The Bull Prince | Max Verstappen

Chapter 19

Joanna's routine before a race was always the same, Go over the data once more with Matteo, getting changes while Kiwi briefed her on what to have in mind while going interviews, before she would leave her driver's room for warm-up with Andrew her performance coach. It was the way she did things, just like today. 

She went to the garage to greet every member of the team, before talking with Matteo over the strategy and looking through some data from the practice sessions. Leaving the garage again to go and change. Joanna was already wearing her fireproof underwear as Kiwi entered the room and started to talk about things Joanna shouldn't say when she was giving some quick interviews before the race. 

Half-heartedly listening, Joanna reached into the pocket of the bag where her medallion was supposed to be, but she didn't find it, causing the Austrian to dump the contents of her bag on the floor and to search for it in a panic. 

"Have you seen my medallion?" She asked Kiwi, which caused the other woman to look at her uneasy. The older woman knew that some drivers had difficult character and was glad that she had ended up on Joanna's team, but with the medallion missing, Kiwi knew that Joanna was about to get very hard to work with. 

"It has to be in your bag. I've seen you put it back after Baku." The older woman muttered while kneeling next to her protegee and helping Joanna to go through her things twice. 

"No, no. It can't be gone. I need it." Joanna muttered to herself while throwing her things through the room in search of the little silver piece of jewelry. 

"Calm down. We will find it. I promise!" Kiwi told her, after stopping Joanna from turning her bag upside down once more, her hands resting on the younger woman's shoulders, as the door to Joanna's room opened. 

"You're ready to go?" Sebastian asked with Britta and his performance coach chatting in the narrow corridor. 

Jonna stood up, before brushing her fingers nervously over her scalp, trying to recall if she really had put it back, but she was so sure. Her medallion was not just any piece of jewelry, in her whole life, she has never raced without the silver medallion engraved with a picture of Saint Christopher. 

"Her medallion is missing," Kiwi answered for her, which caused Sebastian to offer to help to search for it, but at that moment, realization struck Joanna. She didn't know where her medallion was but she was sure she knew who had it. 

Joanna brushed past Sebastian, who was standing in the doorway, before leaving the Ferrari facility and angrily walking towards the place where she was sure her beloved medallion was. Everybody on the grid knew that Joanna wasn't superstitious nor did she believe in God, despite being raised in a convent about 17 years of her life, but the medallion meant something to her. She would never even consider getting into a car without it resting against her heart and a lot of people knew that. 

However, Sebastian was one of the few people who understood that she needed the medallion.  For him, it was the coins in his racing boots that his grandmother gave him to protect him as soon as he got into a racing car. They were also engraved with Saint Christopher, the patron saint of travelers and thus also of racing drivers. Funnily enough, Joanna and Sebastian only found out after months of friendship that they were both hoping for the protection of the same patron saint once they were in a car, but for Joanna, the offered protection from Sankt Christopher wasn't the only symbolic the medallion held. For her, the little piece of jewelry was so much more. 

Entering the Red Bull facility, Joanna ignored the voices behind her and the crowd of people dressed in crimson red following her. A few people turned to her in confusion, but nobody dared to ask the Austrian what she doing in another team's facility without an invitation.