The Bull Prince | Max Verstappen

Chapter 42

A win. Joanna felt the nauseous creeping up her throat, as Matteo proudly told her, that she had won. Nobody had expected the Ferrari's to even have a chance to fight with the Mercedes or Red Bulls for the win, but Joanna was superior the whole weekend. She was unstoppable, flew over the track like an immortal being which was incredible to watch. She was so confident and seemed deeply settled into her own skin for the first time in years.

It was strange because Joanna had watched all these videos and interviews with other drivers and commentators, they all talked about her. Praised her, and acknowledged her superiority and unbeatable talent, well at least for this weekend but Joanna didn't feel better than on any other race weekend, no on the contrary actually. In qualifying, she had felt so awfully slow. The Austrian seemed to be hyperaware of each and every mistake she did, her self-confidence was almost non-existent at his point.

Joanna felt like a failure to all the fans, her team, and her father. She was at the end of her strength, but that was all behind closed doors. For the fans, she was more dominant than ever, she was playing her role. As soon as the curtain rose, she was invincible.

At some point, DC had asked her in the interview after getting pole position if they've changed something with her car, but Joanna simply shook her head with a fake smile, before telling him that she just felt invincible at the moment. A lie, Joanna felt awfully small in the spotlight.

In the background, she could hear her half of the team celebrating loudly, but Joanna couldn't answer. She had a lump in her throat that was painfully stuck. Doing her best to keep the tears at bay, Joanna tightened her grip around the steering wheel. The younger Ferrari driver was sure to have heard some bones cracking.

She couldn't remember much of the race. She was driving on autopilot. At one point she wondered if the race had already ended and she hadn't heard Matteo calling her back but driving past the pitlane showed her that she still had about 20 laps left. Should she ever tell someone that she had won a race in a trance-like condition, Joanna was sure the FIA would take away her license.

She drove slowly back, claiming her place behind the first-place mark but she just couldn't climb out of her car. Joanna couldn't stop herself from going over the mistakes she did over and over again. They seemed to be the only memory of the race she had left. Her mistakes, her imperfections.

The bitemark which was adoring her tender skin itched beneath her fireproof shirt. She wanted to rip the fabric away, find the bathroom in the FIA building and add another one. Another reminder that she will never be good enough. That her mistakes were far greater than everything she will ever achieve in her life.

As she finally realized, that FIA officials were talking to her, she climbed out of the car. They told her to get to the weighting, before walking over to her team, which caused the Austrian to nod. She was familiar with the procedure. She had won enough races to know how it went. She wasn't new to it, this was her life for far too long by now.

Her brain was all over the place, but her body was working on muscle memory only. First to the scales until she was shown a thumb up, but Joanna didn't understand why, the scales must be broken, she couldn't possibly have lost that much weight in one race, but she couldn't remember the last time these numbers were significantly higher either. Then she wandered over to her team and allowed them to embrace her.

The last ones to abroach her were Matteo and Andrew. Both of them hugged her closely, whispering reassuring things in her ear, before rapping an Austrian flag around her. It was just a win like all these others, she didn't understand what for they gave her the flag. Joanna didn't need it. Where was Kiwi?

With shaky hands she removed her helmet, tears threatened to fall but she was a Lauda, so she didn't allow her emotions. Joanna simply glanced around in the search for her assistant, but the Aussie was nowhere to be seen.