like a prop. Unlike Max, Oscar didn’t actually like the taste. He didn’t like any flavored drinks, if he was honest—too sweet, too artificial, too much. Whenever he could, he snuck off to the bathroom, poured it down the sink, refilled it with water and carried on like nothing happened. 

But today wasn’t one of those days. The cameras were already rolling, and the comms staff were hovering nearby like a hawk in heels. So Oscar took a small sip, schooled his face into something neutral, and tried not to grimace. Contractual obligations had flavor, and it tasted like this.

Doing the FIA Thursday press conference was basically like doing jury duty.

You never knew when you were going to be called up.

There was no rhyme or reason to it.

Sometimes it was title contenders, sometimes it was whoever happened to be walking past the media office when the list was finalized.

This week, the wheel had spun and landed on:

Oscar Piastri from Red Bull.

Lando Norris from McLaren.

Logan Sargeant from Williams.

Oscar almost laughed when he saw the line-up. Lando grinned the moment they sat down, clearly relishing the chaos of it. Logan looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.

Tom Clarkson, ever polite and professionally merciless, opened the session with the usual soft questions. Home race this, strong midfield that. A few chuckles, a Logan one-liner that would do well on social media.

Then Tom turned to Oscar with the slight tilt of his head that meant the gloves were off now.

“Oscar,” he said, voice casual in a way that wasn’t casual at all. “Let’s talk about last weekend—Austria. Double DNF for Red Bull. It’s not often we see two teammates take each other out. A few people have been comparing it to Baku 2018. Another Australian driver. Another clash with Max Verstappen. Any thoughts on that?”

Lando didn’t move, but Oscar saw the tiny flick of his eyes. Logan tried not to react and failed.

Oscar gave Tom a smile. Polite. Almost amused.

If he hadn’t spent two years getting the sharp edges filed off in Red Bull media training, he might’ve said: Great reference, Tom. Cheap shot. But great reference.

Instead, he said, “It’s not at all like Baku 2018.”

Tom raised his eyebrows slightly. “No?”

Oscar leaned forward, his voice calm. “I was going for the win, not for fourth place. That’s a very different situation.”

The room was quiet for a beat too long. Just enough time for the subtext to register.

I’m not Ricciardo.

And Max didn’t own that corner.

Oscar added, with a diplomatic shrug, “At the end of the day, I’m a racing driver. You see the gap, you go for it. You don’t get many chances like that. Not with him.”

He didn’t say Max’s name. He didn’t have to.

Tom nodded. “So you’d do it again?”

Oscar smiled—this time with just enough sharpness to suggest he’d thought about it a lot.

“Let’s hope I don’t have to.”

Lando snorted quietly beside him. Logan blinked like he’d just remembered he was on camera.

They moved on, eventually.

He asked Lando about McLaren’s upgrades—how the car was feeling now that it was legitimately the fastest package on more and more tracks.

Lando smiled that easy, relaxed grin of someone with nothing to prove. “It’s good. Really good. The team’s done an incredible job over the past twelve months. We’re getting there.”

Tom nodded. “Your points are nearly tied with Oscar’s now. Are you chasing him, or chasing Max?”

Lando tilted his head like he already knew the headline was pre-written. “I’m not chasing Oscar,” he said smoothly. “I’m chasing Max. Always have been.”

Tom turned to Logan next, asking about the latest rumors that Williams might drop him mid-season.

That one was just depressing.

Logan blinked, deflected with grace, and looked like he was counting the minutes until he could leave.

Then the Q&A opened, and—predictably—every question boomeranged back to Oscar.

Someone from an Italian outlet asked about Austria again, this time with a more desperate angle.

Another reporter asked what Oscar thought about the latest developments in the lawsuit against Horner.

Oscar blinked once. Said nothing for a beat too long.

Not enough to be rude—just enough for people to notice.

“There’s an ongoing investigation,” he said carefully. “I trust the team to handle it appropriately. I’m focused on racing.”

He could feel the headlines writing themselves again, this time in tighter font.

Oscar Piastri Refuses to Condemn Horner

Piastri ‘Focused on Racing’ Amid Controversy

Another reporter jumped in—British, sharp accent, eager to stir the pot.

“Oscar, do you think your move in Austria was a sign of desperation? With your contract up at the end of the year, were you trying to prove something to secure your seat?”

Oscar exhaled slowly, just short of an eye roll. He was getting good at that—at keeping the sarcasm behind his teeth.

What was he supposed to say?

Yes, he was desperate?

Yes, he was trying to survive a team that ran on pressure and favoritism and vague contracts and internal politics wrapped in energy drink livery?

Yes, he was being measured in tenths against the best driver of the generation and still being told he needed to wait his turn?

He smiled. Cool, deadpan, polished.

“I’m a racing driver,” he repeated, “I’m here to race. I was in a position to fight for the win, and I went for it. That’s what I get paid to do.”

Simple. Defensible. Infuriating to the people who wanted blood.

He didn’t say the rest of it. That he’d spent a year and a half never more than three tenths off Max. That he’d been the consistent one. The one holding the strategy together when Max went off-script. That he was tired of being told to be patient, to wait, to learn. That every driver had to prove themselves—but when he tried, it was called desperation. 

He didn’t say that the man who built his career—the one who spotted him at seventeen and shoved him into the Red Bull machine—was also the man who’d joke, in front of the engineers, about how easy it was to drop a driver mid-season.

“It’s a good seat,” Horner had said once, glass of red wine in hand. “And the graveyard’s full of boys who thought they could keep it.”

Oscar hadn’t laughed.

But he stayed quiet.

Because loyalty ran deep in Red Bull.

And even now—even now—he couldn’t bring himself to bite the hand that taught him how to steer.

Oscar didn’t notice the way Lando was watching him through the questions—shoulders tight, jaw working behind the mic, eyes narrowed every time a reporter pushed a little too hard.

He didn’t notice, because he was too busy surviving.

Because that’s what these press conferences were.

Survival drills.

F1 was a pressure cooker, and no one cooked like Red Bull.

They simmered you until you stopped feeling it.

By the time they wrapped up, Oscar breathed like he’d just run a marathon. Shoulders down. Lungs up. Blink. Smile. Get out.

Lando leaned toward him as they stood from that hideous white couch they’d been glued to for half an hour.

“Hey. You alright?”

Oscar nodded. “Yeah. Just—”

He didn’t finish the sentence. Didn’t need to. Lando understood. That was the thing.

Lando had been… how should Oscar describe it?

Interesting.

Unpredictable in a way Oscar didn’t mind.

They weren’t best friends. But they circled each other in mutual respect and maybe a bit of something else.

They’d raced hard. Shared the odd press conference. Played padel in Monaco when their calendars aligned.

Not rivals. Not allies. Something suspended in the middle.

So it wasn’t surprising when they ended up walking out of the media zone side by side.

No plan, no nod—just the momentum of quiet understanding.

Lando bumped his shoulder lightly.

“Want me to throw something at the next guy who brings up Austria?” he offered, too cheerful.

Oscar smirked. “Tempting.”

“Maybe I’ll ask if they’ve considered leaving you alone and talking about literally anything else.”

“Even Logan?”

“Okay, maybe not Logan. Poor guy.”

They walked a little slower than they needed to. Lando kept the conversation moving with easy, aimless stuff. Plans for the summer break. Monaco’s weather. The weird new simulation rig McLaren had built. Something about Alex Albon’s awful Spotify taste.

Oscar let him.

Didn’t say much.

Just let the words wash over him like cold water after a hot engine shutoff.

Because Lando wasn’t asking him to defend anything.

Wasn’t asking him to prove himself.

He was just walking next to him, keeping pace.

Eventually, their steps slowed in front of the Red Bull suite.

Lando tilted his head, eyebrow raised. “Home sweet home?”

Oscar gave a short, dry breath of a laugh. “Something like that.”

He nodded toward the entrance. “You wanna stop by? Grab a Red Bull, talk tyres with Helmut?”

Lando grinned. “Nah, mate. I’ve got marketing. Union Jack helmet reveal. Home race and all that.”

Oscar looked back at the building. The reflective glass, the stacked hospitality levels, the unmistakable branding like a fortress painted in sugar and dominance.

It was hard to ignore.

Louder than any other structure in the paddock. Physically and metaphorically.

Lando lingered for a second longer than usual. “Well. Hope I see you around more this weekend.”

Oscar glanced back at him. “You will. We’re parked twenty metres apart.”

Lando just smiled. “Not what I meant.”

They peeled off with an unspoken understanding. No awkwardness, no goodbyes. Just something trailing in the air behind them.

Inside, Red Bull was already humming.

The air conditioning was too cold. The lighting too white. And Oscar didn’t even get three steps in before the PR team spotted him again—Elena waving him down with a tight smile and an iPad held like a warning.

“Content push,” she said, before he could sit. “We’re shooting that guess the track challenge thing with Max in ten. You’re both mic’d.”

Oscar didn’t bother hiding the sigh.

From across the room, he saw Max already there chatting with a group of engineers.

People clustered around him—mechanics, logistics staff, junior drivers doing media shadowing.

He was magnetic. Effortlessly the center of gravity.

And in this place, he kind of was.

Oscar stood at the edge for a moment longer than necessary, just watching it all.

The noise. The pull.

The weight of staying close to the sun.

It’s not that Oscar hated Max. Far from it, actually. He was—at his core—a decent guy. Maybe even a good one, depending on the day. He’d been kind, in his own reserved way, when Oscar first arrived at Red Bull. A nod here, a casual tip there. Like he knew what it meant to walk into a team where the bar was impossibly high and always moving. Max had seen the pressure before, probably half a dozen times—new teammates, new challengers, new names penciled in as the next big thing. None of them stuck. Oscar was just the latest variable.

By the time Oscar joined in 2023, Max was already a two-time world champion, Red Bull’s golden axis. And by the end of that year—after seventeen wins and one of the most absurdly dominant seasons in modern F1—he was a three-time champion, orbiting alone at the top.

And yet, they got on.

They’d laughed. Traveled together. Max had invited him to his yacht last summer, casually, like it was nothing. And maybe it was.

It’s just… this year, everything had shifted.

The car wasn’t dominant anymore—not like the mighty RB19. The gap had closed. Other teams had caught up. The balance was twitchier, the development path fractured. Oscar could feel it in the steering rack, in the mid-corner shifts, in the way his feedback kept getting quietly overruled in meetings where Max barely spoke but still got exactly what he wanted.

Sainz won Australia after Max DNFed with car failure.

Lando won Miami, not just on strategic luck, but because McLaren’s upgrade package worked frighteningly well and hadn’t stopped working since.

