Chapter Text
“Well, I suppose our first question will be for you, Kit.” Her stomach twisted in excitement and nerves as she nodded, trying to hide the smile that began to form on her face. Her knee bobbed up and down under the press conference table, and she heard Max scoff almost inaudibly from beside her. Dick.
“Obviously you would be quite excited for this opportunity with RedBull, how did you first react when you heard the news and what are your goals for the rest of the season?” All eyes in the room were on her, which would obviously have been the same at Torro Rosso after being asked a press conference question, but it felt more intense now. More pointed. Not intense enough to dim the smile she let free, but still daunting.
“Yeah, I’m incredibly excited, I think when I first found out I said some choice words that can’t be repeated and then called my mum.” Kit grinned as she heard small chuckles from the other drivers except for Max. “And I just want to try and drive the best I’ve ever driven. Obviously it’s a new car, I’ve only driven it a few times, but at the end of the day it’s also the best car I’ve ever driven and I want to use this opportunity to the best of my ability.”
“And now to Max, how are you feeling coming into this weekend with a new teammate, and was the news as surprising for you?” Max shuffled around in his seat before answering.
“Well, I found out before Kit, just after Hungary, so it wasn’t really a surprise for me, no. And I’m feeling good about this weekend, even though the track here is probably not really suited to us I think we can still do well.” The deadpan yet slightly smug tone of his voice as he said her move to RedBull ‘wasn’t surprising’ made Kit’s smile dim and the feeling of resentment simmer in her stomach, but she couldn’t let it be too obvious that she found her teammate insufferable. Not this early on anyway.
“You could at least try and look like you can tolerate me.” Kit said under her breath as Checo answered a question about his contract at Racing Point.
“Waste of energy.” Max muttered back. God, she just wanted to smash his face against the table. She couldn’t wait until she was out of this room and back to her hotel. It was an unusually hot day in Spa, and the shorts she was wearing weren’t enough to cool her skin, she needed to be submerged in crystal clear pool water.
“Kit?” One of the journalists said expectantly.
“Hmm? Sorry, could you repeat the question?” Kit said good-naturedly, annoyed at herself for letting Max Verstappen distract her.
“You made your debut last year and are arguably the first successful female Formula 1 driver ever, do you think that this promotion to RedBull is a step in the right direction for women in the sport?”
“Definitely, I mean, I don’t wanna get too ahead of myself, ‘cause I haven’t even finished one race with RedBull yet, but I think that, I mean hopefully, this shows that I’m not some kind of one year fad in this sport and that this female presence is a permanent one.” Over the past year and a half, Kit had become an expert at phrasing her feminist answers just lowkey enough to not lose support of her predominantly male fane base. She played with the friendship bracelet she was wearing (that she’d made for herself, by the way) as the others answered the remaining questions, fielding a couple of her own about strategy and race pace, and then they were finally released from the room that was growing stuffier by the minute.
Max stood up an unmic-ed himself with speed that would’ve been impressive if it didn’t exude the arrogance that made Kit’s blood boil under her skin. She hated that she hated him so much. Usually, she was an incredibly unbothered person. Obviously she got annoyed and angry and sad, but she never struggled to regulate her emotions, especially not in public. When it came to Max, she just wanted to fulfill every emotional-woman stereotype and scream at him until her eyes bulged out.
His grating personality never bothered her before joining Torro Rosso at the beginning of the year. Her rookie season the previous year with Sauber didn’t make their paths cross overly often, typically only when Daniel wanted to talk to his fellow Aussie on the grid, and so she never got to feel the full extent of his cocky, careless attitude. Well, until their first Torro Rosso/RedBull meeting at the beginning of the year. It was in Australia just before race 1, and Kit was beaming even more than usual due to being home. Daniil and her seemed to be getting along just fine, and Pierre was already charming her with his French accent and blond hair. And then there was Max. She could practically relive their first extended interaction word for word.
