Chapter Text
Oscar Piastri had been called a lot of things in his twenty-three years on this planet.
Methodical. Disciplined. Focused. Consistent. All perfectly acceptable adjectives, the kind that belonged on a LinkedIn profile or in the opening paragraph of a motorsport biography. The kind his mum would frame on a wall if she were the type.
Boring, however, was new.
Well. Not entirely new. But hearing it from the mouth of a woman he'd just bought dinner for–a woman who was currently standing six feet away in the lobby of a Melbourne restaurant, phone pressed to her ear, completely unaware that he'd come back from the bathroom–was a particular kind of gut punch he hadn't prepped for.
"No, like, so unbelievably boring," she was saying, her voice carrying with the confidence of someone who believed walls were soundproof. "He literally talked about tire degradation for twenty minutes. I thought he was joking at first, but no. Dead serious. And he didn't laugh at a single one of my jokes. I don't even think he blinks at a normal rate."
Oscar stood very still near the hallway that connected the restrooms to the main dining area. He should walk away. He knew he should walk away. But his feet had made a unilateral decision to stay rooted to the floor, and his brain–the same brain that could drive a car at three hundred kilometers per hour–had gone completely offline.
"I mean, he's cute," she continued, in the tone of someone offering a consolation prize. "But it's like going on a date with a spreadsheet. A really fit spreadsheet, but still."
A fit spreadsheet.
That was going on the list.
He turned around, walked back to the bathroom, locked himself in a stall, and stared at the ceiling for about ninety seconds. Then he flushed the toilet for absolutely no reason, washed his hands because he was already there, and walked back out to finish dinner with a woman who thought he had the romantic energy of a Microsoft Excel document.
The drive home was quiet. She texted him a smiley face afterward. He sent back a thumbs up, because apparently that was the best he could do, and then sat in his apartment staring at his phone like it had personally wronged him.
Boring.
He wasn't boring. He was reserved. There was a difference. A significant, meaningful difference that people who talked about tire degradation on first dates could absolutely appreciate. He'd been passionate. He'd been sharing something he cared about. Wasn't that what every dating article said to do? Be authentic? Share your interests?
Oscar pulled up his notes app and typed: Am I boring?
He stared at it for a long time. Then he deleted it, because even writing it down felt like admitting something he wasn't ready to admit.
He put his phone face down on the nightstand and didn't look at it again.
The McLaren Technology Centre on a Monday morning had a specific energy that Oscar usually found calming–the hum of precision engineering, the quiet focus of people who were very good at their jobs doing those jobs with minimal small talk. It was his kind of place. Everything in its right order.
Which was why it was deeply unsettling to be summoned to a meeting with his PR team before he'd even had his coffee.
"Oscar, hi, sit down, darling. How was your weekend?"
This was Charlotte, his lead PR coordinator, who had a smile that made you feel like you were about to be gently but firmly guided into something you didn't want to do. She was sitting across from him in a glass-walled conference room with her laptop open and what appeared to be a color-coded spreadsheet on the screen.
Oscar glanced at it and felt a strange kinship.
"My weekend was fine," he said.
"Great, great." Charlotte folded her hands. Next to her, James from the social media team was scrolling through his phone with the quiet intensity of someone compiling evidence. "So, we wanted to chat about your brand trajectory heading into this season."
"My brand trajectory."
"Mm-hm. So, here's the thing. Your on-track performance is incredible. Genuinely. The team is thrilled. But we've been looking at your engagement metrics, your Q scores, your general public perception, and there's a bit of a..." She waved her hand in a way that was clearly meant to soften whatever was coming next. "...gap."
"A gap," Oscar repeated.
"Between your performance and your marketability. You're winning races now, Oscar. That's amazing. But the personal brand side–social media engagement, sponsorship appeal, that sort of thing–it's not quite keeping pace."
"You're saying I'm not marketable."
"I'm saying there's room to grow."
James looked up from his phone. "Your last Instagram post got fourteen thousand likes."
Oscar blinked. "Is that bad?"
"Lando's last post got two hundred and eighty thousand. It was a photo of his breakfast."
Oscar considered this. "It was a good breakfast," he offered, because he'd seen the photo and it had been an objectively well-plated acai bowl.
Charlotte and James exchanged a look.
