In Which Telly Becomes A Motorsport Manager

Episode 1: A New Boat

I was supposed to meet them shortly before the press conference where MRT was going to introduce me as their new team manager so we could at least pretend we got to know each other and spout things like how we're so excited to work together and all that bullshit you feed to the press. I didn't want it to go like that but it all went so fast when their plans for the originally planned Manager fell through. As it turned out Ellie and Molly didn't like it either so they made a tiny change of plans.
The team owner, Lucia Mori, showed me the MRT Valbuena HQ so I wouldn't get lost on my first day. (Come to think of it, safe for the mechanics this was an all girl team, besides me and yeah fucking Gustavo some years down the line).
When we made our way into the wind tunnel facility, I could hear several people laughing loudly. As Lucia opened the door, it all turned dead silent. There were these two girls and a bunch of mechanics, huddling over a computer screen. I had seen pictures of them both on CSN and MR Magazine so I knew it was Molly who slowly walked up to me. After mustering me from bottom to top she looked me straight in the eyes:

"So you're the new boss here? Let me tell you right now I'm not good at taking orders. Especially not from a...man."

I must admit I was scared shitless. I had never been anyone's boss up until this point, just a guy who's pretty good at driving in a circle and on my first day I was getting blasted for having a penis? Hadn't it been for Ellie I might have bolted right there and then. She was 21 then, actually two years older than Molly but she could never keep her cool like Molly could. I must have made the dumbest face right there because while Molly was still looking me dead straight into the eyes without a blink, Ellie burst out laughing uncontrollably. Ellie's laugh is damn infectious so within seconds the mechanics were laughing their asses off as well. Even Molly couldn't keep her straight face up anymore. Now she had the biggest smile on her face:

"OK you can kinda see what we've got going in here. We all work hard to keep this team afloat but we're not exactly championship material yet and we like to have some fun once in a while. So we hope you aren't, you know, against fun and stuff."

"Well since I was originally scheduled to meet you two and the crew later, I see no reason why we shouldn't start to work on the wind channel data right now, introductions be damned, time is money." was my reply, now I tried my best to look dead serious and it did work this one time. The dead silence had returned.

"Let's get to it then, I think the data clearly shows we need to empty this bottle of Tequila together right now. It's crucial for the development of the new chassis."

If there's one thing I learned from racing all over the world, it's Bring alcohol when you enter a new team and it was no different when I raised that bottle of cactus schnapps.

Lucia had been standing a little behind me, mildly amused by the proceedings.

"Ok I'll leave you all to it but remember there's a press conference tomorrow morning, so try to look not too wasted. Hey and before I go wanna know something fun: That buffon with the Tequila bottle signed a contract that says we'll be fourth or better in this year's Championship. So if you wanna get him fired you know what to do!"


I had several extra Tequilas that afternoon.

Episode 3: The Phantom Menage


As a team manager you're responsible for a lot of things, some of which are decidely not in the contract. So, as we were getting the final tests done for the Grand Prix in Vancouver, it fell to me to have a talk with Ellie about her, shall we say, more personal affairs. She came into my office chipper as always:

"Yo big man, there a reason I get dragged away from my duty of driving a bomb on wheels in a circle?"

"To some it's a deathtrap, to us it's ..well a deathtrap but one that proved pretty good at not exploding for the time being. But no, it's not about that, it's about you and Arson."

Arson was the nickname of Emerson Hystadt, her mechanic with whom she developed more than just new car parts. She was genuinely shocked.

"You know about it?"

"Everybody knows about it. Your efforts to keep it secret have been unsuccessful... for a few weeks"

Once the cat was out of the bag she went into tough race driver mode:

"So what, you're going to fire us? We're both adults, it's not interfering with our work and I don't remember a No Fucking clause in my contract!"

I leaned back and held my hands up.

"Easy there Tiger. No, I'm not gonna fire you or Arson. I just want to ask you, politely but sternly, to keep it a little more discreet, you two are a distraction. And also no, you're 21, he's 23, you're not adults."

