DETERMINED - LANDO NORRIS

-8-

Race day. Norah didn't feel the nerves she felt last race. All she seemed to feel was determination. She wanted payback for what had happened in F2 last year here.

She was racing in front of everyone, leading the race with a comfortable gap. She was ready to start the season on a good note, staying champion like the year before.

It was unfair, but Norah knew she would've to do good this season for any team to even consider her. If she was a boy she would probably already be racing in formula one, but she wasn't and the sad truth was that females and males weren't equal in this sport.

When a boy became champion his first season in F2 he would be promoted to F1, but being a female you, unfortunately, had to double prove yourself, so that was what Norah was doing. Proving herself to all the formula one teams that not choosing her last year was a great mistake.

However, she didn't start the season as a champion as she should have, because with only a handful of laps to go her engine began to stutter. Before coming to a full stop. She should have won the race. There was no denying she would have won that race, wasn't it for her car. There was a decent gap between her and the number two in the race- she wasn't sure if It was Norris or Russell.

The worst part of it all was that at the end of the season she only had seven points short to finishing as champion. Seven points she would have had if it wasn't for that race.

Starting seventh was great, especially because Lando was only in ninth position after Grosjean got a penalty for ruining his qualifying lap. Starting seventh gave Norah a weird sort of strength. She knew there was a big opportunity to get points here, even though the track in the dessert wasn't a place the McLaren was usually good at.

Norah listened with a half ear to her father's speech about scoring points, when he grabbed her wrist snapping her out of her thoughts.

"Are you even listening to me? You know how important this is!" Norah swallowed away the familiar feeling, it wasn't fear anymore it was acceptation. She knew exactly what was going to happen if she wasn't in the points after the checkered flag which only made her more determined.

However when her dad didn't let go and harshly yanked at her hand to get her closer to him her tears betrayed her, pooling up in her eyes ready to spill over. She steadied her breath looking at his feet before replying. "Uhm, yeah I know. I'm sorry."

"Sorry won't cut it if you mess up like you did last week." His words usually hurt more than his actions, but when he finally let go there was already forming a bruise. Norah automatically pulled her sleeve over her wrist to hide the blue hues.

The girl quickly nodded. Still not daring to look her father in the eye. Wiping away the tears forming in her eyes.

"I understand." She muttered.

"What was that?"

"I understand, dad." Norah repeated now louder upon feeling his cold glare. There was something about his demanding eyes. They had her frozen.

Today was the day she would prove that his barely existed trust in her was not misplaced. That she had the talent she needed to be successful in the sport.

Today was the day she would make her father proud.

Norah was barely an adult and her dad had still a lot of power over her. She had promised herself that when she turned eighteen she would leave her dad and never look back, but she couldn't. She just simply couldn't leave one of the two people she had left in her life. Even with him in her life, she felt lonely and she could barely imagine how it was without him in it.