Chapter Text
ISABELLE
Drivers championship standings
- Max Verstappen 137 pts
- Isabelle Beiser 129 pts
- Charles LeClerc 113 pts
My motorbike growls through the narrow buildings that make up Monaco as I thread the morning traffic. I take the last corner before the paddock entrance, leaning into the throttle, letting the weight of the bike pull me into the turn.
Black leather grips tightly across my arms. Wind claws through my braid. It’s so early, my visor is still fogging from the cold sea air.
When I park just outside the paddock, the sun is starting to rise behind the cranes.
Inside the Ferrari garage, it smells like coffee. Sebastian is already in engineering, staring at brake data. Even though it's not his actual job anymore, he loves adding mentor to manager. He glances up at me when I enter.
“Morning,” he says as he offers me a double espresso. “You’re late.”
“Did you even go home?” I say as I sip from the cup.
He laughs, but doesn't answer. His eyes are red and there's a crumpled Red Bull can beside the telemetry printouts.
Sebastian gestures vaguely toward the wall-mounted TV above the brake rig. “You’re just in time for the show.”
I follow his gaze. The screen is mid-broadcast, some roundtable post-race analysis from Imola. Logos crawl across the bottom as commentators in suits talk with their hands.
Then the feed cuts away from the studio to Imola, replaying the on-track clash from last weekend. Max’s blue car and my red one colliding at Variante Alta hard enough to end his race. The camera doesn’t even bother showing the full angle; they know everyone’s already seen it. They cut instead to Max in the post-race interview.
He’s still in his race suit, half-zipped, hair sticking every which way from the helmet. His expression is flat, voice even, but there’s that glint again. That knowing calculation he uses when he’s not saying everything he wants to.
The Sky reporter doesn’t hesitate in asking. “Max, walk us through what happened. Was there space, or did Beiser force you wide?”
“There was space. Then there wasn’t.” You can see that he saw that question coming a mile away.
“And do you think the stewards were right to call it a racing incident?”
Max exhales, a sharp twitch at the corner of his mouth that might almost be a smile. “Does it matter?” he says. “They made their call. Arguing doesn’t change anything.”
“Final question. This is the second time this season you’ve had a close call with Beiser. She said your move into Variante Alta was, quote, ‘reckless and desperate.’ Do you think she’s right?”
Max’s jaw ticks. He doesn’t look at the reporter. Doesn’t look at the camera either. He stares slightly past both as if he’s replaying the lap in his mind.
“This is my tenth year in F1,” Max says. “I know what I’m talking about.”
He says it without arrogance. But it lands like a goddamn elbow to the ribs.
The feed cuts to me next. Same background, same after-race blur. I’m mid-answer after the interviewer just asked me if I overcommitted into the corner.
We don’t catch my reply. Just the sharp flick of my eyes. I look furious. I was. He cost me the win, and he knew it. Finishing P5 somehow felt worse than not finishing at all.
And then the screen goes black. Sebastian’s remote clicks softly. “You desperately need this button while talking,” he says, tapping the off button with his thumb like it’s holy.
I give him a look.
He sips his espresso, unconcerned by my antics. “Just a thought.”
Sandra, the only PR person I like, finds me mid-briefing. She's holding a tablet, a headset, and a black coffee she doesn’t intend to drink. Her nails are red. Her mouth is tighter than usual.
Sandra has been with me since my debut, back when I first broke into F1 with AlphaTauri. She handled my press as if she was shielding something fragile, even when I gave her every reason not to. Because that’s what it was, in the beginning. A woman in Formula 1. The first in decades. The headlines weren’t only about lap times; they were about me. Sandra was there when I shattered firsts. First woman to stand on a podium, first to win a race. And I know she’ll be there when I take the championship too.
When I moved to Ferrari, she didn’t hesitate. She left the team, the title, the safer option, and followed me into the fire without asking anything in return. I never said it out loud, but I think we both knew: we were too bonded to separate. She was the one who handled every headline like it was glass. She was the person who made space for me when no one else did.
People still talk about the switch. One season at AlphaTauri and then straight to Ferrari is not exactly the normal route of an F1 driver. Red Bull juniors are supposed to stay in the system, bide their time, wait for a seat that might never open.
But everyone knows who holds the number one seat at Red Bull. And everyone knows what that means for the second one. Sebastian knew it better than anyone as he’d held the top spot himself not so many years ago.
He didn’t nudge me to leave. He pushed hard. He made introductions at Ferrari for me. And maybe that’s why they still look at me sideways sometimes. Like I skipped a step I wasn’t supposed to. But if Ferrari calls, you don’t say no. You pack your shit and run.
“Don’t kill anyone today,” she says. “PR is stretched thin after last weekend.” Not so subtly referring to the Imola incident. She sighs. “And Max is already here, so don’t—”
“I won’t.”
She raises her perfectly plucked eyebrow to heaven, but doesn't say anything. I'm sure it has to do something with any publicity being good publicity.
