Instead of retreating into myself or straight up bolting, I do what I’ve done every time an asshole gets in my face. I stay calm—just the way Ilya did.
“New hire,” I say calmly. “Race engineering support. Intern,” I add on.Make a good impression, Victoria. Good impression, good impression, good impression, good im—“It’s nice to meet you. What the hell happened on the track?”
Shit.My big mouth has been known to get me in trouble.
As soon as the words are out, I wish someone had cut out my tongue right before I got here.
“Excuse me?” Asher says the words slowly. Slowly enough that I’m almost certain he’s about to produce a scythe from his jacket and cleave me in two. My initial attraction to him is swiftly and irreversibly masked with absolute horror at myself and at the scorch mark on the ground I’m about to turn into.
“Asher, go inside for debrief, please,” Thomas says, appearing beside me right in the nick of time. “We need to clarify a few things before finalizing data.”
Asher points a finger in my face. “You’re fired,” he snarls.
“Not how it works,” Thomas states. “She answers to Declan and Ilya. You have a problem with her, take it up with them.”
“I want hergone.” That’s Asher’s parting shot before he storms away, tossing his helmet at the wall.
“Well,” Thomas says. “You clearly have a knack for first impressions.”
Fuck.
“Asher set himself up for failure during qualifiers yesterday,” Thomas grouses as we navigate through the maze of the paddock.
I hum in response. I might not have been here, but I watched and analyzed the qualifiers from afar. My attention is mostly on the winding hallways and open doors leading to training facilities, break rooms, meetingrooms, team rooms… the paddock is like a mini village. I’ve watched behind the scenes footage of being in a paddock, but seeing something on screen and actually walking through it are two entirely different experiences.
Thomas glances up from his tablet and gives me a narrow-eyed look. “You know how qualifiers are set up, right?” He asks. “It’s split into quarters. Each quarter, 5 of the slowest drivers are cut. Driver placement in qualifiers determines their placement on the grid at the start of the race—”
“I know,” I say tersely. “I’m familiar with Formula One.” I spent a good portion of my childhood watching old tapes of past races, not to mention each live race.
“Ah.” Thomas shrugs. “Well, you’re American, so I’ll just assume you have bare-minimum knowledge and class.”
I stare at him. “Gaston isheadquarteredin America—”
“And in the UK, with facilities also in Italy,” Thomas says, finally glancing up as we approach two chrome doors. “If you’re American, most people will assume you’re dumb.”
“You’re American too,” I point out. His facial features hint to Asian heritage, but his accent is American.
“Chinese-American,” he corrects. “And I studied abroad for high schoolandcollege.”
“I graduated MIT,” I say flatly. With a master’s, at24 years old.
“Is that supposed to mean something in F1?” Thomas frowns.
“It’s—”
He raises a finger. “As an intern, you’re here to learn, not to teach.” He nods at the room. “Since we’re not joining the podium ceremony, and won’t be for the foreseeable future, this is usually our Sunday Debrief time. Only race-essential personnel sit at the big round table you’ll see in there; the rest of us who are allowed in stand against the walls and observe. Don’t talk unless you have something immensely important to say. Even then, it’s probably best to wait until afterwards.” He ushers me inside with a hand on the small of my back.
The testosterone is what slams into me first. There are far too many men crowded into a single room, yet I don’t think that’s what gives the air an oppressive taste. The sense of doom hovering above the room like a storm cloud can only be attributed to Asher, who’s seated at the table and baring his teeth at anyone who tries to speak to him. I wonder if the team’s ever considered euthanizing him, since he behaves like a wild animal.
Ilya takes his seat at the roundtable and calls the room to order by sweeping a single glance around. A hush falls over the room.
Ilya begins running through a broad overview of what went right and wrong, then has Declan speak. Declan is broad-shouldered and permanently tired-looking, with sandy hair that doesn’t quite sit right and an Irish accent so heavy it’s almost difficult to comprehend his words. He’s the only man scribbling notes in a notebook instead of using a tablet or laptop. He talks for a few minutes about race strategy and car alterations that play within F1 guidelines. Then, Gideon Harrow, the technical directorwho’s known for staying behind the scenes and out of sight, speaks for a few minutes.
When it comes time for Elio to speak, he congratulates the team on a great race, which prompts a few people to hide sardonic smiles.
Asher’s only comment is a growled demand for his car to be fixed—a car I amitchingto inspect.
I want to pull all the data available on the car, the driver,andthe team. I need to record and process all of it, and come up with a list of variables that’ll prep my algorithm to function. I’ll need data pools from every segment of the team—analysts, strategists, engineers, leadership, anddrivers. That’ll require shadowing and observing several people… something I was in a prime position to do when I was offered a strategy internship. Now that I’ve been downgraded, it’ll take convincing to get people to acknowledge me.
