Last Man Standing

Chapter 21

A chapter before the upload of tomorrow, because I had another one laying around. 

Hope you will enjoy it!

"Morning." Marylinde smiled at the Red Bull team members surrounding her in the simulator room. It was her turn to do some work on the simulator to collect some data for the team to use for the upcoming race weekend.

It wasn't the only reason Marylinde would be getting so much simulator time leading up to the next race. She would get to drive the first free practice of the Spanish Grand Prix, which just so happened to be the next race. No one was informed yet beside the people who had to know – Peter, Freja, her parents, the team and Alex as she would be driving in his car – and Marylinde was anxiously awaiting the time she could tell everyone she wanted to.

Red Bull had asked to keep the number of people who were in the loop of the news minimal. She had told her parents, Peter and Freja, but that was it. Red Bull still needed to arrange some things before the official announcement was made. Marylinde agreed but only asked for one thing in return. She would get some time between twelve o'clock, the time she was free to tell everyone and the official Red Bull announcement. She needed to make the necessary calls beforehand to make sure no one would kill her because they had to find out about it on social media.

Especially Lando would be livid, but Marylinde was already afraid of facing him even if she would call him beforehand, seeing she had seen him that morning before they both left for their teams' facilities for a busy week of preparations up ahead. She hadn't let on a thing and Lando would kill her for it. But she would have her other friends who would help protect her from him. After all, if Lando would kill her she would never actually drive around the Spanish track.

It had been anticipated since it was announced that besides becoming a reserve driver for the team, Marylinde would also get to drive some free practices, that Barcelona would be one of them. However, Marylinde, nor the people around her had never denied nor confirmed the rumours and therefore no one really knew when Marylinde was going to get into the car for the first time that season.

Weeks before, Marylinde had had a sit down with both Prema and Red Bull about when she would get the chance to drive the first free practice of the formula one weekend and they had eventually decided on a couple. Barcelona was the first, mostly because it was a circuit every formula one driver was very familiar with thanks to both the Grand Prixs as well as the testing they did there.

The next weekend Marylinde would appear in a formula one car in was half of July, meaning it was during the Silverstone Grand Prix. Personally, she was most excited about that one. She would get to drive in front of her sort of home crowd. She always considered England her home and therefore the British Grand Prix her home race. Especially seeing there was no Danish track they would be visiting.

After that she would get to drive in Italy and Brazil, giving her four practice sessions in formula one before the end of the season.

"Just settle into a rhythm, we want a race simulation at first, so tire preservation, no pushing. We will do a couple of quali laps at the end. Just get used to the feeling of everything and then settle down. We want steady lap times at first." Marylinde agreed and watched how Stefan, who was leading her through the experience of the simulator as usually, walked to the small room behind the simulator.

"Ready when you are." Marylinde put on her gloves and lowered the visor of her helmet. She needed the most realistic experience out of the simulator. Driving without her helmet and gloves would only indicate that it was fake indeed. It would be a shame of the expensive piece of equipment she was sitting in which was making every movement a formula car would as well.