Austria (1/1)

Chapter Theme: The Weeknd - Blinding Lights Russia and China pass without incident or fanfare and it’s only two weeks later – sitting under a thin and dimming sun in the outside café of their shared hotel – that Seulgi muses this over. It’s strange, in a way she can’t properly describe or formulate the correct response for. Russia was an uneventful second place and a win for Joy. China was third after poor team strategy and a day of redemption for Yeri. But her last true and vivid memory is her crash at Castle in Baku and her crying in the hotel room that night and Irene holding her close and assuring her it was all going to be okay. That she would rise again and stronger.She looks down into the bottom of her empty beer glass. Stale suds formed around the rim. The red glow of the sun far across the world looks like burnished bar metal. Perhaps it’s the fact that both Russia and China were almost entirely team decisions. Wendy told her as much. All she had to do was keep it in a straight line and let the engineers do the work. Without their clever undercut strategy in China she’d be in fourth or perhaps even fifth. Even the fans could tell. She remembers vaguely the sort of general deflation surfacing after both races. As if they had wanted her to win on both occasions. Her or Irene.‘Hey.’It takes a moment for her to notice Joy behind her at all. She shifts her legs and sits up and lets go of the glass on the table. ‘Shit,’ she says. ‘Didn’t hear you come out. Sorry.’‘You looked like you were world’s away.’‘Yeah. Something like that.’‘Do you mind?’ Joy asks, motioning to the chair across from her. Seulgi shakes her head. She sets her can of Pepsi down and sits with her back to the sun so that for a moment haloed in the crimson maw of its disc shape she looks like an apparition made out of that same sun, like something born of it. Sipping her Pepsi so quietly that for a moment Seulgi thinks perhaps it wouldn’t be all that outlandish to be greeted by something from a dream. Perhaps her life has truly gone that far off the rails.‘What are you thinking about?’ Joy says.‘Not much. That’s the problem.’‘What do you mean?’‘I’m just thinking about Sochi and Shanghai,’ she says. ‘About how I can’t remember anything about them at all. It feels like my life has been put on hold since I crashed out in Baku. Like nothing happened.’‘I know what you mean.’‘Yeah?’Joy shrugs. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I don’t know why I said that. Guess I was just trying to be nice, you know? I mean, I won in Sochi. Don’t think I’d forget that in a hurry. That was a good race. For me, at least. Can’t remember the last time I drove that well. Guess it was just one of those weekends.’Seulgi thinks about it. Weekends where she’s felt that way have not come to her since Bahrain, and rarely even then. Her tendency to shift seemingly at random between overconfidence and crushing self-doubt had at that time been somewhat of a curse. But now – without even that overconfidence to warm her in moments of need – she finds herself wishing for it again, if only for a day. ‘I’m going to grab another beer,’ she says. ‘You want anything?’‘I’ve got this.’‘Nothing alcoholic?’‘Not in the mood,’ Joy says with a grin. ‘You seem keen for it, though.’‘Yeah. Well.’‘How’s Irene?’‘She’s good,’ Seulgi lies, not really knowing how she is at all. What she doesn’t admit is that she’s seen Irene a grand total of five times since that night in Baku and never for more than a couple hours. Never for anything concrete, to figure out their shared issues and resolve them in a mature and orderly manner. If such a thing is possible at all. She orders herself another beer from the bar in her broken German and pays and drinks half of it off in two mouthfuls.‘Jesus,’ Joy says, ‘I was right about you being keen. You eager to forget something or what? It’s not relationship troubles, is it?’‘No,’ Seulgi says. For a moment she isn’t sure if it’s the truth. Her life has become so disordered that her reality is locked away somewhere between doubt in her self and doubt in them, as a couple, as competitors, as whatever. Perhaps it’s the curse of their extreme talent to be kept separate. Even with Seulgi having failed to finish two races she’s still in second, if only by a handful of points over Yeri. All of that can change within a race, but she’s still – at worst – the second fastest driver on the grid. She sips her beer with that quiet introspection playing in her head.‘Anything you want to talk about?’ Joy asks her.She thinks about it for a while. Then she says, ‘How do you do it?’‘Do what?’‘Have confidence in yourself at all times.’‘Honestly?’Seulgi nods.‘I don’t,’ says Joy. ‘There are times where I sit and tell myself that I can’t do this. That I’d be better not doing it at all. That there are thousands of people out there more talented than me that are desperate for this seat. And I think it’s that. That’s what keeps me going sometimes.’‘What is?’