Helmet on. Gloves tight. Harness strapped.
I was dialed in.
Night hung heavy over the Strip, but the lights were blinding—spotlights, strobes, billboards towering over the barriers like electric gods. But the moment I slid into the cockpit, it all melted away. The chaos, the glitz, the spectacle that was Vegas—it couldn’t touch me in here.
This was mine. This car. This track. These next two hours.
“Alright, Matteo,” came the voice of my race engineer in my ear, crisp and cool as ever. “Standard start today. Long stint. Let the chaos play out up front.”
“Copy,” I replied, steady.
And then the lights came on.
Five red.
My fingers twitched on the paddle. Heart rate even. Every nerve on high alert, every sense tuned like a violin string. No thoughts now—just instincts. Muscle memory. A lifetime of racing wired into every reaction.
Slowly the lights blinked out one by one. Five lights, then the racing began.
I launched clean. The car in front did not. Sluggish off the line, a fraction too slow, and that was all I needed. I darted left, threading the needle between him and the wall, knowing exactly how much space I had down to the millimeter. Years of karting taught me the lines. Years of F2 taught me the grit. And now? Now I was a damn predator.
By Turn 1, I was already up a position.
By Turn 3, I was side by side with P3.
Breathe. Brake late. Trust the grip.
We danced through the corners, neither of us blinking. But this was where I thrived—wheel to wheel, that razor-thin line between brilliance and disaster. I nudged the car just wide enough to own the corner, and the other driver blinked first. He lifted.
I didn’t.
Coming out of Sector 1, I had secured third.
“Beautiful move,” my engineer said, voice laced with calm satisfaction. “You’ve got clean air ahead.”
I could see it—Theo Bauer up front in his smug Kaz Energy rocket ship, already thinking he had the win in the bag. But the race was long. And Vegas…Vegas had a funny way of shaking things up. Alexander had qualified mid-field in twelfth, but I knew he would claw his way back up. So I locked in and focused all my energy on the road ahead and the bright blue car ahead of me.
Still, I didn’t rush it.
I stayed within DRS range, conserving tires, managing fuel, letting the laps roll down like seconds on a stopwatch. It was only lap nine. No one won a race in lap nine—there was plenty of fight left—but holding onto P3 seemed unreal, let alone scoring a podium.
Theo made a mistake on lap eleven. Tiny. Barely noticeable. A lock-up going into the tight left-hander near the Sphere. ButI saw it. Felt it in the timing delta. I closed the gap, waited two more laps, then made my move down the straight. He defended the inside—I went wide, holding it around the outside with barely enough grip to stick.
We were inches apart at 180 miles per hour.
But I didn’t flinch.
I took the lead on lap thirteen, fighting with all I had.
Vegas blurred past me in streaks of light and shadow, the whole city screaming with sound. My world narrowed to corners and apexes and tire temps. Then someone was on my ass in the final laps. I clicked to speak to my engineer through our radio.
“Is that a Belen on me?”
“Yeah mate, Wright is coming for the front.” The radio crackled through my headphones with the response. I grinned wide. A Moretti car was no match for a Belen this year. His tires were fresh, and he easily outpaced me with the next lap, but I made him work for it.
“Stay focused, DeLuca. Hold down third.”
And I did just that, crossing the finish line in third place. On the cool down lap, I thumped my fist into the air.
