símöc

Sebastian Vettel had a mouth on him, that was for certain. He was famously bawdy, flirty and inappropriate, eyeing up grid girls like they were steak and talking to female reporters in a way that had far too many swooning.

He was living the life of a glamourised F1 movie, with women practically hanging off his arm and a crooked smirk always hanging on his lips.

The Imola race was fast approaching, and you hadn’t been able to find tickets to see your favourite driver, Mark Webber, in action. This was the only race weekend you were available, and by God, you were getting into those grandstands by whatever means it took.

So that’s how you found yourself applying for various jobs around the paddock with fake Italian papers—stewardesses, security, bartenders, even the sound technician for the shows, which you had no idea how to do.

One week later, you stared at your email inbox. Only one position had got back to you—and it was the one you’d had to apply for with gritted teeth.

Grid girl.

Formula One races were famous not just for their cars or drivers, but also for the beautiful women that populated the post-race interview boxes, the starting lines, photoshoots, you name it. 

You’d be close to the drivers, yes, closer than you’d ever dreamt of being—but you’d be wearing God-knows-what, probably some kind of checkered tea towel and size double x s jeans.

But it was your way in. And you needed one, badly.

So you booked some flights, filled out some forms, and packed your bags with the darkest shades of makeup you owned along with a bottle of fake tan for good measure. There was no way you were letting this race weekend go to waste.

Sebastian arrived at Imola fashionably late for media day. He strolled in, redbull button-up un-ironed and thrown over a baggy longsleeve, golden hair a mess under his navy cap, and a lazy smirk on his face.

The crowds clamoured, girls shreiking his name, and he winked at a few just to see them look like they were on the verge of fainting.

He caught up to his teammate, Mark Webber. He had a bit of a longer, surer stride than lanky Seb, but still managed to evoke the same female attention due to his square jaw and broad shoulders.

The procession continued until the path turned into the entrance to the paddock bar, which was flanked by the Imola grid girls.

They waved, smiling and sitting on their hips, and Seb tried to look at each of them in turn, until his eyes snagged on the second-from-last. She had this look about her—ooh, she didn’t want to be here, he thought. Her e/c eyes were a lot less sparkly than the ditzy blonde to her left’s—but that wasn’t to say that they didn’t catch the light and throw it straight back to him like a professional pitcher.

He smiled at her in what he knew was a charming way, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking, almost in rapture, at Mark.

Webber smiled, albeit a little stiffly, back at her before ducking his head to enter the bar. Seb lingered a little longer, waiting for her to look up at him, but she instead turned to the girl next to her, asking something that sounded like “can I go now?”

He was a little hurt, but whatever. She’s not that different.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was.

You had never been so eager to strip down before. They’d dressed all ten grid girls up in ugly, tight red leather jackets and a black top that was just a little too flattering around the bust, paired with the lowest-rise jeans you’d ever seen before.

Your mother would already be nailing your cross together, you thought sullenly as you tossed the racy outfit somewhere you wouldn’t have to see it again and practically dashed to your bathroom to wash off the stage makeup.

The coordinators had the grid girls staying on site (they’d made it pretty clear there was no excuse for tardiness—or at least that’s what you thought they’d said; you didn’t understand much Italian) and in little trailers scattered behind the bar, on the opposite side to the driver’s motorhomes.

Redbull was directly opposite your trailer, something you’d had to have been quietly ecstatic about, because now, you could see Mark (and Sebastian too, you supposed).

The German’s stare hadn’t gone unnoticed by you. It had felt like he was undressing you with his eyes from his place about half a foot below Mark, a feeling that did, in fact, send shivers down your spine (you were still deciding whether they were good shivers or bad ones).

The makeup slid off your face and you sighed, stretching and dropping the towel around you to step into a steaming shower.

Day two was the free practices. Redbull did well, placing in the top five fastest across all three, so the two drivers were asked to do an interview that evening.

Sebastian was preening. He’d beaten Mark in two of the practices, and like most things did with him, it had gone to his head.

So he was extra-loud when he chatted up reporters, extra-inappropriate in his answers, and extra-German too, somehow—his accent thickened when he was excited.

And to make his day even better, when he exited the interview room, there were the grid girls, and there was her.

His brain, usually so good at functioning in situations that involved women, short-circuited.

Sebastian Vettel stood and stared at you, enamoured, watching how you shifted a little uncomfortably in that skimpy top and shorts as you spoke to the other grid girls.

Mark clapped a large hand to his shoulder. ‘You watchin’ the h/c?’

‘Uh—yeah,’ Seb swallowed.

‘She’s pretty,’ he said noncommittally. ‘Pretty in a non-Italian way. She’s definitely not from here.’

Sebastian nodded, only vaguely hearing what the Australian said.

‘Pretty…’ he agreed. Even Sebastian knew how pathetic he sounded. Where had the man that had asked for a married journalist’s number barely a minute ago run off to?

Mark laughed. ‘Come on, mate, she’s gonna look up and see you gawping.’

Seb shook himself, forcing his eyes to look away.

‘Maybe I’ll outqualify you if she’s on the track tomorrow.’ THAT certainly got his attention.

‘What? Nein!’

💋!!!

formula one back when kissing the camera after you won was fashionable... they should bring this energy back

Sebastian Vettel in Valencia, Spain with BMW in 2006.