Page 17 of The Fast Track

A slight tremor in my seat, and then Lizzie is skidding too far to the right. Her inside front locks up, sliding across the track despite brakes being fully clamped down.

I turn the steering wheel to course correct, but there’s no grip, and I am spinning.

My vision alternates between the black of the paved track and the beige of the runoff area. The harness saws into my torso like a serrated knife, the area still tender from testing.

By the time Lizzie finally stops pirouetting, other cars are whizzing past, including a post-pit-stop Cameron, now back in first place.

I punch the steering wheel and instantly regret it when my fingers throb in addition to my entire upper body.

“Are you all right?” Roz asks.

“I’m fine,” I mutter. As fine as someone whose fantasies about winning her debut F3 race came tantalizingly close before vanishing in clouds of gravel dust can be.

I reorient Lizzie and drive to the pit lane, all her tires flat-spotted. My crew is already waiting with fresh replacements. The silence from my radio manages to be noisier than the high-pitched whirring of wheel guns.

I exit and come out behind Ashveer Kaur’s Charlemagne, the same car I lapped just before I spun.Shit. That takes me to somewhere between P25 and P30.

I warm up my tires as quickly as I can and begin cutting through the back half of the field. It’s a respectable recovery drive, but there are only five laps left—not enough time to regain my prior lead or even make it into a top-ten-points-scoring position.

The black-and-white-checkered flag comes all too soon.

“P18.” Roz’s voice is as deflated as I feel. “Cameron got first, Pat’s tenth.”

P18 means zero points. From what could have been a hefty twenty-five-point haul in P1. From what could have been an opening race that put me at the top.

Worse, Cameron won the whole thing and even Pat eked out a singular point with tenth, which means I’m the only Orbital driver who has contributed zero to the teamchampionship. A giant screen in parc fermé broadcasts the championship table—I’m listed at the bottom with the other zeros, right between Ryan Weiss and Alfie Davies, both of whom can barely keep their cars on the road and wouldn’t be driving except for the considerable sponsorships their families bring. Cameron’s name is at the top, bolded, along with his promotional headshot triumphantly emblazoned in the background.

I’m going to be sick. And it’s not from losing three pounds of water weight from the race.

Roz greets me with a determined hug after I get back to the garage. “Good recovery drive. Really good.”

I let my head drop onto her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I messed that up.”

“It was a fifty-fifty call,” she says. “Easily could’ve gone the other way. We’ll make it up at the next race. I promise.”

The garage around us froths with exuberance. All the mechanics are high-fiving one another about Cameron’s victory, which puts the team well ahead of our biggest competitors. I feel like I’ve been stabbed with a cudgel and a Costco-size bag of rock salt has been dumped into the wound—the kind of all-encompassing pain where you’d rather be dead than alive.

I stuff myself into the changing room so no one will invite me to join podium festivities. There’s no way I can handle watching Cameron hoist his first-place trophy and spray the other two finishers with celebratory champagne.

The changing room is tiny and smells like stale sweat thatthe recent application of Pine Fresh can’t hide. The walls might as well be made of cardboard. There’s zero sound insulation and I can hear the team whooping outside like they’re standing right next to me. The cheers finally grow fainter as everyone makes their way from the garage to the podium.

In the silence left behind, my thoughts reel and ping-pong, crashing off the inside of my skull. It could have—should have—been my moment to prove the doubters wrong. Instead, I let my desperation to shut everyone up make me reckless, and now I’m crammed into a broom-closet-size dressing room while the entire paddock celebrates my rival.

I don’t know how long I sit there staring off into space, wishing I could take back Lap 16, but it’s long enough I hear what sounds like the entire team—Roz’s merry laugh among them—return from the award ceremony, pack up, and head off for drinks. By the time I finally trust my body to take a step without crumpling in disappointment, our pop-up garage sounds completely deserted.

“Frank, could I have a word?” I’d recognize that quiet, steely voice anywhere. I drop my hand from the knob of the dressing room door, interest piqued.

“Is this urgent?” Frank sounds tired, but he can’t just tell Dietrich Lange to put a sock in it.

“I don’t know if it’s urgent, really. It’s about your program. I don’t want to mentor that girl anymore.”

The knot that’s been in my stomach since race finish doubles in size.

Frank clears his throat. “I know you’re busy, Dietrich, but it would be great publicity for us, for the entire sport, if Orbital can get a female driver into F1. You know everyone’s keen.”

“I only agreed to mentor because they said there was a real shot.”

A deep, gruff sigh. Frank. “She could’ve had a better first race, but—”