"By more discreet you mean...? We always made sure nobody could see us"

"Well the problem is we can still hear you two. Maybe you and Arson could do your ...workplace socialising in the more soundproof facilities of the Headquarters. You're making noise on the level of banging steel pots and pans together."

She didn't want to but couldn't help it and started to laugh.

"Ok bossman, we'll keep it down. Also I perfectly get what you did there and it's not funny!"

"Oh I think it is. Don't worry we all we worked the odd job to make ends meet when we were younger. Hm, besides Lucia I guess. Now get out of here before I change my mind!"

Just a minute after Ellie left, Lucia walked in.

"You're sure this will not turn into a horrible mess further down the line?"

"I'm not but for now this is a great thing. Ellie is lazy outside of the driving but since they're a thing her feedback has really improved, they have gotten another 5% of breaking performance in the last week alone. And if there's a nasty breakup we may need a new mechanic, that's the worst that can happen" I couldn't have been more wrong. "These are young people huddled together almost 24/7, this was bound to happen"

She wasn't entirely convinced.

"You're the team manager, it's your call. But you're right, besides you old fart we're a team of young hot individuals."

"Now young Lady, I'll have you know if you weren't my boss, you'd be in for a serious spanking."

She leaned forward:

"If we win a race, I'll let you"

I was speechless and Lucia got up and walked to the door without another word, her preferred way to end conversations.

More to myself than her I uttered:

"Yeah I don't see that happen for a long time"

For the second time that day, I was dead wrong.




The weekend in Vancouver wasn't starting great. I had hoped for a litlle rain, in worse conditions it becomes more about the drivers and less about the cars which would have given us quite the edge. But both Friday and Saturday had seen perfect racing weather: Sunny, 18-20°C. With mediocre starting positions I didn't expect much for the race. Both Molly and Ellie had been fighting for positions about 7-10 but with another pit stop to go for both of them it didn't look like we'd be raking in points that sunday. There would reportedly be rain, but only later in the last one or two rounds, if at all. I looked at the sky, it was grey for the first time this weekend and I decided to gamble.

"Molly's pit stop scheduled for next round, we're all set. Go?"

Albin Nessler, Molly's chief mechanic was a man of few words. I turned around to him:

"No. She stays out for one more round. Get rid of the soft tyres, intermediates out and the heat blankets on them. Same deal for Arson's team. That's a Go!"

It took him a second to realize what I was planning but then his face brightened up.

"I like it boss. 'Specially the part that it's on you when it fails."

When Molly came in for the stop, she opened her visor and just gave me a raised eyebrow.

I didn't quite believe my own words when I said: "Trust me, it's going to work!"

Just as her new tyres were on and the tank was filled for the remaining rounds the first drops of rain landed on the track. Arson's team was right up next on Ellie's car, my gamble required them to come in ther same round. They had been only ten seconds apart and Albin's guys really had some pressure on the job right there.
Within a minute it had gone from a few drops to pouring rain and MRT Valbuena was the only team out there on intermediates. After the pit stops the girls had fallen back to 14th and 16th place but that didn't matter anymore. They had gone to first and second position even before the end of the round, as the other teams were still preparing their tyre changes. There was a solid 30 second gap between us and 3rd place after all teams had new tyres.
For the last five rounds, there was an awful lot of silence in the box and on the com. Some technical instructions but nothing more, nobody dared to speak of what could happen.  When Molly came out of the final curve in the last round all we heard was her breathing heavily over the com. Ellie coming in shortly behind was already giddy:

"WOOOOH this is totally happening!"

It didn't matter anymore but I felt I had to do my job here still and give orders again:

"Molly, breathe deeply. Ellie, don't freak out. It's all good just bring 'em home"

20 seconds later both had crossed the finish line. We had a double victory! After her victory lap, Molly got out of her car, threw her helmet away and literally jumped me. With her legs wrapped around my waist and hugging my head she cheered and fistpumped. That was a two sided experience for me. The fact that she hugged my head meant that my face was pressed right between her boobs. Sadly she had opened her racing suit down to her waist to cool down somewhat, so it also meant my face was pressed into high-functional, very sweaty race driver underwear.





