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ALICE Ch 145

MONACO GRAND PRIX RESULTS

WILDE (FUTA)
BOTTAS (Aston Martin)
HAMILTON (Mercedes)
VERSTAPPEN (Red Bull)
WOODCOCK, S. (Williams)
LECLERC (Ferrari)
LAAKSO (AlphaTauri)
MAGNUSSEN (Haas)
DARCY (FUTA)
PEREZ (Red Bull)
PATTINSON (McLaren)
TANAKA (Mercedes)

Bright lights shine on the simple chair.

“They simply didn’t see her coming,” Christian Horner says, with less than his typical level of smugness. “I should say that we didn’t. Alice Wilde was driving on inters and driving well. She kept attacking, and each time she lost time because these were futile attacks. Utterly futile.” He takes a deep breath. “Meanwhile, Lewis was driving brilliantly and extending his lead. Toto must’ve given him a specific threshold, and that put everyone else on notice. Lewis decided that he was far enough ahead to pit, which he was. And all of the leaders at that point were on the same tires. They saw Lewis pit, and each team knew that was their chance. They all boxed and well, Alice went on by…” he trails off there.

“And?” the producer prompts.

“And drove like a madwoman. Lewis honestly believed that he could overtake her with her tires in that state, and the maths and everything checked out. Mercedes’ thinking was sound. But the weather,” Horner begins to count on his fingers. “…the fact that it’s Monaco, and Alice Wilde’s level of aggression were more than he could handle with so few laps left. He was racing cleaner on fresh tires. Another four or five laps and he’d have had her, and I suspect Max would have got by Woodcock and done the same.”

“So you credit Alice Wilde’s first Grand Prix victory to tactical decisions? The inters?”

“Partly. Fair’s fair,” Horner says with a shrug. “She made mistakes, but once she took P1 she did not. Had she made a single mistake, that was Lewis’s race. But she did not. There is an X-factor in Formula One, a certain amount of chance outside the hands of the drivers, but there’s also good driving. When those two align, we see these outcomes. Alice Wilde would not have won the race without several lucky factors. She also would not have won if she hadn’t driven well. It is what it is. I’m happy for her.”

“You’re interested in her?”

“I said we’re very happy for her, here at Red Bull,” Horner says, tapping one finger on the arm of his chair.

FF1

The Star-Spangled Banner echoes through the streets of Monaco.

The rain has stopped and the stars are out over the water.

Alice holds her FUTA cap over her heart, a little dazed as she stands on the podium between Lewis and Bottas. Even at the best of times, she isn’t good at using her brain. Right now there are too many feelings, mostly of relief. The state of stress that a driver has to maintain during a normal F1 race is draining, but here? In the rain? She feels as though she’s done back-to-back triathlons or something.