“Hey Max.” Kit said, sitting down beside him at the long meeting table. They were the first there, and Kit cringed as her Australian accent, stronger and more harsh than usual from spending some time at home, rebounded off the walls. Max barely let out a grunt in response, texting a contact she couldn’t make out in Dutch. Kit figured he was just having a bad day, or maybe they were talking about something serious. Not wanting to pry, she took out her phone to respond to some messages as well.
“You don’t have to try and look busy.” He said from beside her. She moved around to face him but saw that he hadn’t looked up from his phone.
“I’m not-I mean, you could’ve just said hi back in the first place.” Usually Kit wouldn’t be so antagonistic, but something about his smug little face and his arrogant Dutch accent made her feel riled up already. And yet, he just continued to stare at his phone. Dick.
“Sorry, did I hurt your feelings?” He said stonily. “You’re gonna need thicker skin than that if you want to have a career.” And with that, their collective bosses entered the room and Max locked his phone, still not looking over at her once.
She had tried to give him the benefit of the doubt a few times after that, but to no avail. There was not a single human on the planet who could be so consistently sick, tired, or in a bad mood. No, he was just a douche. And yet, she was the only driver who he seriously seemed to detest. Sure, he had a certain anger management problem that unleashed itself on any driver he deemed crossing a boundary, but he wasn’t this consistent with anyone else. Even Esteban, who went through an extended period of sidestepping Max in the paddock didn’t seem to mind him off the track, and Max was fairly civil to him now.
Following him out of the press conference room and into the sun, Kit felt her fists clench subconsciously as he slid his sunglasses on. Did every other driver, including her, do the same? Yes. Was it irritating when Max did it? Of course.
“Ayy, Kit, how are you mate?” Charles said from behind her. They’d raced together at Sauber the year before, and it was nice seeing them both in the uniforms of better teams this year.
“I’m good, I’m fucking shitting my pants for this race though. How about you?” She said, grin on her face as usual.
“I’m great, I gotta go but good luck for Saturday if I don’t see you before then.” Turning around, Kit saw that Max was nearly halfway down the paddock already and talking to Daniel, even though their next media activity was together.
“Hey Danny.” Kit said as she approached the pair, pointedly saying nothing to Max.
“Hey Kit Kat, come to collect your boy?” Daniel replied, nodding towards Max. He knew that the pair had a tense relationship and, being on good terms with both of them, exasperated this constantly.
“Sure.” Kit panned, looking at Max’s now emotionless face.
“Yeah, we should be going mate. See you round.” Max said, not acknowledging Kit at all.
“See you two. And try to tone down the love.” Daniel laughed, although his audience wasn’t quite as well-humoured. The pair walked to the pit lane in near silence, stopping before a Sky Sports F1 TV crew and a Honda sports car. God, this was already looking bad.
“Hello you two! Ready for a bit of fun?” Johnny Herbert, one of the Sky presenters said as the pair approached the car.
“Of course.” Kit said cheerfully, while Max just smiled stiffly. He couldn’t make it easy for anyone, could he.
“Alright, well basically we’re just gonna be filming a little video that’ll go on Youtube and play before the race on telly and that, so nothing serious. You’ll each have two laps around the ring, and obviously we want you to drive safely, but the challenge of the video is to try not to say anything as the other person drives so, you know, you’ll have to do a bit of dodgy stuff.” Johnny chuckled to himself. Kit was internally groaning but kept a smile on her face. These sorts of videos were ones they made teammates do to show off their friendship. A friendship that F1 fans would soon realise didn’t exist between Max and herself. She’d seen a few posts on Instagram with very grainy pictures or poorly edited together videos that captured rare moments of interaction between the pair over the past year and a half that seemed to indicate that they would have a good relationship as teammates, but to be honest half of them were just when Daniel, their intermediary, was also there.
