DETERMINED - LANDO NORRIS

-4-

Even though the weekend came to an early end for Norah she was still exhausted and ready to go to her hotel room to take a nap. Unfortunately for her, she still had some interviews to do. To say the girl was pissed was an understatement. She wasn't pissed at her team or that her car gave up, well maybe a little, but she was mostly pissed that Lando's car didn't do the same. She knew it wasn't fair and she knew it wasn't right to think that way, but she just couldn't help herself. Why did it always have to be her?

-

Norah was driving a solid five seconds in front of Lando, ready to switch the championship positions to her liking when it happened.

"I don't have any power!" The girl was frustrated. The end of the season was nearing and if she was to retire now Lando would get a 25 point head start.

"Yeah, please stop the car on a save place on track, p-1, pause, p-0. Sorry, Norah."

Norah let out a frustrated sigh as she rolled her car as far of track as she possibly could with the speed the girl still had.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me! Fucking hell, honestly."

-

It took the teenager a while to get herself together for the press. She really wasn't feeling like going, but it was a rule and she didn't have a solid excuse to get out of it, so she took a deep breath and put on one of her best fake smiles she could manage.

Press was always the thing she disliked the most about racing. She didn't choose to be a racing driver to get famous or for people to dive into her private life. She chose to be a driver because she enjoyed racing. She enjoyed to learn about her car and how it worked and occasionally help with some of the work that had to be done on her car, but unfortunately press was a part of her job and she loved her job 10 times more than she hated the press that came with it.

"This must be a massive disappointment."

"Yeah, I mean obviously I would have rather finished the race." Norah chuckled. It was a stupid question. One she had already gotten at least 5 times. "But, the car felt amazing all weekend long and we can be really pleased with the car we have. I think no one had expected to get into the top 10 to begin with, so the team's been great and I think we can get some serious points this season, more than we had originally thought."

"That's great, you reckon you can fight for fourth in the world championship?"

"I don't know about fourth. That may be a little overenthusiastic, but the teams been working hard and have two great drivers, so I guess nothing is impossible, is it? Let's just wait and see"

It wasn't exactly a lie. Lando was a great driver, that was the main reason Norah didn't like him, but they had agreed to at least try to get along, so that was what she was doing. Acting like they liked each other to the public eye. She knew that her words would get back to her, but now she couldn't take them back anymore and before she knew it the subject had changed.

"You and Lando, there's seems to be some tension there?"

Norah sighed, already expecting the change of subject and tried her best to reply as politely as possible. "I mean, we've been racing against each other since we first stepped in karts, so I guess it's just some getting used to."

"Okay, have a nice one."

"Thanks, you too."

The rest of the interviews went the same and afterwards the girl walked back to the pitlane. The team had a briefing after the race, but considering both their drivers should be there Norah had to wait. Which only made her more annoyed at the fact that the boy didn't had the same issues with the car.

She walked to the pit wall and took a seat next to her racing engineer, talking to some of the team members. They wanted her on the pit wall. To 'support' Lando and the team, whatever that meant. The team had probably noticed the tension between the two and this was their way to show the press it wasn't as bad as it looked.

However Norah thought it was ridiculous. She couldn't exactly stand next to the track and cheer him on like she was some kind of cheerleader, even if she wanted to. She didn't really get the point and would much rather hide in her drivers room. In the comfortable silence.

-

Norah tilted her head as she listened to a story of her racing engineer. The girl had lost all interest in the race after a good 5 minutes. She had discovered watching the race wasn't as exciting anymore once you had raced in one of the cars yourself. It also didn't help to see her name at the bottom with the word OUT beside it. She was so caught up in his story she didn't even realise the race had come to an end.

She didn't know how she hadn't noticed the race had stopped, seeing as the loud sounds were gone and replaced by a voice going over the speakers. It was almost impossible to not notice how the roaring sounds had died down, but the girl had spaced out only partly listening to the story at this point. Norah was also half deaf, so there's that too.

"I'm sorry." A hand on her shoulder was what had snapped her out of her thoughts. It was Lando. Norah stood up from her chair, while putting away her headphones. Lando furrowed his eyebrows together in concern. "Are you okay?" The girl nodded. "Yeah, I'm -uhm- I'm fine." She put on a smile and brushed her hair out of her face.

Russel, fortunately, came walking to the two McLaren drivers. He hadn't had the best race either. His car was shit and even if you were the best driver ever, there was no way you could get into the points with it.

"Already breaking their cars I see." Norah nudged him with her elbow and chuckled. " My car was even better than yours when it was breaking down, so I wouldn't look so smug if I were you." This earned her a glare, but soon enough he was laughing too.

Lando was confused. How was it that Norah could get along with everyone except him. George had been racing with them for almost as long as him and he had never gotten a snarky comment from the girl. George and Norah weren't particularly friends either, but at least they didn't hate each other. He furrowed his brows together and watched how the two interacted with each other. There wasn't a sarcastic reply after everything he said or a involuntarily eyeroll.

He was so caught up with them he hadn't even noticed they were talking to him until Norah slapped his arm. "Huh, what?"

Norah rolled her eyes at that, of course he wasn't listening. "I was just complimenting your driving." George looked at him eyebrows raised. "You good?" Lando nodded, looking over at Norah who was now staring at her phone. "We have to go, we have a briefing." The girl said, not looking up from her phone.

Nora sent an apologetic look to George before walking away with Lando trailing behind her. They were walking in silence for almost the entire way, but when they were almost there he stopped in his track.

"Why do you hate me?"

-
Double update? Who's she? Lmao I can't believe how irresponsible this is from me bc I have massive writers block atm I'm going to be so stressed. I love myself xD

oof, I'm so sad Sasha Sloan was in the Netherlands, but I couldn't go bc i had work :(

anyway, why do you think Norah 'hates' Lando? I'm curious to hear your theories.  

word count: 1368
publish date: 10/05/2019