“Lando!” Martin’s voice cut through the noise, half-drowned in laughter. Martin had his sunglasses on, hair damp with beer someone had sprayed earlier. He leaned close so Lando could hear:

“You’re already gone, man.”

“I’m fine,” Lando shouted back, grinning too wide, words slurring at the edges. He raised the glass in mock salute and tipped it back, letting the burn carve a line down his throat. The canal blurred for a second, the city lights doubling themselves. He blinked hard.

Martin just laughed and shook his head, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’re gonna regret this tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. Tomorrow there would be pictures. Tomorrow there would be headlines. He’d wake up with the ache in his skull and that hollow pit in his stomach that whispered, why did you do it again? why can’t you just be enough? But that was tomorrow’s problem. Today he didn’t want to think.

Another drink. Another burst of music. The boat rocking under his feet. Someone handed him a neon orange hat and he shoved it on, laughing with strangers whose names he’d already forgotten. Their words blurred together — Dutch, English, drunk syllables crashing over him in waves.

He stumbled against the rail, nearly dropped his glass. Martin caught his arm, steadying him. “Careful, mate.”

“I’m fine,” Lando said again, but his voice cracked on it this time. He hated that — the way his mask slipped when he was drunk, the truth leaking through between the laughs. His chest buzzed with that familiar mix of exhilaration and emptiness. This was supposed to feel good. This was supposed to make him forget.

Another drink. The world smeared at the edges, like someone had dragged a thumb across the lens of a camera. He remembered flashes: Martin leaning in to shout something about Miami next week. Someone else pulling him into a photo. His own laughter, too loud, bouncing back against the water.

Then the stumble, the sharp pain across his nose as he went down, the metallic tang of blood blooming in his mouth. A hand reaching to help him, but he shoved it away, gritting his teeth.

“I said I’m fine.”

He pressed a hand to his nose, blood smearing across his fingers, and laughed anyway. Because what else was he supposed to do?

The laugh came out too loud, too sharp, and he felt Martin’s hand on his shoulder again, pushing him down onto one of the bench seats along the side of the boat. His drink sloshed over the rim, sticky across his knuckles. He clutched it like a lifeline anyway.

“Sit down before you kill yourself,” Martin muttered, but he was grinning in that way he always did, like this was just another story to tell later.

The music pounded, muffled and far away now, like someone had stuffed cotton in his ears. The whole boat seemed to rock harder, not with the water but with his own uneven breathing. And then someone knelt in front of him.

Not a blur this time. Not just another face in the crowd. You.

The orange hat sat crooked on your head, eyes steady on his even though his own were glassy. Your hands fumbled with the gauze, not practiced but careful, like every move mattered.

“Hold still,” you murmured, laughter caught in your throat but softened by something else. Something gentler. “You’re going to scar yourself if you keep throwing yourself around like this.”

He winced as the fabric pressed against his nose, eyes watering.

“It’s fine,” he mumbled, words thick and slurred. He tipped the drink back with his free hand, liquor burning down like punishment. “I’m fine.”

“Sure you are,” you said, smiling at him like you could see right through the bravado. The gauze tightened, your fingers tying a knot at the back of his head with more patience than he deserved. “Just… be careful, yeah?”

A camera flash lit the corner of his vision, Martin’s voice floating somewhere nearby about how it would look like a battle scar tomorrow. Lando laughed, hollow, stomach twisting.

Battle scar. Another joke. Another mask. Another night he wouldn’t remember properly. Except — maybe he would. The sting in his nose, the taste of blood, and the way you smiled at him, telling him to be careful in a different way then anybody else.

The cut across his nose healed rather quickly, but the story didn’t.

By Monday morning, the pictures were everywhere. Grainy phone videos on Twitter of him laughing too loud, stumbling on the boat. Headlines dressed up in concern but sharpened like knives:

“Party Boy Lando? Norris risks reputation ahead of Miami.”

“Focused enough to win, or distracted by nightlife?”

The tabloids loved it, drunk on a canal, nose bloodied, grinning like nothing mattered. It didn’t take long for podcasts to pick it up, commentators asking if he was “really serious about F1.” Clips of him with a drink in hand cut against footage of Verstappen in the simulator, or Hamilton in the gym. Side by side, as if the narrative had already been written: one is dedicated, the other is careless.

He read too much of it. Couldn’t stop himself. Twitter threads dissecting his body language, TikToks captioned “this is why he’ll never be world champion.” Every swipe on his phone pressed the knife deeper.

And inside, the voice was merciless.

They’re right. You’re not focused. You’re not disciplined. You don’t deserve it. You’ll never deserve it.