‘The fact that if it’s me doing this. There are how many people out there driving single-seaters? How many people they could have picked for this role? So many. I mean, is there a driver in the world that would turn down Apex if they came knocking with a truck full of cash? Maybe your girlfriend. Nobody else. Same with Samsung. And yet, it was me that got hired. Just me, and no one else, for two years at least. So I must be doing something right. That’s what I tell myself, win lose or crash. That it’s me for a reason. I’ve got what it takes.’‘Yeah?’Joy nods, hand playing with her Pepsi can. ‘I think sometimes you have to almost be borderline sociopathic to do this job, you know? Alright, maybe that came out wrong, but there’s something in the disturbing amount of self-assuredness you have to have that keeps me awake sometimes. I can’t decide whether it’s a good thing or not. On one hand, it’s good to have that confidence, because it carries over into the real world, into everything you try your hand at. It rounds you out as a person. On the other hand, maybe it gives you an inflated sense of what you’re worth, or who you are. Does that make sense? Probably not. I don’t want to sound like I’m downplaying what we do as just driving cars, but…well. Maybe it might be better to doubt yourself sometimes.’‘It’s not,’ Seulgi says quickly. ‘Believe me, it’s not.’‘You’ll get over it. Whatever it is, I know you will. And then you’ll be right back there next to me on the podium.’‘Win lose or crash, you said.’‘Yeah.’‘Seems I’ve been doing a lot of crashing recently.’‘You’ve only crashed once. Bahrain wasn’t a crash, so don’t pretend it was either.’‘I binned it twice in Baku, back-to-back.’‘So? It’s still only one weekend. There’s a long way to go. You know that after last year, right?’Seulgi nods. It’s true, and it’s there in her mind, but the crippling criticism she piles on herself is paramount and suzerain, almost too much to bear at times. Somewhere in the lobby of the hotel they’re playing a light tune and the lilt of the high voice reaches her during a particular note that has her straining to listen, for whatever reason. The sun sleeps far behind Joy’s head. It smells of grass and lavender and slightly of beer.‘I love this place,’ Joy says, reclining in her chair. ‘Me too.’‘Love the track, love the venue, love the weekend. Win lose or crash, you know?’Seulgi laughs. ‘Win lose or crash. Hopefully the former of the three.’‘You’ll do well. I know you will.’‘Yeah,’ Seulgi says, but it’s as much a commiseration as Irene’s words were, or Wendy’s, or even her own. And that amounts to not very much at all.  As long as we’ve got each other, she thinks once she’s in the cockpit and the engine sounds eager to get out on track. It’s a strange thought and it’s no help at all, because it implies a world in which all she has left is Irene, and as much as she treasures their relationship together, she’s equally aware that a relationship that encompasses everything isn’t a healthy relationship at all. It’s quite the opposite. The careful juggling of career and love isn’t for any sort of trivial reason and Seulgi knows that. One without the other can’t quite work properly. And yet the thought remains. If I crash and then crash again, and then they fire me, I’ll still have her. We’ll be together.‘Seulgi,’ says Wendy, leaning over the halo with a frown on her face.‘What?’‘You good?’‘Yeah. Let’s go.’She takes the first few laps easy, watching the other cars pass by on their flying laps, judging each braking point and turn as it comes to her, getting a feel for the car. Austria is one of the easiest circuits on the calendar. It’s less about technical skill and more about gaining the confidence to realise how late she can brake into the few corners and how much power she can put down on the straights. It’s a race of strategy, not talent. Much like Russia and China were. Practice passes by so fast she’s surprised when Wendy tells her there are only five minutes left in the session. Then in the second session it takes her fifteen minutes to get out onto the circuit because of a mechanical fault with the engine cooling.She takes a moment to look out at the trees in the distance. On the grassbanks the crowds hum with tension. It’s only practice but it might be an indicator of tomorrow and they’re all awaiting something big to happen. Seulgi thinks solemnly that perhaps they’re about to be disappointed again. Her laps are decent but nothing extraordinary. It’s only the final run of the session that she starts to feel any of it coming together at all. She cuts in early at Remus turn two and takes a lot of apex and powers out at almost full throttle, so sharp the backend kicks out and she almost loses it. It’s aggressive, almost violently so, and the crowd can tell. At turn three she slows early and turns the wheel slowly on purpose and hammers down the curve at four and five while the fans watch her fly by. It all begins to fit, like pieces of a jigsaw. She thinks: If only there were more time.In the garage afterwards the first thing she does is talk to Wendy as always. Joy is still out on track on her cooldown lap. ‘I know,’ she says preemptively. ‘I know it wasn’t great. I was still getting a feeling for the track.’