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After about ten minutes of prep and discussion, Lizzie signaled that it was time to head to the qualifying conference. Lily gave me a knowing look and winked as I passed by, binder in hand.
“What you got in there?” Lizzie asked casually, eyeing the binder.
“Just some papers that Fiona asked me to review about next week’s upgrades in Canada, plus some reports from today. Didn’t want to forget about it.” I knew if Lizzie was thinking straight, she would have said absolutely not, put that binder from Fiona down, but there was so much commotion about me taking pole.
I walked into the press conference with the binder, and sat for a bit at the back as I waited for Noah and Eric to arrive. Noah was notoriously late, so I knew I had a few moments to set my plan in motion. As I sat there reviewing the empty pages, I saw Michael Clifton, the lead F1 presenter, come up to me and congratulate me on pole. I quickly shut the binder quickly, knowing it would pique his interest.
“Thanks, Michael, just another day at Valkyrie F1. The work never ends, you know,” I said cheekily, motioning towards Fiona’s binder. “You’d think coming pole meant I had to read fewer reports. Pretty sure it just means more.” At this point, a couple of other journalists had moved closer to listen into the conversation.
“Anything good in there?” one of the other presenters asked, nodding towards the binder with a cheeky smile on his face.
“You’ll have to see tomorrow!” I kept a casual smile on my face, and as they walked away, I opened up the binder again, pretending to read the blank pieces of paper.
As soon as Noah and Eric walked in, I made my way to the top of the press room and took my seat in the middle, placing the binder under the seat.
“You going to take notes, Georgie,” Eric teased, motioning to the binder.
“Oh, you know Fiona, always giving me reports to read. Can’t catch a break,” I quipped. Eric just nodded; he and Fiona had been friends for a while, and to be fair, it was much like Fiona to be constantly reviewing data and reports.
The press conference went on for about an hour. The journalists decided to ask their safe, boring questions, which was a nice change of pace. As I had begun to find my footing in Formula 1, I felt like they were beginning to accept my presence on the grid. After the GQ article this week, it seemed like none of them felt like being on the wrong side of Valkyrie or Hermes. The article was all over social media, and asking the female racer on pole sexist questions after a GQ writer had called them all out on it wasn’t exactly the move to make.
As the press conference began to wrap up, I could see Lizzie eying the binder that I was holding, a concerned look on her face. As she looked down at her phone, I knew Fiona had probably sent her a text wondering why I had her binder.I knew I only had a few more moments before Lizzie pulled the binder out of my hands, so I got up and moved toward Michael to thank him for the press conference. The moment I reached out for Michael’s hand, I dropped the binder, letting the contents all spill out on the floor. I heard a shocked gasp from Michael, who quickly moved towards me to help me pick up the pieces of paper. I could tell he was not entirely sure if he should be looking at the documents, but I knew he wouldn’t be able to help himself.
Michael let out a sly smile as he saw that I had dropped several blank pieces of paper, not strategy documents as he was expecting, and he looked up at me, a large grin on his face.
“Well played, Georgia, well played.” Michael stood up and handed me the binder and empty pieces of paper, still chuckling to himself. The Sports Broadcasting presenters behind him let out a laugh at my prank, and I could see from the twinkle in their eyes that they were somewhat impressed.
“Fiona is going to have your head for that prank!”Eric slapped me on the shoulder on his way out of the press conference, snickering to himself.
Lizzie approached me with an unamused look, but her chuckle told me she had definitely enjoyed my prank. We made our way back to the garage, and I was stopped by a few fans who asked for selfies as they laughed about the press conference prank.
Well, at least the fans had enjoyed it.
“By God, Georgia Dubois, if you pull that prank again, I will have you off this team!” I heard Fiona announce as she snatched the binder from my grip. As I looked at her, I saw her anger turn into something that looked like amusement, and I knew she would thoroughly get me back for this prank.
“You are the worst.” And with that, Fiona stalked off to the conference room to refill her binder with her actual strategy reports. Lily gave me a thumbs up and waved her phone at me, indicating that she had gotten a photo of Fiona. I walked over to her and took a look at the phone. The picture was actually priceless.
I said goodbye to the rest of the Valkyrie crew and made my way outside to the parking spots, where Luca was waiting for me, a huge grin on his face.
“Oh, Cara, you really do know how to stir the pot,” he laughed as he got into my Bugatti passenger seat.“Francesco got a text from Isabelle during the conference, and he said she made the entire Valkyrie garage look for the documents in that binder to make sure that you hadn’tactuallybrought them to the press conference. She was apparently ready to march down there and grab it from you herself if you had.”I couldn’t help but snort at that. Isabelle knew me well, and she knew that I would never jeopardize the team that way.
“Felt like things were getting boring, Rossi, had to mix it up a bit.”
* * *
That evening I attended a small dinner with my family. Henri and I kept it cordial, opting to focus on Hugo and our parents. I knew he was annoyed at coming P4 in qualifying, and I was truthfully still mad at him from earlier this morning, but neither of us wanted to stir the pot. My parents had arrived for this race, and we were having a nice dinner with the five of us.
Sunday morning, I woke up around 8 a.m. and went to check social media, only to see the Valkyrie page’s post pop up first.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the post. I hadn’t played a prank on the team in a while, and it was nice to feel myself again. When I left my Indy Car team, the team principal there told me she would be devastated to see me go, but very happy never to see one of my pranks again.I took that as a compliment.
As I continued to scroll through my feed, I saw a text from Henri pop up asking if he could come over. I didn’t particularly want to see him, but I knew it was best if we talked before the race. I never raced well when I was at odds with my family, so I told him to come over in thirty for a cup of coffee.
I took a quick shower and got ready for the day, putting on my polo with the triple crown logo on the back. This had easily become my favorite piece of clothing to wear, and I wore it everywhere.Right on time, I heard a knock on the hotel room door, and I walked over to the door and opened it, only to see Henri standing there, dressed in his Hermes team garb.
I guess he is expecting to stay for a while, I grumbled.
“Morning!” Henri said in a voice much too chipper for 8 a.m. He walked straight into the living room and plopped himself down on the couch, looking as if he owned the place. Henri put down the coffee holder he was holding, which had three cups of coffee in it, and signaled for me to take one.