As they were getting their mics put on, Kit tried to ignore the feeling of the very attractive sound guy’s hands on her bare lower back as he threaded the clip on mic pack down the back of her shirt. It had been a dry few months in Kit’s bedroom, that was for sure. People thought that being the only female driver would make her life dick-city, but so far the only dick she had in her life was in the shape of Max Verstappen.
“You wanna go first or me?” Max asked as he put on his helmet, t-shirt hem rising up at the bottom as he did so.
“You can, we wouldn’t want you to have to vomit in between turns.” Kit said, smiling. Max just rolled his eyes and took the keys from Johnny Herbert. There was one camera in the car, and it was only a go-pro set up on Kit’s side of the car. She made a note of pointedly pressing her lips together as Max also entered the car, and did her seatbelt up with a warning look in her eyes. If Max wasn’t going to provide any content and force them into more friendship bonding activities, then Kit would just have to carry the show.
Max strapped himself in, put the keys in the ignition and revved the car a few times before lurching forward and then breaking again suddenly. Kit opened her mouth to let out a truly Aussie “Fuck” but contained herself, her competitive side coming out even in this trivial game. Max, after noticing one hand clutching her seatbelt and the other the denim fabric of her shorts, sped off in the sports car. At each corner he would either leave the braking late and turn essentially 90° around it, causing Kit’s entire body to be flung to one side, or wiggle side to side through it so that Kit’s stomach started to churn. He took nearly every curb and pretended to lose grip a few times, but Kit still managed to keep quiet, at one point biting the sides of her thumb to calm her nerves. Then, at the last minute down the final straight, Max slowed fractionally and then turned the wheel into a hard lock, spinning donuts on the asphalt. “Fuck Max!” Kit yelled, then rolled her eyes as she realised she’d lost. She still didn’t loosen her grip until the car was completely stationary and in park.
“That was sorta fun.” Max said with a small smile poking at the corners of his mouth, and Kit just rolled her eyes again. They swapped spots and her stomach clenched with irritation as she watched Max tap his thighs nonchalantly. She’d been spending the marginally more tranquil moments of the lap planning out her strategy, and all she wanted was to hear Max swear.
She pulled down the shift in the centre console, but instead of putting the car in gear she continued down into reverse. As Max was still looking around trying to play it cool, he didn’t notice her trick, and so when Kit slammed down the accelerator and his body jolted forwards at the oppositional momentum, his natural response was to say, “What the fuck!” and Kit smiled in satisfaction. Swinging the car around, Kit then proceeded to drive the whole track in the opposite direction to how they raced it normally, trying to throw Max off his rhythm. There was only one more time where she managed to make him sweat, at turn 3 when the car wiggled around taking the sharp corner as if she was losing traction. He didn’t swear, but his hand shot out to grab her upper arm in panic, also as if to say what the ‘fuck are you doing’. He quickly let go when the car regained stability, but Kit still enjoyed the fact that she’d made him freaked out.
“How’d we go kids?” Johnny asked as they exited the car, safely back in the pit lane.
“I’m not sure how entertaining we were, but I tried my best.” Kit smiled as she removed her helmet.
“Don’t worry, we can just show the overhead shot if neither of you are doing anything interesting. I think we’re all done then, if you wanna head off, I know you’re both busy bees.” Johnny finished off, both shaking his hand and Max muttering a few syllables before the pair left.
They again walked back to the motorhome in silence, neither speaking until they were halfway down the hallway to their driver rooms.
“I made you sweat.” Kit said smugly.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” Max rolled his eyes.
“I don’t have to when you do it for free.” Kit continued, now fully smiling. Max didn’t say anymore and just closed the door behind him into his driver room coldly. A replay of the last race, the Hungarian GP, played on the small TV and Kit’s stomach dropped for the millionth time that day. She had momentarily forgotten that the next day would be her first official session as a RedBull racing driver, and she was now, once again, shitting herself.