He thought about how, on the boat, he’d laughed through the blood, told everyone he was fine. He thought about the look on Martin’s face — joking, yes, but tired too. Everyone laughed because that was what he gave them. The clown. The careless one. The one who never took anything seriously.

It didn’t matter that he trained harder than people knew. That he spent nights in the sim until his back ached, that he carried the weight of his own expectations everywhere. The outside perspective dictated the story: party boy, not serious enough, not like the others, Lando Nowins. And no matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to rewrite it.

But he also remembered you. The way you’d knelt in front of him, steady hands pressing gauze to his nose while he slurred out another “I’m fine.” The way you smiled — not mocking, not amused, but soft, like you cared whether or not he actually was. In the blur of lights and music, that moment stood out sharper than anything else.

That week, every time he closed his eyes, he saw it all in flashes — the orange flags, the sticky rim of the glass, the taste of blood, the camera flash. He wondered if he’d handed the world proof of what he feared most: that he wasn’t enough, and never would be.

He could hear the crowd before he even unclipped his belts.

The roar was thunderous, rolling over the barriers and straight into his chest. His hands shook as he tore off the steering wheel, the car still ticking hot beneath him. He’d crossed the line. First. He’d actually done it.

“YES, LANDO! YES!” Will’s voice was breaking over the radio, almost drowned out by his own ragged laughter. Tears burned behind his visor, and his breath came in short, messy bursts. The nickname — Lando No-Wins — was gone.

When he climbed out of the car, the world went white-hot with flashes. McLaren orange spilled out from the pit wall, a tidal wave of mechanics and staff running toward him. And then he was in the middle of them, swallowed whole, their hands on his shoulders, helmets banging against his head in rough hugs. He let himself go limp in the celebration, letting them carry him, chanting his name like it was holy.

He jumped. Straight into their arms, like a stage-dive. They caught him, lifted him, threw him up. For a moment, he wasn’t Lando Norris, meme of the grid, butt of every commentator’s joke. He was a champion — the boy who had finally silenced the noise.

The podium blurred past in fragments:

The weight of the trophy in his hands — heavier than he imagined, sharp edges digging into his palms.

The champagne exploding, spray catching the Miami sun, glittering like liquid gold.

Max clapping him on the back, Carlos pulling him into a hug, even Lewis leaning close with a smile and a word he couldn’t hear over the crowd.

And then his own laughter — loud, unstoppable — echoing off the stands as he tossed the trophy high into the air, reckless, trusting the universe to let it land back in his hands.

He felt careless. Free. Whole. For the first time in years, he didn’t feel like he was reaching for something just out of his grasp. He was here. The dream wasn’t some phantom anymore.

The night spilled into blurred snapshots:

Drinks pressed into his hand until he lost count.

Other drivers leaning across tables, tapping their glasses against his, “finally, mate” repeated like a mantra.

Dancing, bodies moving, the bass shaking the floor while he stood on a couch, trophy in hand like a beacon.

Everywhere he went — cheers, hugs, the flash of phones, someone slapping his back. Everyone was happy. Everyone was his.

And through it all, he let himself believe.

Lando woke up with the sun clawing at his eyelids. His head throbbed, pulsing in time with the faint bass that still seemed to echo in his ears. Someone had shoved him into a hotel bed at some point. Shoes still on. T-shirt half twisted. He could taste stale champagne and smoke on the back of his throat.

For a second, he smiled anyway. Eyes closed, replaying it — the car flashing under the chequered flag, the crowd swallowing him whole, the trophy gleaming in his hands. He’d finally done it. He’d broken the curse. The nickname was dead.

But then, almost instinctively, his hand groped for his phone.

Hundreds of unread notifications. Thousands. Headlines lined up in little glowing rectangles.

“Norris Finally Breaks Through — Can He Keep It Up?” “McLaren Gamble Pays Off, But Was It Luck?” “The Party Boy of F1 Celebrates Like He Won the Championship.”

He scrolled, thumb numb. Every photo showed him laughing, trophy raised, beer in hand, champagne dripping down his shirt. A few framed it as triumph. More framed it as indulgence, as though he’d proved the doubters right just by enjoying himself.

“Not focused enough. Reckless. Distracted.”

The words crawled out of the headlines, lodged themselves under his skin.

He pressed the phone flat to his chest and stared at the ceiling. The room felt suddenly too quiet, too big. The glow of the win dimmed under the weight of expectation he could already feel pressing down again. If he didn’t win the next one, this would just be a fluke. If he partied again, it would be a distraction. If he laughed too loudly, someone would say he didn’t care enough about the work.

Even when he did win, it wasn’t enough. Not really.