‘Tomorrow is where it counts. Don’t sweat it too much. You’re looking good.’The timing screens have her in fourth but it’s a pointless endeavor to worry about it. Wendy is right. Practice counts for nothing. She runs a hand through her hair and drops her helmet off and grabs a fresh bottle of water from the little chilled fridge at the back. ‘Anything else you can tell me?’ she says between mouthfuls. Wendy shrugs. ‘The Renaults look like they have pace this weekend,’ she says. ‘Whatever they’ve done has worked, it seems. At least for this circuit. Think they might be a big threat to us on Sunday, but we’ll see how it goes. It could all change.’Seulgi only nods. She thinks about saying something else and stops and instead says, ‘I’m going to head back. Catch you in the morning.’‘Sure.’It’s half an hour back to the hotel and the scenery gives her time to rest her head against the cold glass of the window and muse on a lot of things. The distorted shapes of things in the pale light fly by like bokeh. She thinks about what she’s going to say to Irene. It’s become a recurring pattern, to sit and wonder what she’s going to do or say whenever they get to next spend their limited time together, whether there’s anything she can get out of it beyond the surface level happiness enjoyed in Irene’s presence. When she’s sitting in the beer garden an hour later waiting for Irene to come down, she’s still thinking about it. Right up until she sits across from Seulgi with a drink of her own and smiles bright enough to make Seulgi forget she was ever worried about anything at all.‘Earth to you,’ she says.‘Sorry.’‘Off in your own world?’‘Something like that, yeah,’ Seulgi admits. She looks about. Only the two bartenders cleaning the glasses away and an elderly couple on the stools by the counter. Do they recognise her? Or Irene? Are they racing fans? Every weekend seems to be the same. Cautious glances to determine whether it’s in her best interest or not to steal a quick kiss. Eventually she does. She sits back and savours the feeling and smiles and Irene smiles too, their troubles dispersed, waves in the receding tide. Then it’s a long silence. Just watching each other. Irene drinks and pushes her glass away and says softly, ‘I think we should do something.’‘What do you mean? Now?’‘When we get back to Korea after this weekend. We should do something.’‘Like what?’‘I don’t know. Anything. Just something. Maybe go see a movie. Go to Jeju for a couple days. Just do something different, you know? Just me and you.’‘Yeah,’ Seulgi says with a smile. ‘I think we should. Sorry, I just didn’t expect that.’‘I’ve missed you lately. Been caught up with the racing and all.’‘Me too. Sorry.’‘I haven’t been ignoring you.’‘I know.’‘Just been concentrating.’Seulgi shifts in her seat. ‘Seems it’s been working,’ she says, ‘since you’re leading again.’‘You know what I’m like.’‘Yeah, I do. And I don’t mind. It’s one of the reasons I love you. That and your amazing humour.’‘Very funny.’They sit and talk most of the evening away. The time seems to disappear whenever they’re together. They talk about the weather and what movie they’re going to see and on what day and whether they could sneak off to the coast for forty-eight hours. What Irene neglects to mention is that she hasn’t won a race since Bahrain in the season opener, the longest streak she’s gone without a win since 2015. Or that Seulgi’s lead over Yeri is down to two points and it could swing either way in the next few races. None of it matters in the moment. The outside world – careers or not – is insignificant. Even the bartenders are irrelevant for the meantime. Seulgi leans over and kisses Irene and tells her how in love she is and how grateful and Irene tells her the same back. And it’s only when they’re asked politely to leave for the night that they move from there at all.  ‘Looks like we were right,’ Wendy says in her ear. Seulgi eases it slowly around Rauch at turn four and moves off the racing line while she listens and waits and watches. The sun is up and it’s a hot day in the late of spring and in forty seconds time she’ll be on her flying lap and hoping for pole position. Final practice was no different than on Friday, but the car feels more responsive and Seulgi’s gained a slight of her confidence back and the fact she’s still ahead of Joy is a small comfort as well.‘What do you mean?’ she says, slowing again for turn five.‘The Renaults are quick around here. Really quick. Even those two laps were fast and they both messed it up. Looks like you’re going to have to pull out a barnstormer for pole position today.’‘Where am I? Relatively speaking, I mean.’‘Two tenths down. But you can make it up in sector two.’‘What’s going on?’ Seulgi says. ‘Why are they so fast this weekend?’‘We think it’s the heat. They’ve got their cooling figured out much better than we have and we think it’s going to be a problem in the race as well.’