1.2k fic, silverstone 2021 lewis' pov, more max's povs are coming later... (This is 50% fic 50% character analysis but oh well...)
If anyone asks about it, Lewis will not let his tongue speak before his mind; he will always answer the same thing: "I am Lewis Hamilton, the best Formula 1 driver in the history of the sport." The thought holds him at night, when no one else does.
But lately, no one seems to be interested in whatever words he has to say, unless he wishes to speak about the car, and with increasing desperation, he really doesn’t.
So instead, he settles on the back of his own mind, and he allows himself to feel freely and honestly, and he comes back to the present with more answers than he feels comfortable with.
I’m regret, in the flesh. I am more regret than I am person, most of the time.
Lewis regrets knowing what true friendship is, for now he knows what loss is as well. He regrets falling in love, knowing that instead he could’ve hidden his heart under a lock and key, and spared himself the pain of being loved back in halves. He regrets all his mistakes on the races that cost him the biggest win, back when he was just a rookie. He regrets all the mistakes in his races, back when his name was already carved in metal more than once.
He could have been an eight-time world champion already. And then he would have nothing to regret from 2021. He would have nothing to grieve.
I grieve the man I was before, Papa. The parts that Nico didn’t strip from my soul, even after everything. I was still a man, just before now, Papa.
He wears blue-tinted glasses that he cannot take off; they have etched into his skin forever, he fears. He sees what he has lost everywhere he goes. He is grief.
He grieves something he never had, somehow. He thinks no one else could ever understand what the last championship that never happened means to him, how could they? They are not the first and only black man that has set foot in the fastest cars on earth, who has devoted himself to them and them only because no one else has devoted to him, because he has tried to separate his heart into two, the cars and he, and got burnt for it.
Lewis grieves his eighth title, because he is a seven-time world champion, too. He and Michael.
Lewis is a transformed rock, he thinks. He was once unpolished, hard on the edges, and bright on the inside. Everyone kept watching the outer shell fall off the guts beneath, eager for the diamond to be on display for once and for all. He once was the shiniest of them all, but now he feels he is nothing but an echo of that shine. He is a dirty rock, once again.
There was a man in my place, Papa. Where is he, Papa? I cannot find him.
He has stayed behind, son; he has not died, but he is not with you anymore.
That’s right, Lewis remembers. The man that he once was is in Silverstone. He walked to the barriers of Copse Corner and sat there patiently, waiting for him to come back, but Lewis hasn’t.
Because he is selfish. He has to be, to become a world champion. Max knows this too.
Lewis is selfish in the pursuit of greatness; he can admit to it. He is selfish because he knows he would do it again for a chance at an eighth title.
He would send Max into the barriers, over and over, to win.
But I didn’t win in the end, did I?
I am no longer man, I can never be again. I sacrificed all to win, and it was not enough; I am machine, a machine that does not feel guilt for a lion kid with a dream and ambitions such as my own, with a destructible body that I broke; I am a machine that I myself programmed to push to victory above everything, that will push and break anything on my path, because it knows nothing but a will to win.
“Does Max look strange to you?” Toto had asked back then.
“Strange how?” He replied.
“He looks like he will faint at any moment, there’s something going on,” He muttered, more to himself than to Lewis.
“He won his first championship, Toto. He ought to be overwhelmed,” He had said bitterly, and Toto didn’t look back at him.
“No, this is something else.”
After that, Lewis had looked for the strangeness Toto had mentioned and found a hovering trainer, a cautious team principal, and Max. Max, who, after the podium and the tears and hugs, when everything was over, had vomited inside the nearest trash can.
Max used the wall to steady himself, his legs shaky and his other hand pressing hard against his eyes. He hides his face inside the trash can again, and Brad comes to his rescue. The older man looks around with clear worry on his face, and then he guides Max away from prying eyes, with a hand on his waist supporting him. Christian walks behind them, but he catches a glimpse of Lewis and stops in his tracks.
“You should probably tell someone from the medical team if you think there’s something wrong with Max.” Lewis had told Toto when he walked back to the Mercedes hospitality.
The team principal looked at him and paused, his gaze intense and questioning. After a few seconds, he had laughed.
“I suppose you’re right, Lewis.” Toto marched towards the stewards.
It’s been years since then, and he had not won any more championships, despite everything. Back then, Toto had been his accomplice, outraged at the result of 2021 just as much as him. He had celebrated Lewis taking out Max in Silverstone and winning the race, just like he had.
He had laughed at Lewis, using his last resort to reverse the championship results, as if he were a brilliant man conjuring a miracle that brought them all hope once more, and he walked with steady feet, ready to execute his plan.
In the end, it had not mattered because Max, strong and determined as he was, passed all the tests he was made to perform.
It had not mattered because Mercedes’ shattered spirit had not come back together again.
It had not mattered because years later, Max had blurted the truth to the media on his own. He spoke about vision problems, about nausea and pain, but he kept his trophies and his championships.
It had not mattered, because years later Lewis dresses in red, and Toto, who had once smiled at the television that showed Max’s crash (and had said that maybe it would help him learn his lesson), now smiled for someone else.
Ultimately, Lewis thinks I am a fool. Because what else do you call someone who keeps doing the same things, expecting different results?
In 2026, he got his chance again, with a Ferrari that caught the Mercedes quickly enough, and in all his foolishness and selfishness, and with all of his grief and regret looking back at him, Lewis launches the car late.
Max disappears from his vision. He is in the barriers once again.
“You have not changed, Lewis,” Nico tells him, before the interview for the podium finishers starts.
But I have, Nico. Ask me, “Who are you?”, and let me tell you what I have discovered. Let me tell you what I have left behind.
