Formula 1 oneshots

Sink or Swim (Sebastian Vettel x Reader)

Summary: Y/n is an Olympic swimmer and during an internal practice to qualify athletes from other sports attend to decide which charity the swimmers represented to donate to. Seb also is watching the practice.

Note: I don't know much about swimming so I did the minimal research required. Lol

Requested by: @deeznutz7200 (interesting name 🤔🤔)

Y/n POV

I walked in the changing room, the other girls already there and getting ready to train for the national competition. What we were preparing for was going to be the last national competition to select one or two of us for the olympics depending on who won first and second place. Usually if someone gets first place and they've never competed in the Olympics before they would also sign up the swimmer who got second place. Eight swimmers max could be signed to the Olympics, and the reserves for the prelims would be chosen in a separate race.

"Hello ladies" I greeted everyone and  received a few hellos. "Hi Y/n" said Mariana, one of my best friends in the sport. She looked upset. She had been crying, her stuff had been pushed the very corner of the room and she was avoiding eye contact with the other girls. I subtly approached her and dumped my bag next to her. "What's up?" I asked quietly. She quickly wiped her tears and said "coach said today some other athletes were coming to watch us and donate to one of our charities, then he said that I wasn't going to get anything for mine because I'm not fast enough".

This year everyone had chosen a charity to work with to raise money for them during the Olympics. She was raising money for the Trevor project, and I knew she cared very much for the cause, her coach saying that just to make her a "better" swimmer was brutal and evil. Unfortunately it was the kind of stuff I had to go through to become a gold medalist.

A few years ago, I was a 23 year old young woman who saw everything as danger. She was belittled by the same person who claimed they wanted the best for her. The gold medal was earned, yet I also sacrificed my mental and physical health. I had to take a step back for a few months after I collapsed post race and I had to be taken to the ER. It was not fun.

Mariana was 24 herself, so she was just starting to compete at Olympic levels, and I could tell she was nervous, so the treatment obviously didn't help. I hugged her and whispered "it's not true. At all. You're amazing. Don't listen to him". She knew my story, she knew that some coaches were like that and she also knew that she was good: she just needed it to be told to her. 

The story of who my coach was and his evil techniques were exposed, he was banned from the sport. I remember receiving support from many other sports figures, even motorsport drivers.

People always excused that type of behaviour by saying "it's just a few rotten apples" but a few rotten apples spoil the bunch. A lot of Olympic level coaches were like that, and not just the swimming ones, every single sport that competes. Forget it, even some beginner level coaches are brutal, although less common than competitive level.

We got ready and  stepped out into the area, where the audience stands had a pretty good amount of people, I'd say 20, which was really exciting if they all came from different sports. We all wanted to raise money for our charity. This fake race was just going to be a tester to know what to expect for nationals in a few days. The place would be packed with people and cameras.

We all took positions in our assigned numbers, and got ready to dive in. When it was time we all jumped in in unison and started swimming as fast as we humanly could to the finish line. Swimming that quick was uncomfortable, you would get water going in your nose, your costume would lower sometimes if it wasn't tight enough to show your boobs to anyone and everyone and the swimming goggles were even worse. You wouldn't actually see well, as either water would still come in or they would push your eyes back into their sockets.

Despite all that and amidst all the confusion, I think both me and Mariana got to the podium. The 100 meter was harder to me in some aspects, because if someone happened to be faster than me, it wasn't a long distance for them to lose energy quickly and their cardio wouldn't really matter.

When all the races were done, we all got out of the pool and waved at the other athletes as we went back to the changing rooms. When I looked closely I almost gasped and went to Mariana "is it just me or is that Sebastian Vettel?" I whispered subtly. She discretely turned around and said "yasss finally you can meet your celebrity crush" quietly to not embarrass me "I wander what he's doing here. Oh yeah, they have a race weekend about ten miles from here" she explained. I was still really shocked that he would waste his precious time on a Thursday to come and see us.

Back in the changing room we all took a shower and got ready to go home. 3 hours of swimming was a lot, but we were used to it. I sat down on the bench to dry up, when the competition director walked in "hello everyone I have some excellent news" she announced "everyone got at least one donation from an athlete". We all clapped fit everyone in the room when she started listing details to everyone. "Mariana, did you know that Simone Biles was here?" She asked and my best friend shook her head. "Well she decided to donate to your charity". Mariana quite literally started jumping out of joy.

It did make me really sympathetic as her coach made her think she was bad, yet she obviously wasn't. "Y/n?" "Yeah" "you got a few donations too. The most impressive one in my opinion was Sebastian Vettel" "ohmygoshicantbelieveit" I hyperventilated a bit.

——(Time skip)——

I walked out with Mariana, and low on behold some people were waiting outside. Including Sebastian. Mariana lightly shoved me towards him to signal that I had to talk to him. I took a deep breath and approached him timidly "ehm hi" I said shyly "I'm Y/n". He faces me and said "oh yes, hi! Impressive work out there" making me blush a bit. "Thank you so much by the way, I'm very sure my charity will appreciate everything, really" I told him. He put his hand on my shoulder and said "it's no problem, really. My team wanted me to come here for PR and shit but I wanted to come because I genuinely enjoy watching these kinds of competitions" we both started walking out together.

"Oh and I hope I'm looking at a future Olympic contender" he added once we were outside. "Almost" I said "the real competition is on Saturday, when it's going to be open to the public". I approached my car and we kinda stood talking for a while "what time?" "Three" "ah shit" he cursed "right when I've got practice".

"Hold on, you weren't actually going to come to see me right?" I asked. "I actually would if it was in the morning" he replied making me blush again. "Had I known it was a race weekend I would have bought tickets for Sunday" I responded "I just got caught up in training so much that I just let go of all my other interests".

He shifted his stance "I can get you a pass for Sunday, that's no problem". I immediately rejected his offer because I didn't wanna cause problems "no man, you don't have to do that at all" "I insist" he argued. I sighed happily, knowing I had to say yes "but promise me I'm not creating problems" "I promise" "ok, thank you so much".

We ended up exchanging numbers, before we both drove to our separate destinations. My mind was racing, I was thinking about Sebastian, Mariana, the Olympics. I was incredibly lucky to be in the industry.

I was incredibly lucky to do what I did and meet the people I met.