"Here's what we're thinking," Charlotte said, leaning forward in the way people do when they're about to present a plan they've already decided on. "The season's about to kick off. Big year for you, lots of eyes on McLaren. We want to lean into some lifestyle content, some personality-driven stuff. Get people invested in Oscar Piastri the person, not just Oscar Piastri the driver."
"I am the person and the driver. They're the same person."
"Right, but we want people to see more of the person side. The funny side. The charming side."
Oscar stared at her. "The charming side."
"You're charming, Oscar. You just...keep it very close to the chest."
"I'm not sure I have a charming side."
This came out more honest than he'd intended, and the room went briefly quiet. Charlotte's expression shifted into something that was either sympathy or concern, and Oscar immediately wished he could retract the sentence and replace it with something more neutral, like I'll take that under advisement.
"Everyone has a charming side," Charlotte said firmly. "We just need to bring it out. And actually, we had an idea about that."
She clicked to open a new tab on her laptop. Oscar caught a glimpse of what looked like a project brief with his name on it, and something cold settled in his stomach.
"Lando's sister, Andie–she's going to be traveling with the team this season as Lando's personal photographer. You've met her, right?"
Oscar had met Andie Norris exactly four times. The first was at a McLaren team event two years ago, where she'd arrived late, laughed too loudly at something Zak Brown said, and somehow convinced half the garage to do tequila shots after the debrief. The second was at Lando's birthday, where he was sure she had a conversation with every single person there and Oscar had somehow ended up telling her about his favorite documentary on migratory bird patterns. She'd listened to the whole thing. Asked follow-up questions, even.
The third time was at Silverstone, briefly, where she'd been in the paddock with a camera around her neck and her hair piled on top of her head in a careless way. She'd waved at him across the garage. He'd waved back. That was the extent of it.
The fourth time was at some sponsor dinner where she'd worn a fitted green dress and Oscar had accidentally walked into a door frame, which he maintained was because of a loose carpet tile and had nothing whatsoever to do with anything else.
"I've met her," he said carefully.
"She's incredible on camera, she's got this natural warmth and charisma–the drivers all love her–"
"Everyone loves her," James added, like this was empirical data.
"–and we thought she might be a great person to help you with the personality side of things. Kind of like a...coaching situation. She could help you with social media presence, how to be more relaxed in interviews, how to come across as more approachable on dates–"
"On dates," Oscar said flatly.
"Your personal life is part of your brand, Oscar. People want to root for you. They want to see you happy. And right now, you seem..." Charlotte paused, choosing her words with visible care. "...a bit closed off."
"I'm not closed off. I'm private."
"There's a fine line."
Oscar looked between Charlotte and James. James was now showing him a graph on his phone that apparently tracked "fan sentiment" and Oscar's line was described as "steady but unexciting," which felt like a metaphor for his entire life.
"So you want Lando's sister to teach me how to be charming," he said slowly.
"We want her to help you unlock your full potential as a public figure."
"That's the same thing with more words."
Charlotte smiled. It was the smile of someone who had won. "We've already spoken with her. She's on board."
Oscar opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"Does Lando know about this?"
"We thought it might be better coming from you."
Of course they did.
Oscar found Lando in the sim room, which was where Lando could usually be found when he wasn't required to be anywhere else. He was mid-lap, headphones on, the intent focus that Lando only ever achieved when there was an apex to hit. Oscar stood in the doorway and waited.
Lando finished the lap, pulled off his headphones, and spun around with the restless energy of someone who'd been sitting still for too long. "Osc! What's up? You look weird. Why do you look weird?"
"I don't look weird."
"No, you for sure have a weird energy about you, right now."
Oscar didn't dignify this with a response. He sat down in the chair next to the sim rig and folded his hands, which he immediately realized made him look like he was about to deliver a boardroom presentation.
"So," he said. "Your sister."
Lando's entire demeanor shifted. It was subtle–or it would have been subtle on anyone else. On Lando, it was like watching someone activate a security system. His shoulders squared, his chin lifted, and his eyes narrowed with the protective intensity of a man who had once threatened to end a journalist's career for asking Andie an invasive question at a press event.
"What about my sister?"
"The PR team wants her to help me with my public image."
Lando stared at him. "Help you how?"
"Teach me to be more...charming. Apparently."
