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LANDO had seemed to take Thea's advice to heart. He had been flying throughout the day. He'd done exceptionally well in practice three, in which he managed to finish 4th, just behind Hamilton.
In Q1, Lando was quicker than anyone on track. Literally. The harsh rainy conditions seemed to make Lando feel at home more than anything, growing up in England he was used to driving out in the cold damp weather.
The same in Q2, the car was outstanding, helping Lando back to the top spot at the end of the session, getting him safely into the finally stages of qualifying, and was ready to challenge for his first ever pole position in Formula One.
Thea, who was sat in the McLaren garage, out of sight from any cameras, but in the mist of all the chatter between colleagues. There was a screen above one of the work stations in Thea's eye line, which was showing a broadcast of the qualifying for people to watch.
Thea's leg shook as she looked over to her left, at the sound of an engine reving. Lando's car was parked a few meters away from her in the safety of the garage, people moving around him, checking his rear wing, his tyres, making sure he was warm enough, cool enough.
She saw inside the cockpit, Lando had turned his head as much as he could to where Thea was sitting. Thea saw his face move inside his helmet, and knew he was smiling at her. He'd reved the engine ever so slightly to get her attention. She rolled her eyes at him, but smiled back. Thea just caught a glimpse of a wink, before Lando turned to his race engineer, who had placed a screen in front of him.
A few more minutes passed, and the people around Lando's car began to back away, and the the tyre covers came off. Thea jumped out of her chair and sneak around to a spot concealed by a wall of the garage, but where she had a clear view of Lando exiting the pit lane.
Once the rear end of the car had disappeared out into the foggy atmosphere, she headed back to where she had been sat, looking back up at the TV, like many of the McLaren employees.
There was a few different conversations around her between the smartly dressed workers, and she could hear snippets of their conversations :
"It seems to bad for me."
"They're all gonna' have to drive through standing water. That's just horrible."
"They should have red-flagged it."
"Yeah see look, even Vettel thinks it ain't safe."
Thea directed her eyes and ears back to the TV, where she caught the end of David Croft's sentence, in which he was almost mimicking exactly what the McLaren workers had been saying.
"-There's standing water where the drivers loose all grip, and the uh- the risk to go off into the barriers. Until there is a red flag and a decision from Race control Lando Norris will have to stay out there." he said, as Lando started to accelerate up Eu Rouge.