A few hours later I was closing up shop at the track. The cars and equpiment had already been boxed and there wasn't really anything left to do. The team had gone partying, I was hoping no hotel rooms, or hotel bars, would be destroyed. Wanting a moment to reflect, or more accurately to have a huge tequila on myself, I had stayed behind. I was saluting the heavens above for being such a good sport when I heard Lucia's voice:

"I'm not sure about the fine print on your contract but I think you have the evening off."

"Just wallowing in the feeling for a bit. What about you, shouldn't you be eating tiny breads from silver plates and pretend laugh somewhere?"

"I should but there's a thing I have to do first. I am a woman of my word."

As I turned around I saw she was wearing a racing suit. These were fitted for Molly and Ellie, or our test driver Carina. Lucia was a slim lady but she didn't have the athletic figure of a race driver so she made the suit bulge in most interesting ways.

"As it's supposed to be a serious spanking", she continued "it should be delivered to a bare ass. Now since I have to get all out of this thing for that I just ask myself 'Why leave it at that?'"

She had opened the zipper on the racing suit all the way while saying that. She was not wearing functional race driver underwear.






One of the great things about team uniforms is that nobody bats an eye when you wear the same clothes on the next morning.

Episode 4: Rogue Done

As it turned out, becoming a winning team was the worst that could ever happen to me. Like father, like daughter, Lucia always kept an eye on the profit. Within 48 hours, she had sold the team to a hedge fund at a huge margin. One of the first things the board did was fire me and put a number cruncher with no experience in race driving in my spot. I spent my last day bunkered in my office, talking to no one and emptying a whole bottle of tequila.
I must have made it home somehow and even got out of my clothes but when I woke up with a severe headache I heard the shower running.
"Oh great" I thought "guess I planned a drunken shower and forgot about it, please don't let my bathroom be flooded."
I formed this thought still half asleep but when the shower stopped and I heard someone get out I was instantly wide awake.
The bathroom door opened and accompanied by a cloud of steam Lucia stepped out, wearing nothing but a towel on hear head.

"What's the matter, I thought you like all this, at least you told me so last night, repeatedly and very detailed. Now you look like you've seen a ghost!"

I rubbed my eyes while my mind was slowly finding back to the real world.

"Sorry darlin', I just had a very, very weird dream."

"Oh my poor baby, that's all because you've had so much stress since Vancouver. You really need to relax."

And with that she was in the bed and on me again. Reality had been stressful but it it did surpass that stupid dream easily.




The media had been going crazy after the Canada GP. Up until then the Costa brothers Gustavo and Ronaldo, yes that fucking Gustavo, had been the new hot talents on the circuit and with a good team the only question was who of them both would win the Championship. Being so successful, young and hot they were used to get all the media attention but now it was all about MRT Valbuena. Interviews, home stories, trending on twitter, you name it- we got it.
Ellie loved it. All night bar and club tours were her thing anyway and now she could raise her market value while partying. Not three weeks after her second place in Vancouver she had a GQ photoshoot.
Molly on the other hand didn't enjoy the media circus at all. Race driving was a job for Ellie but for Molly it was life. She didn't get around giving a few interviews after her victory but just a few days after the race we had started to essentially smuggle her in and out of the headquarters in a delivery van. Ellie always took the main entrance and spent a tad too much time talking to reporters and a bit less on practising.

In the following weeks our race performance was going back to business as usual. We got lucky in Vancouver and without weather shenanigans we were just still just a small team with a mediocre car, at best. Molly managed to get into the first 4 to 6 places pretty regularly, bringing in valuable points for the team. Ellie was doing alright but never quite made it to a place in the first 6, 8th to 10th place was her ballpark. I urged her to take training a little more serious but she was bringing in millions in sponsor money, so I didn't complain too loudly.