Charles won Monaco, and honestly, Oscar still wasn’t sure why. Probably a blood sacrifice. Or some deals with Italian devils. Whatever. Didn’t matter.

And then Austria happened.

Oscar had been faster in the middle stint, creeping up on Max lap by lap, and when the window opened, he saw it—the chance. The move. The gap.

He went for it. And Max… defended like it was personal.

Aggressive didn’t even begin to cover it.

He shut the door late. Forced Oscar onto the kerb. There was contact. They both spun. Both DNFed.

Red Bull left Spielberg, its home circuit, with no points, no podiums, and one very thinly veiled statement from Horner that blamed no one by name—but everyone knew what it meant.

Oscar still didn’t regret the move.

He regretted how predictable the fallout had been.

And now here he was again, standing in the media suite with a camera crew setting up to shoot something ridiculous about who was the bigger nerd. Meanwhile Max was laughing with the engineers like he hadn’t just turned Oscar into the scapegoat for Red Bull’s worst weekend of the year.

He took another sip of the drink.

Still too sweet.

Max eventually peeled himself from the circle of engineers and strolled over like he had a dentist appointment to get through. He glanced around the setup—the cameras, the stools, the too-white backdrop with Red Bull logos slapped on every surface—and sighed. That patented Max Verstappen mix of boredom and reluctant tolerance.

Oscar didn’t flinch. He gave a tight smile, nodded once. Professional. Polite. Tried not to think about Austria, or the way Max had looked at him in the debrief with eyes full of accusation. Tried to pretend Max wasn’t the kind of guy who could start a war and then act like someone else fired the first shot.

“We’re doing the track one?” Max asked, already picking up the blindfold and tossing the Red Bull can from hand to hand.

Oscar nodded. “Yep. Name the track from the onboard, can in hand, no cheating.”

“Fucking hate this one,” Max muttered. “I’ve done this like three times already.”

The cameras rolled. The first few tracks were easy—Suzuka, Silverstone, Interlagos—and both of them rattled them off with minimal delay. They barely had to listen. The rhythm of kerbs, the hum of engine note in a certain gear, even the shape of the corners when blindfolded—this was their version of muscle memory.

By the fifth round, they were bickering.

“No way that’s Jeddah,” Oscar said, shaking his head. “Listen to the runoff. That’s Baku.”

“I’ve driven both more than you,” Max countered, not unkind, just matter-of-fact.

“I drove Baku more slowly, which means I heard more,” Oscar shot back.

Max smirked. “That explains a lot.”

Then came Eau Rouge.

Oscar cocked his head beneath the blindfold. The can hovered near his lips. He didn’t drink it—he never did unless he had to—but he played the part.

“2023. Spa. That’s my car,” he said, sure of it. “I remember the throttle trace.”

“Bullshit,” Max said, almost laughing. “You think you can tell your run from mine?”

Oscar smiled. “Yeah. Because I was about to pass you.”

Max went quiet.

The PR person checked the footage. “He’s right.”

Oscar pulled off his blindfold with a little flair, like it was a mic drop. “Thank you.”

Max was already staring at him. Not annoyed. Not mocking. Just… watching.

It wasn’t a glare. It wasn’t friendly either. It was the kind of look you give something when it stops behaving the way it’s supposed to. 

Oscar’s smirk faded, not out of fear, but because the weight of Max’s silence was always heavier than his words.

“That one corner,” Oscar said, quieter now. “I still think I had you.”

Max tilted his head. Smiled, small. “Yeah. I know.”

And that—somehow—felt more dangerous than a full-on fight.

—

It was hard to tell what time it was exactly, the way Silverstone greyed out under a heavy sky. Somewhere between late afternoon and not quite night, the kind of dusky nothingness that made you forget the sun ever bothered to rise. Oscar sat in the front passenger seat of a black SUV, arms folded, cheek leaned against the window as the car rolled past the last edge of the paddock and toward the countryside.

His manager, Jack, was driving. Jack had been around since F2—a family friend, British, just competent enough. The kind of guy who never made bold calls but also never made a mess. Oscar didn’t think Jack was particularly insightful—too eager to please, too fond of name-dropping in press pens—but his parents trusted him. And in the ruthless churn of motorsport, that counted for something.

Jack had said they were going to meet someone important. Said it like Oscar should be excited. Said it was just around the corner, just a quiet, casual drink at one of those discreet countryside clubs that only admitted people whose surnames made it into the FIA database. No photographers, no pap shots. Just polished wood interiors, hush-money lighting, and the expensive silence of powerful men being powerful.

Oscar had assumed he wouldn’t be needed. That it would be Jack doing the schmoozing while he sat back and rehydrated and maybe ordered chips.

But when they pulled into the gravel driveway and the staff ushered them into a private lounge upstairs, Oscar stepped through the door and there was Zak Brown. Already seated. Already smiling like he knew something.

Oscar paused just slightly at the threshold. He hadn’t changed out of his team jacket. Still had the navy Red Bull crest stitched over his chest, all of sudden felt loud in a room like this.

“Zak,” Jack said brightly, too brightly. “Thanks for making the time.”

Zak stood to greet them. “Oscar,” he said, extending a hand, all warmth and diplomacy. “Good to see you.”

Oscar shook it, firm but not eager. “Didn’t know I was part of the meeting until about twenty minutes ago.”

Zak just grinned. “Well, that’s management for you.”

He gestured to the seat across from him. Oscar sat. Jack ordered a whiskey for himself. Oscar asked for water. Still. No ice.

For a moment, there was just the clink of glass, the distant hum of the air system, and the quiet thrum of inevitability.

Then Zak leaned forward slightly, elbows on the table, eyes sharp despite the easy tone.

“So,” he said. “Tell me. How’s life on the dark side?”

Oscar didn’t flinch. Just leaned back a little and said, flatly, “Pretty cozy.”

It wasn’t a lie. Not entirely.

The SUV ride over had been short enough for Oscar to remember that this whole meeting wasn’t his idea. It had come from Zak’s side—almost immediately after Austria, actually. Just hours after Max’s post-race comments hit the press and Oscar’s name started trending for all the wrong reasons. Not that he was paranoid or anything, but the timing had felt deliberate. Opportunistic. The way teams always circled when they sensed blood in the water.

He didn’t mind, though. He wasn’t stupid. The silly season had started early this year—kicked off by Lewis’s bombshell move to Ferrari—and by now it was well known that Nyck de Vries wasn’t getting re-signed. Word around the paddock was that McLaren were getting increasingly frustrated with the whole situation. Nyck had somehow been even more underwhelming than Daniel. It was a shame, but not Oscar’s problem.

Yet.

Zak let the “cozy” comment hang for a beat, then gave a half-smile. “Pretty gnarly, the way they handled the crash fallout.”

Oscar didn’t reply right away. Just smiled—tight and bitter—like he knew exactly what Zak was trying to do. Because of course he did.

Zak didn’t wait for confirmation. “I’ve been really impressed, by the way. With how you’ve held your own this past year and a half. Not many people could do what you’ve done with Max as a teammate.”

Oscar sipped his water. Cool, measured. “Max is the best benchmark I could ask for. If I want to prove myself, that’s the place to do it.”

It was media training. It was loyalty. It was ego. All folded up into one tidy sentence.

Zak nodded slowly, like he respected the company line but didn’t buy it for a second. “Sure,” he said. “If they let you.”

Another pause. Jack swirled his drink. Somewhere downstairs, someone laughed too loudly.

Oscar didn’t rise to the bait. But his knuckles did tighten slightly around the glass.

Zak noticed.

Zak’s voice was steady. Casual, almost. “I’m not saying I’ve got a Max Verstappen in the car. But I’ve got Rob Marshall. And Adrian’s not there anymore. And Christian…” Zak didn’t finish the sentence. He just let the pause do its work.

Oscar didn’t flinch, but something about his posture changed—just slightly. A slow exhale through the nose. Because if anyone knew how messy things had become in Milton Keynes lately, it was Oscar.

He felt it in the briefings—too many diverging voices, fewer definitive answers. He felt it in the car—still good, still sharp, but not invincible anymore. He felt it every time Ferrari or McLaren found two-tenths in a weekend and Red Bull didn’t.

The last upgrade package had taken longer than expected. The rumors about internal reshuffling weren’t rumors. There were mornings where you could walk into the factory and feel the tension clinging to the air like static. People avoided certain offices. Whispered names. Kept their heads down. The shine was fading.

But still—

“Red Bull’s still the one delivering championships,” Oscar said, voice clipped. “McLaren hasn’t got one in how many years?”

Zak didn’t blink. “Since Lewis. Yeah, I know.”

He leaned in, elbows on the table now, intent. “But look where we are. Lando got his first win in Miami. The car’s fast. Even on the weird tracks, we’re there. Yeah, we still mess it up on strategy sometimes, I won’t lie—Canada was rough—but we’re not guessing anymore. We know what we’ve got.”

Oscar kept his expression neutral, but Zak could see the calculation flickering just behind his eyes. That trademark Piastri stillness—it never meant he wasn’t thinking. It meant he was thinking hard.

“We’re not there yet,” Zak said, quieter now. “But we’re not lost, either. We’re on the right trajectory. And when you’re fighting for titles, you don’t just need speed. You need momentum. You need belief. You need a team that doesn’t make you apologize for wanting it.”

Oscar looked down at the condensation sliding down his glass. He could feel the weight of the Red Bull logo on his back like a target. Heavy. Familiar.

He didn’t disagree.

But he didn’t agree either.

Not yet.

“Look,” he continued, voice softening just slightly, “I know you’re not shopping for a seat. You shouldn’t be. You’re not exactly… underperforming.”

Oscar’s mouth quirked. “Glad we agree on that.”

“But,” Zak said, “you should always know where the exits are. That’s not disloyal. That’s just smart.”

Oscar raised an eyebrow. “And what’s behind your door, then?”

Zak leaned back, folding his hands on the table. “We can’t promise you number one. But we can guarantee it’s not a number two seat.”

Oscar didn’t answer right away. He didn’t feel like a number two—not in the way the term usually landed, with all its unspoken humiliations—but he wasn’t stupid either. He wasn’t Max. Not yet. Maybe not ever, if Red Bull kept stacking the odds like they had been. 

He still believed he could win championships—yes plural—but he also knew it wouldn’t be here, not unless he tore it out of someone’s hands. And that kind of fight had already taken something from him. 

What Zak was offering wasn’t just a seat. It was a path that didn’t require him to become someone he hated to get there.

“Besides,” Zak added, his voice taking on a lighter tone again, “I know you and Lando hit it off. You’re good friends. You’d make great teammates.”

