Matt looks back in our direction, now frozen in horror,and I’m surprised to find my first emotion is a wave of compassion.For him.For Matt fucking Warner.This massive bomb was just dropped on me, but was it dropped on Matt also?
I collect myself and feel a fury of my own start to bubble up.I put my hands on the table, and as I’m about to stand, I feel Barry’s hand on my shoulder holding me down.“Trust me,” he says, quietly but sternly.
“Matt, would you come up and join us onstage?”Barry booms.
Matt is still frozen stiff until he’s slapped on the back by way of congratulations by another driver from McLaren.And then a small handful of the press awkwardly clap, more out of pity than anything, surely?Matt has just been forcibly moved from the top Formula 1 team to the bottom one.This is no moment for congratulations.
“Matt?I’m sure the press would like to see the new team all together?”
Matt looks like someone winded him, and yet he moves toward the stage, slowly.
The frenzy of clicking is so loud it starts to sound like white noise, and in the cacophony, I realize why Matt is going along with this: He’s trapped.He can’t force Rossini to keep him, and if Arden have bought him out, his ass now belongs to Barry.He has no choice, and the world is watching.What else is he going to do?Run?
The camera clicking evolves into shouting.They have questions.Many questions.The shouting from the journalists is so loud, the dogs have started to howl, and Barry has to lean down and run a hand over their little heads to soothe them.
“Matt, can you tell us when you found out about the transfer?”
“Matt, BBC here.This is not unprecedented, but exceedingly unusual.Why Arden?”
“Hi, Joe fromRacing Monthly.Has this got anything to do with the crash, and your struggle to recover your previous speeds?”
“Has your teammate Stavros recovered, Matt?”
“Why won’t you talk about the crash?”
“Can you look in this direction for a photo, please?”
But Matt isn’t replying.He’s just sitting with his arms folded, his mouth fixed firm, and a look of pure fury on his face.
This could have been the best day of my life.It should’ve been.It was supposed to be the moment when my career headed into the apex and emerged at full speed onto the straight.Me, poised to fly across the finish line, finally a winner in a sport I have battled for so long to do well in.Instead, my day in the sun has been completely overshadowed.And by, of all fucking people, Matt Warner.
“I think maybe it’s best if we pass on questions today,” Barry says now, holding his arms out to calm the room.“After all, we have a brand-new team and a Singapore qualifying to prepare for.”
I crumple up my prepared speech, briefly glancing sidelong at Matt.
“Of course,” Barry is saying to one of the photographers, who has pushed his way forward and is pointing his enormous lens in our faces.“Yes, we can get a team photo.”
Barry Arden drapes an arm over my shoulders, and then over Matt’s shoulders, squeezing us both in toward him.Heis beaming.I’m pretty sure I look like I just saw a ghost.And Matt wants to punch something.
This ridiculous image of the three key members of the new Arden Racing team will no doubt appear in the sports news of every major paper tomorrow.
Barry squeezes us both closer.“So, darlin’,” he says to me out of the side of his mouth.“How do you like your present?”
CHAPTER 2
Matt
It feels like a ten-truck motorway pileup in my head.
Fired from Rossini?Hired by...Chloe Coleman?
I escape the press conference without a word, leaving Chloe staring ahead, almost catatonic, in her seat.Barry has moved like lightning, ushering the remaining press into the corridor.As I slip past, I can hear him shamelessly boasting about how great the rest of the season will be with me in it.
“You’re not worried about his form?”
“We’ll get Matt back on top again,” he crows.And then he starts to sing.“All he needs is love.Love is all he needs.”A roar of laughter follows from the press corps.
Barry Arden brings the chaos.He’s unconventional and, more interestingly, he’s an outsider in a sport built on dynasties.And the press sure laps it up.