Everything was going better than expected, and you know that's when it's most likely for shit to hit the fan.
I knew something serious was happening when Albin requested to talk to me. Albin only talks if it's absolutley necessary. He came into my office and dropped  some sheets of paper on my desk and sat down without a word. I cross checked the sheets.

"That's a summary of the specs of our new rear wing. Quite interesting but why are you showing me this?"

"Interesting thing is where I got it from. Arson's backpack. He prints these out and takes 'em with him, everyday."

Frisking your co-workers stuff is no laughing matter but stealing sensitive date is worse. I knew I had a bad time ahead of me in any case:

"Oh Lordy, I hope you have some sort of proof for this. This is bad enough if you do, but a total clusterfuck if you don't."

Albin got out his mobile phone, started a video on it and put it on the table:

"Modern tech, boss, it's not just for cars."

The video showed Arson printing and bagging files in his personal backpack.

"I have more of 'em, made one every day last week."

I sighed: "It's alright, I have seen enough. Who would even want to buy info on our crappy car parts?"

"Ain't that crappy anymore. Smaller teams behind us. I'd bet on the mofos at Chariot Motor Racing"

Goddamned Chariot! I was going though my options and realized I didn't really have more than one. Still I tried:

"I guess a fine, even a hefty one won't fly with you and the other mechanics?"

Albin sneered. "If you wanna keep him do it, you're the boss. But what good is a mech when the others won't even talk to him? Not going to get any useable data or better performance that way."

"I know, I know. He's fired. I'll call security to guide him off the premises."

I stared at my phone for at least five minutes after Albin left. Before I'd call security, I would have to talk to Ellie.

Episode 6 – Revenge on the Fifth

At 10 o’clock in the morning, four hours before the final race of the season, there was already a heat haze shimmering on the track in Arizona and I knew I was fucked.
Just looking at the numbers, everything was fine. Molly had become incredibly reliable in making points. Still just 19 years old, this girl was getting better with every mile she put on the road, at a rate nobody anticipated. I was fully convinced she would have won the Asia Pacific Supercup that year if she had a decent car. She didn’t but it was still enough for her to get into top positions regularly. So Molly held the team in fourth place basically on her own. Ellie couldn’t make a single point anymore. I could hardly blame her and she was still attracting sponsors left and right but all the sponsor money in the world couldn’t buy me a new contract.
For that, we had to stay in fourth position in the Championship. Our competitors were on our heels and it was clear we needed to make at least two or three points to be on the safe side. Arizona did its darn best to keep us from doing do.
It was too hot for the fast tyres, they’d melt away in this heat so our usual strategy of riding light on fuel with a lot of stops was out of the window. With the medium tyres we’d have to use, the gap in performance would be even worse than usual. All this could still be compensated by Molly’s excellent driving if there wasn’t one more thing about the track:
It’s a round course. Even the most talented driver can’t get a lot out of a hardly mediocre car when you’re just literally driving in circles.

“It’s not going to work today. We might as well pack our things right now, would spare us replacing and repairing parts, there’s nothing to win for us here. Unless you developed a revolutionary new tequila-powered engine overnight.”

I had been lost in my thoughts, staring down the track and didn’t notice Molly coming up to me.

“Can’t say that I have.” I confessed.

“I’d love to just leave too but we have to showcase our sponsors for forty rounds. That’s all this “race” is, I wonder how anyone even watches stuff like this.”

Molly noticed my jab against her greatest nation but let me get away with it for once.

“Relax, Lucia isn’t going to fire you after the great work you did here. Especially not since you two have such an intense relationship.”

“I don’t think that’s going to help me- wait how do you know about it?”

“She’s at the HQ way more than any other team owner, spending lots of time there with you. So I had my suspicions. Now I know.”

She took a step closer to me.

