Page 78 of Downforce

Once I’m done here, I’ll spend an hour in the team’s simulator implementing a few of the tweaks and changes we’ve gone over to strategize for our next race in Montreal.

“Soft tires always feel best. Especially in Miami,” I tell him.

He nods and writes something down on the clipboard in his hands.

I watch, amused, as he mumbles something to himself as if asking and answering his own question. Staring at him, something my father used to say comes to mind.

He would tell me that while it’s the drivers who get the most recognition, it’s the engineers, mechanics, and members of the pit crew who deserve just as much if not more of the screen time.

“That’s why the Constructor’s Championship is as important as the Driver’s Championship,” he’d told me.

Though I respected my father’s words, I always placed more importance on the Driver’s Championship. My very first memories with my father were of watching past Formula 1 heroes raise the championship trophy over their heads in triumph as champagne was sprayed over them.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched my father’s winning races and celebrations. It’s been years since I rewatched.

“I worked with your father.” The engineer’s words pull me out of my memories.

I look down at him, not saying anything.

“For a short time,” he says. “I was a young apprentice. Thought I wanted to be a mechanic.” He smiles, nodding.

I don’t talk about my father with anyone. It was a rule I established early on in my career. The last thing I wanted was to be inundated with the constant comparisons. I’d spent most of my time in the lower levels of my sport, hearing it.

“Severino only spent one year in Formula 2 before finding a Formula 1 team. Is that your goal, Max?”

“Severino used to walk the track before every race and memorize it in one go. What is your pre-race strategy, Max?”

“Max, what do you think your father would say about your performance in that race?”

And those were only the questions and comparisons from the journalists. Since my father’s death, I’ve been hearing from my mother that I never would match his level of expertise and impact on the sport I love.

It became so much of a broken record for her that by the time I signed with my first F1 team, her words no longer had much of an impact over me.

I learned how to school my features and harden my emotions in the way that the helmet I wear is forged out of carbon and kevlar, offering me the protection needed in case of crashing into a wall at two hundred kilometers an hour while also being lightweight. It allows me the ability to smile for the cameras and public and maintain the fortitude to keep her words bouncing off of me, inflicting the least amount of damage.

Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself.

For no reason at all, Annalise’s face appears in my mind. This isn’t anything new. I often have visions of her roaming around the streets of my mind. Yet, this particular image is of that day in Bahrain. Where my mother insisted on speaking with me before qualifying because she was still pissed that I hadn’t personally handled her travel arrangements to the race, leaving her to have to fly economy, of all things, for the final leg of her journey.

Her outrage over the slight led her to telling me how much of a disappointment I am and how happy she is that my father isn’t alive to see it. Her words struck my carbon-kevlar emotional veneer with minimal bruising, until I peered over her shoulder to see Annalise standing there, watching.

With her perfect mouth agape, shock reigned in her gaze before reality sunk in. The surprise morphed to disbelief right before changing to something darker.

Anger.

Outrage.

Offense.

On my behalf.

Once I had that realization, the inside of my chest lit up like the Las Vegas Strip on race night.

“It was Severino who convinced me to give engineering a shot,” the engineer says, drawing my attention his way.

I’d forgotten he stood in front of me.

Annoyance races down my spine because he’s shifted my attention away from the only person I want to think about right now. But then I take in the way his eyes have lit up, the upward turn of the corners of his mouth, and the way his hand slowly runs across the clipboard in his hand.