He rolled onto his side, phone screen glaring up at him. One tab open on Twitter. Someone had already clipped his stage-dive into the crowd of McLaren staff and captioned it “Lando No-Wins acting like he just won the title.” Thousands of likes. Thousands of laughing emojis.

He let the phone slip from his fingers onto the floor.

Pressed his palms over his eyes until colors bloomed in the darkness.

It didn’t matter how high he climbed, someone would be waiting to drag him back down.

The weeks after Miami blurred into a cycle of almosts.

Imola: the car alive under him, snapping at Max’s heels. He could see the Red Bull just ahead, closer every lap, the taste of another win on his tongue. But the flag fell too soon. P2. So close the headlines practically wrote themselves: “Norris catches, but cannot pass.”

Canada: another glimpse of glory. He led for a handful of laps, the world glowing papaya-orange, until strategy tore it away. P2 again. The cameras caught him smiling in the cool-down room, but his chest ached with the weight of what-ifs.

Spain: pole position. The crowd chanting his name, the adrenaline thrumming so hard it nearly drowned out his doubts. But at the lights, he faltered. Lost the start, lost the win. A podium, but hollow.

Every weekend, it was the same story. Podium after podium. Near-perfect drives. Close, so damn close. But never quite enough. The nicknames crept back in — whispered this time, half in jest, half in truth.

And when Monaco came, Oscar’s papaya flashing just ahead of his. His own car crossed the line in P4, the sting sharpened by the fact it was his rookie teammate on the podium instead. He told himself it didn’t matter. He told himself he was still in the fight. But in the mirror, under the lights of the motorhome, he couldn’t ignore how much it burned.

Austria hurt worse. A real shot, wheel-to-wheel with Max himself, a battle that lit up the track. For a heartbeat, he felt like he belonged at the very top. Then contact. Then gravel. A DNF. Headlines: “Too aggressive, too desperate.”

By the time Silverstone came, the pressure pressed down like lead. Home race. The chants of “Lando! Lando!” filling every grandstand, papaya flags waving like a fever dream. He fought, he clawed, he stood on the podium again — P3 — but everyone talked about the strategy he and McLaren had botched. Even in triumph, the story was about mistakes.

The pub was loud, hot with bodies pressed together, the kind of place Max Fewtrell always managed to drag him to after a race. Silverstone had left him raw, another home podium, another strategy slip, the kind of “success” that still tasted like failure. He was half a mind to ghost and head home when Max clapped him on the back.

“Come on, mate, meet some actual people for once.”

That’s when he saw you.

Max leaned across the table, grinning. “This is my friend. Thought you two might get on.”

Something in his chest jolted, sharp and unexpected, when your eyes met his. Like he already knew you.

“Hey,” you said easily, like you weren’t staring at a Formula 1 driver, like you weren’t fazed by the noise or the crowd or the history that clung to him. “I know you.”

He blinked, caught off guard, words tangling on his tongue. Of course you know me, he thought. Everyone did. But the way you said it wasn’t about headlines or race wins. It was personal. Direct.

You stepped closer, close enough that he caught the faintest trace of your perfume, close enough that your hand hovered near his face. For a heartbeat he forgot to breathe.

“I told you not to move so much,” you murmured, smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. Your finger traced just shy of the faint line across his nose, the one the gauze hadn’t quite hidden months ago. “Now you’ve got a scar to prove it.”

Amsterdam. The boat. The music, the blood, the way he’d laughed too loud and told everyone he was fine. He remembered blurred lights and sticky drinks, Martin’s tired eyes — but also the way someone had tied the gauze across his nose and told him to be careful.

It had been you.

His mouth opened, but no words came. For once, Lando Norris — always ready with a quip, a joke, a deflection — was speechless. All he could do was stare, heartbeat pounding like he was back on the grid.

You just laughed, soft and easy, like his silence didn’t scare you. “What?” you teased. “Not used to people recognizing your face and not your name?”

He swallowed hard, finally finding his voice, though it cracked around the edges. “Yeah… something like that.”

His chest was still buzzing from the scar comment, the way your fingertip had hovered just shy of his skin. Silverstone still clung to him — the crowd, the strategy mess, the bitter taste of “almost.” He’d walked in carrying that weight, ready to drown it in noise and drinks. But now, with you in front of him, it was slipping away.

You leaned against the table, sipping your drink like the chaos of the bar wasn’t even there. “So,” you said casually, eyes flicking back to his, “do you ever stop frowning when no one’s watching, or is that just your default setting?”

He blinked, caught off guard. “I wasn’t frowning.”

“You were,” you countered, smiling now. “When Max introduced us, you looked like someone had told you your dog just ran away.”