Max Verstappen stands exactly where I knew he would, leaning on the Red Bull pit wall like he owns the tarmac beneath it. He is listening to one of his engineers explain something to him. He doesn’t see me and I don’t stick around long enough to change that.
It’s Monaco so I’ve got bigger things to focus on than a man who thinks his corner speed makes him immortal.
Like qualifying.
Here, qualifying isn’t just important, it is everything. There’s no room to overtake unless someone makes a big mistake, and no one at the front ever does. The corners are too tight, the straights too short, and the margins too cruel.
It’s a race dressed in Saturday clothing. Everyone knows the race is won today, or not at all. Which means I either need to put it on pole, or prepare to suffocate behind someone slower for 78 laps.
Max is fast. I’m faster, barely. I put together a lap that sticks by four hundredths. My engineer, Carlo, sounds like he might cry over the radio. I sit in the car breathing like I’ve run the final lap on foot. When I step out, the crowd roars and I run to my team.
When I turn around, I see my teammate Charles pulling up to claim P3 to the left of my car. It hits me that this is his home race. These streets are his, every bump and blind turn etched into his memory since childhood. And yet, he’s starting P3. In Monaco, that’s not a fight for the win, it’s a fight to keep from losing more. He knows what this means. Barring a miracle or a crash, he’s not winning tomorrow.
I run to him for a hug. It's brief. I can tell he is frustrated, but he doesn't fail to congratulate me on my pole.
“It will come,” I say, though it sounds thinner than I mean it to. Charles only responds with a sour smile and a tap on my shoulder before going in for a weigh in.
When I turn back to remove my helmet and go for a weigh in after Charles, I see the Red Bull with a number 1 on its nose pull in. He gets out slow. Mostly clinical frustration in the way he sets his gloves on the box and walks away before I’ve even unzipped my suit.
The streets are already packed when we arrive at the race. The garage is quiet in that tense, too-calm way it always is before lights out. I sit through the final checks, suited up, listening to Carlo walk through the start sequence like we haven’t done it a hundred times before. When we head to the grid, the crowd is already roaring.
Once positioned, I glance up the track, trace the first corner in my head, then the second. Max is just off my shoulder. I already know the line I’m taking, and I know what he’ll try.
Then the lights go out and everything narrows. First gear bites, the car launches clean, and I get the jump. Max is there in the mirrors, close but not close enough. I hold the inside line into Sainte Devote, force the angle, and get out clean. The engine hums under me like a pulse. When I'm up the hill, past Beau Rivage, I can already feel the rhythm settle.
By lap fifteen, the field has stretched. The gap behind me holds steady. Two seconds, then three. The pit window opens. We nail the stop for once and to top it off, there's no traffic on exit. The team keeps the chatter light. Only deltas, tire temps, fuel targets. Nothing to distract me from the win.
In the final laps my wrists ache. Neck is stiff. Every braking zone now feels like threading a needle. But the gap holds. No yellow flags. No walls hungry for mistakes. I take the last lap with the kind of calm that feels unreal.
And then the flag waves. The crowd explodes. The radio bursts with cheers.
"Perfetta. Monaco victory. You made us proud today, cara."
I scream. Not from relief, not this time. From something closer to joy.
This season’s been a grind. It's less like racing, more like surviving the inevitability of Red Bull. Every weekend, it’s like watching gravity. Their car is a machine built on advantage: downforce, top speed, reliability that borders on robotic. They won 4 out of 7 previous races. Sometimes it feels like they don’t even need to try. And when they do try? It’s suffocating. It wears you down. Makes you question your own pace, your own worth.
But today was clean. No pit wall mistakes. No strategy blunders. No mechanical failures creeping in on lap fifty-five. For once, the team delivered, and I matched it. And now, we're tied in the championship. 155 points for both Verstappen and myself. So close, but so far away. We're not even halfway through the season.
On the podium, I raise the trophy and smile. Especially when Max, who is standing to my right, looks like I personally punched the smile off of his face. Once the anthem is finished, he pops the champagne and sprays the crowd. I'm left celebrating with Charles, who came in third.
I can't blame him. I wouldn’t celebrate either if I’d come second. Not to me.
After the press, I find Sandra in the back of the motorhome scrolling through media reports. “You’re all over the front pages,” she says without looking up. “They are calling you ‘Ferrari’s Princess.’”
My reward was already handed in, the journalists aren't my concern. But I see that it makes her happy, so I smile.
“And Max didn’t say a word about you in the interviews.”
My smile disappears.
The blonde smirks. “You really hate him?”
I take a long drink of water. “He’s not important enough to hate.” But the tightness in my throat says otherwise.
I feel it now, a target stitched between my shoulder blades, burning hotter with every step I take. Every step through the paddock feels louder, heavier. The pressure seeps through the seams of my race suit. Every race from here on out is a hunt, and I know exactly who’s coming for me.
I walk back to the paddock to get my gear before I take off on my bike back to my apartment. On the way, I pass the Red Bull garage. He’s inside, still in race gear, still talking to someone like the world didn’t watch him lose. He doesn’t look at me. But something in the air tenses, shifts like a wire pulled taut.