Oscar hadn’t really thought of it that way before—not seriously—but now that it was said out loud, he couldn’t exactly deny it. There was something easy about being around Lando. Familiar. Frustrating. Addictive. Oscar could lose whole minutes just looking at him, at those stupidly ambiguous eyes—green some days, blue on others, sometimes flecked with gold when the sun caught them right.

He laughed too loudly, talked too much, got under Oscar’s skin in the most bizarre, infuriating ways. But that laugh—it was music. And Oscar, who prided himself on being the most grounded person in any room, found himself a little drunk on it sometimes. It was part crush, part lust, and entirely dangerous if they ever became teammates. But also…

It didn’t sound terrible.

Zak seemed to sense the shift in Oscar’s silence, because his tone changed—no PR polish now, no coy undertone. Just the raw, strategic truth of a man who had a team to build and a window of opportunity to get it right.

“Look,” he said plainly, “we’re building around Lando. No bullshit. He’s earned it. But he’s not Max.”

Oscar looked up then. Slowly. Zak didn’t flinch.

“He’s fast. He’s underrated. He’s finally got a car to prove himself. But he’s not going to suffocate his teammate. He’s not going to engineer a team around himself so tightly there’s no oxygen left for anyone else. He wants to win—but he wants to fight for it. Not inherit it.”

Zak leaned forward slightly, just enough to emphasize it. “As CEO, I need someone who’ll push him. Properly. Who’ll keep him sharp. Who’ll make him faster without tearing the whole thing down. That’s you, Oscar. You’d be perfect for that.”

Oscar didn’t say anything at first. Just stared at the table and traced the edge of the coaster with his fingertip.

Perfect.

God help him, he liked the sound of that.

Chapter Text

Red Bull had promised this upgrade would fix everything.

Not in so many words—no one at Milton Keynes ever made promises without five caveats and a performance clause—but it was the feeling in the garage all week. The quiet buzz. The not-quite-desperate hope that maybe, finally, this would be the one that pulled them back.

Because they’d tasted dominance. And now they were craving it like a drug.

Everyone felt it. The engineers, the mechanics, even the comms staff who’d started smiling too tightly when they typed the words P5 and damage limitation. They weren’t used to this. Not anymore. The days of pulling a 20-second gap like it was nothing—cruising to the flag while Max barely broke a sweat—were gone. And losing, as it turned out, was a habit they’d never learned how to live with.

Oscar could feel the withdrawal in the air. The way people flinched when telemetry wasn’t green enough. The way Hugh’s voice stayed clipped even during free practice. The way Christian stopped calling strategy briefings “fun.”

No one had said it, but they were all chasing the high again.

And this—this front wing—was the syringe.

Oscar sat deep in the cockpit as FP3 rolled on, the straps digging into his fireproofs, arms heavy against the vibration. Hugh had given him the green light to run long stints—no time targets, no traffic expectations. Just assess the new aero package. Stress test the floor. Feel the balance.

And so far? It wasn’t perfect. But it was a hell of a lot better.

The front end bit earlier. Rotation came quicker. That vague floating sensation he’d hated since Monaco? Almost gone. Not fixed entirely, but reduced to something manageable—something he could live with, drive around, maybe even master.

He did fifteen laps, steadily ratcheting up the aggression, and on the final push lap he found nearly four tenths in Sector 2 alone. A sharp breath of satisfaction caught in his throat as he crossed the line. The car still needed work, sure, but this… this was promising.

When they called him in, he rolled into the pit box with a familiar blend of curiosity and cautious optimism. The mechanics swarmed, the engine clicked and popped as it cooled, and Oscar climbed out, already half out of his gloves by the time he reached Hugh.

“Front’s talking to me now,” he said, tugging at his suit collar. “Still wants to understeer mid-corner, but it’s a step. Big one.”

Hugh nodded, already scanning the data on his tablet. “Rear stability’s more predictable too. Tyre temps stayed where we wanted.”

Oscar smiled—not wide, but real. For the first time in weeks, he didn’t feel like he was wrestling a ghost.

Then—just as he was about to step into the garage—something caught his eye.

Off to the side, in that little pocket of space between the engineers’ wall and the hospitality entrance, Max was deep in conversation with Christian Horner. They weren’t yelling. That wasn’t their style. But Christian’s hand gestures were a bit too sharp, and Max’s body language was unmistakable—leaning in, chin tilted, the set of his jaw tight like he was negotiating something.

Oscar didn’t look directly. Just let the glance linger long enough to catch the flicker of tension. The way Christian folded his arms. The way Max didn’t blink.

He only looked away for a second. A half glance. But that was all it took.

Because when Oscar’s eyes flicked from Max and Christian’s hushed conversation to the broadcast screen overhead, he finally saw what they had seen minutes earlier.

The replay was grainy, slow-motion, and damning.

Max, right at the end of the session, clipping the barrier near pit entry—barely a scrape. Just enough to bend the front right flap. The upgraded wing. 

His stomach dropped. That part was gone. Not repairable. Not swappable. And unless Red Bull had secretly flown in a backup from Milton Keynes in the past ten minutes—which they hadn’t—then that meant only one upgraded wing remained.

His.

And now Max and Christian were walking toward him.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Oscar stood frozen just outside the garage, boots half-zipped, helmet dangling from his hand, like a deer on a quiet road watching two predator-class cars come straight for him. Christian had the faint smirk of a man who already knew what he was going to say would piss you off. Max’s expression was worse—neutral, unreadable, but with the slightest twitch at the corner of his mouth like this was already funny to him.

Oscar didn’t wait. As soon as Max and Christian crossed into his space, he threw up his hands like they’d already delivered the verdict.

“This is a hate crime.”

Christian blinked. “We haven’t said anything yet.”

Oscar jabbed a finger at him. “Christian, are you even aware of how this looks? You—British-sounding man with suspicious tan—are asking me, an Australian, to give up my only working front wing. In Silverstone. Why are you doing this? You know you’ll be permanently banned from entering my country, right? You’ll end up on a fucking list.”

Christian paused. Briefly confused. Then it clicked.

“Oh, shit, yeah. Webber.” He nodded slowly, almost impressed. “Sly motherfucker. Forgot that one.”

Oscar narrowed his eyes.

Christian shrugged. “He won anyway, didn’t he? So you shouldn’t worry, it’s not a big deal.”

“It was an accident. Wasn’t planned,” Max said as if it could assure Oscar.

And then he smiled—faint, unmistakable, slow.

“Besides,” he added, almost gleeful, “if you let me take the wing, I’ll forget Austria.”

Oscar’s jaw clenched. “For the umpteenth time, Max, that wasn’t my fault.”

Christian shrugged. “Well. Potato, potahto.”

Oscar stared at both of them, actually speechless for a beat. Then:

“What is wrong with you people?”

Max just looked up at the screen again, watching the replay of his own fuckup like it was an art film.

Christian clapped him lightly on the shoulder, said, “We’ll let you know what the final call is,” and walked away like that wasn’t code for you already know what the call is.

Oscar stood there alone for a second longer, just long enough to feel the frustration catch at the back of his throat like ash.

And then he left the garage, unwilling to watch the mechanics peel the new front wing off his car. If he stood there and saw it happen, he’d probably say something he couldn’t take back. Better to put a wall between himself and it, try to get his head clear before qualifying.

The paddock was in that peculiar Saturday hum—everybody in motion, rushing toward somewhere with a sense of purpose. Everyone except Oscar. He had nowhere to be, not really. Not when all he wanted was to be anywhere but with this team.

And that's when he crossed paths with Lando. Not at the motorhomes, not near the garages, but in one of those in-between stretches where there's no real reason to stop and no real reason to hurry. Suspended in the lull between free practice and qualifying, the air taut with the kind of pressure that made drivers seek out distractions before they burned up from the inside.

Lando looked wired—restless in that way that wasn't quite excitement and wasn't quite fear. The home race does that. The car was finally good enough to put him in the fight, but Silverstone weather had a history of tearing plans to shreds.

Oscar had been watching him from across the paddock before their paths converged, the way he always found himself watching Lando without really meaning to. It was a habit that stretched back years—back to 2019 when Lando first stepped into F1 and Oscar was still grinding through F3, glued to every race broadcast partly for research and partly because there was something magnetic about the way Lando carried himself. Even then, as a nineteen-year-old rookie getting thrown to the wolves at McLaren, he'd had this quality—this openness, this willingness to show exactly what he was feeling.

Everything Oscar had trained himself never to do.

"Fifth time here?" Oscar asked, more to keep them standing there than out of curiosity. More to have an excuse to stay in Lando's orbit for a few minutes longer.

Lando nodded, running a hand through his hair in that unconscious gesture Oscar had memorized without meaning to.

"Does it get easier?"

A shake of the head. "Not until I've actually won it. Until then…" He trailed off, as if the rest didn't need saying.

Oscar nodded back. He knew that kind of hunger—knew it all too well. He should've had his home race this year. But Melbourne slipped away in a haze of pitwall negligence, the team so preoccupied with babysitting Max after his DNF that they'd left Oscar stranded on the wrong strategy. Carlos got the win. Oscar got nothing but the lesson burned in.

Oscar looked at Lando—really looked at him—this guy who wore his emotions on his sleeve, soft-eyed even when he was wound up, those ridiculous eyelashes that had no business being that long on someone who spent their life in a helmet. The same eyelashes Oscar had noticed in junior categories, back when Lando was this untouchable figure already racing in F1 while Oscar was still fighting his way up the ladder. Back when admitting he had a crush on a driver three steps ahead of him would've been career suicide, so he'd buried it deep and told himself it was just admiration.

Professional admiration.

Except now they were equals—sort of—and the feelings hadn't disappeared. If anything, actually getting to know Lando, to race wheel-to-wheel with him, had only confirmed what Oscar had suspected back then: that Lando Norris was impossibly, frustratingly, completely endearing.

"Let's go somewhere quiet," Oscar said, and they drifted toward a shaded corner of the paddock. A place where they could watch the movement without being part of it. A place where Oscar could have Lando's attention without having to share it with cameras or engineers or the general chaos of a race weekend.

Oscar liked to think he had the best emotional regulation on the grid. If they gave out points for it, he'd be leading the championship. Today had been objectively shit, but looking between them you'd think Lando was the one unravelling. It was almost comical, really. Oscar had spent years perfecting the art of emotional lockdown, of never letting anyone see what was really going on underneath. And here was Lando, transparent as glass, letting every feeling show on his face like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Maybe that's why Oscar was so drawn to him. Lando did everything Oscar couldn't—or wouldn't—allow himself to do.