That pulled a laugh out of him, sharper than he expected. “Tough crowd.”

“Not really,” you said. “I just think maybe you take yourself a bit too seriously.”

For once, no mention of the race. No “good job” or “tough luck.” No dissecting of pit calls or tyre choices. Just you, needling him lightly, like you cared about the person standing in front of you more than the driver the world had just spent all weekend analyzing.

You asked him about music — what he listened to when he was alone. You asked him what his favorite food was when he was home, not on the road. You asked him if he actually liked streaming or if he just did it because it was expected now.

And somehow, he told you. About the random playlists he made that never saw daylight. About late-night pasta disasters in his flat. About how Twitch started as a laugh with mates but became something he actually looked forward to, something that made him feel less alone.

Hours passed before he even realized he hadn’t thought about Silverstone once. Not the strategy, not the podium, not the headlines he knew were already writing themselves. You hadn’t asked him about any of it.

Instead, you looked at him like he was just a guy, sitting in a noisy bar, trying to figure out what to say to the girl who smiled at him like he wasn’t broken.

And then came Hungary.

Heat glassed the sky, and the roar of the Hungarian crowd was a distant echo compared to the rising tension in his mind. He’d started from pole. Oscar was next to him. Both in McLaren orange. Both hungry. Both racing but only one was supposed to win.

The radio crackled:

WJ: Ok Lando, Oscar had just pitted. He’ll likely come out behind you. We’d like to re-establish the order at your convenience.

WJ: Radio check Lando? LN: Loud and clear

WJ: We need you to save your tyres… we do want to let Oscar through. LN: Well you should have boxed him first then surely no? WJ: Doesn’t matter. LN: I mean, it does, to me maybe

WJ: .... I know you’ll do the right thing.

WJ: ... Just remember every single Sunday morning meeting we have.

Stubbornness rose in him. Tell him to catch me, then, he shot back. He tried to convince them: He doesn't deserve it without earning it.

Behind the scenes, McLaren’s pit wall imploded. The team insisted the championship was a collective effort. Every Sunday meeting preached the same: team first.

WJ: Ok Lando he can’t catch you. You’ve proved your point.

By lap 68, the impossible choice sat heavy on his chest. The radio barked again, persistent, unyielding.

In that moment, Lando felt it — not defeat, but fracture. He backed off. Let the gap open. Oscar shot through, taking the lead and the win.

LN: Yeah you don’t need to say anything.

When it was over, Andrea Stella would say he always knew Lando would obey and would have been "extremely concerned" if he hadn't.

In the cool-down room, Lewis offered a polite nod. Lando cracked a joke about fast cars. Somewhere, the press breathlessly dubbed the result: Piastri’s maiden win overshadowed by team orders.

Later, the images would flood the screen: Lando with forced smiles, Oscar tasting victory. The headline didn’t ask if he deserved it, the team decided he didn’t. He’d admitted he could’ve “done things a bit differently,” said everything was “clear” in post-race talks, but the fracture stayed.

Behind closed doors, Oscar insisted there was “no lingering tension.” He even joked about how they celebrated, but the narrative had already branded Lando as “too nice,” too obedient to be a real threat.

What the world saw was a calculated sacrifice. What Lando felt was the weight of not being enough.

In the days after Hungary, the headlines did their work. Endless debates about “team orders,” endless replays of him lifting to let Oscar through. Interviews clipped down to soundbites: “Norris admits he didn’t deserve it.” He watched them once, twice, then stopped altogether. The words didn’t sting the way they should. They just sat there, heavy, like lead in his stomach.

What haunted him wasn’t the win he’d lost. It was the way Oscar’s maiden win felt muted, drowned in the noise of him. Every interview Piastri gave, every photo of him holding the trophy, the caption carried the shadow of Norris. Overshadowed. Controversial. Handed to him.

Lando saw it in Oscar’s face too. The kid smiled, laughed, gave the right answers, but there was a stiffness in the edges. No one wants their first win to come with an asterisk. And Lando couldn’t shake the guilt that it was his fault. That his refusal to just make it clean, his hesitation, his stubbornness, had poisoned the moment for both of them.

He replayed it in his head — the laps he held on, the pit wall begging him to move. He’d thought he was fighting for himself, but in the end, he’d stolen the simplicity of Oscar’s triumph. The memory wasn’t just defeat; it was shame.

That night, when the hotel room finally fell silent, his phone buzzed.

You: i was watching with max today… you had a great race

He stared at the screen, thumb hovering. His first instinct was to deflect, to laugh it off, to tell you he hadn’t. But instead, he typed back:

Lando: didn’t feel like it You: doesn’t mean it wasn’t. you fought hard. we saw it.

