-+Rivals+- A Lando Norris Fanfic

Chapter 30

I landed in Baku after a very uncomfortable flight. With the boot on, it was a struggle getting comfortable the whole time, let alone how awkward I felt needed the flight attendant to help me to and from my seat and take my chair away to stow it. When I was finally back in my wheelchair, I made my way over to claim my luggage, and ended up basically waiting until the majority of people had already gotten theirs so there would be no crowd. It proved more difficult than I thought it would be to get around with the luggage on my lap, but I managed to do it. Penelope ended up meeting up with me to assist me from the airport, and she immediately took the luggage from me to help.

Once we were loaded up in the van, Penelope started briefing me.

"I already checked in to the hotel for you, and your crutches are in the room waiting for you. You are going to be on the crutches rather than in the wheelchair for the first couple of days, but on the days where you'll actually drive, you will be in the chair. The fan appearance you are doing first is at the hotel you and Kimi are staying at. It's just going to be a little interview and signing with the two of you. Nothing major, but we want you to have as much fan interaction as possible right now so that you can capitalize on this hype you're getting. After the appearance you have the day to yourself; you can go out to dinner or something if you'd like but I want you to ice your ankle for at least half an hour after the fan appearance before you go do anything. Capische?" She told me.

"Sounds like a plan," I smiled. "Anything big for tomorrow?"

"A few interviews, and you and Kimi have to record your part for the 'Grill the Grid' game show for the year," she told me.

"Do you know what it's gonna be like this year?" I asked.

"I think it's a sort of trivia game, and your score will be put up against the other teams' scores."

"Ah geez I suck at F1 trivia," I groaned.

"I imagine Kimi should know a good bit," She shrugged.

"You never know with him," I chuckled.

We arrived at the hotel and Penelope took me to my room right away, since she had already checked in for me. I went into the bathroom to change into a team shirt and jeans, the standard for appearances.

"Penelope! Should I do my hair nice or braid it?" I asked.

"Do it nice!" She called back.

I pulled my curling iron out of my bathroom bag and made my hair wavy, throwing on a little bit of eyeliner as well. When I emerged from the bathroom, Penelope greeted me by saying, "Wow! You actually look like a girl!"

"Wow! Thanks!" I laughed.

She handed me my crutches and we hobbled down to the lobby.

"There's going to be team questions as well as individual questions. For the team questions try to hype up that the car is amazing and you really like it, blah blah blah. For the individual questions, try to subtly emphasize how major your injury is, but try to do it in your way of 'It's no big deal' if that makes sense?" She told me.

"So, like, what I already do?" I laughed.

"Basically," She agreed.

The interviewer introduced us, and Kimi and I walked out. Well, I hobbled. I noticed he tried to walk a little slower next to me so that we went at the same pace, which was nice of him.

The interviewer started off talking to Kimi, so I started looking around the decent sized crowd of people that were gathered. Surprisingly, there were a chunk of people that had made little posters for me, and my heart warmed.