"You were fastest in FP1 and FP2," Oscar reminded him. "Still top three in FP3. No reason to panic."

"Yeah, but it's Silverstone, man," Lando said, the words tight around the edges. "Home race. Pressure's different here."

Oscar watched him and could see exactly why Zak had wanted that meeting the other day. Lando needed the right kind of pressure. This wasn't it. This was noise. And Oscar understood that instinctively—had always understood Lando in ways that sometimes surprised him. Like he'd been studying him long enough to know exactly how his mind worked.

Which, if he was being honest with himself, he had been.

Results in F1 were never defined clearly—just some hazy consensus that being the fastest was the goal. By that measure, Oscar had four wins and Lando had one. And yeah, he knew what people said about him—luckiest bastard on the grid, who got the RB19 for his first Red Bull ride, jackpot from the word go. But he'd also had Max. The benchmark. The guy who owned last season.

Oscar's weekly objective had been simple: catch Max. And he was getting there. If they didn't keep sabotaging him, he'd get there. He swore he'd get there.

But watching Lando now, seeing the way he approached competition—wanting to win, desperately, but wanting to win it clean, wanting to earn it through pure pace rather than politics—Oscar felt something shift in his chest. Maybe catching Max wasn't the only thing that mattered. Maybe there were other ways to measure success.

Oscar had spent two days turning Zak's pitch over in his head, the words still lodged somewhere between temptation and betrayal. Max was still the kind of measuring stick you didn't just walk away from. Even if the team seemed determined to bleed you dry in the process.

But maybe—maybe there were other measuring sticks worth considering.

So, in that shaded corner, he asked, "How's it been with McLaren's development lately?"

Lando's eyes flickered—that knowing glint of someone who could read exactly where the question was headed. Then came the smirk: plausible deniability wrapped in friendly charm. He didn't call it what it was, but he talked about McLaren like a man doing a soft-sell pitch.

Except Oscar knew it wasn't really about the pitch. At least, not entirely. Part of him just wanted to hear Lando talk—wanted to listen to that voice he'd been unconsciously cataloging for years, the way it got more animated when he was excited about something, the slight rasp that came through when he was tired.

"We've been changing a lot. New people. A bunch of Red Bull engineers bailed by the end of last year and came over—fully convinced we're building the next big thing. Wind tunnel's running now. Everything's just… cleaner. Sharper."

Oscar narrowed his eyes, trying to maintain some semblance of professional distance. "Don't say 'papaya family.'"

Lando grinned—that wide, unguarded grin that had been Oscar's weakness since approximately 2019—and Oscar felt his resolve wobble slightly. "It is stupid. McLaren used to be the badass team, but by the time I joined they were already changing the whole vibe. Doesn't mean we've gone tame. It's just… a different approach."

This was the thing about Lando that had always gotten to Oscar: his honesty. His willingness to acknowledge flaws without becoming defensive about them. Oscar had watched him handle McLaren's dark years with a grace that bordered on saint-like, never throwing anyone under the bus, never losing faith even when faith seemed like the stupidest possible response.

"Besides, I knew Max pretty well," Lando said, voice light but not careless. "We were almost teammates at some point."

Oscar knew there'd been that stretch in 2022 when Red Bull was obsessively pursuing Lando. He'd followed that saga with the kind of intense interest that definitely crossed the line from professional curiosity into something more personal. The idea of Lando in Red Bull colors had felt wrong on a level Oscar couldn't quite articulate at the time.

It would've meant Oscar never got his chance. But more than that, it would've put Lando in the same impossible position Oscar found himself in now.

"You don't have to remind me of that dreadful silly season," Oscar said. "While you were weighing your options, I was in an AlphaTauri fighting to prove I deserved the promotion. Would've been ridiculous to recruit from outside. We were this close to playing the Italian national anthem in Baku—and not for Ferrari—because I was dragging that car into places it didn't belong. It would've been stupid not to promote me."

Lando smiled, and the curve of it was almost lazy, but it was the eyes—warm, steady, that impossible green-blue that shifted depending on the light—that got Oscar every time. Had been getting him every time for years, if he was being honest.

"You earned it. You truly did. Podiums in that car? That's not luck, that's just you being good."

Oscar should've shrugged it off, but instead he found himself watching the way Lando's expression sharpened as he went on, how his voice shifted into something more sure. This was Lando in his element—not the nervous pre-qualifying energy, but the steady confidence that came from really believing in something.

"The thing was, even knowing the pitch, knowing where Red Bull was, and just how objectively bad McLaren looked that year… a seat there would've been the most obvious escape. But I didn't. Because I had faith in this place."

It wasn't the words that landed—it was the conviction. That blind, stubborn faith in a team that had once stranded him in midfield purgatory, yet somehow hadn't crushed him. Lando spoke about McLaren like someone defending a friend, not a corporation, and for a moment Oscar could almost believe in that version of the sport. The version where loyalty wasn't just a weakness to be exploited.

Maybe that's what Oscar had always been drawn to—Lando's capacity to believe in things, to have faith even when logic suggested otherwise. It was the complete opposite of Oscar's own approach, which was to trust nothing and verify everything. But watching Lando, seeing how that faith had eventually been rewarded, Oscar wondered if maybe his way wasn't the only way.

Maybe it wasn't even the better way.

"I really thought about it, though—having Max as a teammate. I understand that line you use about having him as your measuring stick. Before you ever had to defend it, I'd already weighed it myself."

Oscar could see it then—the loyalty, the leadership that didn't need a podium to feel solid. This was the kind of belief that made people follow you, the kind of belief that made a team want to be better for you. The kind of leadership Oscar had been watching from a distance for years, first as an admiring junior driver and now as someone who was finally close enough to touch it.

Close enough to want it for himself.

And then Lando's gaze caught his, and there was nothing lazy about it now. Direct, intense, like he could see straight through all of Oscar's carefully constructed walls.

"I didn't need Max to be great. I had my team." His voice softened, almost imperceptibly. "That was enough."

Oscar felt something catch low in his chest—the dangerous temptation to believe that maybe Lando's team could be his too. But it was more than that, wasn't it? It was the even more dangerous temptation to believe that maybe Lando himself could be his. That this thing he'd been carrying around for years—this crush that had evolved from distant admiration into something much more complicated now that they were actually in each other's orbit—might not be as one-sided as he'd always assumed.

Because the way Lando was looking at him right now suggested possibilities that Oscar had never quite dared to consider.

Maybe it wasn't just about the team.

Maybe it had never been just about the team.

—

The cockpit felt smaller in Q3. Always did. Like the walls were closing in with every tick of the session timer, every radio crackle from Hugh counting down the minutes left to get it right. Oscar sat deep in the seat, harness cutting into his shoulders, hands loose on the wheel as the mechanics made their final checks around him.

Two minutes, forty seconds remaining.

Last chance.

He'd scraped into Q3 by three-hundredths—barely. Q1 had been fine, Q2 a mess of traffic and yellow flags that left him fighting for scraps. Now, with the old front wing bolted to his car while Max ran the upgrade he should have had, Oscar knew this lap had to be perfect. Not good. Not competitive. Perfect.

The garage cleared. Engine fired. Hugh's voice crackled through the radio, calm but with that edge that meant everything was on the line.

"Okay, Oscar. Track's good. Wind's dropped. This is your window."

Oscar rolled out of the garage, the pit lane stretching ahead like a runway. The tarmac was dry—properly dry for the first time all weekend—and the late afternoon sun cut long shadows across the track. Silverstone in the golden hour. If you were going to get a perfect lap anywhere, it might as well be here.

He accelerated through the pit lane, feeling the car settle as the tyres warmed. The suspension felt different without the upgraded front wing—less planted, more nervous over the kerbs—but he'd driven worse. He'd driven much worse.

"Gap to car ahead is seven seconds," Hugh said. "You're clear for the flying lap."

Oscar crossed the line to start his final attempt, the timer in his peripheral vision ticking down. Sector 1. This was where the old wing would hurt him most—Copse, Maggotts, Becketts. The high-speed corners where front end grip mattered. Where Max would pull away.

But not yet.

He braked late into Copse, feeling the front tyres bite just enough. The car rotated cleanly, exit speeds good. Through Maggotts the balance felt... right. Not perfect, but right. Like the car was finally talking to him instead of fighting him.

Into Becketts—the sequence that separated the good laps from the great ones—and Oscar found a rhythm. Left-right-left, the wheel moving in his hands like he was conducting something, the car dancing through the esses with a precision that felt almost meditative.

"Purple sector," Hugh's voice, trying to stay calm.

Oscar didn't respond. Couldn't afford to. He was in the zone now, that place where thought stopped and instinct took over. Where the car became an extension of his body and the track became a language he was finally fluent in.

Sector 2. The long straight down to Stowe, then the technical infield section. This was where he could make up time—where racecraft mattered more than aero packages. He hit his marks perfectly, carrying momentum through every corner, finding grip where there shouldn't have been any.

The car felt alive under him. Responsive. Like it wanted to go fast as much as he did.

"Still purple," Hugh said, and Oscar could hear the excitement creeping in despite his engineer's best efforts. "Keep it coming."

Into Club corner, the final sector beginning. Oscar's hands were steady on the wheel, his breathing controlled. This was it. This was the lap. Everything felt connected—the braking points, the apexes, the throttle application. Even the old wing seemed to be cooperating, giving him just enough front end to hit his marks.

Through Abbey, through Farm, the car balanced on a knife's edge but never falling off. He could feel tenths being carved away with every corner, every perfect line. This was what driving was supposed to feel like.

The final chicane approached. Last chance to find time, or lose it all. Oscar braked deep, later than he'd ever braked before, the car dancing on the edge of adhesion. Turn in, hit the apex, power down—

Perfect.

He crossed the line with his heart hammering, knowing—absolutely knowing—that he'd just delivered the lap of his life. Everything had clicked. Every input had been exactly right. He'd taken that old wing and made it sing.

"Oscar..." Hugh's voice came through, and there was something in it. Not celebration. Something else.

"What's the time?"

Silence for a beat too long.

"You're... you're P5, mate."

The words hit like cold water. "What?"

"P5. You improved, you found three tenths, but—"

Oscar's eyes flicked to the timing screen as he rolled through the cool-down lap. The numbers made no sense.

Max: 1:25.819 

Lando: 1:25.872

Charles: 1:26.104 

George: 1:26.139 

Oscar: 1:26.198

Half a second. Max had found nearly half a second over him.

"How much did Max improve?" Oscar asked, though he already knew the answer would hurt.

"Four and a half tenths," Hugh said quietly. "New track record."