He exhaled, shoulders dropping a fraction.

Lando: not sure anyone else did You: then they’re not looking properly

For a long moment, he just held the phone in his hand, the glow of your message cutting through the dark. Outside, headlines screamed. Inside, for a second, it was just your words — simple, steady, untouched by politics or press.

The weeks blurred together after that. Another race, another podium, another press conference where he smiled too wide and said the right things. He felt like he was moving through it half-asleep. The highs didn’t feel like highs anymore. Every good result was shadowed by what it wasn’t. Every laugh felt staged.

When Oscar celebrated, Lando clapped the loudest, but the voice inside him whispered: you ruined it for him too.

That was the part that sank deepest. Not losing the win. Not the memes, not the media. But the thought that his own teammate’s first taste of victory had been soured because of him. That his presence made it worse, not better.

It was the kind of guilt you couldn’t outrun on track. It followed him back to the hotel rooms, onto the planes, into the empty spaces between races. And each time he thought about it, the same hollow thought curled tighter in his chest:

What if all I ever do is ruin the moments that should matter? For me. For others. What if that’s all I’m good for?

When he admitted it to you — haltingly, words catching like gravel in his throat — you didn’t laugh, and you didn’t rush to fix it. You just listened, phone pressed warm against your cheek in the middle of the night.

“I ruined Oscar’s first win,” he muttered once, voice low. “It should’ve been simple. Clean. And now it’s always going to have… me in it. That’s what I do, apparently. Mess things up.”

There was a long silence on the other end, and for a second he thought maybe the line had gone dead. Then you said, softly, “Do you ever notice how much space you take up in other people’s stories? Not because you ruin them. Because you matter in them.”

He scoffed. “Doesn’t feel like that.”

“That’s because you only ever look at yourself through the headlines,” you said. “But I saw you fight that day. Max saw it too. You gave people something to watch, something to feel. That’s not ruining. That’s… part of why they remember you.”

Something loosened in his chest. He didn’t believe you fully — not yet — but he wanted to.

Little by little, there were moments.

One night in his flat, the city lights pooling across the desk, he opened a sketchbook. Not to design helmets or liveries, not for a sponsor brief. Just for himself. Lines and shapes, messy and uneven, until the page was covered. He wasn’t good at it. That wasn’t the point. For an hour, he wasn’t a headline or the guy who gave up Hungary — he was just a kid with a pencil, putting feelings somewhere safe.

Family and friends helped too. When he went home, when he let himself actually be home, it was different. His mum fussed over him like he was still fifteen, his dad slipped racing stories into dinner conversation, his siblings teased him until he couldn’t stop grinning. With Max and the boys, there were no headlines, no lap times, no “Lando No-Wins.” Just inside jokes, late-night Tarkov raids, stupid dares, laughter echoing in someone’s kitchen at 2 a.m.

And then there was Seb.

The message came after Hungary, quiet and private. Sebastian Vettel — the man who had once carried his own weight of expectation, who had seen the worst and best of this sport. The words weren’t dramatic, just steady: Don’t let them define you. Wins are moments. Who you are lasts longer.

They met once between races, away from the cameras. Lando had braced for advice, strategy, maybe a lecture. But Seb only asked him how he was. Really was. The kind of question that felt dangerous, because if he answered honestly, the dam might break.

Still, he told him. About the nickname, about Hungary, about feeling like he’d ruined Oscar’s moment as much as his own. Seb listened without interrupting, then said simply: It’s not selfish to want. And it’s not shameful to care. That’s why people love you.

The words settled in him like warm embers. Small. Fragile. But glowing.

For the first time in weeks, he let himself believe that maybe his intensity wasn’t just a curse. That maybe the longing, the hunger, the need to mean something — maybe those were gifts too.

The guilt didn’t vanish. The hollow didn’t disappear. But now, in the quiet moments, there were sparks. A sketch on a page. A fan message in the flood of Twitch chat: We’re proud of you no matter what. Seb’s voice reminding him he wasn’t broken.

And for the first time since Hungary, the thought crept in — tentative, trembling, but real:

Maybe I don’t have to carry this alone.

McLaren’s car was fast — blisteringly fast — and Lando felt it every time he dropped the throttle. The hollowness of Hungary still clung to him sometimes, but the results began to pile up, and with each one the noise around him changed. He wasn’t “too nice” or “too distracted” anymore. He was a contender.

The rain never let up in São Paulo. It fell heavy and relentless, slicking the asphalt until the track gleamed like glass. He’d started on pole, helmet visor fogged with his own breath, the papaya lined up ahead of everyone. For a moment — before the chaos, before the rain turned cruel — he believed.

