ALICE Ch 269

The sun is out in Hungary, and the roar of the crowd easily drowns out the howling engines. Flags wave, drinks are spilled, and everyone goes wild as Norris and Verstappen duel.

“This is simply blistering,” the commentators are saying.

Erica is glued to her screen in the Williams pit. Before things had gotten so serious with Val, she’d looked forward to interviewing the twins so much. Now? It’s just another race. Or at least it was, until Norris and Verstappen got into it like this. The fight’s been on for three laps and shows no sign of stopping. Plenty of laps left to go. Meanwhile, Val’s having some difficulty fending off Lewis.

Someone notes that Mio Mido is pitting early. That’s not unexpected.

“We don’t typically see this level of aggression from Norris. He’s much more daring than usual. Ready to touch,” one of the commentators gushes.

Erica’s body tenses. It’s getting tight up front. This is Hungary, but some of these turns look like Monaco with the way the drivers have bunched up.

“Patty Dunham successfully holds her ground against Mio Mido coming out of the pit lane! Danny Ricciardo falls to Akiko Tanaka, who is looking much crisper than she has in recent races. And that was very close indeed! That is contact with the curb, and you can see bits of Lewis’s car on the track! It’s not much! Will there be a flag?”

Erica clasps her hands and squeezes, her knee bouncing. Lots of close calls already. Enough of them that it’s more scary than exciting.

FF1

“I can do it,” Alice says.

“When you’re ready,” Glynda replies.

Alice stuffs all her self-preservation instincts in a drawer and takes Bottas on the inside, but he doesn’t blink. Alice groans as she falls back into eleventh.

“He’s not scared!” she complains.

“He’s a Finn, Alice.”

“A what? Fuck me. I’m sliding all over the place.”

“I see that. Give him space. He’s going for Kirsi.”

“Fine. But I don’t want to sit around here all day and wait for Mio to come run me off the road.”

FF1

Lewis has boxed. Val does the calculations and doesn’t like where she ends up. She can stay ahead of Sainz, but can’t challenge Lando. The car just doesn’t have the grip.

“We pit next lap,” she says.

“It’s early.”

“There’s debris. Let’s let someone else hit it.”

A pause.

“All right, Val. Keep this pace.”

In fact, Val can stand to lose a little pace. That’ll make Sainz’s life more complicated.

“Who’s behind Sainz?” she asks, twitching as there’s the slightest tremor from the car that she doesn’t recognize. Val doesn’t like things that she doesn’t recognize.

“Missy is fighting Fernando.”

“I’m going to brake check Sainz.”

“Negative, Val. This is not the time for that sort of risk.”

Ahead, Val sees Norris going for Max again. Already.

“Trust me,” she says calmly.