Oscar felt something collapse inside his chest. Not anger, not even disappointment. Just... emptiness. He'd driven the perfect lap—the lap of his career—and it wasn't enough. It wasn't even close.

Lando was fifty-three thousandths behind Max. Racing distance. Fighting distance.

Oscar was in another postcode.

"The upgrade?" he asked, though it was barely a question.

"Has to be. That front wing... it's worth at least two tenths through Sector 1 alone."

Oscar pulled into parc fermé, the engine ticking as it cooled. Around him, he could see the mechanics from other teams celebrating. McLaren was ecstatic—Lando on the front row for his home race. Ferrari looked pleased with P3. Even Mercedes seemed satisfied with P4.

Red Bull's mechanics were celebrating too, mobbing Max's car like he'd just won the championship rather than qualified on pole. Which, Oscar supposed, he might as well have done.

He sat in the cockpit longer than he needed to, harness still tight across his chest, hands still gripped on the wheel. He'd given everything—absolutely everything—and it had amounted to P5. Fifth place with the lap of his life.

Through the cockpit, he could see Max climbing out of his car, that easy smile already spreading across his face as Christian rushed over with congratulations. The upgraded wing gleamed under the late afternoon sun, alien and superior and untouchable.

Oscar finally unbuckled his harness and pulled himself out of the car. The mechanics were trying to look positive—pats on the back, "great lap mate," "unlucky with the wing"—but he could see it in their eyes. The same thing he was feeling.

It didn't matter how perfect he was if the car wasn't.

He pulled off his helmet and balaclava, his hair sticking up at odd angles, and looked back at the timing screen one more time.

1:26.198.

The fastest lap he'd ever driven at Silverstone.

And it was worth exactly nothing.

Hugh appeared at his shoulder, tablet in hand, already pulling up the data analysis. "Oscar, that was brilliant driving. Absolutely brilliant. Without the upgrade, that was the maximum possible lap."

Oscar nodded, but the words felt hollow. Maximum possible wasn't good enough. Not anymore. Not when the other Red Bull had found another dimension entirely.

He looked across parc fermé toward the McLaren garage, where Lando was being lifted up by his mechanics, grinning that wide, infectious smile. P2 at his home race. Fighting distance from Max.

Fighting distance.

Oscar had forgotten what that felt like.

"Come on," Hugh said gently. "Media obligations. Then we can debrief properly."

Oscar nodded and started walking toward the media pen, still feeling the ghost of that perfect lap in his hands. The lap that should have been enough.

The lap that proved it would never be enough.

The media pen felt like a tribunal. He stood behind the metal barrier, one hand clamped around it like it was the only thing keeping him upright. On the other side, journalists shuffled between camera crews and dictaphones, flipping through notes like prosecutors about to deliver their closing arguments. 

"Oscar," the first journalist started, Italian accent thick, "obviously P5 is not where Red Bull expects to be. Can you talk us through what happened out there?"

Oscar smiled like a man politely holding the door for someone he wished would walk into traffic.

“The car felt good. I got everything out of it. Sometimes that’s P1, sometimes it’s P5.”

"But you're running the older front wing specification, aren't you? While Max has the upgrade?"

There it was. The first cut.

"Yes," Oscar said simply. He wasn't going to elaborate. Wasn't going to make it easy for them.

A British journalist leaned forward, sensing blood. "There are obvious comparisons being drawn to 2010, when Mark Webber's front wing was given to Sebastian Vettel. Do you see any parallels there?"

Oscar's hands tightened slightly. "I wasn't aware I was doing a history lesson today."

A few scattered chuckles, but the journalist wasn't deterred. "It's just that the pattern seems—"

"The pattern," Oscar interrupted, "is that we had one upgraded wing, Max damaged his, so he got mine. It's not complicated."

"But surely you must feel—"

"I feel like I'm being asked the same question in seventeen different ways," Oscar said, his voice still level but with an edge now. "Next question."

Sky Sports' reporter jumped in. "Oscar, Mark Webber himself said this morning that he sees uncomfortable similarities between your situation and his own. Any response to that?"

Oscar blinked once. Slowly. If he heard the name 'Webber' one more time, he was going to reach across this table and—

"Mark's entitled to his opinion," he said through gritted teeth.

"Do you feel like Red Bull treats their Australian drivers differently?"

The question hung in the air like smoke. Oscar could feel the cameras waiting, the headlines already being written. Piastri Blasts Red Bull Treatment . Aussie Driver Claims Discrimination . Oscar's Webber Moment .

"I think," Oscar said carefully, "Red Bull treats their drivers according to their position in the championship. Currently, that's Max first, me second. Simple as that."

"But if the roles were reversed—"

"They're not reversed," Oscar cut him off. "Max is leading the championship. Max gets the upgraded parts. That's how F1 works."

It was the company line. It was bullshit. And everyone in that room knew it.

Another journalist tried a different angle. "How frustrating is it to drive what you feel is the perfect lap and still be half a second off the pace?"

Finally, a question about driving. "It's not ideal," Oscar admitted. "But I knew going into qualifying that we'd be fighting with different tools. I'm proud of the lap I put together."

"Do you think you would have been on pole with the upgraded wing?"

Oscar paused. The honest answer was maybe. Probably. The safe answer was—

"I think I drove the best lap I could with the car I had."

The questions kept coming. The same themes, the same probing, the same barely concealed glee at watching Red Bull's internal politics play out in public. By the time it was over, Oscar felt like he'd been filleted.

He walked back toward the Red Bull hospitality unit with his jaw clenched so tight it was giving him a headache. The paddock was beginning to empty out—most of the media circus moving on to other stories, other drivers to dissect. But the damage was done. The narrative was set.

Oscar Piastri is the next Mark Webber .

The team’s suite hummed with its usual post-qualifying energy. Engineers huddled around laptops, mechanics shared beers, marketing staff updated social media. The veneer of professional calm that always followed Max's poles.

Oscar walked through it all without stopping, his team kit feeling like a uniform from someone else's army. He barely registered the congratulations, the "unlucky mate"s, the sympathetic looks. His vision had narrowed to a single point: Christian's office door.

He didn't knock.

Christian looked up from his laptop, reading glasses perched on his nose, and for a split second Oscar saw genuine surprise cross his face. Then the practiced smile slid into place.

"Oscar. Good lap out there, mate. Really extracted everything from—"

"Cut the shit, Christian."

The words hung in the air between them. Christian slowly removed his glasses, set them down on the desk with deliberate care.

"I'm sorry?"

Oscar stepped inside and closed the door behind him. "I want you to be honest with me. What do you actually want to do with me? Because I've been nothing but a good soldier for you all these years. I've done everything you've asked. And this is the treatment I get?"

Christian leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. "Oscar, I'm not sure what you're—"

"The wing, Christian. My wing. Given to Max because he made a mistake."

"Max is leading the championship—"

"Max brake-checked me in Austria and somehow I'm the one getting punished for it."

Christian's expression didn't change. That was the thing about him—he could weather any storm with the same mild, reasonable demeanor. It was infuriating.

"Oscar, all you need to show is how much pace you've got. That's it. That's the complete truth of the situation. You just need to prove you can survive alongside Max, and you'll be fine."

Oscar stared at him. "Then why do you keep delaying my contract negotiation?"

The question landed like a punch. Christian blinked once, twice.

"Are you not happy with my performance?" Oscar pressed on. "I'm still P2 behind Max. I still finish races. I still deliver points. So why—"

"And you crashed into Max in front of our shareholders, Oscar."

The words cut through the air like a blade. Oscar felt something cold settle in his stomach.

"How am I supposed to open that conversation now?" Christian continued, his voice still maddeningly calm. "How do I go to them and say we need to prioritize Oscar's contract when the last thing they saw was you taking out our championship leader?"

Oscar couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Are you blind? Didn't you see what really happened? I didn't crash into Max—he fucking brake-checked me."

Christian shrugged, a tiny gesture that somehow contained universes of dismissal. "Yeah, but it doesn't matter, does it? Nobody's going to piss off Max. Not this time, not this year. Because if it's between you and Max, everyone's going to want to keep Max. And we've got to keep him happy."

The office went quiet. The air conditioning hummed. 

Oscar felt something fundamental shift inside him. A tectonic plate moving deep beneath the surface.

"Oh," he said quietly. "Okay. So that's what it is then."

Christian must have heard something in his voice, because his expression softened slightly. "Look, Oscar, I think you're a fast driver. I knew it back then and I still think you are. You're getting there. You just need to hold on for a bit more, okay?"

He leaned forward, earnest now. "Wait until the summer break when all this blows over. Don't make any more mistakes so people will forget what happened. Then we can start the contract extension. As you said—you're P2. There's not really any reason for us to look anywhere else. I'm not looking anywhere else, I can assure you. It's just a matter of timing."

Timing.

Oscar stood there for a long moment, processing. Christian was still talking—something about market dynamics and sponsor relationships—but the words felt like they were coming from underwater.

He thought about the perfect lap he'd just driven. The lap that had felt like everything finally clicking into place. The lap that had been worth exactly nothing because he was driving yesterday's car.

He thought about Max's easy smile as he climbed out of the upgraded Red Bull. The smile of someone who knew the game was rigged in his favor and always would be.

He thought about Lando, celebrating P2 in a McLaren that treated its drivers like equals instead of variables in a political equation.

"Timing," Oscar repeated.

"Exactly. Just a matter of patience."

Oscar nodded slowly. "Right. Patience."

Chapter Text

Oscar walked back toward the driver's rooms with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, head down, navigating the familiar corridors of the Red Bull hospitality unit on autopilot. The conversation with Lando had left him feeling... unsettled. Not in a bad way, exactly, but in a way that made him question things he'd been taking as gospel for the past two years.

The mix of emotions churning in his chest was hard to name. Defeat, yes—the sting of P5 when he'd driven the lap of his life. But underneath that was something else. Something that felt almost like relief. Like a weight he'd been carrying without realizing it had finally been acknowledged.

It wasn't betrayal. It wasn't loyalty either. It was something in between—a cold, clear recognition that at the end of the day, he had no one else but himself. Christian had made that abundantly clear in his office. The team would protect Max, would prioritize Max, would sacrifice Oscar for Max without a second thought. That wasn't personal. It was just business.

But Oscar's career was personal to him.

His driver's room was where it always was—directly across from Max's, because even the architecture of this place seemed designed to remind him of the hierarchy. As polesitter, Max would be drowning in media obligations right now. More journalists gushing over his form, more questions about how much the upgrade had helped him break records at this haunted place. More confirmation that he was untouchable.