“Don’t worry, big man, everything is going to be fine. I’m looking forward to pressing my sweaty boobs in your face a lot more than once next season.”

Just like on the day we first met, she said that with an absolutely straight face.

“I.. erm, .. am too looking forward to managing this team in the coming season. Now don’t you have some race driver stuff to do?”

She laughed.

“Don’t I always?”





The race went as bad as expected. If we’d just taken our lap times and compared it to the other teams we would have been about 13th and 14th, which was more or less exactly how the race turned out. No points, no glory, just travel expenses and two cars to repair again. We could have gotten through with another bad race as long as our competitors were bad too but for one of them it went really good that weekend.
I had the maths in my head all the time, as soon as the first six were in, I knew I had missed my contractual goal.
MRT Valbuena only made it to fifth place in the Championships.

Back in Madrid, I just got a short invitation for contract renegotiation via e-mail. To my surprise it wouldn’t take place at the headquarters on the outskirts of town, but at the Ritz Hotel. When I told the cab driver to bring me to the Plaza de la Lealtad, I wasn’t sure if it was to celebrate my new contract or to lure me away from the HQ to void my keycard. I was expecting a conference room and I tried to look not too dumbfounded when the concierge directed me to a suite.

“If you’re going to kick me out I must say this is the most enjoyable firing of my life.”

Lucia smiled.

“You got our team to a competitive level, managed to get a double victory, kept the team together after the Arson incident and somehow made a profit while doing all that. I wouldn’t fire you if we came in dead last in the Championship. I offer you the same deal for next year but this time I’m serious about that ‘fourth or better’ clause.”

I was relieved beyond words.

“I would be delighted to sign that contract”

“Then get to it, here’s a pen, there’s not much time!”

“Wait, so you’re in talks with somebody else?”

“No, Tequila buffoon, I’m not. But the champagne should be here in about a minute and I really wanna get this party started.”

Later that day I stood on the suite’s balcony in a splendid mood. I had signed the new contract without batting an eye because of a key difference. As Lucia said, I had made quite the profit in the 2016 season. This gave us the one thing that makes or breaks a racing team: Money.
2017 was going to be a very different year.

Lucia shook me out of my daydreaming:

“Could you stop staring at the Mayonnaise Monument and come back inside, I’m getting a little jealous in here! Jesus, you brood so much sometimes I think you’re going to write a book about all this.”

She was right, pre-season wouldn’t begin for another two months, it was time to take a break.

WOOOO bonus features! Awesome!

Season 2- WOHOOO


Episode 1 – You Only Rev Twice



Shiny. Polished. Sleek. Not a speck of dust or oil on it. A rather silly paintjob.
I took one last lingering look at the 2017 models before the girls got in and rolled out to their starting positions. This was my all in bet, and could easily become the symbol of my hybris.
Last year, I was just the ex-driver who got into a management position on a small team. Had I just crashed and burned it then the world would have reacted with a shrug and a “Well, he tried”. This year it was all on me. I had renegotiated the contracts and chosen the suppliers for our car parts. On top of that expectations were huge since our relative success in the past season. The media, Lucia and even I wouldn’t accept anything less that the Team Championship this year.

I had brought that on myself. Lucia and I started planning the new season already when we had the room service bring breakfast. Maybe I should have just taken another bite of my French toast and said nothing when she thought out loud.

“You know, it went really well from a business standpoint and we’re building up on this but I’d really like to win the whole thing.”

I didn’t take her seriously and upped the ante.

“The Championship? That’s a tall order. Give me about a million more per race, with that kind of budget we might actually do it.”

It turned out she wasn’t bluffing.

“You drive a hard bargain but that sounds reasonable, I’ll mail the office to pen the new contract and have it delivered here. That should take a couple of hours, seems we have to stay a little longer.”

Lucia blinked.



