Patience // Oscar Piastri

9

It had been a week since Willow had left Hungary and flew to America to see her family and friends and now she was on a flight on her way back to Italy.

She was sitting in the air half way through her 5 hour flight back to Prema and her Italian apartment she considered to be her home.

As she was relaxing in her business class seat she pulled out the tag around her neck. She removed it and held the cold metal in her hand,

The dog tag belonged to her father. It was one of the things Willow had gotten following his death two years ago,

He joined the army at the age of 18 and was a member for 3 years. He came home to Chicago at 21 when he met Grace. They started dating and after a few months she became pregnant just before James was due to leave again.

He went away for another 6 months to Iraq and came home in time for the birthday of his first and only daughter. She was the light of his life and he swore he was never leaving again.

And he didn't.

He didn't leave her side for 17 years. The father and daughter did everything together which included flying to Europe for her karting.

And then his accident came when he was 38 years old on the way home from watching his daughter's race at his parents house. And the lash time Willow has saw him in person was a week before as she was at the start of a double header that weekend.

She went out and drove the following weekend even when her family, friends and team tried to convince her not too, saying that she had nothing to prove to anyone.

But she did have something to prove. Mostly to herself and her father. She had to prove that the sacrifices, both personal and financial, her father made for her career were worth it.

She drove that weekend for her father. His name was stickers on the outside of her car for the world to see and his face in a picture in her cockpit too.

Willow sighed before reapplying the silver around her neck before tucking them inside her jumper. She then got comfortable in her seat and tried to get some sleep for the last two hours of her flight.

—

Willow arrived in Venice around 2pm and got off the plane and walked into the airport to get her suitcase from baggage claims before heading outside to get an Uber to her apartment.

Willow would be the first of the Prema drivers to arrive back in Italy. Dennis was in Norway to see his family, Olli had gone on holiday with his girlfriend and Arthur was on holidays with his family and girlfriend in Mykonos.

Oscar had been testing for Alpine in Monza last week while Willow had been in America and he was due back in Venice tomorrow while the others wouldn't be back until next week.

Considering no work could be done on the cars or in the factory for the first 14 days of summer break, it meant that Willow couldn't even do sim work for another week.

She got into the back of her Uber after putting her bags in the boot of the black car. She got comfortable for the 40 minute drive to her apartment.

—

"Yes?" The voice of Juri Vips spoke as he answered the FaceTime call from Willow.

"Don't be so rude." Willow replied as she propped her phone up against the wall behind her desk as she crossed her legs in her chair.

"You called me!" Juri exclaimed as he moved his face closer to the phone.

"Because I was bored so don't be rude." The American explained.

"Well maybe I don't wanna talk to you." Juri replied as he crossed his arms over his chest clearly have his phone rested against something like Willow.

"Fine. I'll call Liam then." Willow told the Hitech driver as she leant forward as if she was going to hang up on the call.

"No wait." Juri shouted to stop her from doing it.

"Only joking." Willow said with a satisfied smile on her face.

"Bitch." Juri spoke causing Willow to open her mouth in shock before leaning forward and hanging up the call.

She smiled to herself as she saw Juri's name appear in the screen in the form of a FaceTime call notification. She left it for a few seconds before answering.

"You hung up on me." Juri told her as he pointed his finger at the camera.

"And you call me a bitch." The Prema driver replied coping his actions.

"Fair. Call it even?" Juri wondered as Willow nodded in agreement. "So how was Chicago?"

The friends spend the next couple of hours talking about how they had spent their summer break so far, their plans for the next two weeks and how excited they were to get back racing.

—

This was a bit of a filler to get from one stage to another sorry🙈

-ky❤️