But when the lights dropped, Russell jumped him off the line. The sting was instant, sharp as ice. Still, he fought back. By lap 30, he was through, papaya ahead, leading on merit. For a heartbeat, it was his.

Then the race unraveled. Red flag. Strategy loopholes. Verstappen’s car surging like a phantom through the spray. Lando locked up, slid off, recovered but fell back. Another lock-up, another slip, the seconds bleeding away. By the time the chequered flag waved, Max had stormed from seventeenth to first. Lando — pole to sixth.

The headlines were merciless: “Norris crumbles under pressure.” “Pole to P6: Another chance wasted.”

He sat in his hotel that night with the rain battering the windows, helmet on the desk still streaked with spray. He thought about how, for a few brief laps, he’d had it. How it had slipped through his hands, not stolen but squandered. And he thought about Max, inevitable, untouchable, proving once again that no matter what he did, it wasn’t enough.

Brazil cracked him.

Two weeks later, the Strip glittered like a fever dream. Neon lights flashing, crowds pressed against the barriers, the desert night cold against the tarmac. The city was loud, electric, a circus built for spectacle. And for a moment, under the glow of it all, he let himself believe again. The championship was still alive — just barely — and if there was a place to claw it back, why not here?

The race was chaos from the start, sparks cascading under the streetlights, tyres screaming in the cold. He pushed, he fought, the papaya biting into every corner. The car felt alive, humming under his hands, as if it knew how much he needed this.

And then, in an instant, it was gone.

A twitch. A snap of oversteer. The wall rushing up faster than he could react. The car slammed sideways, metal shrieking, carbon scattering across the neon strip. The world spun, lights and barriers blurring, until it stopped in a heap of smoke and silence.

“Are you okay, mate?” the radio crackled, voice steady, almost gentle.

He said yes. He wasn’t.

From the medical car he watched the race continue, the crowd roaring, the city alive. He watched Max climb the podium again, champagne spraying against the Vegas sky. And with it, the math became final. The WDC was gone.

Later, in the hotel, the Strip still flashing outside his window, he sat on the edge of the bed, helmet beside him, tracing the gouges scratched across the visor. They looked like scars. Proof of how close he’d come. Proof of how far he still was.

Brazil had cracked him. Vegas broke him.

For weeks he’d told himself he was a contender, a rival, that the dream was within reach. But now, the thought returned, merciless and cold:

I’ll never be enough. Maybe I’ll never be the one.

------

By the time they reached Yas Marina, the fight was already over.

The desert air was hot, but flat. The paddock buzzed with the usual end-of-season frenzy — mechanics packing boxes, engineers talking about next year’s upgrades, journalists chasing closing-line quotes. For everyone else, this was an ending. For him, it felt more like an echo.

Vegas had broken the championship open and left him with nothing but splintered pieces. He carried the weight into Abu Dhabi like a passenger, heavy and immovable. The WDC was already Max’s. All that was left was to finish the year.

He drove well — clean laps, quick enough, another podium. On paper, it was respectable. A season of highs, of breakthroughs, of consistency. His best yet. But as he stood on the rostrum, champagne in hand, the fireworks exploding across the marina, he felt none of it. The cheers sounded far away, muffled. The bottle slipped in his grip, and for a second he thought about letting it fall.

The trophy they handed him gleamed under the floodlights, polished and perfect. He turned it in his hands, heavy and hollow, thinking about the one he hadn’t touched. The one that still belonged to someone else.

Back in the garage, the team celebrated — music, laughter, a toast to progress. He smiled for them, clapped along, hugged Oscar, but the joy never reached his chest. When the cameras left and the noise dimmed, he changed out of his suit in silence.

The season tally said success. Five podiums after Miami, points stacked high, McLaren back where they belonged. To the outside world, it was proof he was a contender. To him, it was proof of how close he’d come and how easily it had all slipped away.

On the flight home, he sat by the window with his headphones in, sketchbook unopened in the seat pocket, watching the black desert fade into sunrise. The others slept, laughter trailing off into snores. He pressed his forehead to the glass, eyes half-closed, and let the thought turn over in his head like a stone he couldn’t put down:

You’re good. But not good enough. Maybe you never will be.

The fireworks of Yas Marina still burned faintly in the back of his eyes. Bright, beautiful, empty.

After the season ended, he thought the emptiness would follow him everywhere. He packed his bags in Abu Dhabi, boarded the plane home, and expected the same voice to keep whispering: not enough, never enough.

But then came the quiet.