So there I was, damned to succeed.
Molly had made the third best time in the Qualifying, Ellie was starting from 7th position. A really good result for the first race of the season. The tactics for Molly were simply: Go to first place and then drive like a madwoman to make up for the second pit stop. Even if we had more reliable parts at that time of the year less wouldn’t be an option for Molly, she was insanely fast but burned through her tyres in an equal fashion. Ellie was never that fast but she had developed a certain smoothness from fighting for positions in the mid field. My plan did not go over well with her:

“No Supersofts? I lose about a quarter second per round on these and for what? They don’t last long enough to save a pit stop!”

“Well see about that, at the very least you can stay out for a longer time. We’ll fuel it up for half of the race, if all fails I’ll call you in for a tyres-only stop.”

“Oh splendid,” she hadn’t lived in her home country for quite some years but could still pull the sarcastic Brit, complete with posh accent at a whim. “I get extra weight on top of the garbage tyres. What a lovely day at the races!”

“Just trust me, remember Vancouver? I have a plan.”

“I highly doubt the latter part. But I trust you …for now”

I had 24 rounds to prove worthy of that.

5 red lights lit up one after another, then they turned off and the race was on.
Molly did exactly as expected, took the lead about half a round in and started making a gap to the field. All she had to do was make that gap more than 20 seconds long to compensate for the extra stop.
Ellie fell back to tenth place, she always struggled at the start but then held this position, despite being the only one on just soft tyres out there. After the first wave of pit stops she was in 6th position even before Molly, only those who’d also do only one stop in front of her. In the middle of the race I checked the tyre, fuel and parts data several times. There was no mistake, no bug, I had poor Albin confirm it to me until he got annoyed. This could work so I radioed Ellie:

“Your tyres are good for another few, I’ll reduce you’re your fuel injection by 10%, you stay out as long as possible. Drive conservative, cold tyres no issue now”

Her answer was more grumbling than actual words but she complied. When the leading five had their stops in round 12 she passed them all. After half of the race, I had Ellie in the lead and Molly on second. Ellie’s tyres played ball for another two, so I had her come in in round 14. Late enough to race the remaining ones on the faster supersoft tyres. She came back on the track in second place, only Molly ahead. Who had to do another stop.
For a team manager, it doesn’t matter who’s coming in first or second in that situation because the points stay the same. There was quite the gap between Molly and Ellie, and a huge one between them and the rest of the field. So I just wanted to get those cars home in one piece at that point. Being race drivers, the girls had another idea again.
Ellie wasn’t holding back and that gap to Molly went smaller with every round. She still wasn’t going to get to her on the track but when Molly came in for her final stop it was so close even Albin wouldn’t call how it would turn out.
The mechanics had just finished when Ellie came in on the home straight. Molly’s car got lowered and she instantly accelerated to the allowed 100 mph in the pit lane. When she got out of the lane and accelerated further to top speed, Ellie had just passed by half a second ago.
Molly had fresher tyres and still drove like a madwoman but couldn’t reach Ellie anymore. When they reached the home straight for the final time Ellie got on the com one more time:

“WOOOOOH, this is so awesome I’m never doubting you again!”

“That is good to hear, no face jumping please.”

“No can do, today is my day to win and jump into faces WOOOOOOOOH”

It’s a small price to pay for a double victory.



A few days later I was back at the office studying the findings of my talent scout. As perfect as the first race went, there was trouble on the horizon. Ellie was basically on the same contract as the year before, with a minor raise. She didn’t have the best year and was happy with it. Molly though had become aware of the fact that she’s a champion in the making. She wanted to stay with us but I had to chalk up a huge raise to keep her. So while Ellie was costing me less than 350k a race, Molly got about 750. We were still making a profit but for the long term goal, the World motorsport Championship series we needed huge improvements at our headquarters and that wouldn’t work with such a huge expense factor. Come next year she’d have opportunities to go to bigger and better places, so I was already checking for a replacement.
My scout hadn’t found great drivers without a contract yet, the best I could hope for was “Mediocre but mildly talented” with one exception:
There had been strange ongoings at the BOA Esperanza team. They dominated in 2016, with Ronaldo, the older Costa brother winning the Championship and the younger Gustavo coming in fourth overall.
One would think that appeased the owners but apparently not, as BOA Esperanza had two new unknown drivers in 2017. Ronaldo was degraded to a test driver and Gustavo was just let go.
I didn’t care what exactly happened at BOA Esperanza, in hindsight I probably should have. All I cared about was that Gustavo Costa, by some accounts the best driver of the series, was unemployed.

