the money shot (max verstappen )

azerbaijan gp

lila had tried to find max after he walked away from her on the boat, but, despite her best efforts, he was nowhere to be seen. she hurried back to the hotel and paced around her room, a swarm of emotions raging within her.

she didn't want to talk to josh.

she wasn't sure how she could.

but she knew it was her only option.

josh had a skill for forcing forgiveness from lila, without ever apologising for what he had done. he instead repeated how much he missed her and how he 'hated when they fought'. when she returned to manchester, she moved her stuff back into josh's place. she wanted to scream at him for what he had said to her. to force him to realise his hypocrisy. but the guilt of kissing max closed her throat shut and redirected all her anger towards josh instead onto herself.

she was grateful when it came time to fly to the azerbaijan grand prix, though she would never admit it to him. as she stepped of her plane she was bombarded with a city she had never seen anything like before. a strange blend of oId-looking buildings with lavish glass skyscraper buildings scattered throughout. like monaco, the city was alive.

she felt the excitement for the weekend to come build within her, but it was dampened with the reminder that she would have to see max.

what would she say? how would he act?

she woke early after a restless nights sleep and arrived at the track ready for qualifying. they were given a simpIe task for the weekend, take photos of the cars out on track for the redbull instagram. it was an easy enough task and qualifying flew by, charles qualified first to the ferrari teams delight. next was lewis, then max and chaeco in seventh though he was pushed up to p6 for the starting grid after lando received a three place penalty.

race day was here and lila positioned herself beside the main straight, getting a great photo of the grid line up as the lights went on. the sound of 20 cars revving filled the air and the familiar adrenaline sparked up within lila.

max slammed his foot on the gas as soon as the lights went out and spen towards the first turn. he stayed close on hamiltons tail and hamilton did the same to charles. by the second lap hamilton had overtaken charles and was leading the gran prix. by lap 7 max did the same, pushing himself into second place. the next lap sergio also overtook charles and placed himself third, a big step up from his starting position of 6th. on lap 12 max was informed there was a safety car and hamilton dove into the pits, coming out well behind both the redbulls. the next lap, max followed suit and pitted for fresh tires, then the following lap sergio did the same. this rearrange the order, max was now leading and he felt the excitement bubble within him. he could taste the prospect of victory, possibly even with checo standing beside him on the podium.

"safety car, safety car. lance stroll has crashed'

the last thing max wanted was to decrease the gap between himself and hamilton. for four whole laps max followed behind the safety car, doing everything he could to keep his tires warm. finally, on lap 36, they were free to resume racing. max drove as hard as he could, using every ounce of his energy. pouring all his focus into this win. as the number of laps left grew smaller and smaller, max began to swell with pride and excitement. he loved the feeling of winning, competitive as he was. just 10 laps later and disaster. going down the main straight, max went flying into the walls, wrecking his car and throwing away any possibility of continuing. the bubble of excitement withing him had burst and he was instead filled with frustration he could barely contain. he kicked his car in frustration and stormed off the track just as the red flag was announced. they would have to do a standing restart.

lila felt awful for max, so she was secretly grateful for the area where he had crashed as it was right beside where she was stationed. she had captured the entire crash, as well as his outburst of anger.

soon the process started again and they were back to racing. the redbull team watched on in awe and sergio defended with all his might, hamilton right on his taiI. but he pushed to hard. hamilton spun out and by the time he had regained his composer and reentered the race track, he was dead last.

the crown went wild as checo crossed the finish line, taking home the victory.

the podium was amazing, checo seemed to have tears in his eyes, though it was hard to tell as he was soaked head to toe in champagne. vettel and pierre had placed second and third respectively and they were filled with nearly as much joy as checo. it was such an unusual and amazing podium. lila loved it, as did the crowd.

after the podium, lila returned to a relatively empty garage to pack up her things, to her surprise max was in there, sitting by himself. the only other people in the garage were three engineers huddled around a computer up the back. lila suspected everyone else was celebrating with checo.

max kept his head low, despite knowing it was lila who had entered. he didn't feel the need to talk to her. he wasn't sure what he could say.

lila felt a sudden nervousness in her stomache, she didn't know if he would be angry or it would be awkward. mostly she was just embarrassed but she spoke up anyway.

"sorry about the race max," she said sheepishly.

he didn't lift his eyes from the floor though he did nod his head and mutter what lila had to assume was a thankyou. she wasn't sure if he was just upset from the results or if this was about what had happened between them at monaco. either way, the silence became to heavy to bear and lila scurried away.

all she could hope was that things would return back to normal between them by next weekend.