No engines. No headlines. No endless carousel of press conferences and cameras. Just December. Just days where he could sit at his kitchen table with a mug of tea and no schedule, sketching idly in the margins of old notebooks. At first, the silence scared him. But slowly, it started to heal.

The fans didn’t go quiet, though. They filled every timeline with orange hearts and inside jokes, reminding him of Miami, reminding him that to them he wasn’t “Lando No-Wins” or “too nice to fight.” He was just Lando. Letters arrived, some messy with marker drawings, some long and heartfelt. “We love you because you’re you. Not because of trophies.” He kept a few folded on his desk, reading them on the nights when the old doubts still knocked at the door.

His friends kept him grounded too. Martin dragged him to gigs, insisting that standing in a crowd, sweating under lights, was therapy in its own right. The music was deafening, the bass vibrating in his chest, but with Martin laughing beside him, it felt like oxygen instead of noise.

Max Fewtrell was just as relentless. He’d FaceTime out of nowhere, drop into his flat with takeout, shove a controller in his hands before Lando could even complain. “You need reminding you’re not actually as boring as you think you are,” Max would say, grinning like it was the easiest truth in the world.

It was stupid, simple, and it worked. Slowly, the weight in his chest loosened. For a few hours at a time, he wasn’t Lando Norris, almost-champion, headline fodder. He was just Lando.

And then there was you, making your way into his life step by step.

You made him laugh in a room where he had been sure he could not. Then a coffee that was not really a date, just two people who happened to be free at the same time. You asked if he slept better with noise or quiet. He said quiet. You said you liked rain sounds. That night he tried a rain playlist and woke up rested for the first time in weeks.

You started showing up in small places. A text before races. Drink water. A photo of a crooked orange hat with the caption found this in my cupboard, any idea why it makes me think of you. You never sent long speeches. You sent anchors. He did not drown on the days you wrote first.

Martin noticed when he dragged Lando to a gig. The lights went up, the bass hit, and you pressed earplugs into Lando’s palm without a word. He grinned like an idiot. Max rolled his eyes and mouthed whipped across the crowd. Lando shrugged and kept the earplugs. Later you stood on the pavement sharing chips from a paper cone, steam curling into the cold. You told him the song you liked best and why. He told you what it feels like when a car hooks into a corner just right. You listened like it was poetry.

You learned his little things. The way he hates cold hands. The way he chews the inside of his cheek when he is thinking. You started keeping mints in your pocket for him. He started keeping a spare scarf in his car for you. On a Tuesday that felt empty you came over and cooked badly on purpose, flour on the counter, smoke in the pan, laughter in the ceiling. He forgot to check his phone for hours.

When Brazil tore at him, you did not tell him to move on on facetime. You asked what part hurt the most. He said the part where he had it and lost it. You said then you know you can have it. He looked at you like the sentence had never occurred to him.

When Vegas broke him, you called at the hotel so he did not have to be brave for the cameras anymore. You did not ask if he was ok. You told him you were there. He breathed. You stayed on the line until morning, traded silence and comfort, made him list five things in the room, asked what the sheets felt like, kept him in the present until the panic let go.

You slipped into the spaces his friends had kept open for him. Max swung by with takeout and you stole the chips, told Max his playlist needed help. Martin sent a voice note from a stage somewhere and you played it on speaker while you both did a puzzle on the floor. Lando started sending photos of sunsets from the sim window, not lap times.

By December you knew the door code and where the mugs lived in the Monaco apartment. You did not touch the helmets, you asked about the sketches. He showed you the messy pages. You pointed at your favorite one and said frame that. He said it was not good. You said it was honest. He did frame it.

He still had bad days. On those, you made tea, walked with him in the cold, asked him to name three things that were true. I am cold. You are here. I can breathe. Each time the knot in his chest loosened. Not because the world changed. Because you did not try to change him.

By the time January came around, he could feel it in his bones. The doubts were still part of him, but they did not run the show. He had his people. He had you. He had a life that was bigger than headlines and smaller than stadiums. He liked that. He liked himself in it.

The winter had carved him out. The boy who left Abu Dhabi was hollowed by doubt, but the one who arrived at testing in February walked differently. Not lighter exactly — the scars of Brazil and Vegas still clung to him — but steadier. As if he’d stopped trying to outrun them and learned to wear them instead.

He was still emotional. Still Lando. But now, when he laughed, it reached his eyes. When he smiled for the cameras, it didn’t feel like a mask. His team noticed it first, the easy banter with engineers, the way he clapped Oscar on the back in the garage instead of retreating into himself.

The first race of the season was always a blur of nerves and noise, but when the chequered flag dropped in Melbourne, Lando was the one in front.