Oscar reached his door and fumbled for the key card, already mentally preparing for the blessed quiet of his own space. Somewhere he could sit with his thoughts.

He slid the card, heard the click, turned the handle—

And a hand stopped the door before it could close.

First the hand, then a head peeking around the edge. Messy hair, that familiar expression of casual confidence mixed with something that might have been uncertainty.

Oscar sighed. "Yes. What more do you want, Max?"

Max still looked at him like he'd done nothing wrong. That was the thing about him—he had this incredible ability to compartmentalize, to separate the politics from the personal, the strategic from the human. Oscar sometimes envied that quality. Most of the time it just irritated him.

"I kept my word," Max said, stepping into the room without invitation. "Austria's paid off now."

Oscar rolled his eyes, letting the door swing shut behind them. "I owe you nothing."

The words hung in the air. Max stood there for a moment, hands in his pockets, and for the first time since Oscar had known him, he looked almost... uncomfortable. Not guilty, exactly. Max didn't do guilt. But something close to it.

They stood in silence for a beat. Oscar's driver's room was identical to Max's—same layout, same furniture, same Red Bull branding on every available surface. The only difference was the personal touches: Oscar's helmet on the counter, a photo of his family tucked into the mirror frame, a book he'd been pretending to read between sessions.

"You did great out there," Max said finally. "Got everything out of the car."

Oscar looked up, genuinely surprised. Max didn't say things like that often. When he did, it usually meant something. A small smile tugged at the corner of Oscar's mouth despite everything. It felt good—pathetically good—to get just a smidge of validation from the man who'd been beating him senseless for the past year and a half.

"Thanks," Oscar said, and meant it.

Another pause. Max was fidgeting now, which was so unlike him that Oscar started paying closer attention.

"Look," Max said, and then stopped. Started again. "I'm sorry, okay?"

That surprised Oscar more than anything else that had happened today. Max apologizing was like seeing a unicorn—theoretically possible, but you'd never actually expect to witness it.

"I really didn't plan to break my own front wing," Max continued, the words coming out in a rush like he'd been rehearsing them. "I know how that looks. I know how it feels. And I—" He paused, seemed to gather himself. "I like to think I'm not Vettel."

Oscar raised an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean I'm different," Max said, with more conviction now. "I've got ideas about how this team goes forward that he didn't think about. I don't want to be the guy who just takes and takes until there's nothing left for anyone else."

It was the most self-aware thing Oscar had ever heard Max say. He leaned back against the door, studying Max's face for any sign that this was some kind of strategic play, some new angle in the political chess game they were all trapped in.

But Max looked... tired. Older than his years. Like the weight of being the golden boy was finally catching up with him.

"Things have gone bad," Max admitted, running a hand through his hair. "The past few months, especially with Christian's... situation. His inappropriate behavior. It's soured the whole team, you know? Fish rots from the head." He met Oscar's eyes directly. "All I'm thinking about now is how to steer this ship clear."

Oscar had seen it all. He'd been there through every uncomfortable meeting, every whispered conversation in the garage, every moment when the team's focus had been split between winning races and managing scandals. He'd watched good people leave, watched others become increasingly paranoid about their positions.

He'd watched Max navigate it all with the kind of political skill that came from being untouchable.

"That's not an excuse to keep screwing me over," Oscar said quietly.

Max flinched. Actually flinched. "I know."

"I had faith in this team just as much as you do," Oscar continued, the words spilling out now that he'd started. "I have ambitions just as much as you do. And yeah, I'm not as good as you are. Yet. But I'm working toward that. I'm working really hard just to keep up with you."

The admission hung between them. Oscar had never said it out loud before—the thing they both knew but had never acknowledged. That he was chasing Max, that every lap was measured against Max's standard, that his entire career had become an exercise in trying to prove he belonged in the same conversation.

Max was quiet for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer than Oscar had ever heard it.

"You're closer than you think," he said. "Today proved that. That lap... with the same equipment, you would've been right there."

Oscar felt something twist in his chest. It was what he'd wanted to hear for months. Validation from the one person whose opinion actually mattered in this team. But it came too late, didn't it? After the damage was already done.

"But it doesn't matter," Oscar said. "Because I'll never get the same equipment, will I? Not as long as you're here."

Max didn't answer right away. Couldn't, maybe. Because they both knew the truth of it.

"The team needs someone like you," Max said finally. "Someone who can score points. Good, sizable points. That's not nothing, Oscar."

"Is it, though?" Oscar asked. "Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like the team needs someone who can follow orders and not cause problems. Someone who can be fast enough to make you look good, but not fast enough to make you look vulnerable."

Max opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. Because what could he say to that? That it wasn't true? They both knew better.

"I don't know how to fix it," Max said quietly. "The politics, the hierarchy, all of it. I didn't ask for it to be this way."

"But you benefit from it," Oscar pointed out. "So you don't exactly have incentive to change it."

"Don't I?" Max asked, and there was something raw in his voice now. "You think I like being the villain in everyone else's story? You think I like knowing that every win gets an asterisk because maybe my teammate didn't get a fair shot?"

Oscar stared at him. This was a side of Max he'd never seen before—vulnerable, almost desperate. Human.

"Then do something about it," Oscar said.

"Like what?"

"I don't know. That's not my job to figure out." Oscar straightened up, some of his earlier resolve returning. "My job is to look out for myself. Because if I don't, no one else will."

—

The conversation leading up to this race had been an abundance of overanalysis about the parallels between this year and 2010. By the time the lights went out, Oscar was still holding out hope that somehow, somewhere, Max would lose position in any possible way. He'd been hoping so much for Lando to nudge Max a bit—maybe give him a puncture the way Hamilton had done to Vettel all those years ago—but as the first lap finished, Max was already pulling a gap far enough that Oscar realized it wasn't happening.

Max's start was perfect. Clinical. The kind of launch that reminded you why he was a three-time world champion and why Red Bull's faith in him was rarely misplaced.

Lando, who should've been the one putting pressure on Max as the guy starting from second position, actually lost two positions at the start. Now Oscar found himself behind his McLaren while Charles and George had moved up, which was deeply disappointing. The one person who'd had the pace to challenge Max in qualifying had bottled it when it mattered most, and Oscar was left watching the championship leader disappear into the distance.

Oscar tried to focus on his own race now. There were still opportunities—there had to be. He pursued and pursued, but after a few laps he realized the fight was pretty much between Max and Charles up front, while Lando was chasing George, and Oscar was stuck in this stupid middle ground where he was fast enough to pull a significant gap to the midfielders, but not fast enough to challenge for the lead. He didn't even have enough pace to complain about dirty air—the gap was just too big for that excuse.

Not even the weather was on his side. You'd think it should be raining at Silverstone—it was practically a tradition—but lo and behold, it was so sunny today that Oscar couldn't even bet on some rain chaos to push himself forward. It was just predictably disappointing, the way things unfolded. The sheer distance between himself and George was so wide he was starting to resort to wishing for a miracle.

And then, as if the racing gods had finally remembered he existed, a miracle did happen.

The two French drivers crashed into each other somewhere at the back—Gasly and Ocon, naturally—causing enough of a mess that the race was yellow-flagged and the safety car was called. Lap 15. The perfect pit window for the front runners.

It wasn't even a discussion for the leaders. Max, Charles, Lando, and George all dove into the pits immediately, their teams having planned for exactly this scenario. The real question was what Oscar should do, because following them would mean getting stuck in traffic, and double-stacking behind Max would definitely hurt his pit time.

Hugh's voice crackled through the radio: "Oscar, we can double-stack you behind Max if you want fresh tyres."

Oscar didn't think about it much—didn't overthink what would happen next. Pure instinct took over.

"I'd rather stay out," he said.

And just like that, he watched the safety car pick him up as he inherited the race lead.

They had two laps behind the safety car now. Apparently the crash was that bad—Oscar could only imagine how upset and embarrassed the people at Alpine were at that point. Somewhere in the background, Hugh was updating him that the order was now Oscar, Charles, Max, Lando, and George, because Max's pitstop had been fucked and Charles had come out ahead.

Now it was time for the restart, and Oscar had to admit he hadn't done this many times. In his brain he kept telling himself don't fuck this up don't fuck this up don't fuck this up all the way until the lights went green and he launched with the cleanest precision he could manage.

"Good job on the restart," Hugh's voice crackled through. "Now it's time to build a gap."

Oscar drove qualifying-style laps but without overcooking the tyres. It was a delicate balance—pushing hard enough to build time, but not so hard that he'd pay for it later when everyone else caught up on fresh rubber.

"How are the tyres?" Hugh kept asking.

"Surprisingly better shape than expected," Oscar replied, finding a rhythm that felt sustainable.

"That's good. Target plus three-tenths each lap. Aiming for lap 25 stop." Hugh paused, then added, "It's taking longer for Max to pass Charles, so use this opportunity."

Oscar continued pulling a bigger gap. Clean air was king, and for once he had it. Finally, at lap 25, he dove into the pits for hards, believing—actually believing—that he'd be within fighting distance of Max when the stops shook out.

Surprisingly, the pitstop crew didn't fuck this one up. Sub-2-second pit stop. Oscar owed every single one of these guys some drinks.

When he was driving out, he saw Max looming in his mirrors down the Wellington Straight on his out lap. Oscar had made it out ahead of Max—a fucking victorious moment that lasted for precisely half a second before he realized: oh shit, I’ve got to defend now.

And he was defending from Max. With the faster front wing.

Oscar's hards were cold and Max's mediums were up to temperature, but there was something in Max's approach that told Oscar that Max was underestimating him. Max sent half-moves into Brooklands and Copse—not full lunges, but enough to test Oscar's mirrors and force him to compromise his exits.

Hugh was on the radio, reminding him: "Don't defend too early. Force him to the outside. Focus on traction."

Oscar used every inch of Silverstone's width, leaning on clean lines and early apexes to kill Max's momentum without weaving. 

Oscar and Max had been teammates for eighteen months by this point, and it wasn't like they'd never had wheel-to-wheel battles before, but it was always so daunting when you were the prey and Max was the hunter.

And Max's hunting style was not for the faint-hearted.

Oscar was fighting for his life. Max was the faster car—upgraded wings, tyres in the perfect window—but Oscar was relying on pure racecraft to stay ahead. And if there was one thing in his skillset he was proud of, it was this: his racing intelligence. In Oscar's short career so far, it was this. He could do this. It was difficult, but he could do this.

Through Brooklands, Max pulled alongside on the outside, the upgraded front wing giving him more front-end grip through the medium-speed corner. But Oscar held the inside line, late on the brakes, forcing Max to take a wider line that compromised his exit speed. Down the Wellington Straight, Max had DRS, the slipstream, everything—but Oscar's exit had been just clean enough to keep him ahead by the time they reached Village.

