Woman in a man's world

Summerbreak 2022

Over the last races before summer break Norah and Max were fighting for positions, neither wanted to come after their teammate. After good fights Max was still ahead of Norah in the standings but her win at Monaco, Austria and France made her come closer. She was ready to get even closer after the break. Norah's break was mostly spent in London, she wanted to catch up with her friends and family. She also had to pay a visit to the clinic for a check-up. After that went well she felt independent again, but was still nervous for her to go back there, the fear of getting worse was her biggest worry right now. Her meeting was good and she is just as healthy as they want her to be. This evening she would be on the Graham Norton show as a guest, she had no idea of who the other guest would be but it was exciting. She got there a few hours before to get ready, there was a big makeup and hair team with a stylist, it was important that everyone looked good for the camera. A little bit before the show she got to meet the other guest and to her shock it was a few people she knew. Tom Cruise along with Florence Pugh, two people Norah knew and loved. Then there were two other people Norah didn't know, they all sat down on the sofa and they started recording. They were all introduced and Graham started to ask Questions. After a while he asked Norah a question.

"I have this piece of information that you met Tom many many years ago when you were with your uncle in America, is that right?" He asked Norah, she smiled.

"Yes my uncle David who is a former formula one driver was invited to America to film with Tom and i had just gotten my contract with them so David made place for me on the place and i got to see Tom drive the Formula one car and i got to show him me in one of my karts."

"It was really fun, I remember that day and you were so nervous but the second you got into that car you were amazing, it's crazy, what could you have been? 12?13? Your skill at such a young age amazed me."

"Yeah i was told that you were this big famous person but i had no idea who you were, but yeah i was so nervous but it was so fun to see you race!"

"I also have to point out, I was at Silverstone this year, the English GP and when Lewis introduced me to you I didn't recognise you at first. I saw you from a distance and I couldn't believe that it was you because I still pictured the little girl from a decade ago." They all laughed and Graham asked the next question to Norah.

"I have to ask, Formula one seems like such a diverse sport, it's not the usual sport that you do when you grow up, what would you say makes formula one and racing over all so different from the other sports."

"It is a very different sport, it's only twenty people in the world that do it so you really need to be one with the best in the world to even get a seat in formula one and just like many professional sports you have to start early to make a name for yourself and get the sponsors and economic help to get you up to Formula one. And then the whole sport is also different, you get many people who says that it's easy and that anyone could do it and that is true in a way but to be at this level you have to be so extremely well trained so that you can hold all of the G-force and the strength to drive the car."

"And it is also a very dangerous sport, probably one of the most dangerous in the world. Now I don't think everyone knows this about you but in 2020 you were in one of the biggest crashes of the century. Is it okay if we watch it now?" Norah nodded and the TV started to play a video from Bahrain 2020. When she crashed everyone exclaimed in different ways, Norah tried to hide her laugh.

"How, it feels impossible that this happened to you two years ago and now you're sitting here with us. Can you tell us about this, how you survived this horrible crash?" Graham was riled up about this.

"I guess pure luck. It was not something unusual the crash itself, of course it could've been avoided but the collision with the other car was not the weird part. The weird part was that the tank of my car broke and because of the heat of the cars when we raced it all just lit on fire. That is the special part about this crash."

"But how, how did you survive going through a barrier this fast?"

"Formula one has gotten so much safer over the years, after we lost Jules Bianchi to a crash in 2015 a lot of changes for the car safe ways. Like the thing I have around my head, that's the Halo and it can basically hold anything and because of that I didn't get any major injuries to my head, and because of our fitness around our neck I could partly hold up my head and not get injured that way. Then I would have to say luck, the only thing going through my head when I was stuck was to get out. Because of the heat I just needed to get out as quickly as possible." The whole crowd was shocked.

"Well it would be a shame to lose the only woman racing on formula one for over three decades i'd say." Everyone laughed, the interview went on and Norah had a fun time with everyone. Jokes and laughs were shared between everyone.

The rest of summer break was spent with Dennis, first in England then in Norway. They had a lot of fun together and Dennis was truly a good person for Norah.