The papaya screamed across the line, arms in the air, his team flooding the pit wall. The roar from the grandstands shook him to the core. A win — first race of the season, first stamp of authority.

Last year, a win had felt like desperation, like clinging proof he wasn’t broken. This time, it felt different. This time, it felt like expression. He wasn’t proving. He was showing. This is who I am. This is what I can do.

And when the cameras came close, when the champagne sprayed, he grinned with that wide, reckless smile that made the whole team laugh, and said it simply: “What a way to start. We’re just getting going.”

Monaco was magic. The glittering harbour, the sound of engines bouncing off the walls, the impossible glamour of it all. It was the race every driver wanted to win, the one that meant more than points or standings.

And that Sunday, it was his.

The narrow streets swallowed him whole, tyres inches from the barriers, every lap a tightrope. Pressure was everywhere, but he thrived on it. Each corner was painted with confidence, every lap a canvas.

When he crossed the line, when the flag waved, it wasn’t just victory. It was poetry.

His radio exploded — engineers screaming, the team howling, his own voice breaking with emotion. “Monaco, baby!” His chest felt cracked open, not from longing anymore, but from fullness.

On the podium, with the Mediterranean sun on his face, he looked out at the harbour and thought: This is the win that will never be taken from me. No team orders, no caveats, no asterisks. Just me, my car, my team, my moment.

And when reporters asked him what it meant, he didn’t deflect or self-deprecate. He smiled, steady and honest, and said: “This one… this is special. This is what you dream about. I’ll remember this for the rest of my life.”

But before all that, the first thing he did after climbing out of the car was find you in the crowd. You were standing with his parents — your face glowing with pride, his mum already clutching your hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. He tugged off his helmet, sweat-slick hair falling into his eyes, and without hesitation he blew you a kiss. Cameras caught it, the team laughed about it later, but in the moment it was just for you.

His mum squeezed your hand tighter, pulling you into her arms as though you’d always been there. She kissed your cheek, voice thick with emotion. “I knew it,” she whispered, eyes never leaving her son. “I knew he could do it. And I knew you’d be here for this. You’re part of us now, you know.”

You’d met them a few times before, but this was different. This was the first race you were here with Lando, not just for him. His family didn’t hesitate — his mum treating you like one of her own, his dad grinning as if the victory belonged to all of you.

And for Lando, standing on that podium, the champagne still sticky on his suit, it didn’t feel like a solitary triumph. It felt like coming home.

Montreal was chaos — five cars, eight seconds apart, the fight for the podium like a knife’s edge. The papayas were locked together, Oscar ahead, Lando pressing.

On lap 66, he made the dive at L’Epingle, daring and bold. For a second it worked — then it didn’t. He ran wide, Oscar snapping back alongside, the two of them locked wheel-to-wheel down the Casino Straight. At Turn 13, Oscar edged ahead.

Lando stayed hungry. Out of the final chicane, he lunged left, inside for Turn 1. But he misjudged it. The front wing clipped Oscar’s rear tyre, and in a blink he was in the wall, front-left suspension snapping, sparks showering the pit straight. The papaya sat broken, race over.

The safety car rolled. He climbed out, chest heaving, helmet under his arm. The crowd roared, cameras flashing, the story already writing itself: Norris crashes out fighting his teammate.

The old Lando would have crumbled — sarcasm in the press pen, self-loathing eating him alive, retreating into silence.

But this Lando was different.

When the microphones came, he didn’t flinch. He didn’t joke it off, didn’t spiral. He said it plain: “That one’s on me. I wanted too much, I misjudged, and I took myself out. Oscar drove brilliantly, and he deserved that position. I’ll learn from it.”

No excuses. No self-hate. Just responsibility. The words carried weight not because they were polished, but because they were real.

And this time, he didn’t need anyone to remind him of that truth. Not the team, not his family, not even you. He saw it himself. A mistake was just that — nothing more, nothing less. Not a curse, not proof he was broken. Just part of the story.

Later that night, he texted Oscar himself: “Sorry, mate. That one was on me. Proud of the way you drove.”

And then he shut his phone, pulled you onto the couch, and laughed about the way he’d somehow managed to lose Mario Kart to you again. The crash still stung, but it didn’t define him. Not anymore.

Because he knew, deep down, he could win. He had already proven it — in Australia, in Monaco, in himself. Mistakes weren’t proof he wasn’t enough. They were part of the art.

By mid-2025, Lando Norris wasn’t running from his shadow anymore. He was driving with it, growing with it, laughing with it.

The transformation was complete: despair into self-expression, doubt into confidence, vulnerability into strength.

The Individualist had become whole.

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