Into Copse, Max tried again. This time he feinted left, then switched to the outside. Oscar covered, but barely. Max was millimeters from his rear wing, close enough that Oscar could feel the turbulence in his mirrors. But the thing was—Max couldn't get past cleanly because the DRS zones weren't quite long enough when Oscar nailed the exits.

Through Maggotts and Becketts, Oscar used every inch of track knowledge he had. Early apexes to kill Max's momentum. Defensive lines that weren't blocking but made overtaking nearly impossible. Max tried the inside into Chapel, got a better exit, pulled alongside through the Hangar Straight—but Oscar held firm into Club, squeezing Max to the outside where the grip fell away.

Hugh gave constant updates on the gap, on Max's situation, on tyre temperatures. After seven laps of defending within inches of his life, Oscar realized he'd just forced Max into a one-stop strategy with him. This meant he was at an advantage—he had ten laps younger tyres—but only if he could survive the next few laps.

Oscar's gap to Charles in P3 grew, giving him breathing room to use the whole track in his battles with Max.

Hugh gave Oscar constant encouragement, updating him on how encouraging the tyre performance actually was, how they were getting closer and closer to the projected window where Max's mediums would start to fall off.

And most surprisingly, it happened earlier than everyone thought. Must be something yet to be measured with the new front wing affecting the car balance.

By lap 39, Max tried the outside into Stowe twice, and once into Vale, each time almost making it stick. The moves were getting more desperate, more committed. Oscar could feel his rear grip starting to go, and this is where that 'gentler on tyres' old front wing was paying off.

Hugh's voice crackled through: "Your degradation's lower than his. If you can hold until Lap 50, he's done."

Oscar could feel it somewhere between Lap 46 to 50. Something was shifting. Max's moves were getting sharper, more committed, but also more ragged around the edges. The clinical precision that had defined Max Verstappen for three championship seasons was fraying, lap by lap, tenth by tenth.

A dive down the inside at Village that came too late, too hot. Oscar barely covered it, but he could hear it in the way Max's tyres protested through the corner—that high-pitched squeal of rubber at the absolute limit. He's cooking them, Oscar thought, allowing himself the smallest flicker of hope before crushing it down. Don't. Not yet.

Then came the late brake into Brooklands, Max pulling alongside like he was driving in desperation rather than strategy. Oscar had to run wide to hold position, sacrificing his ideal line, but as they exited the corner he caught a glimpse of Max's rear tyres in his peripheral vision. The telltale wisps of smoke. The slight slide that Max corrected just a fraction too late.

He's losing it. The car's losing it.

But Oscar forced himself to focus on his own lines, his own race. Because this was Max fucking Verstappen, and Oscar had seen him pull impossible moves out of nowhere too many times to count. Had seen him win races on tyres that should have been dead ten laps earlier. Had watched him conjure speed from cars that had no right to be that fast.

Each defensive move Oscar made was perfect—not illegal, not blocking, just positioned exactly where Max didn't want him to be. But with every successful defense, Oscar could feel something building in his chest. Something dangerous and intoxicating that he couldn't let himself name.

This could be it.

The thought hit him like a physical blow. His first win this year. His first real, proper, earned-it-on-merit win against the best driver in the world. Not a lucky strategy call or a safety car gift or Max having a mechanical failure. This would be him, Oscar Piastri, beating Max Verstappen in a straight fight.

No. Stop. Don't think about it.

Because there were still a million ways it could slip through his fingers. A safety car. A puncture. His own tyres finally giving up. Max finding one last burst of pace from somewhere. Christian calling him into the pits for some bullshit strategic reason. The car breaking down. A penalty for aggressive defending that wasn't actually aggressive but would get called anyway because the stewards loved their drama.

Focus. One corner at a time.

By Lap 50, Max was throwing everything at him. The biggest attack came into Copse, Max pulling alongside through the entire corner, wheel-to-wheel at 180 mph. Oscar could see Max's helmet in his peripheral vision, could feel the heat shimmer from the other Red Bull's engine, could hear the desperate whine of Max's tyres begging for grip they no longer had.

But Oscar held firm, sacrificing entry speed for a perfect exit, using every inch of track knowledge to block the run to Maggotts. The crowd was loud —probably half of them cheering for the home race hero in the McLaren colors they wished Oscar was wearing, the other half just thrilled to see someone, anyone, give Max Verstappen a proper fight.

Don't think about what this means. Don't think about the headlines. Don't think about Horner's face. Don't think about proving everyone wrong.

Don't think about how this changes everything.

The desperation in Max's driving was palpable now that they were starting the final lap, transmitted through the radio waves and the screaming crowd and the way Max's car twitched under braking. Oscar had seen Max desperate before—Austria, when he'd brake-checked Oscar rather than lose position cleanly. But this was different. This was Max realizing that for once, maybe for the first time in years, his reputation and his political protection and his superior equipment weren't going to be enough.

The dive into Brooklands came like Oscar knew it would—too late, too deep, the kind of move that was either genius or suicide. Oscar covered it, running a defensive line all the way through Luffield, his heart hammering so hard he could feel it in his eardrums. When they exited onto the Wellington Straight, Oscar was still just far enough ahead.

One more sector. Just one more sector.

Hugh's voice crackled through the radio, probably saying something encouraging or tactical, but Oscar couldn't hear it over the blood rushing in his ears. He could see the checkered flag marshal getting ready. Could see the finish line approaching like the end of everything he'd been working toward since he was eight years old and first sat in a go-kart.

This is it. This is actually it.

And for the first time in five laps, Oscar let himself believe.

Oscar crossed the line maybe half a second ahead.

Hugh came over the radio with something beautifully understated: "P1, Oscar. That's how you do it."

Oscar's hands were shaking on the cool-down lap, because this wasn't a lucky circumstance where Max was taken out by an outside factor like Vettel did. It was better, he'd beaten Max in a straight-up fight on tyre strategy and racecraft.

Christian's voice crackled through the radio, like he usually did after wins: "Well done, Oscar. What a performance. You gave us a lot to think about going forward."

Oscar was tempted to borrow Webber's line— "Not bad for a number two driver" —but he didn't, because he wasn’t and he wasn’t going to. He was never gonna let himself to be one. 

Instead, he said something else:

"Thanks, Christian. Just doing what you hired me to do."

—

Oscar took his time on the cool-down lap.

For once in his life, he had nowhere urgent to be. No engineer barking sector times in his ear, no strategy calls to process, no gap to Max to worry about closing. Just him, the car, and sixty-thousand people on their feet screaming for something they hadn't expected to see.

He lifted his hand off the steering wheel—first the right, then the left, waving at the grandstands as he rolled past at what felt like a leisurely Sunday drive pace. The fans were electric, a sea of movement and noise and flags from every nation, but especially the Union Jacks and the random smattering of Australian flags that made something warm bloom in his chest.

They were cheering for him . Not Max. Not the inevitable. Him.

He could see the marshals waving him toward parc fermé, could see the TV cameras tracking his car, could see his own face grinning back at him from the big screens around the circuit. Oscar Piastri, race winner. It had a nice ring to it.

When he finally rolled into parc fermé, the P1 sign looked smaller than he'd imagined it would. All those times watching from P2 or P5 or wherever he'd ended up, he'd built it up in his mind as this towering monument to achievement. But it was just a small white board with a number on it. Simple. Perfect.

He was the last to pull in—Max and Charles and whoever else had been in the podium fight were already climbing out of their cars, already being swarmed by their teams. But Oscar took his time here too, letting the engine tick and cool, letting the moment stretch out like honey.

The car had done it. The old wing, the supposedly inferior package, the equipment they'd given him as an afterthought. It had been enough. He'd been enough.

He reached up and unclasped his helmet, then the HANS device, then finally the seatbelt. His hands were still shaking slightly—adrenaline, probably, or relief, or the sheer disbelief that this was actually happening.

When he stood up in the cockpit, the noise hit him like a physical thing. He could see photographers sprinting closer, could see the Red Bull mechanics already running toward his car, could see the officials with their clipboards and their serious faces preparing to do whatever it was officials did after someone won a Grand Prix.

But for just a second, it was just him and the car and the moment.

Oscar planted his feet on either side of the cockpit, steadied himself on the RB20 with its older, supposedly inadequate front wing, and punched the air with both fists.

The roar from the crowd was deafening.

"FUCKING YES!" he shouted, not caring that every microphone in a fifty-meter radius probably picked it up, not caring that his mum would definitely hear about the language later. He punched the air again, then pointed at the Red Bull logo on the nose of the car like he was claiming it, owning it, making it his.

This is mine. I earned this.

When he finally climbed out of the car properly, Max was already there waiting for him.

Max had his helmet off, his hair sticking up at odd angles from the heat and sweat, and his expression was... complicated. Frustration, yes, because Max Verstappen didn't lose gracefully—didn't lose at all, usually. But underneath that was something else. Recognition, maybe. The kind of look one driver gave another when they'd just been in a proper fight and both had walked away with their reputations intact.

It was the expression Oscar had dreamed of seeing since the day he'd learned he was getting promoted to this seat. Not pity, not polite encouragement, but genuine respect from the man who'd been setting the standard for everyone else.

"Good race," Max said, extending his hand.

That was it. No qualifiers, no asterisks, no mention of equipment or strategy or luck. Just acknowledgment that Oscar had driven well enough to beat him when it mattered.

And somehow, that was all Oscar needed.

"Thanks," Oscar replied, shaking Max's hand firmly. "You too."

Max smiled—small, but real—and clapped him on the shoulder before disappearing back toward his own team's debriefs and disappointment management.

Then the mechanics arrived like a wave, surrounding him with pats on the helmet and hands squeezing his shoulders and voices shouting congratulations that he couldn't quite make out over the noise. These were the same guys who'd been working on his car all weekend, who'd watched him struggle with the older wing package, who'd probably been just as frustrated as he was when Max got the upgrade.

Now they were grinning like they'd personally delivered the victory.

Oscar turned toward the weigh-in area—still had to do the boring official stuff, still had to prove he and the car were legal—when he caught sight of a familiar papaya suit in his peripheral vision.

Lando was standing just outside the McLaren cluster, already helmet-free, that ridiculous smile spread across his face like Oscar's victory was the best thing that had happened to him all day. Which, considering McLaren had apparently secured P3, was saying something.

Their eyes met across the chaos of parc fermé, and Oscar felt something settle in his chest that had nothing to do with winning races and everything to do with the way Lando looked at him like he was proud.