A beat of silence. Then Lando's face cracked into the widest grin Oscar had ever seen, and he started laughing–not a polite laugh, not a sympathetic laugh, but a full-body, head-thrown-back, gasping-for-air laugh like he had just heard the funniest thing he’s ever heard in his life.
"Oh my god," Lando wheezed. "Oh my god. They want Andie to teach you how to flirt?"
"That's not what I said–"
"That's exactly what you said. Oh, this is incredible. This is the best day of my life."
"I'm glad my personal shortcomings bring you joy."
"Mate." Lando wiped his eyes. "Mate. Okay. Okay, I'm done. I'm done laughing."
He was not done laughing.
"Are you finished?" Oscar asked after another thirty seconds.
"Almost." Lando took a deep breath, held it, and then let out one final, wheezing giggle. "Okay. Now I'm done. So. The PR team wants Andie to turn you into a ladies' man."
"They want her to help me be more approachable."
"Same thing, different font." Lando leaned back in his chair, studying Oscar with the evaluative gaze of someone who was enjoying this far too much. "Look, I'm not gonna lie, you could use the help."
"Thank you, Lando."
"I say that with love. You're my teammate, but you have the flirting ability of a park bench."
"I'm leaving."
"No, no, sit down." Lando grabbed his arm. "Look, here's the thing. Andie's...she's been through a lot recently. I asked her to come along this season because I want her around, yeah? I want to keep an eye on her. She's been dealing with some stuff and she needs people around her who care about her. So if this thing happens–the whole charm school nonsense or whatever–I need you to be cool about it."
"When am I not cool about things?"
"You're always cool about things. That's sort of the issue." Lando's expression had shifted into something more serious now, the protective brother surfacing beneath the banter. "Just...don't make it weird. And don't hurt her."
"Why would I hurt her?"
"You wouldn't. On purpose. But she's–" Lando stopped. Ran a hand through his hair. "She's my little sister, man. She's been having a rough time and I just got her back. So just...be careful with her. Yeah?"
Oscar held his gaze. Whatever Lando was asking, it went deeper than the words he was using, and Oscar understood that–understood the weight of someone trusting you with the person they loved most.
"Yeah," Oscar said quietly. "Of course."
Lando nodded. Then, like a switch being flipped, the grin was back. "Brilliant. This is going to be absolutely hilarious. I'm going to film everything."
"You are not."
"You’re right, Netflix will film everything for me."
Oscar drove home that evening with the windows down and his brain running on overdrive.
The facts were these:
One. He was, by multiple accounts, boring. Or at the very least, he projected an energy that people interpreted as boring, which was functionally the same thing.
Two. His PR team wanted to fix this, and their proposed solution involved Andie Norris, a woman who radiated effortless charisma that Oscar could not replicate if he had a hundred years and a detailed instruction manual.
Three. He had walked into a door frame because of how she looked in that green dress. Allegedly because of a carpet tile, but in the privacy of his own car, with no witnesses, he could admit that the carpet tile had played a minimal role.
Four. Lando had told him to be careful, which implied that there was something to be careful about, which implied that there was some scenario in which Oscar might not be careful, which implied–
He turned the radio up.
The thing about Oscar Piastri was that he'd always operated under the assumption that his life would follow a logical trajectory. Work hard, drive fast, be decent to people, and eventually, at some unspecified future date, meet someone who found his particular brand of quiet intensity endearing rather than narcoleptic. It wasn't a romantic vision. It was a plan. A reasonable, sensible plan that didn't require him to be anyone other than who he was.
But who he was apparently wasn't enough.
He pulled into his parking space, turned off the engine, and sat in the silence for a moment. Then he pulled out his phone and opened his notes app.
Am I boring?
He stared at it. Then, underneath, he typed:
*Things to work on:
- Don't talk about tires on dates.
- Laugh at jokes (even if they're not funny).
- Blink at a normal rate (research what this is).
- Be charming (ask Andie).*
He looked at the list. It was a very Oscar list–organized, practical, completely devoid of any emotional vulnerability.
He added a fifth item:
- Figure out what you actually want.
Then he locked his phone, went inside, and didn't think about green dresses or effortless charisma or the way Andie Norris had once listened to him talk about migratory birds like it was the most interesting thing she'd ever heard.
He didn't think about it at all.