‘Cooling.’‘Yeah. And before you ask, there’s not a lot you can do, apart from ease off on the throttle on the tighter corners. Sorry.’‘I know,’ Seulgi says, speeding up for the sweeping downward corner at seven. She doesn’t bother asking about Irene or Yeri in the Samsung cars. Wherever they are this weekend, it’s not close. The digital timer on her steeringwheel indicates less than a minute left. ‘Okay,’ Wendy says. ‘Time to get a shift on. Good luck.’‘No talking now,’ Seulgi says as she rounds the last bend at half throttle and floors it down the main straight. It’s now, in the space of a few seconds, that she hits her element. Where she realises that this is everything she’s ever wanted to be, with the crowds going mad in support as she eases through Lauda Curve and down the back straight towards the tight hairpin at turn two. She brakes late and turns in too early but it’s no matter because it allows her a slightly better exit onto the straight. The turns go by. The speed of the deceleration in the slower corners makes her head spin even a year later. She barrels down toward turn seven and down to the last corner and crosses the line to a roar of the crowd and the wind wobbling the car about a slight as she slows and pulls to the side and holds her breath in anticipation.‘Well?’ she says. ‘How was it?’‘Good lap. Really good. That puts you in P3.’‘Who’s ahead of me?’A pause. Then: ‘Jennie’s in P2 for Renault.’‘And pole?’‘Irene.’  The first thing she says when she’s out of the car and her helmet is off is, quite abruptly, ‘How the fuck did she do that?’‘I don’t know, but she did.’‘You said the Samsungs were off the pace this weekend.’‘In the race they still might be. But they’ve still got the one-lap speed. They were quick. Very quick. Even Yeri. You only beat her by a couple milliseconds.’‘I don’t know how she does it. I really don’t. I mean it.’Wendy thinks about it for a moment. Then she pulls up a video on her tablet and holds it out to Seulgi. It’s two separate onboard recordings, side by side, one of her lap and one of Irene’s. ‘What’s this?’ Seulgi says.‘Your reason. You want to see?’‘Sure.’It’s nothing she doesn’t already know, but it’s strange and oddly comforting listening to someone else talk her through it. Wendy plays the videos slowly, pointing out little details along the way, comparing the two, zooming in on certain parts and playing them back. ‘Here,’ she says. ‘Look at how different your driving styles are.’‘I know.’‘She’s so smooth. Every line is so perfect, so crisp. She makes it look effortless.’‘It isn’t.’‘Yeah, I know. But that’s how she makes it look. There’s never any fight in the car or anything. Never any kick or bite, the backend never jumps out, her hands barely move on the wheel. It looks like, well…like a game. Like she's doing it in her sleep or something. And then yours.’ Wendy points to the second video. ‘See the difference already?’‘I know.’‘You’re much more aggressive on the wheel. See how the front wobbles here at turn three? And how you take so much kerb? Kind of looks like you’re wrestling with the wheel, even. Like you're sawing at it. She makes it look like the car and her are dancing. You make it look like you're fighting. You let it understeer violently and then just power out of it and get a better exit because of your cornering speed. Here, look. You’re a tenth up in sector one and then two tenths down in sector two, where it’s all about smooth lines and good corner entries and not acceleration out of them.’‘That’s just how I drive,’ Seulgi says.‘I know. You’re polar opposites of each other. She’s so calm and easy, almost robotic, and you’re so wild and twitchy, full of passion and stuff. Not gonna lie, it’s kind of cool to see. Reminds me of Prost and Senna. Or Schumacher and Alonso.’‘I can’t help it.’‘You shouldn’t. It’s partly the reason they all love you so much, because it looks so damn good on the TV when you throw it into the corners like that. Super cool. And hey, it’s worked so far.’‘Not today.’‘It’s just one day,’ Wendy reassures her. ‘You can’t win them all. And on some tracks, your style will be better. You can’t be perfect forever.’‘Maybe she can be.’‘When did she last win? Bahrain, right?’Seulgi thinks about it. It comes almost as a surprise to her that she hasn’t worried about that before, only about herself, perhaps selfishly so. Is Irene struggling too? And if she were, would she have told Seulgi, or kept it to herself? Monaco last year dictates the latter, the mature turning point in their relationship, but times change. People, too. As she freshens up and says her goodbyes she’s still wondering about that, and as she sits alone poring over the race data for tomorrow on her own all she can do is sit and ask herself if a text is a good idea, just a brief one to ask if Irene’s feeling okay. To assure her she's there if Irene ever wants to sit down and talk about it, or about anything. Instead she opens her phone and types:Congrats!! So proud of you. See you tomorrow