Oscar walked over, and they did that awkward thing where it was half handshake, half hug—too formal for friends, too casual for rivals, exactly right for whatever they were becoming. Lando's hand was warm in his, and the hug lasted just long enough for Oscar to catch the scent of his shampoo under the racing suit smell.

"Mate, that was legendary," Lando said, still grinning. "Proper legendary. The way you held him off those last ten laps..."

"Thanks," Oscar replied, trying not to think about how good it felt to have Lando's hand on his shoulder, how natural this felt despite everything. "Sorry you've still got to chase that home race win, though."

Lando shrugged, that easy, uncomplicated shrug that Oscar had been cataloging for years. "Ah, this one's pretty sweet too. Besides..." He lowered his voice slightly, leaning in just close enough that Oscar could see the flecks of gold in his eyes. "Might even consider racing you in the same team next year, if you keep driving like that."

Oscar's heart did something complicated in his chest. "We'll see," he said, trying to keep his voice light, trying not to let on that Lando had just voiced the exact thought that had been growing in the back of his mind for weeks.

Lando's smile widened. "Yeah," he said softly. "We'll see."

The cooldown room was blissfully quiet compared to the chaos outside. Just the three of them—Oscar, Max, and Lando—sitting in those uncomfortable plastic chairs while the TV screens replayed their race in neat, sanitized highlights. Oscar reached for one of the ice-cold water bottles, the condensation immediately coating his gloves, and took a long sip. His hands were finally steady again.

The first replay showed the start, and Oscar watched Lando's McLaren get swallowed up by Charles and George in those crucial opening corners.

"Fucking hell," Lando muttered, shaking his head at his own mistake. "Can't believe I bottled that start."

"Could've been fighting Max from lap one," Oscar said, glancing sideways at him. "Would've made my life easier."

"Yeah, well," Lando grinned ruefully, "had to give you something to work with, didn't I?"

Then came the Alpine crash—Gasly and Ocon tangled up somewhere in the midfield, the kind of messy, unnecessary contact that always seemed to happen when those two got near each other. Oscar watched the safety car deploy, saw the moment that changed everything.

"There," Max said, pointing at the screen as the replay showed the top four all diving into the pits simultaneously. "That's where it all went wrong."

Oscar watched himself staying out, inheriting the lead as everyone else scrambled for fresh tyres. He could still remember Hugh's voice asking if he wanted to double-stack behind Max, could still feel that split-second decision that had seemed so obvious at the time.

"Good call," Lando said. "Double-stacking would've killed you."

Oscar nodded, taking another sip of water. "Didn't even think about it, really. Just knew I didn't want to get stuck behind Max in the pits."

The next sequence showed exactly why that decision had been crucial—Max's pit stop was a disaster. Oscar watched the replay of his teammate's car sitting stationary for an extra two seconds, the rear gunman struggling with a wheel nut that didn't want to cooperate.

"There's your race," Oscar said to Max, not unkindly. "Team messed that one up."

Max's jaw tightened slightly. "Yeah. Shit happens."

But the real entertainment came next—the extended battle between Max and Charles that had lasted far longer than anyone expected. Lap after lap of Max trying to find a way past the Ferrari, Charles defending with that particular brand of controlled aggression that only came from years of fighting Red Bulls.

"Those were some good defending there," Oscar said, genuinely impressed by Charles's racecraft.

Max side-eyed him with the kind of look that suggested he knew exactly what Oscar was really saying. See how it feels to be stuck behind someone when you're faster?

"Charles always makes you work for it," Max replied diplomatically.

Then came the moment Oscar had been dreading watching back—lap 25, when he'd emerged from his pit stop just barely ahead of Max. The replay showed it from three different angles: onboard from Oscar's car, onboard from Max's, then the wide shot that captured just how close it had been.

"Jesus," Oscar muttered, watching his own car appear in Max's mirrors with maybe half a car length to spare. "I still can't believe I made it out alive."

"Those are some impressive moves," Lando said, leaning forward to watch more closely. "The way you covered into Brooklands there—that was proper racing."

Oscar felt heat creep up his neck. Coming from Lando, that meant something. But he could see Max's expression in his peripheral vision, that carefully neutral look that meant he was thinking things he wasn't going to say out loud.

The replay continued through those brutal defending sequences—Oscar throwing his car into every gap Max tried to create, using every inch of track knowledge to stay ahead. Watching it back, it looked even more desperate than it had felt at the time.

"You drove like your life depended on it," Max said quietly, and there was something in his voice that might have been admiration. Or annoyance. With Max, it was hard to tell the difference.

The screen shifted to show Lando's own fight—the series of moves that had eventually gotten him past both Charles and George to secure the final podium spot. Clean, clinical overtakes that showcased exactly why McLaren had been so eager to keep him.

"Not bad yourself," Oscar said, watching Lando pick off George around the outside of Copse with the kind of commitment that made Oscar's chest tight for reasons that had nothing to do with racing.

"Had to do something to stay relevant," Lando replied with that self-deprecating grin. "Couldn't let you two have all the fun."

Finally, a race official appeared at the door—the universal signal that it was time for the podium ceremony. Oscar's stomach did a small flip as they were ushered out of the room and toward the steps leading up to the platform.

The crowd noise hit them like a wall as they emerged into the afternoon sun. Oscar had watched dozens of podium ceremonies from the garage or the pitwall, but standing here—actually standing here in first place—felt surreal.

They called his name first. "Your race winner, Oscar Piastri!"

The roar was deafening. Oscar climbed the steps to the top step, the highest one, the one he'd been imagining himself on since he was eight years old. The view from up there was different than he'd expected—he could see everything. The crowd, the paddock, the other teams watching from below.

When they played the Australian national anthem, Oscar felt something crack open in his chest.

Advance Australia Fair —the same song he'd heard at junior karting ceremonies, the same song that had played in his head during those long nights in European hotel rooms when he was sixteen and homesick and wondering if this would ever actually happen.

But this time it was real. This time it was for him.

Oscar closed his eyes and let the music wash over him, let himself feel the weight of the moment. He'd made his point. Finally, definitively, he'd made his point.

When he opened his eyes, he could see Max on the second step, champagne bottle already in hand, looking like he was preparing for battle. Lando was grinning up at him from the third step, that proud, uncomplicated joy written all over his face.

This is it, Oscar thought. This is the moment everything changes.

The champagne came next—Max and Lando both aiming for him, Oscar spraying back with the kind of wild abandon he'd never allowed himself before. For three minutes, it was just pure celebration. Pure joy.

No politics. No strategies. No measuring himself against impossible standards.

Just Oscar Piastri, race winner, finally exactly where he belonged.

Chapter Text

The Mediterranean sun was doing exactly what it was supposed to do in early August—turning everything golden and lazy and perfect. Oscar stretched out on the lounger, toes buried in sand that was still warm from the afternoon heat, watching the waves roll in with the kind of hypnotic rhythm that made time feel irrelevant.

It had been a month and a half since Silverstone. Since everything changed.

Spa had been even better—a proper lights-to-flag victory in the wet that reminded everyone why they called it the great equalizer. Hungary had been P2, which would've felt like a disappointment six months ago but now just felt like confirmation that he belonged at the sharp end. Three podiums in four races. Not bad, all things considered.

Not bad at all.

Jack was planted in the chair beside him, somehow managing to look busy even during the mandatory summer shutdown. His phone hadn't stopped buzzing for the past hour, and he kept switching between calls with the frantic energy of someone juggling too many conversations at once.

Oscar watched him from behind his sunglasses, thinking that Jack was doing entirely too much for someone who was supposed to be on vacation. The constant phone-checking, the way he kept glancing over like he expected Oscar to spontaneously combust—it was exhausting just to observe.

"What else do they want?" Oscar asked when Jack finally hung up, his tone deliberately casual.

Jack looked up from his phone, sweat beading on his forehead despite the umbrella shade. "They want you to pick up the phone, apparently."

Oscar sighed and took a sip of his iced coffee. "I thought we were pretty clear. I've made my decision."

"Yeah, but you know, it's Red Bull," Jack said, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. "They don't like other people making the calls. They like to be in control." He paused, scrolling through his phone with increasing agitation. "Looks like they're going public with it."

Oscar felt something cold settle in his stomach that had nothing to do with the iced coffee. "What do you mean, going public?"

"Oh, fuck," Jack muttered, staring at his screen. "They're making a statement."

He thrust his phone toward Oscar like it was evidence of a crime. "Look at this."

Oscar took the phone, squinting at the screen in the bright sunlight. The Red Bull Racing Twitter account, posted twelve minutes ago:

Red Bull Racing is happy to confirm that Oscar Piastri will continue to drive for the team. We look forward to his continued contributions to our championship campaigns.

Oscar stared at the statement, his jaw tightening with each word. The casual presumption of it. The way they'd phrased it like he'd never had a choice in the matter. Like the past month of silence and ignored calls had meant nothing.

We look forward to his continued contributions.

Like he was a piece of equipment they owned rather than a person who could make his own decisions. The sheer fucking audacity of it.

Oscar felt something shift inside him—the same cold clarity that had hit him in Christian's office, the same moment of recognition that had crystallized during those conversations with Lando and Zak. The moment when you realized that some bridges were always meant to be burned.

A slow smile spread across Oscar's face—the kind of smile that probably would have worried Jack if he'd been paying attention.

"Give me my phone," Oscar said.

Jack blinked. "What?"

"My phone. The black one. In my bag."

Jack rummaged through Oscar's beach bag and handed over the device, looking increasingly nervous. "Oscar, what are you—"

But Oscar was already opening Twitter, his thumbs moving across the screen with the kind of deliberate precision he usually reserved for qualifying laps.

I understand that, without my agreement, Red Bull Racing 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 Red Bull for 2025. I will not be driving for Red Bull next year.

He hit send before Jack could stop him.

The tweet was live for exactly thirty seconds before Jack's phone started ringing. Then Oscar's phone. Then what sounded like every phone within a fifty-meter radius.

"Jesus Christ, Oscar," Jack said, staring at his screen as the notifications exploded. "Do you have any idea what you've just done?"

Oscar leaned back in his lounger, surprisingly calm for someone who'd just detonated a nuclear bomb in the middle of the F1 silly season. The Mediterranean sun felt warm on his face, the sound of waves lapping at the shore was peaceful, and for the first time in months, he felt completely, utterly free.

"Yeah," he said, closing his eyes behind his sunglasses. "I've made my point."

His phone buzzed with what was probably a very angry call from Christian Horner. Oscar glanced at the screen, smiled, and sent it to voicemail.

Then he picked up his book—the one he'd been pretending to read for three days—and finally started reading it for real.