The weekend, despite Kit’s biggest fears, had actually gone surprisingly well. It was Sunday afternoon, and Kit was still basking in the near-glory of her 4th place finish as she showered in her driver room, taking a few moments to think before the debrief. It would be long due to Max’s DNF, and she was already exhausted. Her body, now that it had proved itself to be up to the challenge of a properly competitive car, was nearly melting into the lino floor. After only qualifying 7th, the finish felt like a win to her. Still, she wouldn’t forget the radio message she received after only 1 lap: “Max’s out, I repeat Max is out, so we can really focus on your race here.”
She had sort of seen his collision with Kimi from down in 7th, but it wasn’t until seeing the replay that she could really tell it was his fault. Around turn 1, he attempted to go for a gap between Kimi and the wall that just simply didn’t exist, shunting Kimi up off the ground and ruining his own race in the meantime. Obviously in her interviews she just said it was unfortunate and she was happy to have made up a few points for the team, but internally she was just shaking her head at him. What an idiot.
But that wasn’t what annoyed her. She honestly couldn’t care less whether or not Max scored points for the team. What really ticked her off was the fact that her engineer didn’t even try and pretend that she wasn’t the number 2 driver. ‘We can really focus on your race here’ my ass, Kit thought to herself. She wouldn’t bring it up in the debrief, because she enjoyed having a job, but it would just add to the ever growing list of things that pissed her off about Max.
Shutting off the hot water, Kit towel dried her hair and slipped on a pair of trackie shorts alongside her team polo, needing to be comfortable for the meeting that would undoubtedly last until the sun went down.
And last that long it did. From a pit stop that would’ve gotten her a podium if it was one lap later to the alternative tyre choices that would’ve let her close the gap on Bottas and attempt an earlier overtake, the whole ordeal felt like flipping back through a choose-your-own-adventure-book to try and get to the ending you know you want. After an already slow 45 minutes of detailed dissection of every single thing Kit had done wrong, they moved onto a strategy discussion for the following race in Italy, most of which sounded like ‘get Max onto the podium’ in Kit’s ears.Then follow that with a Max whinge session about biased stewards and stupid drivers, and you have a Kit who was tired and pissed off and ready for bed.
“Alright guys, good work today. It was the best result we could get given the circumstances and hopefully we can put all this shit into action at Monza.” Christian said, effectively dismissing the team from the cramped engineering room. Max and Kit had exchanged a few words with their respective engineers before bidding everyone a goodnight, them having arguably the easiest job of anyone in that room apart from Christian.
“Have a good night, Max.” Kit said in a flat tone as they walked towards their separate cars, some of the last to leave the paddock. She hated his guts, but she couldn't will herself to just say absolutely nothing to him. It wasn’t natural.
“Mm, not likely.” He half grunted. Kit rolled her eyes, clearly not far enough away from him to be out of sight. “What? What was that for? I fucking smashed into a wall today, you really think that I should be happy?” He semi-snapped. His voice was clearly tired, but there was enough fire in it to stir some energy in Kit.
“I saw the video of your collision Max, and it was clearly your fault. You can’t expect people to move out of the way for you just because your front wing is ferreting up their ass.” She didn’t yell, because the car park was eerily quiet, but there was an intensity in her voice that was sourced from bottling up her emotions for too long and from real irritation at the man standing in front of her.
“Fuck me man, I thought you were my teammate, not my boss.” He scoffed.
“Well sorry if I want a bit of appreciation for coming 4th in my first fucking race with this team. I beat out a goddamn Ferrari, okay, a good job from someone other than my race engineer would be nice.” Kit said, hoping that the waver in her voice went unnoticed by Max.
“Not all of us think 4th place is good.” Max said coldly before opening his car door and driving off shortly after. Kit didn’t let herself think about the day until she got back to her hotel room, where she proceeded to drink a bottle of wine and watch her home NRL team get absolutely thrashed. What a day.