Episode 3 – Live and Let Ride


“Stock Car racing? Really, Molly? You could do anything with your free time and you decide to become a minor league stock car racer on the side?”

Molly knew this discussion was going to happen, and she came prepared:

“You know all I want to do is be out there on a track, so what else did you expect? And it’s really easy stuff, you said yourself it’s only driving around in circles. Plus it hones my skills at high velocity. The media is all over it which makes us more interesting and expensive for sponsors. I believe that’s a quite important part of your business plan for this shack.”

This girl and her reasonable arguments, there wasn’t much left for me to say in the matter.

“Ok fine, you do your thing, I just don’t want you to get hurt in a stupid carambolage with a guy who drives a chicken truck from Monday to Friday.”

“Yeah, ‘worth more alive’. I remember that.” We both tried hard not to burst out laughing, to no avail. She continued after we somewhat got back our contenance:

“I’m pretty good at keeping myself out of trouble on the track, you of all people should know that best, I managed to navigate our death trap on wheels between real racing cars for a whole season, remember? You worry too much, old man. How about a Tequila?”

I sighed in defeat.

“Yes, let’s have one and talk about Heidi for a minute.”

Her name wasn’t Heidi but Camille Piaget. She was from Switzerland, which was enough to earn that nickname among the teams. After firing one and degrading the other Costa, BOA Esperanza had gotten their former test driver, Falko something from Germany, as second main driver. The top spot was given to Camille. This seemed a further strange decision at the time. She was already 29 years old and had been driving since 2011, without making a single victory or podium. Granted, it was in the world Motorsport Championship Series, one league above us but still nobody could make head or tails of why a top team would hire her in the autumn of her career. We didn’t know if it was more BOA’s car of the season or long dormant talents of Camille waking up but the first race in China had made one thing absolutely clear: She was the only one who could become a problem for my ambitious plans for the season. Well, besides exploding motors and unpredictable weather of course.

Molly chugged her Tequila and leaned back.

“Yeah, the Miracle from the Mountains…”

Molly was always respectful when talking about fellow drivers but you couldn’t overhear a little snark in that sentence.

“She’s good, really good. Not as good as me, as long as my engine doesn’t fall apart I can keep her in check. How is she so good all of a sudden? I have no idea but I wouldn’t put evil genetic experiments behind BOA.”

We had two more and bantered on about the strange proceedings at BOA Esperanza but did not conclude anything more than we would just have to deal with it, whatever it was.

When Molly left my office I asked her to try and stay safe again.

“No worries” was again what she answered.

As it turns out she was right. A week later she took the pole position in Doha and won the race the next day with a frightening gap to most of the other drivers. Pretty much the only ones who could keep up were Ellie, who became fifth in the qualifying, she had a good start for once and made it to third place in the end, and the Mountain Miracle. Camille Piaget made second place, and it was a close second.

The next race was an exact copy of what happened during the first. Molly in the lead, Ellie on second and all went swimmingly. Until Molly had to take an extra stop two rounds before the finish line, her engine went kaput. Again. We had worked on it to make it even more reliable but sometimes bad luck hits you. Sometimes twice.
So Ellie scored her second win and Molly fell back to fourth place. We were making a lot of points so in the Team Championship we took a comfortable lead but in the Driver’s Championship things were a little different than planned. Ellie, our relatively cheap second main driver was leading, while our 750k-a-race star was “only” third, behind Heidi.

“Still 9 months until contract renegotiations, no need to worry about now” I told myself going through the finances with a Tequila in hand.